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AIBU?

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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 Grin

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:
LittleAndOften · 28/08/2019 22:38

On holiday as a teen in the 90s, I was camping in the south of France with my family. My French teacher from school walked past our tent and came round for a bbq. Random!

We actually had several incidents over the years of bumping into people from our tiny village on French campsites. Really strange!

homeishere · 28/08/2019 22:40

Had a job interview. Part of it was attending a dinner with spouses. Turns out the boss and his wife holiday in the same small coastal village I have a house in. Felt a little sorry for the other candidates.

Someone else on the panel was an alumnus of my old school.

I got the job.

Shosha1 · 28/08/2019 22:40

Small world, not for me but for two if my cousins.

Female Cousin (FC) is from the paternal side of the family. Paternal Family from the south of England

Male Cousin (MC) from Maternal side. Maternal side are Scottish.

As we spent most of our lives with the Military, Family didn’t see much of Cousins, and only heard of them through exchanges with Parents and their siblings.

Fast forward 50 years ( are you still with me) and my Father died.

At the funeral I was stood talking to FC, when MC walks over.

“FC, what are you doing here” MC asks puzzled

“Do you two know each other” I asked equally puzzled.

Turned out they lived next door to each other, about midway between both Cousins birthplaces 😂

homeishere · 28/08/2019 22:41

Another one. Holidaying in France. Went to see the bayeux tapestry and bumped into someone from my school. A few years later we started dating...now we’re married. Bit spooky.

daffodilrosedaisy · 28/08/2019 22:44

@TheBitchOfTheVicar Ooh will have to see if I can find that, I love things like that!

Smidge001 · 28/08/2019 22:47

In what career is part of the interview having dinner with spouses Confused

SospanFrangipan · 28/08/2019 22:48

My FIL met his now DP on a coach trip. He lives 50 miles away from us, went on this trip which was to a hotel 400 miles away. Met his DP, who happened to be a lady I worked with, and lives a few streets away from us.

Toorahtoorahaye · 28/08/2019 22:50

Was living in Asia. Husband’s new friend (lived in same Asian city) phoned to say his friend from back home (UK) was in town on a business trip and asked if my husband would like to join them for a drink. Then new friend asked me what town I was from back in UK. I said and new friend said his friend used to live there. NF asked what area and his friend confirmed he had lived there (all over phone). So NF asked what street I’d lived in - his visiting friend confirmed he lived in my small street. Asked what number and visiting friend had actually been my neighbour through the wall in our semi detached- I remembered him and his family though not that well acquainted. So husband and I took him out to dinner and finally we got better acquainted

Jeffjefftyjeff · 28/08/2019 23:09

David Spiegelhalter has done a lot of stuff on the ‘science’ of coincidences like these small world stories. You can read some of the stories (and add your own!) here: understandinguncertainty.org/coincidences

MillyY · 28/08/2019 23:13

Was at uni on the other side of the country from where I grew up, a girl from my part time job was leaving so I went to her party. Flirted a bit with her boyfriends flatmate. Next week we went on a date and after about 20 minutes we suddenly realised that not only had we met before but he was my first kiss when I was 13! He was family friends with my a friend of mine at the time. That was a VERY embarrassing night!

GraceVanPelt · 29/08/2019 09:38

I grew up in a tiny village in the SE, then moved up to N Scotland aged 11. Applied to a specific Oxbridge college at 17, went for an interview and saw a woman walking through the courtyard of that college - she was 7 years older than me (Y6 when I was in reception) and had lived round the corner in the same tiny village and gone to the same tiny primary school.

In 2012 DH and I went to Scotland, back to where I used to live and then to Loch Lomond. Standing on the bonny bonny banks of Loch Lomond, I see a couple about 20 metres away, and recognise the guy, so I go over and say "Hello John Smith" (NC). He says "Grace! Well fuck me gently!" (his partner does not look pleased at that idea) - he was my boyfriend for 6 months when I was 15, he lived in Edinburgh and I lived up north so we barely saw each other then, but had since reconnected on FB. He had moved to Australia but was back to visit for 2 weeks with his gf.

Seeline · 29/08/2019 09:47

30 years ago a bloke on my course from uni went travelling in Oz over hte summer break. He bumped into a girl from the UK and started chatting. They somehow discovered that this girl was a friend of my sister - goodness knows how they discovered this fact as a I wasn't particularly friendly with the bloke, and didn't know my sister's friend, but both told the story independently when we next met up!

LittleCandle · 29/08/2019 10:51

A friend who I had met online and I went out for lunch. One of her colleagues was at the next table. I thought she looked familiar, and found out that I had known her aunt, who attended the same church as me and I had met the friend briefly when I played for the aunt's funeral.

