Expats, have you had a 'it's a scarily small world'/weird coincidence moment?

[expatinscotland]

as expats, have you ever had a 'this is a scarily small world' moment?

I used to climb a lot, but my ex was a really talented climber and as a result I got to hang out with some folks who are pretty well-known in that area.

Anyhow, my ex decided to climb rather than have children (and other issues). Fair enough, but we divorced and it was no secret - neither of us saw any reason why it should be - why we split up - it certainly wasn't an isolated occurance in the climbing world.

I made my peace with it and when the time came to move away, it was a long time coming.

The wife of a VERY famous climber - herself a very talented climber - started to strike up conversations with me. Okay.

When she heard I was leaving for good, she asked if I would meet her up in a bar. Okay.

There she gets crying drunk and tells me that she's in a similar situation and how gutted she is and she doesn't know what she's going to do and how'd I find the strength and what was I gonna do and blah blah blah.

Fuck, what do you say? Hey, been there, bought the tshirt, burning it, scattering the ashes off the ship as it pulls out of port with me on the deck with my back turned? I left that house on fire and I never went back?

I basically told her to follow her heart and conscience.

On the bus this afternoon, two people sit down in front of me. The female is speaking. Loudly.

She starts mentioning the name of this gal's husband. It's a VERY unique name, so my ears prick up.

Then she says more about him, surname and where he lives. OMG! And how he's coming over in May and they're going to (Scottish climbing area).

Finally, she goes on to tell her companion, about how 'Implanon' has given her the munchies and it's a contraceptive device because - I'll call him Tom - never wants children and she wants to make sure the device is working by the time he comes back.

And that's that's why his ex wife divorced him.

Weirdorama!

Of all places to hear about the fate of those two!

Happily, however, she also mentioned that his ex has remarried and become a mother.

So, P, if you're out there and you're reading this (I know you're Canadian and your husband is English): GOOD ON YOU! I'm so glad you got what you wanted and I hope you're happier with your new man than with that immature Peter Pan who's 36 and just wanted to play in the sandpit. She ain't anything to write home about, either.

I was sitting on my hands, CA!

I felt like saying, 'OMG, I'm so happy for P! She was feeling so sad and miserable last time I saw her. RUN! Run fast and far!'

The gal was kinda of a bitch, though.

I'd probably have left the warning out .

She went on to berate us 'breeders' and what a waste of a good climber P was now she was at home being a milk cow.

Expat - that's quite a story. Good for her (and for you) that you both found the strength to follow your hearts.

I've had a similar sort of moment - but on the tube. (Funny how your story was on a bus, mine on a tube....public transport revelations!) Here goes....

Almost 3 years ago, I returned to London after living in another country for 18 months. On the tube, I sat next to a woman who was looking at OK magazine. There smiling out from the pages of the magazine was my ex. He was posed with his new wife, her children, and their child together. We split (like you), because he didn't want children. In the interview, he spoke at length (and to a cringeworthy degree) about how the pregnancy was completely unexpected and initially unwelcome, but he had eventually come to terms with it and was happy to be a father.

What are the chances of getting on a tube, sitting next to a woman with a 2 month old magazine opened to the exact pages that featured my ex. Wild. It didn't make me upset or mad. I just went home to my lovely little girl, gave her a huge cuddle, and thought how the relationship (and his conditions) almost denied me the extraordinary and profound experience of being a mum.

ON my first weekend when i came back to the UK, i went to Bute to dive. I went to bed early as i was still jetlagged and when my now dh came up to get me at dinnertime, i walked down and the first person i layed eyes on was someone who i last saw in the Caribbean working as a divemaster 5 yrs before.

what was funny was sitting at the table with him and his 'beloved' wife who was in Switzerland at the time he was happily slutting the caribbean.

I discovered the 3rd or 4th time I had coffee with MrsJohnCusack that we had worked in the same industry at the same time and had probably spoken on the phone to each other.

on honeymoon with ex-h and walked into a store only to discover the woman who owned the store knew our family many years before. My mother had minded her children after school for her about 15 years before.

