Reunions, reminiscence & social proof

Another thought prompted by my weekend College reunion

Of course, each of us uses anniversaries or regular reunions to get some sense of how we're doing – "oh, I can't believe I was with that girl, I'm much happier now" is a common internal narrative.

But what's really interesting is how readily and how thoroughly folk check themselves vs. other people:

Who still looks the same? Who's aged badly? Who's got a portrait in the attic? Who's still a c***?

And even:

Compared to how we stood back then, is our relative position the same or better/worse than it was all those years ago…? etc etc

I make that at least 3 dimensions of comparison

And no, it's not just me thinking this stuff….Social proof is really important to our species – much more so than you or I would normally allow. It's how we tell all sorts of things about ourselves and the world and the relationship between the two. It's only human