The peculiar loneliness of the bridges

Bridges are my favorite kind of nodes in social networks. Here's a very quick primer of Social Network Theory. In the fundamental sense, Social Network Theory (SNT) helps one to see how the people are connected to each other and how these connections aggregate to form the various layers of a society. In SNT, each person is a node and the connection between two people is an edge. Based on what we analyse, the edge can be typically anything - simple interactions, familial connections, or even LinkedIn connections. The weight of the edge is typically determined by how strong the connection is. In this article, I am primarily concerned with the social networks where the edges are common experiences - going to same schools, the kind of activities done during leisure, kind of material stuff a person owns, the milestones that are celebrated, the social spaces shared and so on. While there is a spatial dimension to this, the connections are more influenced by the socio-economical factors. For instance, let's take Chennai, a coastal city in South India. The experience of two kids growing up in the same city but with different socio-economic backgrounds fundamentally changes their experience of growing up. It's highly likely that an affluent TamBrahm kid might go to one of the elite CBSE schools, learn classical music or dance, do baking as a hobby, prepare for JEE, and become connoisseurs of filter coffee, all while struggling to speak in Tamil (the local tongue) because they are always spoken to English. Whereas a kid of a backward caste auto driver might have an entirely different experience even if their house is within the 2km radius of the Tam Brahm kid's house. The auto driver's kid is quite likely to go an affordable private school, maybe go to a neighbourhood akka's house for tuition, spend the evenings and holidays playing cricket or roaming around the streets, and become the experts in suggesting the best Paani puri stalls in the neighbourhood. These activities are done with people and it is these people who would become part of the Social network of the kid. Despite the diversity of the activities, the kids might do these with a similar set of people who often knows each other leading to higher degrees of interconnectedness forming clusters. The socio-economic difference and the kind of activities that a kid does because of that forms the basis of very distinct cluster compositions that the tambrahm kid and the auto driver kid might have.

let's bring back our focus to the bridge nodes. Bridges are the nodes/people who connects two distinct clusters together who might not otherwise be connected. Bridges are considered to be particularly powerful in terms of information flow since they facilitate flow of information from one cluster to another which might not happen without a bridge. This particular characteristic of the bridge gives them so much leverage. One could argue that a bridge have more power even than the powerful nodes in the cluster that are more connected to other nodes. For instance, let's consider Kayan a software engineer in San Fransisco who grew up in a remote village Karaithitu in India. Kayan is part of two clusters - A techie cluster in San Francisco and Karaithitu's rural community cluster. Kayan can pass job info from his techie circles (basically explain how Kayan is valuable because of his role as a bridge in passing info between the communities.)

What fascinates me the most about the bridges is not their unique power but rather their psychological life. Bridges face a peculiar loneliness because of their unique position in the social network. I call it peculiar loneliness because in terms of betweeness centrality (explanation) the bridges often have the highest degree especially if they are connected to powerful individuals in both the clusters. Despite their high degree of connection, the bridges are placed in a position where they belong but still not belong in both of the clusters. Interestingly I am noticing it more among people who are said to have much social mobility in a conventional sense. Recently I saw a LinkedIn post by one of my connections who had posted about the unspoken hard realities of social mobility where he doesn't feel belonged neither among his school friends who find him to be too polished now with his fancy degrees and consulting job whereas his office colleagues find him to be too raw because of his provincial background. While there are these direct manifestations, I believe the peculiar loneliness of the bridges run even beyond these manifestations. I think the peculiar loneliness stems from not being able to find people Who are at these unique intersections. The ones who have experienced both the rural life and the urbanity.

I think it is deeply connected to our humanness. I have a concession to make. Until a few years back, I have never understood the point of going to music concerts. Why would someone pay so much to go listen music at a crowded place which could easily get uncomfortable when one can spend the same money to get ultrahigh quality speakers to listen to the same music at a better quality on repeat? Back then My cost-conscious Indian mind couldn't just grapple it. But now I do and I realize how concert is more about the shared experience and the ability of the live-music to sync the emotions of the listeners at once. How special and lively to know that the person next to you is feeling the same just as you. The cause and the context of their emotions could be different. But you are experiencing something very similar with the person around. You empathise with their sadness and happiness that's surfaced by the music, you fed in oneness with the fellow listeners. You are also feeling that Slight ache in to your chest that the person next to you is also experiencing. Not judged. Both of you are not judging each other. Both of you get it. But understood and hence belonged. Sharing the mental space viscerally. To be sync. shared experience brings a deep level of understanding That no words could ever capture.

It's not having the people who get it.

Going to the kind of school, hobbies, how one spends leisure time including holidays. The higher density of the interconnectedness of the nodes leads to clusters.

edges are social connections that has some emotional or affective element in it. It could be connection between a group of friends, emotionally complex ties between family members including the nosy uncles and aunts that we typically run away from, and even the connections between neighbours. Basically Connections that are not in different.

SNT is quite popular in quantitative sociology to study the society computationally by modelling it in the form of a network.

see the composition of the society