It's a small world

[BOB]

I'm always astounded by how small this world really is...so thought it would be interesting to hear your 'small world' stories (I guess it's a bit like the 6 degrees of seperation thing)...

My lastest is..

My postie is the old flat mate/friend of my brother and sister...rather random as they lived with him in NZ...and he is now my postie on the gold coast.

So...what's yours...?

[Obsi]

hmm, I don't really have a story like that.. but one day we were finishing up a BBQ at a park and I heard someone call out my name, I look up (after taking several moments to remember that the name she called me was my "proper" name, since everyone calls me "obsi").. and it was someone I'd gone to school with about 17 years ago in Tassie (I live in Melb and she'd moved here a few years ago)... and we'd both just happened to go to this same park on the same day (it was just an average day too, not like Australia day or anything, where you'd expect lots of people to bBQ in a park) - neither of us live in the town the park is in... so it was quite a coincidence!

I do find it really odd though that some of my groups of friends overlap....when they are worlds apart.... I have friends in a medieval club I'm in, and some of them I know from 2 different pagan groups..... which are all totally separate.....like one time at a Pagan get together, someone I knew from the medieval club (who was actually hubby's ex LOL) turned up - we didn't know we'd had that in common! and I've seen people from there turn up at parties organised by one of my medieval group friends......and on facebook I've seen some of my friends have other friends in common.... it's like a weird intermingled thing...

[milasmum]

A customer from QLD emailed me the other day to say that she lived in the same unit block as me here in Sydney!

[kyls]

oh I've got a few...
A girl I went to school with and hadn't seen for years and years married my best friends cousin.

Veg (DF) had a friend who used to have a caravan in the same caravan park where we had one growing up, so we were both there every single weekend, but never saw each other


when we were looking for a pram and car seat when I was pregnant with DD we went to a baby shop on the Gold Coast and it turned out the guy who owned it worked with my Mum in Melbourne for about 10 years

[Kitikova]

Here's a tangled weave of 6 degree happenings...

I frequented a forum and made friends with a lady (M) whose birthday (including the year) is the same as mine. We go to the parenting/baby expo together and she is going to catch up with a friend. While we're waiting for the friend, a girl I used to work with comes over - turns out she is M's friend!!! We also discover the M did TAFE at the campus I worked at.

M went to highschool with another friend from the forum, and I went to the same highschool (although different years) to another friend from the same forum.

None of us had run into each other until we all went to a meetup of people from the forum. Spooky huh?!

[kirrily]

I have a few of these... Will think of more but here's a couple for now.

In high school we were reading a magazine and there was some artwork by a guy in Kiama in it. Our science teacher was friends with the guy (Scott). Then 5 years later, I moved to Canberra and started working with a guy called Heath. Turns out his best friend is Scott. Who I then met later. Who still knows my science teacher who I'm still friends with.

And my older brother went to school in Dubbo with this guy called Andrew. My sister didn't grow up with us (long story), but a few years later, became friends with this same guy - in Wollongong, without ever having heard of him from my brother. I went to uni in Wollongong, and lived on the same campus that Andrew had also lived on previously, and a whole bunch of people there knew him as well. I didn't meet him until a few years later.

My aunt went to school with the guy who lives across the road from me. But that's pretty boring. And I live next door to my real estate agents sister. Also boring.

Oh, I was driving to a gig with my good friend Starr one night. She had been looking for a flatmate and said she'd found one - his name was Stefan, he's a graphic designer, works in Crows Nest and is gay. A couple of questions later - it's one of my best friends from uni.

[tiffanysmummy]

I took over a job that my step-sister's husband had been doing. It turns out that my boss was my uncle's (other side of the family) sister-in-law. I see her all the time at family functions but never knew that's where she worked.

[Obsi]

Another weird name thing, but not really related to a 6 degrees thing... since we didn't know eachother...

Once I was in centrelink (back when it wasn't called that), and the guy was checking my details on the screen.... first name correct...... last name correct..... date of birth - he'd said 21st April 1971, but I'm 21st April 1977... so he's gone "ohh ok" and changed it .... then he's gone "and you live in Mooloolabah?" and I've gone "no, Mudgeeraba".... and he's stopped for a moment and we've realised that the info he was looking at was for someone else.... who had my name (which isn't too common) and date of birth - but the year was wrong (and our middle names weren't the same).. and lived in a town that sounded similar!

I ended up writing to her, addressed to just her name, Mooloolabah just on the offchance it would get there.....and it got there! But, she'd actually moved to mooroochydore (still another M name!), but her mother had still lived there, seen my name and address on the back of the letter and sent it on. We only wrote to eachother once, but we both thought it was cool to know we shared a name and birthdate.

And around the same time, my parents used to do a craft market in our town... and one day they introduced themselves to the people with the stall next to it, and laughed that they were both Alans, then they found out they both had the same surname too! and again, it's not a particularly common surname! and weirdly, out of all the market stalls, they had put us together (assigned randomly, they weren't doing anything like what my parents were). very odd.

[BOB]

i have one of those stories Obsi.

There is a girl in NZ with the same full name as mine (first, middle and last), before I was married...she used to bank at the same bank as me (that's how I found) but lived somewhere different

Then a few years back DH walked home from work and saw graffitti on the wall near us that said Tamara xx sux! LOL...I didn't believe him, but sure enough...so we guessed it must have been about her and she must have lived near us then (she was a fair bit younger than me).

[maybutterfly]

Two things...

My DH and lived in the same country town but as he is 5 years older than me I never knew him (he left high school the year before I started) or his family (who still live there), met him once we were both living in the city because he was living with the brother and fiance of my best friend from school who I lived with at the time. My mum and his father used to flirt (innocently of course) when she used to go and get flour from the mill he worked at, they laughed when they met and said they could not get away with that now as people would get suspicious. His mum asked about my sister the first time I met her as she worked in the high school office. Oh and DH knew my brother who is a year younger than him because my brother liked getting the wrong type of attention!

My old postie delivery guy dropped off a parcel after delivering one to another lady with the exact same name as me (and the exact spelling of my first name too) in the same suburb, he ended asking for ID as he thought it had been addressed wrongly considering he knew me pretty well by then from all the parcel deliveries and mine was the next on the list. She is around the same age as me but he tells me we look completely different.... that was a little spooky for me....