| With every Christmas card I write, I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, but I’m also pondering “The Strength of Weak Ties,” a seminal 1973 paper by the sociologist Mark Granovetter, then of Johns Hopkins University, now of Stanford. Granovetter wrote that weak ties between people have a “cohesive power” that strong ties lack. You have strong ties to a handful of people but you have weak ties to many. It’s those weak ties that expose you to new ideas and facts. If you’re looking for a job, for example, you’re more likely to find one through a weak tie. “Those to whom we are weakly tied are more likely to move in circles different from our own and will thus have access to information different from that which we receive,” Granovetter wrote. Also, he added, two groups that are isolated from each other can become connected by one person through a tie that is “weak” yet vital. You can think of the annual card-sending ritual as the preservation of weak ties. You’re probably not sending cards to the people you live with or others you see every day. Most of them are going to aunts, uncles, cousins, former neighbors and colleagues, old school friends. I have a friend I haven’t seen in person for more than 30 years. Every year, out goes my card to him. One of those recipients might be able to help you some day, but that’s likely not your motivation (unless you’re a car dealer fishing for customers). Your card is a token of affection, maybe tinged with melancholy about days of auld lang syne, or inflected with hope that an old friendship can be rekindled, or out of respect or family obligation or sympathy for a lonely widow or widower. This is why deciding who gets a card and who doesn’t can be excruciating. When do you decide that a relationship has gone so cold that sending a card to the person has become an empty gesture? Or the opposite: Should you send a card to a new friend, knowing that you could be locking yourself into an obligation that could last for years? We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.cleopatra slot machine
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