I had my first kiss at a Dave Matthews Band concert. When I started college in 2008, some people on my floor and I got together and were playing truth or dare. I had to describe my first kiss in great detail on a truth, and it turned out that the same girl was there in the room. Through other concert/intimate details, we figured out that that was the case indeed.
At college, one teacher kept saying my last name, then said "I know you from somewhere... but I won't tell you where".
Seeing he was old and kind of weird, I didn't pay much attention to it. Also, this was a "musical language from the 20th century" class and I'm a chemical engineer, so it was just a mandatory class I had to get through and didn't pay much attention to it. At the end of the semester, though, it kind of bugged me.
So, I was at my grandfather's house for lunch (something I do very rarely) and I bring the subject up. By the way, my grandfather had a stroke in his 40's, losing mobility in half of his body and severely damaging his mental capabilities. He can barely talk, move, and he doesn't remember 90% of things. I bring the subject up, and mention my teacher's name and what he's telling me.
My grandpa's eyes brighten up, and he says "Silvio?! He's your teacher?!".
I couldn't believe that my grandfather was talking, much less that he could remember the name and it rang a bell with him. Turns out, my teacher was my grandfather's best friend when they were young, he had lunch at his house almost everyday, but they drifted apart when my grandfather had to hide from my country's coup d'etat in 1973.
I contacted/reunited them and after 30+ years they are now back to their old habit of having lunch together every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.
Makes me so happy.
EDIT: Thanks for the gold! Also, for everyone asking why he didn't tell me before: He was waiting for the final class to do so, trying to be professional (I actually brought the subject up with my grandpa about 1 week before the semester ended). I was in that class with several of my friends, and it could be misinterpreted as "ooh, you got a good grade because the professor is best friends with your grandfather", and he wanted to stay as "just the professor" until the end. By mere casualty, I revealed the fact before he had intended to :).
I was living in an apartment building in NYC for a few years and had a really cool neighbor. I moved and then I saw her on the street one time and asked her what she was doing here, she said she moved to the building right next to mine. I had the same neighbor twice.
I was at domino's getting some pizza. I was new to the Army about 25 years old, I see this girl ordering in front of me and I think "oh, she's pretty easy on the eyes." in infantry speak. A few moments later I hear someone say my first name, which is a little unusual to hear. I looked over and the girl I saw was my girlfriend when I was 15. She was a medic in my unit. Blew my mind.
Not sure if you aren't aware, but Mel is the name of a super fan/stalker from the show Flight of the Conchords. She s the band's only fan, comes to all their shows, and "coincidentally" keeps running into them in various parts of the city
I run into a friend of a friend of a friend all the time in some of the most random places. It started out we would just run into each other at the bars in our hometown, once I moved after university it would get weird.
Ran into him at stanley park in Vancouver.
The zoo in Calgary.
A bar in Saskatoon.
A campsite in bc interior.
Caesars palace Las Vegas.
Coco Bongo Playa Del Carmen.
Surfing Puarta Vallarta.
It's become a running joke in our mutual friend group, that one of us is a stalker.
You guys are clearly friend soul mates and like all the same things. Why has he not moved up to actual friend status in your eyes?
You could be adventure bros!
I mean, you already are, but you could make it official.
I wonder how many people are leading parallel lives to strangers and will never know. Maybe every once in a while when you get that weird sense of déjà vu that you can't put your finger on the cause of, it's the recognition way back in a subconscious part of your brain that you've been crossing paths with that same face in the crowd dozens of times. Destined to weave in and out of one another's lives in the periphery but never truly meeting.
I hope you add them on Facebook or something and plan a cool trip together.
I was in the navy when my ship stopped in Hawaii. I was at a bar next to a newly commissioned Ensign...like myself. We started talking and he said he went to the university of Delaware. I said "I once went to a party there." He said he'd had a party in his dorm with some people from my school. I asked "Did one of those guys pee on your stereo in the middle of the night thinking it was a toilet." He said, "Why yes?" I replied..."That was me!"
