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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask for your small world/degrees of separation stories?

38 replies

Kolo · 28/04/2019 13:33

Reading the unexplained thread and a post reminded me about one of my own small world stories.

I lost touch with my best friend from school during university. It was a time before mobiles/Facebook etc. We used to write to each other, but frequent address changes at that time led to us losing contact.

Some (probably 8-10) years later, I was now working and I was driving with a new friend who I’d made at work. We were talking about her small world story, and I told her that it was unlikely that we’d share a small world story because I only know one person who ever lived for a time in Wales (where new colleague was from, and the last address I had for my old best friend was in Wales). New friend asked who that was, so I told her my old best friends name. Turns out, with further questioning, my old best friend was the girlfriend of my new friend’s cousin. New friend called my old best friend from the car and put me on the line - really freaked her out!

I also had a weird moment when I went to visit my brother at university in his 2nd year. He’d moved into a shared house and I was meeting the others for the first time. One of the girls was talking and I thought (and said out load) “my gosh you sound exactly like one of my friends back home”. Their syntax, their accent was so similar. My friend back home grew up with my brothers new house mate and they were best friends as children.

Anyone fancy sharing their small world freaky coincidence stories?

OP posts:

Original poster

Kolo · 28/04/2019 15:48

@buzz awks

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PurpleCrowbar · 28/04/2019 15:53

Kolo sadly not. Dmil1 died a few years ago. His dps were divorced & I only ever met dfil1 a few times.

I did email dh1's sister (who originally took the photo & has her own copy). We had an 'omg wtf!' moment!

I'm the other side of the planet these days so haven't seen any of the family for years.

Bantameggs · 28/04/2019 15:57

When MySpace was a thing, a girl, Anna, randomly added me on the basis of my ‘bands I like’ list and we started chatting. We had no friends in common, she was from Liverpool and I am from Brighton, but we got on well (via chat) and when Facebook took over from MySpace we added each other on FB. About a year later I started a relationship with R, a friend of a friend who lived in Devon. Then new boyfriend’s best friend, J, had a house party in Devon and we went along. Only to find one of the other guests was Anna! I had no idea they even knew each other. So me and my random MySpace friend met at last, completely unintentionally!

MotherOfDragons90 · 28/04/2019 16:02

I sat next to a guy in my old job. When I moved to my next role in a massive organisation, with masses of different teams and thousands of people, I was on the same team as his older brother. That’s my only one

cortex10 · 28/04/2019 16:06

Couple of years after leaving uni DS was backpacking around NZ. First day, sat down on the backpackers tour bus and found himself across the aisle from a girl who was in his class in 6th form.

Original poster

Kolo · 28/04/2019 16:06

@purple how wierd that no one had noticed earlier. It’s a very ‘omg wtf’ one!

@banta very cool!

Before fb was invented, I was on friends reunited. A woman got in touch with me because we have/had exactly the same name - first and surname - and it’s not a common name. In fact, I’d never met another person with the same name first name as me at that point and only ever heard of one person with my name (a character off Grange Hill). So it was a bit freaky to find someone with the exact same name as me. Since we got talking, and since the advent of Facebook, we’ve also discovered we are pretty much the same age, have mutual friends (who didn’t know we had the same name, she changed hers with marriage), have the same job, and often I’ll see her checking in on fb to places I’ve just left or am just going to (places in London, euro Disney etc).

OP posts:

Original poster

Kolo · 28/04/2019 16:07

I’ve never met my namesake yet, despite our near misses,

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darkriver19886 · 28/04/2019 16:13

Someone I went to school with ended up in the same due date group as me 7 years later. Lol. It was weird.

mummmy2017 · 28/04/2019 16:19

We moved house many years ago..
Speaking to random person at event... Have you traveled far....
100 miles they say small village outside town X ..
Oh I lived there which village....
X ... Turns out they lived in our old house...
Very funny ....

Chunkers · 28/04/2019 17:27

I’m from Scotland, was backpacking in New Zealand approx 100 years ago. Got chatting to a local elderly woman on a train who just happened to have one of my best friends listed in her address book.

randomchap · 28/04/2019 17:54

A few years ago I was taking the train and had booked a seat. Sat down made myself comfortable. At the next stop someone my ex girlfriend from school sat next to me. She had the seat booked next to mine.

We'd not seen each other for about 20 years and the train was going nowhere near where we grew up. It was rather nice catching up.

00100001 · 28/04/2019 17:57

I was in a 7-11 in Nevada, and bumped into a colleague. surreal. Neither of knew we were going.

GiantKitten · 30/04/2019 17:47

We were on holiday in a rural part of France & visiting a place where you could go into some caves. DH & I were sitting at a table outside with youngest DC while the older 2 (about 8 & 5) wandered around.

They came back a short time later, very excited - they'd been chatting to the lady who'd been DC1's supply teacher the previous term

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