What are your, "What a small world!" moments?

[Chanel05]

I moved a 130 miles away from my home town 10 years ago. I walked into my new teaching job on 1st September. I was introduced to all the staff and one of the staff members said I had an unusual surname but one he had heard before. It turns out, my new colleague had been in my brother's year at our secondary school all those miles away! We chatted about teachers we'd had ourselves and what a coincidence it was.

What are your moments?

When DP and I met in 2020 we discussed previous holidays, he went to Zante in 2010 where I had been a holiday rep the same year. We looked through old photographs from his trip and there was a photo of us together!

My best friend from university 'Pat' is also best friends with a woman called 'Mary'
Mary and I had the same auntie and uncle. My auntie was my mum's sister and was married to Mary's mother's brother.
We never met as children, and grew up 150 miles apart. I only met her via Pat.

I love stories like these, thanks @Chanel05 for starting this thread!

Someone I knew (relative of a colleague) died tragically. A couple of weeks later I went to visit another (unconnected) friend 300 miles away. On her table was the Order of Service from her local village church from the previous Sunday's service. I don't know why I picked it up, but I did.

In there, in the section about "giving prayers to others" (excuse the terminology - the correct name has gone straight out of my brain), was my colleague's relative's name!

It turns out that despite being 300 miles away in a village of less than 2,000 people, my colleague had an elderly aunt that lived in the same village and attended the same church as my friend.

Omg

This would kill me!!!!

I started training with one of the big four in the early 1990s. I was in a financial services group. Talking to one of the managers a few weeks into a job, it turned out that his father, like mine, was a former German PoW and they'd been in the same camp for some years. They met up - last having seen each other in 1947.

Another one... my NDN caught me one day and said she'd had a strange facebook friend suggestion of my Uncle because she had 2 friends in common with him. I didn't recognise the other friend's name.

Her and I lived in town A.
My uncle lived in town B (70 miles away from A)
Other friend lived in town C (120 miles away from A and 100 miles away from B).

I did a bit of digging with my Uncle and it turns out that him and the other friend went to school together in town B. Friend left and started working for a company within commuting distance from town A, where my friend met him. He'd then left and moved to town C.

Even weirder, chatting to NDN one day and we discovered we'd both actually grown up in town D, 90 miles away in the other direction and, as children, we'd lived less than a mile from each other, albeit in different school catchment areas, so our paths never crossed, even though I walked past her house weekly!

On honeymoon in NYC we got talking to another British couple on the Subway. They actually realised we were traveling the wrong way and told us which train to get. Turns out they lived on the next street to us at home, but we'd never seen them before and havent seen them since!

Bought my home in 1995. I bought it from the son of the previous owner who had died. Ten years later was working for a global blue chip company in central London and was asked by one of my team for my address. When I gave it to him he gaped at me and said "that was my grandparents' home".

@Positive41
I immediately recognised him, he straight away said “oh, I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before but I can’t quite think where”. It was about half way through the meeting (with me trying to gain my composure) when he definitely had the lightbulb moment 🤣🤣. As they were leaving and I shook hands, he just said Zante?

Think I'd have been too drunk on my 18-30s holidays to recognise people later on!

When I trained as a marriage celebrant I was warned that it isn't uncommon to find yourself 'marrying' a previous partner...it's not happened to me yet, but I have had lots of friends and acquaintances pop us as guests and bridesmaids.

I lived in Libya as a child for a few years - my dad worked for Esso and we lived in a British & American compound. We were from England.
Went trick or treating this one time and knocked on a door. Woman answered - turned out to be my dad's cousin! Mad.

We went on a holiday-of-a-lifetime type trip in an exotic location thousands of miles away where the upscale hotel had a champagne drinks event every week so newly arrived guests could meet and mingle.

