Networking by the Degrees
17 Jan
My friends have all at some point or other, come to individually make the exaggerated assertion: if they ever needed to get _anything_ done, they only had to tap into my network. Not just any old network, but The Ex Network.
Want a medical certificate? Have a computer program written or seek advice on networking security? Legal advice? Hire a photographer or commission an artist? Have an investment in your portfolio analyzed? Get something translated into eight different languages and many more sub-languages?
Do it all through The Ex Network, with separate wings for Relationships, Flings, and Special Friends.
Invariably, somebody will genuinely need this help. I never understand why so many people find liaising with their exes a chore. If they have a problem with being comfortable with people they used to see — I have a problem with being too close to them. If you see me with somebody it’s more likely to be an Ex, rather than a friend, though you could never tell the difference. My friend-friends will point out that perhaps from a simple probabilistic point of view, given the sheer quantity of people in any of those three categories (Relationships, Flings, Special Friends), and there being very few of them who haven’t been any of those in the first place, it’s a given.
So what happens when your girlfriend, for academic reasons, needs to make inroads into one of the top global companies in a certain industry? Tap into The Ex Network, of course.
Project Member A: “I have a possible link to Firm B… but it’s third-degree only. You have a first-degree link somewhere else?”
Z: “Urm…. Better.. 0.75 degrees.”
Because if 1-degree is to somebody you know directly, and 0.5 degrees is to someone you’re intimate with, then somebody they’ve been intimate with before must therefore be exactly half a stop too — 0.75 degrees of separation.
I simply stood there mortified by the thought of the two of them.. liaising. What would they say to each other? What notes and pointers might they exchange?
