Your "small world moments"

[ivfbabymomma1]

I didn't know where else to post this

But what are your small world stories?

A lady I know from the UK moved to China for a bit and met another man from the uk and they lived together for a bit and then she came home.
I just found that that this man is now the boyfriend of newer friend.

What's are the odds?!

I grew up and went to uni in a small regional city in Australia. 10 years later I was living and working in London, rushing through packed Charing Cross Station in the rush hour, bumped into someone and when I looked up to say sorry it was my uni-days boyfriend from small town Oz. I had no idea he was in the UK.

I'm from a northern Uni town. Bumped into a friend, whilst in York, going round the cathedral Bumped into him again 6 months later in Jersey.
We were both totally spooked by it.

It really is a small world, I have loads of examples. In NY visiting the Empire State & former colleague was standing next to me.
My brother worked in the same small building in London as my then boyfriends best friend.
One of DHs friends who he's known since school randomly met one of DHs colleagues on a night out & are now married.
I live on a quite a small road, 2 of my neighbours went to school together in Hampshire & realised at a street party that they are now neighbours.
Pregnant with dc1 & sitting in waiting area of C&W bumped into old school friend who I'd not seen in maybe a decade & we reconnected. I also now work with someone's who's sister was in my "friendship gang" at school.
I guess these are all normal if you live in a small town but in London with so many people it seems crazy.
My mum was in America & had the whole "oh do you live in London?, do you know X" by some Americans at the hotel. Turns out she did!

I also randomly bumped into a neighbour last yr at the Fleet services, we parked almost next to
each other. 😆

Oh & my aunt met a new partner later on in life. He was really good friends with a guy who's son in law was one of the babies in the same NCT type thing as me as a baby. Our mums are still good friends.

DH and I went on holiday to Vietnam a few years ago. We decided to spend a few nights on a small island off Vietnam and it just so happens that someone DH works with every day was also spending the same few nights on this small relatively unknown island. We bumped into him in a bar, it was a bit surreal

I was head hunted by someone based in a different city via LinkedIn. They used to live in my flat 10 years ago.

I have two, the one that is less small worldy I like more.

I’m from Baltistan, lets imagine I lived at 1 green street (obviously most dwellings didn’t have an address). I was working in San Fran and I met someone at a work social who was clearly Balti. As a child a local lady cared for my siblings and I as her children were older. The Balti lady in San Fran was the daughter of the lady who had cared for me. She lived within sight of my childhood home.

This one my partner refers to as a pervy coincidence. Theres a particular actor I think is quite attractive, he was in a TV show with my neighbour, I once saw him in the gym changing room (fully clothed). Hes gorgeous. My vet is also very very good looking (hes now on stephs packed lunch). I popped in to my neighbours NYE PJ party last year, said hot actor was there, but so was my attractive vet, but theres more, they were wearing the same outfit. Thats when it dawned on me that they’re dating. As I’m an extremely mature adult I wasn’t at all acting like a giddy 12 year old when talking to them...

Two couples, both friends of ours but didn't know each other and lived in different towns. First couple told us "finally sold my late aunt's awful Victorian villa to couple looking for a restoration project". They had sold it to our other friends- and it was a great house!

In 1999 we visited a small tourist attraction in Zimbabwe. 18 months ago we were buying a 2nd hand car in the UK. The bloke we bought the car from worked there at the time we visited.

Met my husband and relocated 200 miles away to a very rural UK village. Turns out my neighbours are the parents of someone I went to school with. Here's me thinking no one knows me here and then seeing an old school friend park up on the drive very strange moment!

I once sat next to an American man waiting to get a visa to India. He was quite memorable because he as having some trouble filling in the form.

2 weeks later, I walked into him in the same hotel in India.

I was on holiday in New York, walked into a bar and bumped straight into a lad I’d been at school with. Hadn’t seen him in nearly 20 years as we both moved away from our home towns. Had a lovely chat and catch up.