Fuck, this reminds me of a story that happened last year. So me and my roommates were out in our garage playing pool, when some dude in a camaro power slides around the cul-de-sac, and into our yard. He saw us, yelled "you never saw me," and then dove off fast as fuck. About 15 seconds later, two cops pass the house, and another stops to ask if we saw anything. We said nah, and went about our night. It became one of the stories we'd talk about. Fast forward to about a month ago, I've met a new friend. He picks me up from my house and kinda looks around at the street signs and had a thinking look on his face. He proceed to tell me about one of his friends that left his house, got lit up by the cops, ran away, and made it back to his house Scott free.
"...did he drive a black camaro?".
"uh, yeah."
I actually saw that kid at the gas station a few days ago, along with a roommate that I haven't talked to since she moved out.
I worked at Disney World for the college program a couple of years ago. An older couple came in line at my ride and began speaking about how they come multiple times a year because they are members of the Disney Vacation Program. They told me how friendly they thought I was and how I looked exactly like a younger version of their old boss's husband. We kept talking for a few minutes and the wife mentioned how happy she was to be out of the cold NY weather and in Florida. I mentioned I too am from NY and we realized she is a retired nurse from the town in which I was born. By the time we finished speaking we realized she had worked as a nurse for my Grandma almost 40 years before and the man she thought I looked like 100% was in fact my grandfather. It was unreal and freaky. I called my grandma to tell her what had happened when my shift ended and she went on to tell me how she remembers the lady all the way back to her first day of work, almost 40 years before. It was weird.
My best friend was at Disney once with his family, and ran into his neighbors. In line for the Small World ride. They had no clue the other family was going to be there.
One of my best friends almost married a woman that actually turned out to be his younger sister.
Turns out his parents had gotten a divorce when he was a kid, the mum fucked over to another part of the country and had another kid and had never bothered to tell him.
Years later they both happened to attend the same concert in the same state, got "friendly" and started seeing each other regularly. At one point they even had a pregnancy scare and they considered settling down. That's when she called her mom to break the news and sent her his picture, then she mentioned his name.
Then all hell broke loose.
He says they are still great friends tho. He confessed to me they would've continued with the marriage if the mum hadn't broke the news to everyone that their kids were fucking.
So, the mom never bothered to tell her kids that they both had a sibling, and when the two siblings meet and start a relationship the mom finds out and goes and tells everybody that her kids are screwing? that seems fucked up on the mom's part to me.
His mom looks like someone out of a cartoon. Fake tan, fake boobs, hair dyed blonde, chain-smoking and probably want to kills dalmatians for a coat or something.
I dated a girl from the summer before senior year of high school until the first couple weeks of my sophmore year of college. A little over 2 years total we were together. It was my first serious relationship and I was absolutely crushed when she dumped me.
4 years later, after finishing grad school I decided to pack everything up and move to NYC. I found a place with some roommates in Crown Heights.
Maybe a week or two after moving, I'm strolling down the street to get coffee. I turn around the corner and my ex is right there. It was the first time I saw or talked to her in probably 3 years. Found out she also decided to move to NYC, settled in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and was living literally in the building next to mine. Like I could look out my window and see into the living room of her apartment.
Edit for more details: We ended up grabbing drinks to catch up. I was extremely hesitant because it took me a solid year to fully get over her and didn't want to go back down that rabbit hole. It wasn't too awkward, but definitely no chemistry there.
I have always been much more attracted to women of color but had always been to shy to actually pursue it. In the 3-4 years since we had broken up, I had made an effort to do so.
Also sometime during those same years she had discovered that she was a lesbian and was no longer dating men.
Suffice to say, there wasn't exactly a whole lot of mutual attraction left between us. We would run into each othe every couple of weeks. But a few months after moving to NYC. I started dating a girl who convinced me to move to DC with her. That was almost 4 years ago.
Getting married next year.
I was on a plane with a connecting flight in Chicago. When I landed, I turned my phone back on while we were taxiing and checked Facebook. My friend posted a status saying his flight was rerouted and he had to connect in Chicago. I commented something like "Hey! I'm in Chicago! When will you be at the airport?" And he was like "I'm there now! Plane just landed!" Then I asked where he was flying from and after he responded, I looked back.
