He's not called Steve, is he?

[MasterBeth]

Do some people on Mumsnet not realise how big the internet is?

There's a post on here today about a rowdy family on a UK beach and someone's reply is "It's not Polzeath, is it?"

What are the chances, eh?

It's like when someone posts about a grumpy shop assistant and someone answers "Do they work in Tesco Express in Hull?"

Or someone mentions their terrible boss and the reply comes in "Are their initials P.H?"

AIBU in thinking the people who post these things have the most restricted and delusional worldview?

Oh, I know him

A lot of the examples on here are not what I mean.

It's not "someone mentions a place then someone else happens to know someone related to that place or person."

It's when someone talks about a generic incident that could happen literally anywhere and a second poster thinks they can identify it from no clues whatsoever.

"I had an unusual incident in a shop today. The security man looked at me in a funny way."

"Was this Taunton?"

Me too 😳 are you a civil servant by any chance???

I was in India once telling a story about someone I knew who lived in South London and the person said ‘he’s not called Steve is he?’ And turns out she lived next door to him. 😂

It’s kind why some people fall for the bullshit mediums and psychics peddle, “I’m getting an elderly gentleman who likes pigeons” and you can see majority of the audience thinking it’s their grandad coming though and then the psychic will be like “I see him in his allotment with his flat cap, loves his tea and biscuits didn’t he? Did he grow leeks too? No, his mate did then? Yeah i thought so” then the person sucked in will go on to tell everyone how this medium knew things nobody else could ever know when all they’ve done is describe a common variety type of man for the type of area the audience lives.

When I was a teen some bloke was doing a reading in an ex mining village pub and saying “oh I’m seeing an older man in a dark tunnel, covered in coal” and I thought people would see him for the fraud he his, but no, everyone had their hands up. 🤦🏻‍♀️

And here I was, wondering what my brother Steve had done now!

A couple of times when he's done this I've heard people mentioned that I know (or 'know of', more like). Welsh community does work in mysterious ways...

Who's Chris?

Who's Billy?

Ha we had this when we were in America too

I dunno, I saw an odd racist slur mentioned on here that I think was 'invented' by my Ex's friend. To be fair it wasn't horrendously racist when he 'invented' it because of the context: at the time it was a funny thing someone said, but it is now used by racists. Sorry I can't explain it more without saying what it is. But when I saw it on here I wondered if they knew Ex's friend, and hoped they did because I didn't want it to have spread.

I also saw a post where the poster complained about knowing someone professionally who had some ridiculous attention-seeking behaviour which reminded me of someone I used to work with. I did a little light stalking of the poster which showed that they lived in the area my ex-colleague had moved to, so it was likely it was indeed them who they were complaining about.

Neither time did I say anything on the thread though.

I've been identified on MN at least twice by people I know 😬 I really should change my username 🤦‍♀️

Went to a concert. Long way from where I originally came from & not where I now live. Behind us happened to be a group who bizarrely came from the place I grew up - it turned out chatting to one person we both knew Steve out of 75,000 people there. Sadly six months later Steve passed away, was very odd meeting that same person from the concert at a his funeral.

Jeff from Llanelli is my uncle tho' to be fair.

And neither time do you know that you actually did know this person.

Even if the second one was right, I doubt your acquaintance was the first person to use a slur that is now in common use by racists!

Is that you Xela?

Think I bumped into him at Elysium the other week. Open Mic? His poem about a talking condom brought me to tears of laughter.*

*Someone did perform that and if it was YOUR Jeff then he's a god damn genius!!

To be fair, when it’s the ones where you meet someone who knows someone you know while on holiday in Cornwall …

Let’s say everyone has 100+ friends, acquaintances and relations. By the time you look at that intersection between you and a random stranger, that’s a pool of a million people. Let’s assume it’s done in a family level (“oh, she works with my cousin Brenda”), there are 19.9 million families in the UK (69 million people).

So approx a 1 in 20 chance you will have a common acquaintance with a random stranger in the UK.

We went to New York and wanted to clarify the tipping situation. Asked another couple at the first bar we went to. They said we don’t know either, we are also tourists. They lived 6 miles away from our home address.

Yes my dad does this 😆 he can always find a connection!

Is it near Taunton?

haha no. But it was odd.

sorry.ive just read all your posts!

Went to Andy’s restaurant in Tokyo as it was my ex BIL’s favourite restaurant got chatting to him (Andy) and turned out my dad used to teach him and he remembered where my grandma used to live!

Ireland is different. We have Irish family. If my DP's auntie doesn't know someone within 50-100Km, she knows someone who does. And will probably tell you exactly where their house is once she's consulted her network.

Weirdly I have had colleagues who I have a connection with elsewhere eg they know my friend, sibling etc.

Its actually a small world, granted I live close to where I grew up but it’s London so not that small.

I agree but, also, I bumped into my maths teacher at Singapore airport (30 years ago) so the world can sometimes be very small.