I've got loads of these. I love coincidences ...

First on is a bit long winded: In the mid 1970s we lived in Holland, near Arnhem (famous for 'Bridge too Far' story in World War 2). Our house still had bullet holes in the outside wall. We knew that, during the war, during the Arnhem drops and Operation Market Garden, our house had been a Field Hospital.
Fast Forward to 1989. My parents moved to Sheffield and rented a cottage adjacent to a big house. The owner of the big house, my parents' landlord, was a lovely old gent. Landed gentry whose family went way back (Lords etc) in Yorkshire. He and my father immediately got on as the old gent had been a Coldstream Guardsman, as had my Dad (but years apart). In getting to know my parents he told them that he had been a paratrooper in the war. He had landed in Arnhem and was describing how he had been shot by a sniper (seriously injured in the face, he still had the horrific scars to show for it). He was taken to a FIELD HOSPITAL, which he described in detail to my parents, the village it was in and everything. It was OUR HOUSE!
So, in 1944 he was in this hospital, our house.
We lived there from 1974 - 1976.
In 1989 my parents lived in his cottage for 6 months and became good friends with him until his death a few years later!
Freaky!

My one:

I started coming over to the UK for business about ten years ago. My first trip was a long one, and a few days in, I met a bloke at a night club (I was single. Ok, single-ish.). Anyway, we started hanging out, as you do.

One day, we're walking down the street, talking about Robbie Burns. I say, oh, my friend Bob Smith, used to have Robbie Burns night, when we were at uni. I have no idea why I gave his full name, but it's a v unusual name.

Turned out my uni friend had gone on to uni in Scotland, and been at uni with my nightclub friend. Through my nightclub friend, I got back in touch with my uni friend (who was back in Canada)! It was all very weird.

I've got a few of these too!

We lived in Kenya for a couple of years. DS1 was born in Nairobi and there was a big group of us ex-pat girls with not a lot to do except have babies! When we left to come back to Greece one dutch friend of mine says "my cousin is married to a greek and they live in SE Athens."

I thought nothing of it - we live in NW Athens and there are thousands of foreign girls married to greeks. After about a year i lost touch with dutch friend from Kenya.

About 5 years later I see an american friend at the gym one day. She introduces me to her next door neighbour - a dutch woman.I still to this day don't know why i asked but I said, oh have you got a cousin who used to live in Kenya and she said yes. Her cousin turned out to be my friend!!

This is even mors remarkable because during the 5 years I had been back in greece this cousin had actually moved from one side of athens to the other and thats how she came to be going to the same gym as me.

When we were living in Jakarta I got chatting to a man who was just visiting for two weeks. I thought his accent was familiar so asked where he was from and it turned out to be the same place in Yorkshire as a very old friend of mine. More questions revealed that, as a boy, this chap had gone to my friend's father's barber's shop for his monthly short-back-and-sides and knew the family well.

Here in Nigeria I met a woman who, it has transpired, is the best friend of my older dd's boyfriend's family, in Scotland!

in the late 80's, my mum bought a house a few yrs ago from a family who built it in the 1910's.

Two yrs ago i met a woman from Los Angeles who grew up in the house my mum bought and is the adopted mother of a v. good friend of mine who emigrated to the UK in the 80s.

I've just moved back to the UK from West Africa and have lived for 10 years in different East African countries.

Through dd's new school I have met some new mums, the brother of one lives in Zim, I have never been to Zim but dh has some good friends living there who came to visit us when we lived in Dar, Tanzania. They brought with them some close friends and it turned out to be the brother of my new friend!

