There’s this thing that people in Hawaii do — it’s mostly sweet, sometimes a little silly, but it comes from good intentions. Usually.

We try to connect ourselves to strangers by no more than two degrees of separation. Most of the time, we persist until we figure it out, which can make the getting-to-know-you process a bit like an interrogation, though a friendly one. Mostly.

The back story, in case you need it:

The idea of “six degrees of separation,” a concept often credited to Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy’s 1929 story “Chains,” is that everyone in the world is, at most, six social connections away from each other. A stage play called “Six Degrees of Separation” in the 1990s, followed by a movie based on the play, popularized the idea. And then Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon became a thing (Google any actor’s name followed by the words Bacon Number. It’s amazing.)

But here at home, six degrees of separation is four degrees too many. We are unconsciously certain that we know somebody who knows whoever it is we’ve just met.

And so we start out with “What school you grad?” and poke around for connections there.

It’s a way to start a conversation that isn’t as trite as talking about the weather or “Do you come here often?” If it turns out that your neighbor used to work at Aloha Airlines with the person you’ve just met in line at the post office, you have opened a trove of anecdotes and observations to share and enjoy while waiting to mail your parcel.

Sometimes, though, it gets pretty scattershot and desperate. People will pull out dusty names of high school sports stars of the past — people they don’t actually know but sort-of remember from newspaper articles — just to try to create some sort of instant social bond.

The need to ferret out a connection that already exists to quickly establish a relationship to someone you’ve just met can backfire, of course. The mutual acquaintance could be an antagonist in the other’s eyes. One man’s nice guy is another man’s jerk, and this early faux pas can doom a budding friendship.

“Do I know Larry? Yeah, I know Larry. Larry sideswiped my Camaro high school time and he never did admit any wrongdoing. I always hated Larry.” Oops.

It could also go awry if you’re trying to get to know someone who is actually a distant relative. Don’t let your grandma find out that you don’t know your family tree.

But sometimes, you cast about in the dark and somehow find a connection and it’s magical and the world seems blessedly small.

Years ago, while on a trip to Warsaw, Poland, of all places, I heard a young tour guide say that the only Americans she had ever met who could clearly recite their Polish heritage were from Hawaii. I raised my hand in the back of the bus. “The Bukoskis? From Kauai?” She smiled. “Yes, you know them, too?”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.