Mia Lasic-Ellis

How often have you met someone who reminds you of a friend you already know? It may not come to you at first, but eventually you realize, “Wow, their laugh is so similar to another friend’s.” Two of my best friends live in completely different parts of the country, and although I had known both for about five years, they had never met. After seeing them together, I began to notice behavioral habits that were identical. Not obvious behaviors, either. I mean the oddly specific details, like having a habit of picking at their eyebrow hairs. At what point does coincidence become a pattern?

I’m sure many students at Bowdoin can objectively say their friends are similar. They do the same sports or are from the same hometown. Yes, of course, those are similarities, but I am talking about the weird connections. The tiny habits, expressions and mannerisms that somehow keep appearing in completely unrelated people. It is almost as if I have been unknowingly building a very specific friend demographic. Family members can place their similarities on genetics. Friends don’t have that luxury, which makes the shared quirks all the more bizarre.

The example that recently came up was mosquito bites. Ever since she was young, my friend has been demolished by mosquitoes. Big, inflated, red, itchy bites all over her body. Two weeks later, my other friend shared that she had the same problem. I presume a few readers are rolling their eyes, saying, “Lily, that’s a coincidence, not proof of some cosmic connection between your friends.” Believe what you want, but I encourage you to pick up these little details. Notice the small characteristics about the people you love. Try to really know them.

Maybe we all have a type when it comes to friendship. We talk about having a “type” when it comes to dating, as if everyone has a highly specific checklist. Tall, funny, good hair and emotionally available if we are feeling particularly optimistic. But nobody really talks about having a friendship type. Do we unconsciously look for certain qualities in the people we become close to? Do we gravitate toward people who make us feel familiar, even if we cannot immediately explain why? Or am I simply collecting people with the same sense of humor and blood that is unusually attractive to mosquitoes? I would like to think there is a little more to it.

It’s comforting to know that the people in my life, despite where they come from, can still remind me of one another. They create a strange thread between different chapters of my life, even when the people in those chapters have never met. I suppose the common denominator is the tendency to drift toward similar people because it doesn’t challenge us. Or, on the flip side, we drift because we know the kind of love we want in our lives.

I hope this nurtures a new thought or invites you to notice if your friend has a unique quality. This lineage of selfhood, kinship and association is what ultimately ties us all together. We are interdependent beings, and I think the people we love can reveal something about who we are.

Perhaps the better question isn’t why these coincidences keep happening, but why we’re so quick to dismiss them as coincidences.

Lily Mott is a member of the Class of 2028.