“You collect people.”
One of the funniest assessments I’ve been told was, “you collect people.” I couldn’t help but laugh imagining I had a little toy chest of little figurines of all the people I know. And then I started to realize that person was more in tune with me than I was with myself.
If you’re not aware of how St. Louis operates, it’s a very big ‘little town.’ Like, six degrees of Kevin Bacon but more like “two degrees of St. Louis.” I whole-heartedly believe that I know every single one of the three million people that live in St. Louis City and County directly or as a “friend of a friend.”
Examples:
Two kids in my son’s class were born on the same day, same hospital, two rooms apart and now live one street in either direction of me.
A contractor we use, their sister married into my next door neighbor’s family
A friend from high school and another friend from college are related because their grandpas are brothers
My son’s teacher’s spouse’s brother’s spouse was a classmate of mine. That sounds ridiculous. Let’s try again, two women I know from different places married a set of two brothers.
My father-in-law’s best friend's son-in-law is in my husband band. The same person’s son lived on the same floor as me in my dorm and we carpooled at least once.
An old apartment neighbor of mine, his girlfriend’s brother used to work with me and hit on me all the time. That same girlfriend/person her own company and made clothing that a coworker of mine used to wear.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. But it’s true. I apparently collect people. But all jokes aside, it’s awesome for the most part. It’s always hilarious when you find one of these connections and you get to share little snippets about someone. Your network of people becomes an enormous spider web of connection and support. It’s what makes St. Louis so awesome. It can be hard when you first move to St. Louis, but once you’ve been here a while you’ll find yourself “STL’d.”
So, be nice to everyone. Because if you're not, you're going to be haunted in like 15 years because you'll probably marry their cousin, or become their brother's manager, or live down the street from their best friend or some other weird connection. If you don't think you can handle this, move away from St. Louis. The past can and will come back to haunt you.
The internet will tell you that we all ask each other where we go to high school. I’ve never asked that nor have I actually been asked that. Seriously. I tend to believe that’s just a question from yesteryear before the internet and smart phones became a thing. Now it’s more, “who do we both know?”
It’s better to be friendly with everyone because you never know when that one random connection, no matter how loose it is, will come back to be the dangling rope that can pull you out of any situation you’re in.
So I guess she’s right, I do collect people.
