We were talking the other night about the power of social networks to connect us with people of similar interests. Through Facebook and Twitter we can gravitate towards elective affinities. No longer are we limited by location or access to just the people round us, we can find people who have similar tastes, similar interests, similar names anywhere in World 2.0.

Someone then asked what happens at the intersection of these social networks?

We are all faceted individuals, we all can tell rueful stories of what happened when one group of our friends met another group for the first time. So the overlap between these spaces may be limited, so the set of people who belong to the intersection of all the social sets we belong to will tend towards 1. Ourselves.

But what happens when we meet someone else in this hyperelective affinity? Are they our soulmate?

A nice thought. But then again I wonder if we lose something in such a reductive process? I am much the wiser for having friends who are very different from me. That tension between planning and experience. Perhaps there is another way?