Forbidden Triads

One of the most interesting aspects of Granovetter's "The Strength Of Weak Ties" was his discussion of the "forbidden triad", which is labeled as a triad where there is a strong tie between two sets of people, A & B and A & C, but there is no tie, not even a weak one, between B & C. Granovetter begins by saying that this is the least likely of all triads to occur, which I agree with, however he then admits he will be exaggerating for the following section by assuming such a triad NEVER occurs.

Thinking about my own social life and that of my friends, I thought this was a poor exaggeration to make, even if it is far more likely that there would be a tie between B & C, given the other strong ties in the triad. As college students, we are in unique positions in our lives where most of us have a strong group of friends from our hometowns and childhoods, and then a new set of friends we made upon entering Northeastern. If I label myself as person "A", and say I have strong ties to my friend from home "B" and my friend from Northeastern "C", there is a very strong chance that B and C have never met each other, creating a forbidden triad. For me personally this is not the case for most of the triads in my life involving a close friend from home and a close Northeastern friend. Since my hometown is only about thirty miles from Boston, many of my friends from home have come to visit me at Northeastern and have met my closest friends here. However, not all of my high school friends have met all of my college friends, and for students from different states, this scenario is far less likely. I would imagine that there are huge amounts of forbidden triads in almost every college student's life.

Eliminating a forbidden triad involving two friends equally as important in my life but from two different spheres is definitely something that creates a sense of relief. Creating even a weak tie between the two is comforting and makes the two parts of my life feel less disjointed, and it's nice to know when I reference one friend, the other friend knows who I am talking about at a more personal level and not from just pictures and stories.