Last week I discovered that I actually first met one of my newest clients, at an art workshop 3 years ago.
A. just happened to read my post about the difference between art and craft, and made the connection.
What a small world it is!
When I look back on it, familiar people pop up in the strangest places.
- Like on our honeymoon on South Molle Island – we came across another couple we knew. So much for getting away from it all!
- Or when we were on the other side of Australia, camping in Perth – and unexpectedly crossed paths with our former neighbours. Of course it was the hottest day – about 38 degrees – and I looked like a complete and utter dag (because a. camping and b. who can be bothered in that sort of heat?).
- On our first South Pacific cruise back in 2009, we were seated with a couple of other women for lunch on the first day. When we asked them where they were from, they said, “It’s such a small town you won’t know it” …. um WRONG … turns out the hubster’s sister and family not only live in that small country town, but one of the women worked at the newsagent – with our niece!
But it’s not just on holidays that I realise what a small world it is.
- When I was a student teacher, I actually taught the son of my own Year 7 teacher.
But wait, it gets weirder!
- One of my sisters actually married a boy that was in my class in Grade 1. We had no idea for years – didn’t remember each other at all, as he moved away – and only twigged when we were going through some old school photos and realised our photos of Grade 1, were exactly the same! Oh, and we both hated that particular teacher – she was a cow.
Can you guess which one is me?! (I’ll give you a hint – I’m the one in glasses, looking seriously unimpressed. Is it weird that I can remember all of the girl’s first names, bar one? Not so many of the boys, but meh, boys …)
Do you have any memorable instances in your life, that prove just what a small world it is?!
It is a small world Janet. Coincidences like this happen all the time in my life. We once ran into someone we knew at the massive LA Airport in the USA. By the way, I picked you straight away in your old school photo. You haven’t changed a bit! Except for the glasses.
Mmm I hope I don’t still have the sulky expression on my face!
I’ve had a couple of weird ones….chatting to a customer at work one day, talking football. I said that I’d worked with a couple of Manly (NSW) players back in the mid 80’s. I named them and he said ‘Oh that means you must have worked at ****. I warily said yes and he said so did I. He had to tell me his name as I didn’t recognise him. In my defence it was 25 years ago and he had ummm…….aged a little 🙂
LOL I can understand you not recognising him. I remember at my 30th high school reunion thinking, Who are all these fat bald old men?!
Adelaide is notorious for less than 6 degrees of separation – and it’s why Adelaide people will ask what school you went to – not for snobbery but because you probably have mutual acquaintances. My biggest one though is that my husband and I discovered just after our engagement when we were meeting up with family that we were already related by marriage. His uncle’s wife (so aunty, but not by blood) is the aunty of my uncle’s wife (also non blood aunty). So Adelaide!
I heard it was like that in Tasmania but I didn’t know about Adelaide 😉
One of my uni friends turned out to be the sister in law of my husband’s cousin. We didn’t make the connection for about 10 years. That led to a lovely reunion with the cousin and her family. I picked you right away Janet (I didn’t know that you wore glasses as a child!)
Oh yes, those glasses how I hated them. I wore them from the age of 3 to try to correct a lazy eye. Ditched them by about grade 5. The experts now know that although having glasses to block the good eye might make the lazy eye work for a while, as soon as you stop wearing them, it regresses again. So in other words I went through all the embarrassment and teasing for nothing!
I bumped into someone I knew from a little mining town when I was holidaying in Singapore, and quite often I find that a friend on facebook is friends with someone else I’m friends with and I had no idea they were connected. The six degrees of separation theory holds strong. BTW you were cute in Grade 1 🙂
Naww thanks Leanne, I just can’t get over how short our skirts were!!
I haven’t had one for ages but very memorably, many years ago I was in the famous Pudding Shop in Instanbul and bumped into an Aussie guy who’d been in a bar in Portugal a year or so before on the infamous night the Norwegian guy got stabbed…
I’m living in Sydney now because of all those really hilarious Aussies I met backpacking around the Med when I was in my teens and twenties. The Aussies were having the most fun and I wanted more of that. And am getting it.
Now I must look out for more small world coincidences…
That is hilarious about the school photo and realising you were both there! Amazing!
I notice this more via social contacts. I was chatting to an old Uni friend a year or so ago about someone I knew through blogging who was a mad runner and it turned out they were in the same running group.
I once worked with someone who did personal training with someone I knew… and a friend recently had an interview with someone I’d known from my childhood.
Very very weird.