On my honeymoon, we stopped for a night in York and were about to enter a pub when the door opened and out came I guy I had been at college with and we had graduated the month before. He gave me a very warm greeting before realising I was with then husband of 24 hours! When we reached Miami, late, on our way to LA, we had to collect our luggage and at the next carousel was a girl I had been at school with. We were visiting his cousins in Canada, and I found out I was friends with a friend of theirs!

Its a very small world indeed!

Walkingthedog46 · 29/08/2019 10:56

Worked overseas for a number of years. 30 years later, back in the UK, my former overseas boss walked into the office I was working in. He didn’t even live in the same city, but just called into our office to request some information!

berlinbabylon · 29/08/2019 11:02

In the late 80s I met someone in Germany who had bought a house from my father in the 60s.

Years ago I stayed in a B&B in Scotland and the lady who ran it told me a story about being at an airport waiting for a delayed flight, got talking to the lady sitting next to her - where are you from, oh from Edinburgh, oh what part of Edinburgh, oh I lived there too, what street etc. Turned out they'd both lived in the same house and had the same bedroom!

FaithInfinity · 29/08/2019 11:08

I have two. First - I went on mission through my uni church. There was another lass with the team from another church who I got on well with at the time but it was before social media so we lost touch. About 5 years later I went to a friend’s wedding and she was there. She’d been at school with the bride!

Another time I went on holiday with my family. Came out the airport to find the transfer coach and there was my school friend, working as a rep, looking for his customers. We did a run and embrace type thing as my Mum said We've only been in the country 5 minutes and she’s already met a lad!. I ended up meeting up with him for a night out and catch up. It was fab.

thecatsthecats · 29/08/2019 11:10

I was in a queue of students registering for student services at university. 3000 undergrads alone each at my university, registration happening across a 2 week period, so you could be there any day. Queue of at least 200 people.

I stand directly behind a girl, and idly read the form held at her side. She was from the same, small secondary school from me in the Lake District. In spite of being a very small school, and her only being one year above me (and therefore sharing the small sixth form area where everyone knew everyone), we didn't recognise each other at all.

Weedsnseeds1 · 29/08/2019 11:44

Bumped into somebody I know in a bar in a very small town in the middle of the Namib desert. She lives on an island in the Indian ocean, I live in the UK. On chatting to each other, discovered we were both there to work at the same company, in different capacities on consecutive days.
To be fair, the last bit wasn't that much of a coincidence, if you were there for work it was probably either going to be where we were, or in the uranium mjne!

YreneTowers · 29/08/2019 14:43

I was travelling back to University from visiting my boyfriend at his family home by National Express coach, and had to wait for a connection at a small rural bus station in the middle of nowhere.

While I was waiting, another coach pulled up and two girls my age got off.

I recognised one of them, as she lived round the corner from me in my home town, and I sometimes walked home from school with her.

We were surprised to see each other, as neither of us were travelling to or from our home town.

During our conversation she introduced me to her travelling companion and we politely asked about each other's backgrounds.

It turned out the other girl - a stranger to me - lived in the town I had grown up in and moved away from when I was 12. She had attended the high school I would have gone to if I hadn't left, and she was friends with all my friends from primary school.

nokidshere · 29/08/2019 15:34

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

I think this too. I met DH when he was my boss at work. But it turned out that in the previous 10 yrs we had lived in the same areas at the same time, frequented the same pubs/clubs and even had some mutual friends, but had never met.

BetsyBigNose · 29/08/2019 15:41

I've moved 200 miles away from my home town.

I went to collect DD1 from a play date with a new school friend and found that her friend's DM was a friend of mine from Primary school! I was able to dig out some amusing photos of us both at Brownies!

NoddyAndBessie · 29/08/2019 15:47

We are NC with my wicked stepmother and lying bitch of a SIL (DPs Sis). They have never met, but due to SILs tiny media profile, WS comments on her Facebook all the time.

If only they knew of their tenuous link, our ears would be burning.

Original poster
Weston14 · 29/08/2019 16:11

Do keep these coming guys love reading them.

OP posts:
SuzieBishop · 29/08/2019 16:37

We were in DisneyWorld in 1997 and neighbours from about 7 doors down were in the next carriage of the monorail from us.

My mum and dad were in a restaurant in Croatia and their waiter was from the tiny village in Scotland they had just recently moved too.

Daisy38 · 29/08/2019 16:45

My mum was once on the phone to an old friend and colleague of hers whom I’d not seen since I was a child. She then started asking about the friend’s family and their new grandchild. She then mentioned their daughter who had a very distinctive name and I realised that I had met the daughter and grandchild at a baby group the previous week. Mum and colleague had worked in a completely different part of the country to where we are now but both myself and their daughter ended up living a mile apart in the same city.

We moved to another part of the city and a new friend was talking about her parents and where they lived and I then realised that the girl from the baby group had rented new friend’s parents house from them when they were abroad. Very small world indeed!