What are the odds/small world!

[BakersDozen]

Dd16 was flying back from FL yesterday with a stop in Austin, TX. She does fine traveling solo yet also enjoys good company. So how funny it was when she approached the gate for the outgoing flight from TX and saw one of her hockey coaches and his family! She walked up and just stood next to him until he turned and saw her - he said it took him a moment because it felt like he'd suddenly been thrown into another dimension because this hockey player from our very small community was not supposed to be standing by him in a huge airport in TX. These are the nicest people ever and their 2 dc are so sweet, so it was a fun flight for all of them. I told them had I known about their travel plans, dd could have hitched a ride back to where we live and I would not have had to brave 104 heat (at about 9pm!) to pick up dd.

Small world, yes?

[Melissa in Australia]

Things like this happen all the time in Australia. Dh, who is from Canada and has lived here for 30 years still can't get over how often it happens in Australia 

[gardenmom5]

Yes - we've had a couple experiences like that.

We ran into dh's childhood bff, by chance, in SLC walking across Temple Square from opposite directions (he was there for a funeral, we were visiting dh's mother).  A state where neither of us live (he was on the east coast, we're on the west coast) - not knowing the other was even there.

Another time we were at a Denny's in Blue Spring MO (we live in WA, though my mother was born in MO.), and while we were waiting to be seated looked over and saw someone that looked like a friend from the Seattle area.   Brushed it off as coincidence, looked back and got a better look - yep, it was them.

[Brittany1116]

My high school bestie and former roommate from college and I turned and literally accidentally ran into each other at Disney several years ago. We had both gone with others on a major holiday, the place was packed, and neither of us had a clue the other was going. Turned a corner and smacked into each other. 

[Corraleno]

My cousin, who lives in the Southeast, and my brother, who lived in the Northwest, once ran into each other in a ferry port in a remote part of Alaska. They hadn't seen each other in 10 years and neither had any idea the other was in Alaska at the same time.

The last time I was in the UK, I ran into my ex-SIL while crossing a street in Oxford. She was my favorite in-law and I hadn't seen her in years, and I literally squealed and tackled her in the middle of the street, lol.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Corraleno

[HomeAgain]

I went to a theatre in a large city once and at intermission came face to face with a guy I used to hang out with in high school.  He was there visiting family and decided to catch the show, I was on a date/trip with friends.  It was crazy. Neither of us had expressed interest in ever seeing this particular show but it wasn't outside our realm. 

Oldest ds had an opposite experience.  We lived on an island for a while with a very small community.  We left, he grew up, went to basic training, and was paired in his flight with a guy who had lived on the island, too.  At the same time.  And they were the same ages.  They just never ran into each other because one went to school, one didn't, one went straight home after school, one did afterschool activities...there were so few kids that it is amazing they never saw each other or did a single thing together, but nope.  Each thought the other might have the dates wrong because there was no interaction before that.

[itsheresomewhere]

I live in a very small town.  One year,  we were at Disney and I kept running into people from town.  To the point we wondered if there was anyone left in town.  

[QueenCat]

I ran into a guy I'd known from kindergarten through college while at Disney. We hadn't seen each other in 25 years. 

[Starr]

I ran into a childhood friend’s brother on a beach in Costa Rica not frequented by tourists. 

[lmrich]

My favorite one of these is not my own story, but a good friend's  story. 

As  a  young child she  lived in the Congo until she  was 8. She made a good friend while living  there,  but never saw nor spoke  to her  again. As she was moving into her freshman dorm,  that same childhood friend was moving into the room next door! 

[mom31257]

It really can seem like a small world at times! 

Ds was flying to Colorado out of Atlanta, and since he was underage, I went to the gate with him. Some cousins from South Carolina walked in front of us going from one plane to another. We had no idea they were even traveling. What are they odds they would exit from his gate with so many in Atlanta? 

[ScoutTN]

Just now, mom31257 said:

It really can seem like a small world at times! 

Ds was flying to Colorado out of Atlanta, and since he was underage, I went to the gate with him. Some cousins from South Carolina walked in front of us going from one plane to another. We had no idea they were even traveling. What are they odds they would exit from his gate with so many in Atlanta? 

The Atlanta airport is like that for me. Every single time I have been in it, I have seen someone I know. (Granted, I travel very rarely now, but the opposite was true before we had kids.) 

[gardenmom5]

4 minutes ago, mom31257 said:

It really can seem like a small world at times! 

Ds was flying to Colorado out of Atlanta, and since he was underage, I went to the gate with him. Some cousins from South Carolina walked in front of us going from one plane to another. We had no idea they were even traveling. What are they odds they would exit from his gate with so many in Atlanta? 

 

1 minute ago, ScoutTN said:

The Atlanta airport is like that for me. Every single time I have been in it, I have seen someone I know. (Granted, I travel very rarely now, but the opposite was true before we had kids.) 

Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world by passenger volume.  Nearly 300,000 per day, 100,000,000 in a year.

[cjzimmer1]

We've had a quite a few of those experiences but my favorite is one that happened to my son.

My kids are involved in a competitive event through our church organization.  The national event is for qualifying teams from all of North America. One year my son competed against a team from Canada. My son was very good and has been at literally hundreds of competitions so they all blend in my brain but this particular one always stood out in my head.  The team from Canada didn't do well and even though our team backed way off because it was obvious they were going to win it still ended up being such a huge difference in score that we all felt bad for the Canadian team(of particular note was their lead player, I honestly don't remember anyone else on that team but that one kid).

