My friend Joe Hebert is currently in China teaching English, in Tianjin specifically. I recently found out that another friend of mine, Marc Belisle, is in South Korea (also teaching English). So, I suggest to Joe that he go and see Marc, after all, they’re pretty close, right?
Well, sort of. Turns out Joe and Marc are about 400 miles apart (as the crow flies), which according to my measurements is like the entire length of Massachusetts times four. Not exactly close. He’d either have to take a plane or else travel by train through North Korea (which would be a lot longer of a ride.) But when you’re so far away from them, it almost makes it seem closer, doesn’t it? Like if you knew two people that both happened to be on Mars, you might suggest they go see each other. On average, these two people would be about 6000 miles away from each other. But when you’re sitting on Earth, millions of miles away from both of them, it makes them seem a lot closer together, doesn’t it? But hell, they’re 6000 miles from each other. I don’t feel like driving across the USA twice to see someone, and neither would they.
Someone today found out I was from Cape Cod and immediately asked if I knew some people from Harwich. I know if you look at a map of Massachusetts, the cape seems pretty tiny, but once you get there, Harwich is pretty far from Sandwich. Not that far of a drive, really, but enough of a distance that I wouldn’t know anyone from there. It’s like finding out someone is from Boston and asking “Oh, do you know Nick?” Of course they don’t. Boston is fucking huge.
On a similar note, let’s say you were on a vacation in California, and you knew someone that was two hours from where you’re staying. You might go see them because you’re “close”. But that’s only because you’re very far away from your home (for me, about 3000 miles), so two hours (100 miles) seems a lot closer. If you had a friend back home that was two hours away, I bet you’d be a lot less willing to go see them.
Even when I lived in Sunderland, most of my friends were 5-10 minutes away from me, which was enough of a hassle that I didn’t see them as often as I might have liked to. Because hey, Mike’s in the other room so I might as well just hang out with him. Three seconds of walking makes 10 minutes of driving seem really out of the way.