Any awesome "small world" stories to tell?

I’m skeptical by nature yet very wondrous. I’d write your story off as just a simple coincidence I mean, being in a college area, around people who work or are from the same college just isn’t that, “wow” to me.

A few years ago I took a holiday with my family in Spain. We didn’t go to a touristy area, we stayed in a remote village in the mountains, in a villa owned by my partner’s cousin. There was no swimming pool in the village so we went to the next town down the valley, a small town about 2 miles away, where there was one hotel with a pool open to the public. We only went there one afternoon during the holiday.

Also sitting there by the same pool was my daughter’s teacher.

Oh, I have many many small world stories.

Last Saturday my husband and I were in Sebring, FL for a car race. That morning while getting breakfast at our hotel, my husband noticed a former coworker also getting his breakfast. He had worked with him 15 years ago in Colombia.

When I was 14 I was vacationing in Scotland with my family. One evening my dad and I were in a pub, and a local gentlemen sat by us and struck up a conversation. He asked where in the states we were from, and my dad answered, “near Washington DC.” We never would say Gaithersburg, MD, which is the actual town we lived in, because most foreigners would not know where it is, but likely can place DC on a map. The gentlemen said back, “my brother moved to the states 17 years ago, he lives in your area also, he lives in Gaithersburg, MD.” What are the chances?

When my family first moved to Gaithersburg my mom was filling out some paperwork, and the woman collecting the documents said, “I have relatives with your last name.” My last name is very very rare, especially if spelled the same way we spell it. I would guess there are only 20 people in the US with my exact maiden name. They traded numbers, and a couple weeks later my family went to this woman’s house, and she had photos of my dad’s relatives, people he had not seen since he was a little boy. My dad’s family is very small, and very disconnected. The chances of running into a distant relative like that are very rare.

I have more, just can’t think of them this early in the morning.

We took a family vacation when I was a kid. We went up to the St Lawrence Seaway and found a camping ground and set up the camper. When we were done, we looked around a little. In the next campsite was the neighbors of my grandparents from our hometown. We had a blast with them. Two years ago we were in Lake Placid over the fourth of July. We were having a drink waiting for the parade and struck up a conversation with one of the other patrons. He was Russian and in town on vacation. He loved the parade and we had a very nice visit. Last year we were up again for the fouth and walking down the street and it was very crowded. Who do we run into but our Russian buddy from the previous year.

Oh, my aunt and grandma were in some country in Europe vacationing, it was nighttime and they were walking down an outdoor stairway. My aunt began to laugh, and someone down on the street called up and said my aunt’s name. It was a girlfriend from school (They attended college in Boston) who was at the same place at the same time, and recognized my aunt’s laugh.

When I lived in California I co-ran an internet chat site dedicated to a specific television show. It was a pretty tight knit group and fairly easy to moderate and manage. One day we got a new member who had found our board via a fan-fic site. She jumped right in, got to talking to everyone, and became pretty well known on our board. After a couple of months she turned trollish. She started flaming people, writing strange things, and just generally alienating the entire community. After a while we had to ban her, at this point all I knew was her name and the city she lived in. Fast forward about two years. I had moved to the city where I knew she lived and gotten a job in a library. This is a city mind you, a city with a population of almost 500,000. There was a new hire with the same first name as this troll, of course I figured it was a coincidence. As the days went by and I got to know this person, she seemed to have many of the same interests as our troll. After a couple of weeks, as crazy as it seemed, I was really starting to think it was the same person. I got up the nerve to talk to her about it and sure enough it was her.

Weird shit is always happening to me at college.

Probably the weirdest is something that happened a few weeks ago. I was having a conversation before class with somebody I had never met before. He wanted to know why I entered midyear and I told him it was because I had to have surgery before starting college. He wanted to know what I had done and I told him I had my colon removed. He says, “Oh, really? My roommate had that done.” I was skeptical – maybe he’s just confused, I thought, because this surgery is not exactly common, especially among young people! But I quizzed him further and it turned out to be completely true…his roommate had the same disease I had…and got (almost) the same surgery I had…what are the chances?

Another funny one happened to me here last year – the first two friends I made, I met completely independent of one another, on different days and under different circumstances, but they turned out to be roommates!

Another one from this year, I was eating with my friend and a female friend of his, and we chatted for quite a while before housing happened to come up in the conversation, and I found out that the girl is living in my old room from last year.

A story kind of like the OP, driving in my hometown one time the car ahead of me had a bumper sticker for my college. Not too weird till you consider my college is in another state and is very small (student body ~3,000).

My wife and I went to Italy in our honeymoon and met this lovely girl while we were there.

We traveled together for three weeks. Turns out she is from the same state in the US we were. Furthermore, like my wife, she was born in Argentina to an Italian family.

Months after we return to the States, we go to a family get-together. My wife’s aunt is all excited to introduce us to her niece (through marriage).

Turns out, it’s the same girl we met in Italy on our honeymoon.

Fifteen years later, we’re still close friends.

During the Second World War my father was sent to Crete with the British Army where he was captured by German paratroopers and sent to a very small prisoner of war camp in the Czechoslovakian woods. To his surprise he found that his older brother who had been captured in North Africa earlier that year was already there. At the end of the war they returned home together.

My husband’s sister ended up marrying a guy that I used to flirt with in History class in high school. It’s just weird to me. I got thrown together with a random guy at a keg party, in a different town, fell in love with him immediately, met his sister, then found out she was dating a guy I’d gone to school with… just sort of “small world” weird. But neat. We all have the best time together.

Oh yeah one other thing – one of my colleagues at work is someone my partner worked with 18 years ago. I re-introduced them to each other at a company party just before Christmas last year.