Fast forward 7 years, same DS went overseas on a mission trip. The country he was working in was hosting a youth event for people from all across the area (many countries involved).DS looked across the room (400-500 people in attendance) first day and sees Canada guy. Later guy walks up to DS says, I know you, you are from that team we competed against 7 years ago and creamed us. DS had immediately recognized him but hadn't wanted to bring up that particular event. Turns out Canadian kid was doing mission work in one of the surrounding countries and was chaperoning kids from that country to this country that DS was working in. 

DS related the story to me by saying you remember that Canada team from 7 years ago and I immediately knew who he was talking about. We never discussed the team after the event, we never saw them again, he competed against many other team from Canada over the years and yet that one kid always stuck in my mind far above the thousands of kids DS competed against over the years.

So 7 years after their first encounter, they meet again on the other side of the globe. Definitely small world.

[Jann in TX]

I have so many but this one is my fav...

On my last trip to Uganda I took a group of teens-- 2 of them (brothers)were online students of mine from CA.  After our work at an orphanage and schools we opted for a short safari.  During one of our safari drives we came across another safari van filled with teens... they were from the SAME homeschool co-op/church in CA as my 2 (brothers) and one of them was a close friend! 

[ktgrok]

12 hours ago, BakersDozen said:

Dd16 was flying back from FL yesterday with a stop in Austin, TX. She does fine traveling solo yet also enjoys good company. So how funny it was when she approached the gate for the outgoing flight from TX and saw one of her hockey coaches and his family! She walked up and just stood next to him until he turned and saw her - he said it took him a moment because it felt like he'd suddenly been thrown into another dimension because this hockey player from our very small community was not supposed to be standing by him in a huge airport in TX. These are the nicest people ever and their 2 dc are so sweet, so it was a fun flight for all of them. I told them had I known about their travel plans, dd could have hitched a ride back to where we live and I would not have had to brave 104 heat (at about 9pm!) to pick up dd.

Small world, yes?

Yes! On the 4th we went to a cookout/birthday party for one of the youth at our house church. not a big church. While there my husband starts blinking rapidly and then jumped up. He had spotted the brother of an ex girlfriend, a girl that he is still friends with. Turns out this guy is married to the girl from youth group’s aunt! The girls mom, who I have become friends with, know DH’s ex and her husband well. Mind you DH grew up about 40 minutes away, and Orlando metro area is huge. It was crazy!

[BakersDozen]

These stories are amazing!

[Carrie12345]

The world IS crazy.

My sister lives in the ATL area and I live 2 hours from Philly. She came here to visit, but took a day trip to the city with her kids… where they went to a random park and ran into my niece’s classmate.

Also, my mom’s family moved from NJ to CA when she was a kid. Then they moved back East to a different town in NJ. She grew up and married my father… who is in her kindergarten class picture.

We ended up keeping a campsite at a family campground my whole childhood, about an hour from home and nearly two hours from the area my parents grew up in. SEVERAL other families there graduated with each of my parents or within a few years from the same schools. 

My sister graduated from her GA high school with one of her previous NJ classmates.

[Melissa in Australia]

My brother and my step brother were born in the same hospital, 30 minutes apart. Neither set of parents met.

8 years later both boys were living in the same house. Step twins🤣

[kbutton]

On 7/7/2023 at 12:44 AM, Melissa in Australia said:

Things like this happen all the time in Australia. Dh, who is from Canada and has lived here for 30 years still can't get over how often it happens in Australia 

I've heard that from an Australian family who lives in the US, though they attributed it to the mom in the family and her connections vs. the whole country. 

My parents run into people they know a lot when they travel. They live in a small town, and sometimes they see people from town, but it's often people who left the area but grew up there. Sometimes it's oddly specific, like when they were traveling home from someplace else on Easter weekend and decided to swing by Arlington National Cemetery for the sunrise Easter service, but other times, it's at an airport (but even then, one that's off the beaten path). 

I swear there is a mystery connection also between my small, rural hometown and a region about 5 hours away in a neighboring state. It never fails that people move between the two regions or vacation between the two, etc., but the people who are visiting or moving don't know each other or know of a connection to our town--we've just stumbled across the connections in talking to them, etc. Our family has relatives in the other region, but that's not the case for the rest of the connections. I figure that someone, maybe a family member, sometime decades ago mentioned my quaint little home to someone in passing, that someone vacationed in my hometown, and then it's just sort of spread here and there because there is no common denominator that we know about. Even more fun, a relative of mine went off to a college that isn't in either state involved in this connection and started dating a girl originally from that region. They are now married and live down there. She and her family grew up knowing quite a few of our relatives from there (not the same last name, so that wasn't obvious when they met). 

[Spryte]

I love these stories!

I have a small world story that’s close to my heart. In HS, I was registered for a summer trip to a rather unusual-at-the-time place. At the last minute, it was canceled, and we all had the option of going with a group from a private school near Cleveland (we were no where near Cleveland, different large city suburb). I was the only one from my school to go. Everyone on this trip, from this private school, kept telling me I was “just like Catherine,” to the point that I was soooo tired of hearing about Catherine, whoever she was, and that she was always hanging out in the Art Barn, and liked the same music I did. She wasn’t on the trip because she went on the NYC trip, and on and on. 

Maybe six years later, at a school far from either of our high schools, I kept hearing about another Catherine, and how I just had to meet her. Met her, and she became my bestie for life, we even became tentmates doing our field work together, went to conferences, traveled together. 

Maybe another four years passed before we realized she was the same Catherine from my HS trip, and everyone went home that summer and told her all about me! She could name every person in my little photo album from that trip. So weird!

Yesterday was her birthday. Just typing all this out makes me smile.