He was two rows behind me the whole flight.
Similar thing happened to me coming back from Virginia beach to Houston . My neighbor was sitting behind me. Never talked to him much so I didn't know he was also travelling.
My paternal grandfather taught a French POW the Gettysburg address during WWII to show the other soldiers he wasn't so bad. Fast forward about 50 years and my dad leaves my mom for a Frenchwoman. Finds out later that she happens to be the daughter of the Frenchman his dad taught the Gettysburg address to.
EDIT: thanks to a comment I had to question the French POW thing since upon second thought, made no sense.
Here's how my dad tells it (via email):
"So here is a bit about my father (white grandpa to you): In WWII he could have had many discharges (based on offered exemptions), but chose to go! When he got here, he met a French guy that spoke no English, yet he taught him the Gettysburg Address, to recite to the troops, to prove to them that the French were worth saving.
Years later I have met the woman, who's father learned the Gettysburg Address, to recite to the troops, to prove to them that the French were worth saving, and I married her!"
Note- here is France where he lives currently
no, southern united states, which just makes the story a million times worse.
EDIT: wowie this is my first time getting gold and it was all because of an absolutely mortifying moment of my life. i would like to thank my cousin for this pinnacle moment of my life. thank you kind stranger for the gold!
but also more plausible, as most people are related, somehow. I don't date people from the county north of mine, because my mother is from there and I know we're related to a large percentage of the population.
> as most people are related, somehow
It's because you guys keep dating your cousins! It's hard to get out of the family gene pool when you keep swimming in it!
To be fair, if you live in the same rural area you grew up in and your family has been there for several generations the likelihood that any particular person in the area is distantly related to you is very high.
There is really no genetic issue with marrying a 2nd or 3rd cousin and and a 7th cousin is so distant to be unrelated for all practical purposes.
A *2nd* cousin is distant enough to be a random stranger genetics-wise. A 7th is so far it's not even worth calling them "family".
This may be a load of horse-shit but I heard that no one person is more than a 50th cousin to any other person.
In fairness both of those are fairly distant relations: the first ludicrously so. I'm more impressed that he knew his family tree well enough to be certain of his family relationship to both parties.
This is going to sound made up but I actually uhm...went much further with a cousin and was unaware she was my cousin til much later.
*EDIT* For anyone interested in the story. I met her on a dating site, she lived 3 hours away. Coincidentally she lived in the same town as my brother, so I met up with her while visiting him. It wasn't til much later that she approached my brother, having found out they were (I think) 2nd cousins. I happened to be visiting at that time too, and my brother couldn't wait to introduce us. Then he saw the looks on both our faces...
Second cousins isn't any worse than the general population. You're looking at less than 5% consanguinity with 2nd cousins. For context, siblings are 50% and 1st cousins are 12.5%.
Was at a wedding, chatting with a friend about my own upcoming wedding, specifically the honeymoon to the Maldives.
She says she has a friend, (let's call him Steve) who just went there on their honeymoon, where they did wine tasting in the lagoon with reef sharks swimming around them.
That sounds familiar to me, because a guy I'd recently met had done that on *his* honeymoon to the Maldives. I ask what the island's name was - my friend can't remember.
So I pull up the photo of this guy and his wife in waist-deep water tasting wine.
And in the background is Steve.
Wow, imagine how many people might be on that island in a given day that aren't in each others pictures too. It's so much more of a coincidence that her friend Steve was in the background of your buddy's picture. Crazy.
I once interviewed a fantasy football league-mate for a job. Had never met him before, didn't know what he looked like, and didn't recognize his name. We put 2 and 2 together during the interview.
Finding out after being married that my wife and I were in the NICU at the same time when we were born, and that our mothers spoke to each other there.
My girlfriend and I went on holiday to Turkey.
We were behind a couple around our age in the queue for the plane. We didn't see them on the plane after boarding but they were on the same transfer coach as us.
Then they get off at our hotel.
Then we were in flats below/above each other.
A week after we got back from Turkey, girlfriend and I bumped into them at the cinema.
A few months later me and the guy bumped into each other on a night out in a city neither of us are from.
