Awhile back, we read an article on the fact that proximity encourages social ties. It made me think back through my time grade school, through the end of high school where we were constantly lined up alphabetically, seated by last name, or divided into sections by the letter your name started with.
I wonder if this hasn't affected us in some way. When I think about the 5-6 people I interact with most, their last names begin with S, Z, P, or R. When adding my own Z, that means a heavy bias towards the end of the alphabet. In fact, there's a stark minority of people in the first half. It could be that after having it drilled into us for years that we need to sit next to our peers with similar last names, there was a subconscious trigger instilled in us. Personally many of my friends throughout grade school fell into the proximity rule. Maybe by this point we naturally seek out people whose last names are close to ours, since our subconscious assumes they'll make better friends?
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