Got chatting to a nice older couple, they asked where we lived, they commented that they had a holiday house in the same area in X road. My ears pricked up - I used to live in that very road many years before meeting DH. Asked what house number, and it turned out we'd been neighbours for several years (never met as they used it as a work base at odd times, but it gradually dawned on me that they looked vaguely familiar from seeing them go in and out).

@LadyGeorginaSmythe
He was definitely worth remembering 🤣🤣

I was flying to the UAE to start a job in a school. The woman beside me was also going to the same school. Not too unusual - school booked the flights. As we were chatting we realised that she used to be my next door neighbour when we were babies, her brother's best friend was another neighbour who had moved down the road from me a few years previously. Before they had moved close to us the mother had been my childminder.

The woman on the plane and her family had moved to the other side of Ireland when she was about 1 year old and her brother and my neighbour ( whose mother had been my childminder) met at their first jobs in Dublin 20 years later.

There were a few layers of small world there!

We arrived in Oman and I went to the local supermarket.
A man appeared to be following me around.
He approached me and asked if I had worked at a certain hospice.
I said that I had and he told me I had nursed his grandad!

I was walking around Disney in Florida and bumped into a neighbour who was also there on holiday. Neither of us knew the other would be there.

Haha, love it.

Did you both recognise each other? Did either of you acknowledge it??

My parents, aunt & uncle were touring NZ and spent one night in a tiny, very remote cabin b&b which slept 6. They got on brilliantly with the other couple who were staying there, also just for that night, and all chatted to the wee small hours.

When they were telling us about the evening, certain very specific details about the couple felt familiar - turns out it was my neighbours from the flat below.

This is an insane one and so niche that it’s outing.

My childhood best friend moved away, we keep in touch but don’t see each other as she is so far. We always liked the same things, often had the same taste in clothes, sometimes id have bought something and found she had too. We don’t have children the same age.

I bought a random bundle of boys age 10 jeans on eBay. She was the seller!!!!

We live next door to a family with the same surname as us. It’s not Smith or Jones, it’s very much not a common one. We get each others post all the time by mistake and write Christmas cards -

To the Agathas

from the Agatha’s

and think it’s hilarious. 🥲

@wineschmine
I immediately recognised him, he straight away said “oh, I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before but I can’t quite think where”. It was about half way through the meeting (with me trying to gain my composure) when he definitely had the lightbulb moment 🤣🤣. As they were leaving and I shook hands, he just said Zante?

Oh, also (although this is more of a weird coincidence), my dad gave away his entire record collection to a dealer years ago. DSis and I were disappointed as we’d have loved them but he hadn’t realised (to him they were just junk).

Cut to a few months ago, and my sister randomly bought an album in a charity shop in her town. When she got home and went to play it she realised it was my dad’s copy. (Back in the 70s he always wrote his name on the album sleeve to avoid losing them, as people would take their vinyl to house parties.) Gave her goosebumps!

@LadyPenelope68 HOw did you cope with the rest of your time? I mean, teachers are constantly interacting with parents? hahahaha.

I have loads. One I find amusing is a woman I work with (in a completely different country to where me and DH are from) turns out to have been childhood friends with DH's exGF and met him a few times when he was dating the exGF!

I also had a very odd experience on holiday at the airport in Athens. In a queue for a hire car, chatting to British couple behind us. We were driving for 4 hours to a fairly remote area. Turns out so were they. In fact, they were driving to the same town and owned the house next door to the house we were renting!

Should probably clarify I lived in London at the time - suppose it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch if we’d all lived somewhere in NZ!

Jumped in a taxi in Bournemouth many years ago, driver was Glaswegian (I'm from Birmingham, was down south visiting a friend). Chatting to him on the journey it turns out he knew my brother who worked briefly in Glasgow ages before. They hadn't kept in touch, but my brother is definitely one of those slightly dodgy but lovely blokes who people remember...

Cue the driver refusing payment (despite my genuine protests / trying to push the note back to him), giving me his card and instructing me to call him if I ever got into trouble / needed a lift