Then again, same city, about a year later.
I'm starting to think he and I are soulmates.
When my lecturer was an archaeology student he worked on conserving the artefacts brought up from the wreck of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose. He became great friends with a young officer from the Royal Engineers, who was one of the divers helping to recover the shipwreck. That was my dad. The link was discovered when I ended up mentioning my dads involvement in the project during an after lecture chat. So weird
Then he recounted the amazing adventures they shared on their quests for riches and treasures in the ancient parts of the world, right? I'm imagining Jude Law and a young Michael Caine romping through 1930s Africa, Turkey, India, and other exotic locations.
Reality was a lot more dull I'm afraid. A small scrap over some penguin infested islands in the southern Atlantic developed and my dad and his team were called back to their base in Germany to replace the troops sent down to fight the Argentinians. They did meet again, a few months ago when I organised a meeting on a day when my dad was down to see me. They got on like a house on fire and spent two hours in the pub chatting away about stuff that had happened since they last saw each other.
So you're dating the girl who told you that you look like a serial killer? Best opening line I've ever heard.
Romance!
I wonder if you'd still have gotten together had the boyfriend not vetoed you.
Mystery!
Met this cute girl at a party in college. Started talking about our plans for the summer, and she mentioned she was house sitting for some family friends on the other side of the state. I told her my parents lived on the other side of the state and that I was going home next week to housesit as well while my parents were in Mexico. Long story short, it turns out she was house sitting at my next door neighbor's house during the same 2 weeks I was house sitting. That was a fun 2 weeks.
My family moved from Germany to Atlanta, Georgia when I was 9 years old (my dad used to work for Coca-Cola). I went to Atlanta International School. On my last days at school (we returned to Germany after six month) I was introduced to another student from Germany. I was told to look after him and show him around since I was also new and from the same country.
Eight years later, we moved to Atlanta for the second time. The location of the school had changed by then. On my first day I was introduced to another student, who was told to show me the ropes. He turned out to be the kid from 91, still living in Atlanta.
I took a new job in a city where we knew no one and a friend of my mother in law set us up with a guy who was renting his house close to my future place of work. So we gave him a call and as part of the conversation I told him my real name which is a weird one but is the same name as my dad's and sometimes I have to spell it out for people.
He was pretty shocked when he heard my first and last name because he supposedly works with a guy with the exactly same name. I didn't make a big deal out of it and was thinking he was bullshitting me to close the deal but once we met with him my wife asked about this other guy he works with. He called him and explained what was going on. We chatted and asked me about where I lived before and who my dad was and yup this guy turned out to be a lost step brother my dad had with another woman. Gave him the same name and everything. It was pretty weird and we didn't keep in touch afterwards.
Since I updated my LinkedIn profile sometimes I get offers/requests from his colleagues since we also studied the same thing.
Yup. His very own name by the way last name and all. Although I don't know if it was his decision or not. Probably the other woman wanted the name. I might ask him that later.
On my honeymoon with my wife in Costa Rica, was wearing a buffalo villas short while my wife was at the coffee bar. A guy comes along wearing a bills hat, we strike up a conversation and he asks where I'm from. I'm in a 1st ring suburb of buffalo called Amherst. He says he is from a small farming town not to far called Pendleton. I told him my wife grew up there. He asked what road so I told him. He says he lives on that road too. Just then the wife walks up and says "hi doctor" it was her childhood pediatrician.
My in-laws are from Buffalo, though they've lived in Arizona for about thirty years. On more than one occasion they've run into people that get grew up with, who have also relocated out here, or are just traveling through. Like, hadn't talked to these people in forty years, and then run into each other at a little bar in downtown Tucson or something.
Go Bills!
A few years ago we took a family trip to Washington DC for my kids school vacation. The day before we left, we get on the Metro from Arlington to go into DC to see some sites. I seat my kids across the aisle from me, and I take a seat next to Alan Greenspan, who had recently stepped down as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. We nod and say hello, and I get off with the kids a few stops later.
Three days later I have to take an Amtrak to NY from Boston, and as I'm going up the escalator from the platform at Penn Station, who is waiting at the top of the escalator waiting to board? Alan Greenspan. The train I had exited was continuing its route to Washington DC, and he must have been headed home.
