For example, my office has about fifty employees, which is just enough people that when a new person starts working there, I don't meet them so much as I gradually become aware of them. A few years ago I started interacting with two new employees. First was Mikey, with whom I sometimes made small talk in the break room. The other was Micaela, who I never met in person, but who would sometimes send me e-mails when she needed information from my department. (Note, I've changed the names for privacy reasons, but you get the idea.)
One day I passed Mikey in the hall, and she asked me about an e-mail she'd sent earlier. I couldn't remember her sending me any e-mails that day. I'd gotten one from Micaela, but I couldn't remember seeing one from Mikey. Actually, I couldn't remember ever having received an e-mail from Mikey. So she described the contents of the e-mail, and that's when I put two and two together.
Another example - back in high school, I had a friend who wasn't into wrestling. However, enough of his friends were fans that he knew a lot of the names. He was aware that there was a wrestler named Hulk Hogan, because he'd seen that name in print, but he'd never heard anyone talk about him out loud.
But there was this other wrestler - that guy with the shoulder-length blonde hair, balding on top, handlebar mustache, wears bright yellow shirts that he always rips off before a match... Yeah, his friends wouldn't shut up about this "Hull Cogan" guy. When I told him the truth, he didn't believe me at first.
It sounds ridiculous, but it makes sense. I've never played a Pokemon game or watched the cartoons, but I bet I can name at least fifty of them thanks to pop-cultural osmosis. But the names are still vague enough that I wouldn't notice if there were both a "Voltorb" and a "Vull Torb" in my mental pokedex. If my friend had cared enough about wrestling to ever think about Hulk Hogan and Hull Cogan within five minutes of each other, he might have put it together himself.
It's almost like that bit of trivia is taking up two slots in your brain, and realizing they're the same trivia is like discovering your best friend Clark Kent is also your boyfriend Superman.
Though I also have an opposite story. I might have already posted this one in a blog, but whatever. Back in college, there was this student I used to see around campus. She dressed in punk outfits, and had a neon colored buzz cut. Some days her hair was bright orange, other days it was bright green. I thought it was weird that she recolored her hair so often, but I figured it must be that Halloween hair color that washes right out.
After months of passing her on campus, seeing her hair change color a couple of times a week, I finally saw both twins together. Neat.
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