A week later I was back in the UK and was in my home time visiting my mum. We went to town to have something to eat, walked in and there was the same lad from school who was also back
Home visiting family!

My aunt and uncle were buying a house/downsizing after retirement, went to view a house and when they walked into the living room there was a photograph of my uncle's childhood villiage cricket team on the mantelpiece with my uncle in it from when he was about 16 in the 1950s.

The owner of the house was the now widowed wife of the former Cricket captain who had played with my uncle 50 years previously.

The villiage with the cricket team was in Cornwall, they were all now living in Cambridge.

Years ago I was on holiday in Spain and bumped into my best friend from school and her family. While we were laughing about the coincidence, we spotted a teacher from our school! Such a small world!

When I was 15 we used to stay at a house in a small town in Spain which was owned by my parents' friends. I had an ongoing holiday romance with a local Spanish boy who introduced me to an Irish girl who was often there on family holidays too. We would all see each other 3-4 times a year until we stopped going on family holidays then we never kept in touch.

Fast forward 7 years and I was a few years into my course at uni. I had met a guy who became my best friend. He later moved to another uni in the city and did a year abroad in Spain (not the town from my family holidays and not close to there) and he was posting photos on Facebook of his travels. He had met the Irish girl I'd known from my teen years.

I always found that to be my favourite small world moment. I messaged the girl on Facebook but we never did stay in touch.

My kids went to nursery with my ex-housemate's ex-housemate's ex-housemate. Each house share in a different town, and all in a different town the one the nursery was in.

DH and I lived on the same street in a European city for a year, one year apart.

At my Dads funeral. My paternal cousin Amanda arrived at the Crematorium got out of the car and walked towards me as I stood talking to my maternal cousin Rob.

She stopped short and looked at him puzzled.

" Rob what are you doing here?" She asked

Cousin Rob looked at her as puzzled.

"How do you two know each other? " I asked

"We lived next door to each other" came the reply.

Even more weird, Amanda came from Cornwall, Rob from Inverness, Dads funeral was in Wiltshire and they now both lived in Liverpool!

A good friend of mine was engaged , and she went to a family party at her fiancé’s aunt’s house. On the mantle piece was a photo of me ! Turns out his aunt was my stepmother (long since divorced from my dad by then, but had been around for most of my childhood)!

From the UK and emigrated to NZ. Met an old school friend in the supermarket.

Also my OHs one-

She had a really difficult relationship with her assistant manager in London. He didn't support her when she was being targeted unfairly by their boss.

Move to NZ. First day in her new job and the assistant manager is in the office!! Different departments but awkward nonetheless!

Moved to a new house and some old friends who lived in a city 100 m away came to see it for the first time.
When they got home their neighbour was in her driveway and asked them where they'd been. They said the name of our village, and she asked which road, and then which number. Turned out our new house was her childhood home.

At uni in London about 12 years ago I was on the tube and a girl was sitting opposite me and kept looking at me over and over, eventually she smiled and said "are you xxxx?" I was very confused and said "yes..?", she was American and she explained to me she was over on a years exchange from her collage in California and at high school her best friend was a girl that I had been best friends with in primary school and she had moved to America at the end of year 6! We'd kept in contact for a few years and this girl had been school photos of us and recognised me! I'm now back in contact with said girl and she's living a very different life in LA to my one here with two young children in the West Country!

For years, whenever I went abroad I met other people who came from Croydon, which was where I lived for my first 30-odd years. On several occasions, they knew a couple that I also knew.

In a coffee shop in Amsterdam, a couple asked if they could share a table and we got chatting. When it transpired that they, too, came from Croydon, I turned to my then boyfriend and said, jokingly "I expect they know Fred & Mabel, too".

The man then said "Not Fred the roadie and his wife who live in X street". And yes, they knew them too. I suppose roadies meet more people than most of us, given that they travel a lot and work with lots of different crews, but it really got a bit weird.

One friend was on a trek in the Himalayas with someone who knew them.