Degrees of Separation Between Love

While packing a while back for Italy, I fell into quite the predicament: I had to choose between two books. One of them was a guilty pleasure novel that doesn't deserve a mention (think misty cover if that helps), while the other was Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Now I'm not going to lie, I didn't even get through half of it, but recently I picked it up again. While it explores various ways of how social networks shape who we are, it also mentions how finding love could be as close as two to three degrees of separation. Is finding love less about destiny and magical chance encounters and more about systemic data and statistics?

I was beginning to feel a little disappointed. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for movies where two people grab the same glove in Serendipity or how Humphrey Bogart passionately grabs Ingrid Bergman and kisses her as her head tilts back almost 90 degrees. To the surprise of many who see my hard exterior shell, I am one big ball of mush with a trail of soaked Kleenex tissue riding on the soles of my feet.

Despite my dismay, I read further and found out that we are more likely to meet our future spouse via introduction from friends and even to some extent, family (mothers everywhere rejoice). Initially I scoffed at this and had to look back on how many times my friends were convinced they had found the perfect fit for me just to be completely mortified by their selection. However based on the Chicago Sex Survey, 68 percent met their spouses after being introduced by someone they knew versus a mere 32 percent met via self-introduction. I suppose these higher percentages make sense given that the environment where we meet tends to attract like minded people.

Take the dawn of social media like Facebook and Twitter for example. It has connected and lessened the gap between people and created new friendships with geography becoming less important and the idea of the boy next door practically obsolete. And according to the article, "Love the One You're With" in the December issue of Scientific American Mind, "if you are single and know 20 people reasonably well (enough that they would invite you to a party), and if each of them knows 20 people, and each of them knows 20 more, then you are connected to 8,000 people who are three degrees away. And of these men or women is in all likelihood your future spouse."

[Five minute chocolate intermission please]

Amazed, I put the magazine down and bit into my new addiction, Righteously Raw Chocolate Bars....specifically their Acai chocolate bar. With all this talk about finding love, I had to go directly to my first love - food. With zero cane sugar, I was already impressed when I realized that they use the low glycemic index sugar, Agave nectar. This wasn't a candy bar this was a chocolate bar that used real cacao, pink Himalyan crystal salt with an acai truffle centre. Yum. This might be the perfect time to debunk the myth that acai (pronounced: AH-SAI-EE) helps you lose weight. Coming from a Brazilian background, I remember going to Rio and seeing as as many acai stands as there were Tim Horton stands here in Ontario, Canada. And because Rio is a beach town, people are generally quite active and seek acai for its antioxidant properties after their workouts that builds acidity in the body. Simply put, despite what TV personalities might say, there are no conclusive studies to prove that acai helps you lose weight. So in the meantime, I savour a little bit in my shakes and devour it when its in chocolate. There's only one degree of separation between me and my chocolate...the wrapper.

[Now back to the show...]

Thinking about my own personal connections, I will admit that most of my long term relationships were with those that I met through my own social circles. Maybe attending more holiday parties and bearing through more jingle bell rock and chicken embryos washed in sugar and dairy (egg nog) just might be worth a possible connection. This doesn't mean that you'll make me give up the hope that I get when I watch Sleepless and Seattle and You've Got Mail back to back during the holidays, nibble on my chocolate and believe that maybe chance romantic encounters do still exist.

Peace, love and...well, love.