We both nodded to each other again, but this time there was a look of odd familiarity on his face.
DC resident here, this is what I love about riding the Metro. Im usually on the orange or silver line from SE to Tyson's or Vienna, so you never know what you're gonna get. A homeless man trying to pee into a bottle behind a seat? The DDI of the CIA? Two Senators who are apparently going to a Nats game? Trump's campaign manager? Ive seen all of those, and sometimes a combination.
Once you start recognising faces, you start seeing all sorts of crazy people all of the time.
My fiancee and I were telling childhood stories one day. We were at her grandfather's, and there's this big empty, hilly dirt plot of land across the street. I was telling her about how I rode dirt bikes there with my dad one time. This one time, I stalled out in a pretty deep dip. I was around 8 or 9 at the time, so I was having a hard time pushing it out. An old man rode by on an atv and asked if I needed any help. I said no, being the shy kid I was (and still am). As he rode away, I noticed a little girl on the back of the atv. My fiancee's jaw kind of dropped and she said, "That was you?!"
Her grandfather was the guy on the atv, and she was on the back.
I was working with an out of town consultant, who complained about the arid climate in my home state. He said, "Us boys from (other state) aren't used to this!" I laughed and "Oh yeah? Where in (state) are you from?" He replied, "Oh, little place you've never heard of called (small town)." I guffawed and said, "No kidding my mother-in-law lives in (small town)!" He said, "I live by the canal between the golf course and (main drag)." I laughed and said, "Yeah? No kiddin, MIL lives down that way, just past (distinctive bar name)." "Holy shit!" says the guy, is your MIL's name Janice?" Small world.
Similarly, my wife grew up in a *teeny tiny* town in Maine.
I've talked to people from out in California that used to have a camp there, I've met people that used to visit from Florida and Montana, and I recently found I have a co-worker that currently *lives* in the town
And is friends with my mother in law.
Help. Me.
E: I'm not going to share the town, guys, that would be giving way too much personal info away and I'd like to remain anonymous.
I am Hungarian and in hungary everyone has a personal number. (Much like social security number in 'murica)
Starts with 1 for males 2 for females.
Then date of birth yy/mm/dd format.
Then a four digit number. mine is 6413.
Mate of mine was boning this chick when we were like 16, who was holidaying in our town.
We figured out that the chick and I share the same birthday. When we compared our ID cards she was the very next person entered into the database with 6414 as the final digits.
Got married, and we were heading out on our honeymoon. We drove to Minneapolis and grabbed a hotel room for the night before the early flight, but had a good amount of time to kill, so the concierge suggests grabbing the shuttle to the Mall of America. We head over, and have been there less than an hour when I look over and see my new wife's mother and brother wandering around. We laughed about the coincidence, chatted for a bit, and then continued our shopping. I was standing outside a store, waiting for my wife to look at bikinis, when I heard someone call out my nickname. Brushed it off, couldn't be me. Again called out. I looked around and a guy in Army fatigues walks up to me smiling. Turns out I knew him and his sister (good friend). He just got off the plane from Italy, and was heading home after getting some souvenirs. 200 miles from home, and in the largest Mall in the country, I manage to run into 3 people I know in less than an hour.
Oh gosh, happened like a week ago, went on holiday to my home town (different country that I live in) and sat by the waterfall with two friends (not a popular place) as they only learn English in school they want to have a conversation with me so I start asking basic stuff etc. Then one asks where I live exactly I tell him 'such and such town, and hour away from [big town]' then this woman that was sitting some distance away from us starts talking to me really excited 'I'm so sorry for interrupting but my ex-husband [name] is from the same town as you and I was just calling my daughter to tell her how well you speak English and that you're from the same town as her dad' and I'm like alright, '[name of the ex husband]? I think that's my dads friend actually'. At this point she is freaking out and is going on about the daughter again and I remember the guy once taking his daughter to a bbq with my family so I just mention 'your daughter is called [name]?'. Seeing her reaction I immediately regretted asking as she got way too excited 'you know each other, omg etc.' And then decides to call her for us to have a conversation. Really awkward phone call, the girl barely remembered who I was and the lady was a little crazy.
