Have you ever met someone and wondered how many times you might have crossed paths in the past? One of the most obvious places this can occur is school. You can go to the same school for up to four years, and meet someone during the final year that you might have passed in the hallway hundreds of times prior.

Or how about a job? For the most part, I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of the staff of a company consists of many people who are local. Being at Maker Studios, I’ve met people who were at UCLA the same years I was, and I might have walked by them before, not paying attention because I hadn’t met them yet. Or, going through old VidCon vlogs, it’s strange for me to think that some of the people I work with daily used to be strangers when I passed by them at VidCon a couple years ago.

And now, in the grander scheme of things, I’m wondering how many times I might have been near all the people I’ve been able to meet recently. My job lets me meet people from all over the world, sometimes even within the same city, and it’s so fascinating for me to think that at one point, we could have been standing right next to each other not knowing we’d meet later on in life. Who am I gonna pass today that I’ll meet years from now? Hmm.