Preferences in particles' collisions

 We study the sequence of particles' collisions in a small system of hard balls. We demonstrate that ergodicity implies quite unusual phenomenon. The particles have preferences over long time intervals during which the particle consistently collides more with certain particles and less with others. Things look like there is effective interaction between the particles. Though the preferences change sooner or later the average waiting time to the change is infinite. The results hold for dilute gas with arbitrary short-range interactions and dense fluids of hard balls.