My oldest son told me tonight, first day of school, that his bus driver said she knew me from a moms group I attended when my kids were babies.
Well, there were several moms who attended that group so I had to figure out which one it was.
Luckily she messaged me.
Cue the soap opera.
Turns out the father of her oldest child is the ex husband of my dear friend. Her second child is the same age as my second child and how I know her. Her third child is with her abusive ex that landed her in a homeless shelter. Her fourth child is with the same abusive ex less than a year later.
I am a bit of an artist. So I had dated a woman for a while in San Francisco while I lived there. And after moving back to Salt Lake City (different state over a thousand miles away) I painted a very unflattering piece that featured her and a poem. Well I showed that painting at a local art festival.
I was not feeling well and came late, and guess who was sitting there. Her friends had even pointed out the painting and said how much it looked like her. When she found out I was the artist and it was her, it kind of impressed her as I had no photos of her and was painted from memory. But yes over a thousand miles away and there she was.
I dated a girl in HS & college about 3-4 years had a bad breakup. I visit my sons school for some presentation the kids are doing. In walks my ex our kids are in the same class 😑 actually walks up and says “small world …”
lost count of those types of stories. it seriously gets tiring when someone sees someone they know and then they talk and find common friends it never freaking ends 😭😭😭. Seeing teachers to fests supermarkets others being clients of my mom finding out someone is the cousin of someone or that my bro went to school with my bff sis. It's a veeeeeryyyy small world I get it. Even when sitting in the airplane you'll end up sitting next to someone from your home village that knows your grandpa 🤪
Just got back from visiting a friend in the UK. Was at a pub having some drinks and some guy came over because he recognized me, turns out he and my dad were neighbors growing up and my dad use to send him our family Christmas cards every year.
Whenever I travel any significant distance, I nearly always run into someone from my hometown. I've run into people I knew in Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Miami, NYC, Cleveland, New Orleans, and almost every time I've been to LA. I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area.
To be fair, when I was in high school, we had one huge high school in town - my graduating class was just under 900 students - and I was known by name by most people in the school due to all of the activities I was involved in. That means that 4-5,000 kids my age knew my name, between my class and those ahead and behind mine.
Still, no matter where I seem to be, someone will come up to me and say my name, and I don't always know who they are. It does make the world, or at least the country, feel like a smaller place.
All right, so i got fired from this delivery job. Guy was cool but fk that company. I was at a chipotle in my depressed phase so I have my hoodie on and avoid contact with anyone I knew. There comes my old boss who didn't even notice me standing there. I could tell by the way he talked.
Then next time at a CVS, he seemed to be driving a different delivery car when I found a reason in my life and grown my dreds. He looked... tired. He had a brief moment of eye contact... and he didn't recognize me. It's a small world after all... la la la laa la la la la la. (disney tone of "its a small world")
I've had a few. I was working in a ski chalet one winter, and one of the other staff members was an Australian girl. She had a friend come out to visit her, who turned out to be an old classmate of mine from college. There was also a guy I ended up working with in a different ski chalet, who I'd previously shared a hostel room with in Vancouver.
I think the community of people who do HelpX/Workaway/WWOOFING/etc is actually just not that big, and because they travel around a lot and meet a lot of other people, you end up with a lot of mutual friends all over the world, who you've never met.
The only one that still hunts me, is like 4 years ago I met a guy and we texted, called for 3 months... we got along so damn well, this had potential but he couldn't manage to set a date "cause of his work schedule" and I even picked fights with him about this lol
Anyways one day he is like let's go out and somehow until that moment I hadn't asked him where excatly in my city he lives. He said the area and I was like oh how funny my friend Franzi lives there too and he goes "oh I know her, she is the sister of my best friend!" ... this Girl had been blowing up my ears since 3 years about the best friend of her big brother, she crushed so hard on him but she never showed me a pic or anything... I broke it off with him right then and there and called her and told her how sorry I am and I didn't know it was him... I lost a stupid dude and a friendship of 8 years in less then a hour lol
My Dad's second cousin was owner of a well known football (soccer) club here and worldwide. Back in the day (60's) my Dad was in a band and at that time musicians would move between bands. Some went on to be famous. Anyway my Mom befriended someone many years ago and became close friends.
