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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to ask for your small world stories?

130 replies

Weston14 · 28/08/2019 18:59

Shamelessly posting for traffic

I'm a long, long way from home atm on business and met someone over here who is friends with one of my old friends I've not seen in about 15 years! For context neither me nor the lady are from the same city (opposite ends of the country in fact.)

Anyone got any similar stories about it being a small world?

OP posts:

nevernotstruggling · 28/08/2019 19:02

Sat in Heathrow waiting for a flight. Got chatting to a girl sitting next to me. Mentioned school for some reason and she replied 'omg you went to that hippy school!!!' You must know my best friend blah. She was right I did.

Worked abroad with a welsh girl who I then didn't see for years until she walked into my delivery room when I was having dd1 as my obstetrician!

Ginnymweasley · 28/08/2019 19:06

My dh was in work one day and his next appointment turned up. The appointment had been set up by a colleague. He sits down with the customer and they start talking. The customer mentions that they are from xxxx, which is where I grew up. My dh mentions that his wife grew up there. They say oh small world etc. My dh sells cars btw. They decide to buy the car and want to pick it up end of the week before they go home (they were visiting family, people do this a lot btw). 2 weeks later my dad says to me on the phone "John down the road has a new car it's a xxx (make of car)". Turns out my dh sold a car to one of my parents neighbours when we live 200 miles away.

PiggyPokkyFool · 28/08/2019 19:09

I went to a European country and met my cousin who lives in another European country to the one we were visiting. We were staying in the same hotel. Very small world.

Original poster

Weston14 · 28/08/2019 19:09

@nevernotstruggling Yes it's always school isn't it! I went to a no-mark local one, never in the league tables or anything but it's always school that seems to bring people together

OP posts:

YahBasic · 28/08/2019 19:10

I worked in a school abroad 10 years ago as part of my degree in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Europe.

Fast forward 10 years and I’m talking to someone from that country who has since moved to the UK into my team. She’s probably 5-6 years younger than me & I asked where she was from. Not only was she from that tiny town, she was a pupil at the school I taught at, I just didn’t teach her!

backaftera2yearbreak · 28/08/2019 19:14

I was at work staring into a glass fronted meeting room. I thought the woman holding the meeting looked familiar. I sat with her everyday in registration at school for 6 years. I hadn’t seen her in 20 years!

DrCoconut · 28/08/2019 19:18

I lost touch with a lot of friends after uni. One day several years later I went into our local Boots chemist only to be served by one of the long lost friends! There was no connection between her and our town at all and she'd forgotten that I was originally from here. This was before social media etc so it was much more amazing to re find someone.

Went to a pony trekking centre in mid wales ( a long way from home) to find a girl I went to orchestra at weekends working there for the summer. I was about 14 at the time.

More recently,about 10 years ago, I had a musical instrument built for me. My most expensive non essential purchase ever that took me years to save for. The maker lived a long way from me and while there I got talking to him about general stuff. It turned out that as a child he used to go to visit his grandparents in Manchester. They had a big old house. Much later on as a student I rented a flat in a converted big old house. You guessed it. Same house .

Bobismyfriend · 28/08/2019 19:19

My Dad told me this story. It was in the 80s, in the UK and he had his own business. A friend of his had done some work for him and my Df had written a cheque to pay him. Unfortunately he had lost his details and the friend didnt contact him so he didnt know where to send it. He said that for some reason he always kept the cheque in his briefcase.

Approx 18 months passed. DF travelled often for work. He happened to be in New York going through the subway when he spotted said friend. He still had the cheque, in his briefcase, so he was able to give it to him! I always thought this story was amazing when I was little.

nokidshere · 28/08/2019 19:21

My parents went on a cruise in the Caribbean. They got friendly with a couple on the cruise and started chatting about where they were from. Parents are from the north and the couple were from the south. Turned out that their daughter was my children's headteacher at the local primary school in Wiltshire.

When I was having my 2nd child by elective Caesarian the aneathatist was nattering away about her daughter only to discover that she (the daughter) was my work colleague.

In 1981 I got friendly with a staff nurse while I was in hospital for an extended period. When I left I moved to the other side of the country and didn't see her again. 20 yrs later I was at the local hospital where I live now and the dermatologist sent me down the hall to see his new dermatology specialist nurse and it was the nurse who had looked after me all those years ago. We remembered each other immediately.

Original poster

Weston14 · 28/08/2019 19:23

@Bobismyfriend How spooky! That's surely got to be the winner.

OP posts:

Bobismyfriend · 28/08/2019 19:34

Weston- it is spooky isn't it?!

MrsMoastyToasty · 28/08/2019 19:37

Mine relates to ante natal group. At the first class I went to another mum to be and her husband. All 3 of us worked for the same employer, but out of different sites in different towns. The husband of a second mum to be also worked for the same employer, again from a different site in a third town. A third mum to be mentioned that she was from a town at the other side of the country to which a fourth said she was from the same town , and in fact had attended the same school.

