Do We Naturally Gravitate to Those Like Us?

Originally posted on November 13, 2014, by cruisingrunner

As we continue to wait for weather to sail to Minerva Reef, we are keeping busy with school, little projects, and, of course, socializing. In the social realm, the cruising lifestyle can be one of extremes. You can find yourself at anchor by yourself on a fairly remote island and you can find yourself in the midst of 30 (or more) other cruising boats at a relatively major port. The latter is where we find ourselves right now. And last night we had a huge potluck on shore and the kids ran around and played while the adults chatted about everything from our jobs in our former lives to that bilge pump that needed repairing to home school tips and tricks to next season’s cruising plans. There’s quite a diverse crowd here with boats in all sizes and shapes, and people from all over the world. However, while I was eating dinner and having a really fun time with a table full of boisterous people a curious fact all of a sudden dawned on me: Everyone at this table is from California. Four boats worth of people. All from California. I wondered whether it was just some sort of coincidence or if we all subconsciously selected each other due to a sense of familiarity.

Please don’t get me wrong. There’s no way I would have consciously thought, “I’m going to sit at a table with all people from California and only people from California,” and I doubt anyone else would have thought that either. And I had great fun chatting with other friends throughout the evening. For example, our dear friends from Halifax that we cruised with in Mexico are here. We’ve also met another great family with four kids, and the dad is German, the mom is French, and they’ve lived in both Spain and the U.S., so the kids can speak all four languages. Our friends from Sweden are here as well and also an interesting young Czech single hander who all the kids love. So, with all of these great people around, why did I find myself at the California exclusive table? It’s an interesting question to ponder.

And once again, don’t get me wrong, the people from California are pretty great too.

-D.