Cut a long story short in a surreal party one night. My Dad's second cousin turned up. Much to his surprise, the manager/coach of his team turned up. It got more weird as some of my Dad's famous friends from the past walked in and then a pop star (still famous now) who turned out to be the cousin of the woman my Mom had befriended walked in. Turns out they were all family or friends of the family organisers.
Hah! Man life is a rollercoaster sometimes. I guess my small world would be the guy I randomly met at a café like 5 years ago and became good friends with ending up knowing my spouse's dad from prison lol. I didn't even meet my spouse til a year later and we didn't know there was any connection until I mentioned visiting their dad a few weeks ago, and realized it was the same prison, and he fuckin remembered him from his first time there decades ago apparently they were cellmates for a while! He actually helped my friend with the process of appeal or something helped him write the letters, even helped him find a place to live after he got out. We wouldn't have ever been in the same town if he hadn't, and he really kickstarted my own "reforming" which led to my trying college, so I wouldn't have ever been in the same town as my spouse if I hadn't met that guy! It's fucking crazy sometimes to think about how stiff comes back around.
One of my Ex girlfriends was a sex worker, several of my other friends and friends of friends are also sex workers. I'm not sure what it's like In America, but in Australia the industry has special social workers that protect and care for women when the industry has taken its toll, could be violence or drugs what ever, anyway I talking to one of my friends friends who is one of those social workers, she was telling me how she had a call out to a brothel to pick up a girl that was suffering a psychotic break as a result of using ice, anyway the girl she described was my Ex, she ended up taking her home and looking after her. I was glad, me and my Ex were not on speaking terms, but yeah I'm glad I surround myself with people who genuinely care about others. And yeah it's a small world.
This happened several years ago. One day, a new guy joins our team at work. Turns out he's the brother of a girl I dated, and almost married, in college, almost 30 years earlier. Interesting that I live 1000 miles from where I lived during college.
During school summer break I was walking home from our local harvest/beer fest, when I noticed two guys rather casually sitting on a small stone wall, with a third guy behind that wall somewhat „preparing“ to throw up. Normally I would not have taken much notice of other people, especially when being tired, but that scene was a bit too absurd. Fast forward a few weeks and I re-started school in a different, larger city. Who should be in our new class - none other than these two guys! 😮😀
I grew up in the south, went to college in the south. Have a roommate/best friend. He meets a girl and gets married to her. Have a step-brother. He lived his whole life in the north. Graduates college and moves to the west coast. He meets a girl and gets married to her. The two girls grew up together in a small town in my state and lived next door to each other.
a guy who works at the Alfred's i go to every day was in front of me in line at H&H Bagels in New York the next day and i had gone there at the last minute because i hadn't eaten on the plane
When I was 13, I moved 600 miles and two states away from one small town of 7K people to another town of 2K people, only to become classmates with a cousin of friend of mine from back where I had moved from.
One time when I was in like 7th grade me and my dad went to a buffet on the weekend and while we were there I saw the girl who sat next to me in class who was also one of my really good friends
My boyfriends mum used to be one of my caregivers at a respite home that I went to as a teen. As soon as I saw her, she recognised me and it was great to see her again.
My uncle married a woman who was somehow related to the people who lived next door to me when I was growing up. I never realized this until about ten years ago when his son got married and some of these people showed up at the wedding.
Turns out that I guy I know from New Zealand has a brother who is married to a second cousin ( or something) of some other distant cousin of mine in a city up north that I lived in for a while as a kid.
OMG! So me and my dad went to go see the Marshall Tucker Band and it turns out that my dad used to work with the Wind Instrument guy. This was over 30 years ago.
I once played an online game when I was younger like 20 and I found out I went to High-school with a dude on there who actually knew me, it was alil weird but funny.
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