Original poster

Weston14 · 28/08/2019 19:47

@MrsMoastyToasty again it's the school connection!!

OP posts:

EmmiJay · 28/08/2019 19:52

One of my DD's classmates mum's uncles (lol) knows my Grandmother who lives in another country. They actually live 10 mins away from each other.

I don't know if this counts but my DD also is going to be in the exact classroom I was in 30yrs ago at the exact same age. Never would have imagined.❤

GettingAwayWithIt · 28/08/2019 20:02

One year after running the London Marathon we made a beeline for a pub somewhere near the Mall for a hard-earned pint. A nice man saw me hobble in and offered up a free stool while my husband went to the bar. Had a good chat to him for half an hour or so while we had our drinks then bid him farewell while he waited for his friend to finish.

The following summer we were on holiday in Newquay and out for an early morning run together, exploring the local coastline. We came to a point in the path where it went two ways - one continuing along the coastal path, another went out to sea. We chose the sea route. Soon noticed it came to a dead end but with a lovely viewpoint. Another runner was there admiring the view. It was the same man!

ForalltheSaints · 28/08/2019 20:07

My parents did not grow up in the same part of the UK. Both of them have ancestors or relatives who do not live in the UK. At one point in the last century, one person from each side of the family was in exactly the same place, indeed on the same train.

LunaNova · 28/08/2019 20:07

Not me, but my brother and sister in law were on their honeymoon 10 years ago and were walking by the pool and were talking about our hometown. A couple who were also on their honeymoon went over to them and said that they were from the same town. It turns out, they literally lived on the same street as each other!

They've all been friends ever since.... weirder still, the chap from the couple used to be my ex-boyfriend's boss (at the time of the honeymoon!).

tequilasunrises · 28/08/2019 20:08

I was in a queue for a nightclub in a city in a totally different part of the country. Got chatting to a group of lads behind us and one asked me where I was from. I said a small village he probably wouldn’t know but it turned out he was from the next village along!

Weirder still, we both knew the same person from that village and were at the same gathering a few years before and there’s photos of us together!

Fedupofthedaily · 28/08/2019 20:13

We were on holiday in florida. Middle of Disney and someone comes up behind my dad and claps him on the shoulder. It was someone he worked with for 15 years and hadn’t seen for about 6 years.

Another time we were on kos and my cousin sat down at the table opposite us at a restaurant? We hadn’t seen him or his family for about 3 years after my granny died. It was a lovely surprise. Still in contact with them now!

TraceyHorrobin · 28/08/2019 20:16

I got an early train from my northern city all the way to London Kings Cross to go to a work conference. When I got to Kings Cross I was absolutely desperate for the toilet... no nice way to say it, I was seconds away from a poo. I was scared to poo on the train because with colleagues and i was scared to be in the middle of it when it was time to get off. I ran upstairs to the public toilets and luckily there wasn't a queue but to my horror it was a 20p loo and I had no change! I span around in desperation and... my next door neighbour from my northern town was behind me! Luckily we are friends and I gasped for 20p which she swiftly donated. Relief!!!!!
Totally bizarre, we were both on one-off work trips to London.

frizzattack · 28/08/2019 20:19

I went on a health retreat week thing and met a lady who was nice and we spent the majority of our time there together. I then moved to a foreign country and got a job. A lady I worked with was best friends with the lady from the health retreat!

Also got chatting to a man at an ice cream shop in said foreign country and it turned out he grew up about ten minutes down the road from me (in the middle of nowhere, people rarely even recognise the name when I say it)

DulciUke · 28/08/2019 20:23

My first trip to England, I got to chatting with another Yank on the train. She was from the same small town in upstate NY in which I was currently working.

Also walking down a side street in NYC, only to run into a work colleague (we both work 3.5 hours drive away).

DontGoIntoTheLongGrass · 28/08/2019 20:25

I have an opposite one. Was in Rome with my sister on a guided tour of the Vatican. There was an American lad on same tour. He asked where we were from. UK we said. Him: Omg do you know Big Dave from Bristol?! Yes because we're from Yorkshire but know everyone from the UK

daffodilrosedaisy · 28/08/2019 20:28

My friend from Europe did an Erasmus programme in a city in the UK for a few months at university. About 8 years later, she was travelling in Namibia with her boyfriend. She got on a bus, and she suddenly recognised one of the people she'd lived with on her Erasmus placement!

I sometimes wonder how many times we come really close to passing/bumping into people we know, but you miss them by a few seconds, or you're in different aisles or whatever. Bit of a mind fuck 😂

daffodilrosedaisy · 28/08/2019 20:29

Oh and my friend was on holiday in Bali at a surf resort, got on the bus to go to the beach to surf and got talking to the guy next to her. He'd just finished a degree at a university. She asked if he knew this girl who is her Mum's best friend's daughter, as she'd just finished the same course at the same university. Turns out he was her flat mate!

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