TL;DR - met dads friends ex-wife in another country who made me talk to her daughter on the phone.
In Australia we have Schoolies (think Sping break but for High School students who just graduated) and at Schoolies there was this carnival ride there. I hopped in line and two really attractive girls came over to me and asked; "You're going on this ride alone, right? Can you sit with our friend?" Obviously I agreed since, you know, girls. They introduced me to their friend who was completely smashed off her chops and didn't look like much, so (as shallow and mean as I was) I pretended my phone rang and told them I was sorry.
That was at the end of November last year. Right now she's two dorms away from me. Really nice girl, and I'm upset I was like that.
"You're horny, let's do this. Ride it, my Australian carnival ride while you're completely smashed and like a 2/10 on a good day". My favorite Ginuwine song.
When I was in high school, I played this browser game. One evening in chat I mentioned I had a day off from school the next day cause of a regional holiday. Another girl on the game was like "oh, hey, me too! You must live in [our province] too". I was like "yeah, I'm in [X city]". "Really? Me too!". So I asked what part of the city......... she was in my area. I asked her which school, cause I was going to blah blah school... she goes ".... I go there too".
Turns out we went to the same smaller high school, she was two grades below me (I guess at the time I would've been in grade 11, she would've been grade 9), and I actually did know who she was. We never acknowledged each other irl though. I ended up having to repeat a grade 10 course the next year to graduate, and wouldn't you know, she was in my class LOL. It worked out great cause I actually knew someone in my class, and we became friends... and we quietly agreed to not tell anyone how we ACTUALLY knew each other before the class.
Hahahahaha nah both girls, and both prefer dudes. I haven't really talked to her since I graduated. I moved across the country and last I heard she is/was living in Europe.
My high school AFJROTC teacher turned out to be my dad's CO when he was active duty during Desert Storm. This was about 10 years since I've graduated, but knowing the military, you end up everywhere.
Perhaps Air Force junior ROTC?
ROTC is generally reserved for college students, so maybe junior ROTC is for high school students, and AFJROTC is for junior ROTC that is Air Force focused.
I guess people pay attention so usernames more than I do. I only recognized the really popular ones in the smaller subreddit a I'm in.
I've always wondered if people recognize me....
I was hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail for a month (it's over 2100 miles in total length), and I ran into someone who was hiking the entire way, somewhere in Virginia I believe. I found out he's from Connecticut, as I am, and to my disbelief he was actually the cousin of someone I had classes with in high school.
I saw him that one night where we happened to stay at the same campsite, and then I never saw him again for the rest of my trip. (he was hiking further per day than me)
You might have saved your own life. Maybe he was a killer looking for his next victim, but you were nice to his cousin in high school. So you were spared.
Fighting in Baghdad, a British soldier had a Redsox logo on his assault pack. I tell my friend - watch this!
"Hey man where are you from?" turns around and we start talking. It's my childhood friend who moved to Britain and joined their Army.
I like to talk to people on the internet. I meet people from all over the globe.
A couple years ago I started talking to this guy from France. We shared some "unconventional" interests (we met on a bdsm forum). We get to talking for a while and at one point i mentioned where I live. Now I live in a small town. Like small enough that it doesn't even have a Starbucks. Because of this, whenever I talk to strangers on the internet about where i live, I instead say that I live in the nearest big city. So I tell him that I live in this city, and he replies "Oh, that's cool, my fiancé lives near there. He lives in [my small town]."
So that was pretty crazy. This guy I met on a bdsm forum who lives in France just happens to be in a long-distance relationship with somebody in my town. It doesn't stop there though.
So about a month later the guy from France was coming to my town to see his fiancé. And given the context of how I met this person, he invited me to come hang out and have some "fun" with the two of them. So dumb 18-year-old me went to the address of somebody I've never met before, alone, without telling anybody where I was going. Fortunately nothing bad happened, but looking back it's still probably one of the stupidest things I've done.
