I ran into a good friend’s boyfriend in Paris when I was backpacking through there a few summers ago. I had no idea he was even going to Europe, and it turned out he was staying in the same hostel as me! Earlier in that trip, the friend I was traveling with ran into old high school acquaintances in both Nice, France, and Cinqueterre in Italy. She hadn’t seen either of them in years. Small, small world.
I stumbled upon a fellow classmate up at Yosemite National Park. (About 5 - 6 hours away from L.A.). That was weird.
On a visit to Disneyland, my family met up with some people at church. We didn’t know we were going to be there at the same time.
Another time, we saw the dad of the family that we saw in Disneyland delivering bread at our local Ralph’s grocery store. This guy did not live in the area, we didn’t know he delivered bread to that store, so it was weird.
My family used to go to a church that was about 20 minutes away (West Covina, we lived in Glendale). Long story why we did this (mostly, my parents thought that this church had more kids our age or something). One Sunday I saw a girl from my high school there! I couldn’t figure it out—I didn’t know she was a member or anything. (My church is a little obscure, especially in Southern California, so I never met up with fellow members outside of church.) I didn’t talk to the girl; she was the older sister of one of my school “tormentors” (a real SOB). But that was bizarre.
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Ran into a couple I knew at the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas. I was at a conference and they were on vacation. We were all living in Massachusetts at the time.
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Ran into a friend of mine in the middle of Times Square, NYC. I was living in Utah, she in Washington DC at the time.
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Ran into a former college friend in the middle of Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
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Met a former colleague from Utah while canoeing in the Concord River in Massachusetts.
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Ran into a former roomate from upstate New York in a supermarket in Massachusetts.
All of these chance meetings in places far from where I knew these people convinces me that there’s a far greater number of near-misses with acquaintances in equally far-flung places that I will never know about, simply because of the laws of statistics.
When I lived in Denver, I flew out to San Frasisco for a holiday.
While shopping in some obscure little music store in the heart of the city, I was surprised to hear someone call out my name. My full name.
I turned around, and there was an old workmate of mine from Houston!
Of all the 26 million or people in Cali at any one moment, what were the chances of two out of towners who knew each other from elsewhere would meet in a non-mall specialty shop?
It was pretty cool. We had lunch and caught up on everything.
I have a friend from Zimbabwe. Took him to a party at another friend’s house (in Toronto). Also at the party was a (Canadian) woman who used to be married to his cousin: they had met in Zimbabwe years ago and hadn’t seen each other since.
And once I was sitting in front of my house (in Toronto) with my roommate. A guy walked by that she had met in Prague.
Same, but the girl from my school was picking up that herpes medicine they advertise on tv. She didn’t stick around to chat. hee hee.
This hasn’t happened to me very much (then again, I’ve lived in the same everyone-knows-everyone town my whole life). The best one was when I was six and my classmate just happened to be standing behind us in line at Disneyworld in the middle of the summer. Ehh.
[semi-hijack]
On a tangent: I came to college and was dating this wonderful guy in a matter of months. Several months into our relationship, he mentioned something about SparkMatch and we realized that we had actually met on there and exchanged many a conversation, years before we met IRL. Didn’t even recognize each other from the pictures. Very “You’ve Got Mail.”
[/hijack]
A couple of years ago, I had a layover in Denver. While at the airport, I ran into the first person I ever kissed. We hadn’t seen each other in years and years, and we’d flown in from different states.
We went over to visit my sister in London years ago when we she was studying there. Mom and I went to the the Tower of London - and ran into some close family friends. We knew they were coming to London at that time - it’s just funny that we ended up at the same place at the same time when London is so huge.
Susan
The only story I have…
A girl I was living with had met another girl that she became friends with. She brings her home to having dinner with us… she turned out to be an ex of mine… a very hot and heavy at one time ex…
Not really strange, but verrrrry uncomfortable… at least for me.
Their friendship didn’t last…
not really strange, but slightly humorous…
I ran into mr. malita’s hunting buddy buying skanky bra & undies for his wife. He was horror-stricken, but I just let it slide.
It has made for some funny jokes, though…
While in a restaurant on the same mountain as Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, I spied our tour bus driver from my London trip from the previous year. I approached him and we chatted for a few minutes. He actually remembered me.
I just thought of another situation, but I’m not sure it qualifies.
Back in 1992, I was working in North Carolina as a telephone operator for a very large long distance carrier. I had been working there for about a year, taking about 500 calls per 8 hour shift. Most of our calls came from the east coast, with the majority of those coming from Florida. When other call centers got too busy, some of their calls would bleed over into our call center. One day, I got a call from an old lady from a town not far from where I grew up in Missouri. She wanted to place a collect call to a number in the small town where I grew up. To make a long story short, the “old” lady was a good friends grandmother and she was calling my good friend!
I’ll never forget the conversation:
Me: This the the ____ operator with a collect call from “Gertrude”, will you accept the charges?
My Friend: ERIC!! Whassup?? It’s been a while.
Me: Umm, hey…I really do have a collect call from “Gertrude”, will you accept the charges?
etc, etc.
I had to call my friend back during my lunch break to explain what had happened. That was truly a one in a million happening.
I’m from metro Detroit, but my dad’s from S. Dakota, so we would take family vacations out there every 2 or 3 years.
We usually went out to the Black Hills to camp, and one year we decided to go on the tour of Jewel Cave. We were waiting for the elevator to take us down, and when the doors opened, a family from our church was standing there. My dad said he about crapped his pants. Not in a bad way, but in a Holy Crap!-what-are-the-odds kind of way.
So not only were we vacationing in the same remote state, 1,000 miles from home during the same week, we were in the same part of the state, at the same location, at the same tourist trap, on the same day, at the same time. We were even staying in the same campground and didn’t even know it!
Happy
When I was in Israel with my synagogue youth group (junior year of high school), I ran into a friend of mine - at a tiny food stop in the middle of the Judaean desert! Then, a few days later, I ran into him again it turned out he and his group were staying at the same youth hostel as we were in Jerusalem.