“We’ve met before!”
On sixteen-hour train to Bucharest from Budapest.
I was having these thoughts while having a conversation with a friend I first met more than two years ago in Stockholm, Sweden. We met again in the city where she’s doing her Linguistics PhD study – Budapest, Hungary. She suggested that it is quite easy to meet certain kinds of people again, by coincidence. It occured to me that the concept of birthday paradox can be appropriated to explain this phenomenon.
The birthday paradox is a fascinating concept that can help explain why it is actually easier to meet people similar to you more than once in the big world. Although the paradox is commonly associated with birthdays, its underlying principle can be applied to any shared characteristic or trait.
The birthday paradox states that in a group of just 23 people, there is a 50% chance that two people will share the same birthday. This seems counterintuitive because our instinctive expectation would be that we need a much larger group for such a coincidence to occur. However, the paradox arises from the fact that we are not looking for a specific matching birthday but any matching pair within the group.
More about the Birthday Paradox:
Now, let’s translate this paradox into the context of meeting people who are similar to you. Similarities can encompass a wide range of characteristics, such as hobbies, interests, beliefs, or even physical appearances. In a big world with billions of individuals, encountering someone who shares your specific combination of traits might seem highly improbable. However, if we shift our perspective and consider the probability of meeting someone who shares at least one or a few similar traits with you, the odds become much more favorable.
Just like the birthday paradox, where we are not looking for a specific birthday match, we can apply the same logic to meeting people. Rather than seeking an exact replica of ourselves, we are looking for individuals who share a few commonalities or overlaps in traits. These shared traits could include things like the same favorite sports team, a similar taste in music, or a shared passion for a particular hobby.
Given the vastness of the world and the diverse range of interests and characteristics people possess, the likelihood of encountering individuals who have at least a few shared traits with you is relatively high. In a way, this can be seen as a manifestation of the birthday paradox at work. While the probability of finding someone identical to you might be minuscule, the probability of encountering individuals with some level of similarity becomes much more probable.
In conclusion, the birthday paradox demonstrates that seemingly improbable coincidences can occur in a group much smaller than expected. Similarly, in the vast world we live in, meeting people who share at least a few similarities with us is actually more likely than meeting someone who is an exact replica. So, maybe you shouldn’t be surprised if you come across people who resonate with your interests and traits more than once, even in a big and diverse world.
Let me know what you think about this by commenting below.
Disclaimer: Part of this article used help from ChatGPT from OpenAI. There is no scientific proof of this idea.
May 20, 2023