Scary that these things can happen even in darkest Somerset

Quick wave to Suedonim

back in the 60's a friend bought a hotel for £1 from the father of a now (in)famous Tory financial supporter. the hotel was completely gutted by a hurricane and he needed the floor plans to start the rebuilding.

the only copies he knew of were destroyed in the hurricane. after just about giving up that he would ever get teh floorplans, when visiting his dad teh following summer in dorset, there was a man sitting in his father's livingroom waiting for his dad. Making smalltalk, the man asked him where he was living, he said British Honduras. The man answered: I built a hotel there once.

But wait, 30 yrs after rebuilding the hotel, he sold the hotel back to the son of the original owner. the somewhat infamous Tory backer.

Years ago when I was in the US for my gap year, my boyfriend of the time went to summer camp in the catskills whilst I went to Georgia. It was a long summer, got"friendly" with another guy at the camp. Summer was over we went our sepratate ways. Back home in the UK old boyfirned starts to ask questions, turns out he sat next to summer boyfriend on the plane! . Those were the days.....

our neighbours opposite her here in singapore are from australia, we are from uk. they used to love behind my tesco's near our home in UK.

LOL at "They used to 'love' behind tesco's" . I presume that is a typo and you mean 'live' ....

ooo yes!! live. tee hee, maybe they loved as well

they didnt tell me that bit!

We lived in Cuba when I was a kid. It turned out that my sister's Cuban best friend has the same birthday as me. Her sister (my age) has the same birthday as my sister. Our mother has the same birthday as their mother. Our father has almost the same birthday as their father (out by a few days I think). Our parents have the same wedding anniversary as their parents. Have always thought that was a bizzare set of coincidences - a Welsh family and a Cuban family having all the same dates as each other on oppostie sides of the world.

I was living in Kuwait and took a holiday in the Andaman Islands a few years ago, totally remote. Took a 3 hr ferry from biggest island to an even smaller one, then one day we hired a tiny fishing boat to take us out 2 hrs away to the tiniest Island imaginable to snorkel. The boat driver asked if we could take another couple from near by island too. They turned out to live 10 doors down our road back home in London! It seemed freaky at the time.

ooh just remembered another, last October I was in New York for weekend with my sister. Tired out from shopping and trying hopelessly to hail a taxi sis was driving me crazy by stopping at every bloody roadside stall selling handbags, etc
I waited impatiently next to her as she chatted to the owner of scarf/t-shirt stall, avoiding joining their conversation as I heard her telling him how I was living in Africa, blah, blah... He asked where, I replied Tanzania, me too he said, hmm oh yeah really, I thought, where about's? Zanzibar, me too he said.. unimpressed I asked him some questions he asked me some and we quickly deduced he was my bil's best friends brother! Sounds long winded but is considered tight knit by dp and bil! Was fantastic coincidence though he was a great friendly guy and took us under his wing and introduced to lots of fun people and to clubs and places we'd never have found alone.

I used to house share in Reading with 2 other girls, great laugh and we all got on brilliantly. We all went our seperate ways in the end, I went to Australia and one of the girls bought her own apartment. Fast forward about 3 years and I am sitting in a bakery in Kathmandu, Nepal when who should walk in but one of the girls!
Here's another
I'm now living in Brazil and a UK family recently arrived in the office. I felt sure I knew the husband but couldn't work out how. Turned out I went to Uni with his older brother about 25 years ago and recognised the family likeness.
And another
My parents live in a tiny weeny village in southern England. Here in Brazil we are awaiting the arrival of a new 'big boss' from - you've guessed it - the same tiny village.
It is really a small world!

One of my friends was travelling in Australia, and living in a flat with 2 other guys.

The 2 other guys were moving on, so my friend advertised for a new flatmate. The guy he found to move in with him was also a friend of mine - they had never met before.

ONE WEEK later another guy responded to the advert for the other room. He moved in. He was canadian and travelling the world.. and a few months before he went to Oz, he was in Scotland, and I lived with him for 6 months. He had never met the other two before.

THEN The original guy went for a job in a bar, the bar was run by another friend of mine.

CRAZY

Apparently all they talked about for the first couple of weeks was me!