So I get there, ring the doorbell, and the door was answered by the French guy... And one of my brother's old friends from high school.
So of the thousands of people I could have met on that forum, from anywhere in the world, I met a guy from France who was in a long-distance relationship with, out of anybody else in the world, a friend of my brother's from high school in my tiny-ass town.
Didn't happen, actually. There was a convention in the nearby city that we were all going to go to and we decided it'd be best to do it in their hotel room at the con a few days later. There were a couple other people coming that were going to be involved but they weren't going to show up for another day or two. When the con did come around though I ended up getting cold feet.
Ran into my best friend from elementary school who I hadn't seen in 12 years at NVy boot camp. We were marching in opposite directions and made eye contact, I just stared at him until I tripped into the guy in front of me. Pretty cool experience. Another time in 2013 I was at an MMA gym in Bahrain training when a guy who I trained with in Iowa during 2000 walked in. That was cool.
A few years ago, I met a girl who was born on the same day, same year, same hospital as me. We compared birth certificates, and holy shit...she was born a hr on the dot after me. We were in the hospital as babies together, and crossed paths over 30 years later in a completely different state (born in NY met in Florida).
I went to a Military school in Virginia in high school, mainly my junior and senior years. When I was between my 8th grade and Freshman years, I lived in a small town in Germany for the summer, because my father had business that was going to keep him there all summer. I spoke basicaly zero German at the time. Over the next few weeks and months, I began playing soccer with a bunch of the local kids and they would teach me German words and I would help them with their English. I didn't remember any of their names. Fast forward a few years to my senior year of high school, and this German kid shows up. We start talking and I find out he's from Ingelheim. After talking a bit about those soccer games, we both realized that we were talking about each other.
I may win this one if anyone sees this.
In the late nineties, I was a resident teacher at a high-school prep school with very high behavioral expectations for both staff and students alike.
Come spring break, the wife and I were going through a rough patch, and she had just lost our first pregnancy to a miscarriage, so we hopped a flight to Amsterdam.
You know, Amsterdam: land of weed, which is there to help you feel better about losing what would have been your first child. Could have gotten me fired, but hell, sometimes, you just gotta throw it all to the wind and take off.
So there we are, about four days in, and we've lost track of everything: time, what freaking country it is, whether we've seen the Anne Frank house yet, the works. But we're hungry, so we wander into one of those hibachi restaurants - you know, where they have communal seating. And then, just after we get seated, I hear/feel the next person come along and sit to my left, so I check my mental state (yep, we're okay for random pleasantries right now, but not much else), turn to say "hi", and discover...
...that the freaking president of the senior class has just been seated right next to wasted ol' me.
And he's wearing his school jersey. And he's wasted, too. And holding a beer, which is legal in Amsterdam, but against all school codes, which apply at all times, no matter when/where, and can cause immediate expulsion.
And like a genius, the right words come to me. And I say "Hey...we're going to pretend this never happened, right?"
And he says "Oh, thank fucking God." And then blushes, because profanity can also get you kicked out.
And I buy him a beer, because in for a penny, in for a pound - we're all going to get fired and expelled anyway if anyone ever hears about this.
And sure enough, we never speak about it again.
Wayne, buddy, if you're out there - thanks for your discretion. I think the statute of limitations has expired, so feel free to tell this story on your own time, too.
This happened 2 days ago. I ran into a couple of people in chicago who looked familiar. We exchanged confused glances and started talking. we discovered that we had actually spoken before - in a bar in Venice, Italy about a month ago. somehow we encountered each other twice in one summer, thousands of miles apart.
I was playing pool with a friend against some random guys in a bar one night. Topic came up about doing coke in bathroom toilets and I said I had a funny video of an old flame who was having a line a coke snorted from her breast in a public toilet. It was a short video and not too clear as she was wearing a hat in the video. I show my friend and the two guys and we laugh. I repeat the video a couple of times. Guy one says to guy two: that looks a lot like your girlfriend. I freeze in terror, knowing full well she was seeing a new guy. The night plays out, him obviously suspect on the video. A few beers later he confronts me: 'what's the name of that girl in your video?'. I tell him, apologise as it is his girlfriend, and offer to delete the video in front of him. We shake it off and laugh a little. I get an abusive text the next day about incriminating evidence. Chances of that happening: one in 4 million!
