The Recipe for Opposites Attracting

Talking to my wife today, she made the observation that my good friend and routine blog-replier Kirb and I appear to have little in common. “I love the guy, but how did you guys ever become friends?”

Thinking about it more, Kirb and I, to the best of my knowledge, have three things in common:
a.) We’re men,
b.) We both love baseball,
c.) We both grew up in Villa Park, IL.

At face value, one might think that having so little in common wouldn’t warrant a friendship. Thinking about it more, though, and I realized that coming from the same area as someone is no small relationship-building item; the last item might be worth ten times more than the others.

Whence we hail in large part dictates what sub-cultural practices in which we partake: education, traditions, common friends & family, years of shared experience. Without question, I have less objectively in common with many great friends from the 630, but by virtue of their native address I could pick up a conversation years after it was over without missing a beat.

If they were smart, they’d move to the greater Madison area, as this is a far more livable area than Chicago suburbia. I’m certainly excited to build a life here. But thinking about the quasi-silly little mini-traditions that all areas share, one can’t help but understand that they’ll inevitably bond otherwise different people together.