It turns out that you and I share a fondness for this book or that movie, this microgenre of music or that dusty corner of "edgy" underground culture, and a little too giddily we exchange smiles, gestures, and conspiratorial noises that suggest that our common affinity for the object in question is indicative of something meaningful, that this coincidence might suggest, tantalizingly, that we have something in common that could enrich or deepen our relationship, that could elevate this relationship from something ordinary into some more profound realm of improbable kinship. "Anyone who loves such and such as much as I do..." we tell ourselves, and leave the rest blank, because we aren't sure what it really means, if anything. A similar outlook on life? A like-mindedness in matters of taste? Complementary dispositions? We quietly disregard most of our jarring differences and focus on the supposedly uncanny similarities, similarities that in some bizarre way flatter us both, which strike us as unlikely and "so weird" even though the things that seemingly unite us are part of the popular culture in which we both live.