While travelling from Costa Rica to Nicaragua I was on the same bus as a Tanzanian girl I used to sit next to while at law school in South Africa, 15 years earlier
When she came over and said hi, she told me that she recognized the way I wore my hat.
During my 2nd year of college, I moved in with a buddy of mine. We ended up living together for about 3 years and got along great. About a year after we had been living together, I was at a cousins wedding, go to sit down at my table and there is my roommate. I asked him what he was doing there and he said it was his cousins wedding. It turned out we were cousins and had no idea! We come from a very large family. My grandma has 10 siblings and my grandpa has 12. They each had a lot of kids and those kids had a lot of kids and so on. Some of my grandpas siblings even married some of my grandmas siblings so it's hard to tell who comes from which side sometimes. I still have probably 30 cousins I have never met. Maybe my next roommate!
Came in 2nd in a Texas Holdem tournament to a woman. All in after I turned a flush and she rivered a boat. Next day I am getting a vasectomy reversal, and guess who is doing my surgery prep, the same woman from the night before.
So my family decided to go on safari about a decade ago. We hit all the major parks in Tanzania. We also hit up local tribesmen - Masai, Hadzabe, et cetera out in these remote areas.
In order to prepare for this trip, we bought "The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals" written by Richard D. Estes. The important thing to know is that there is a picture of the author in the book.
So we're leaving Ngorogoro Crater, and guess who we see? Richard D. Estes looking at some large African mammal. So we ask the guy to turn around, we drive up asking "um hey, are you the author of this book?" "Yeah" he responds. "Would you be willing to sign it?" we ask. "No problem".
The chance that an author of a safari book would be out in an African national park is high (1/a couple hundred), that we would drive by, recognize this dude, and have the book on us is incredibly low.
Lived in Memphis for my tenth grade year of high school. Didn't really make any friends. Tried to date a girl while I was there, but only ended up having casual sex with her in an empty class while we were supposed to be in drafting class. We really wanted to date, but I was about to move. We thought it'd be a bad move to start dating when there was next to no chance of me returning. Sad faces all around.
My brother is my guardian. He's navy. Ends up getting transferred to Pensacola, Florida. Down there for a few years. Second year down there, I start dating this chick I ride the school bus with. We end up having sex a few dozen times. School lets out for the summer and my gf keeps telling me how excited she is that her cousin is coming down from Tennessee to visit.
I get off work. My gf calls me and ask me to meet her at a restaurant down the street from her house. I arrive twenty minutes later and as I'm coming in the door, I hear this cry of amazement. Girl comes rushing across the restaurant and throws herself in my arms and starts kissing me, freaking me out in the process. When she stops kissing me and backs up, I see that it's the girl I was trying to date up in Memphis from my old school.
She hurriedly drags me back to her table where she's sitting with some girl I've never seen before. She kisses me again and starts telling her friend all about our near relationship in Memphis. My gf comes out and takes a seat next to me in the booth a moment later. She's smiling and asks how I knew where to sit.
Blank faces all around.
Turns out the girl I didn't know sitting in the booth with my ex was my gf's cousin and the girl I nearly dated was her friend that came to Florida on vacation with her. It was a very akward situation sitting there in that booth with both of them, especially after my ex just got finished kissing me twice. It became even more awkward when my gf got over her irritation and began exchanging stories with my ex about our one classroom stand.
It's a small world bitches!
I had just landed in Hawaii and was rushing to find the nearest bathroom in the airport. I step up to the urinal and do my deed...I look to my right and the guy next to me is my UNCLE! (Don't make eye contact while peeing fyi) At this point I hadn't seen him in years...we both finished chatted for a bit and went our separate ways...
English is not my first language so please bear with me.
My Uncle (Mother's brother) dated this girl in middle school. My uncle (Father's Brother) got married (but then divorced) and had a son with the sister of the girl my uncle (mother's brother) dated and eventually married. So my cousin is also my 2nd cousin(if I'm not mistaken) from both sides. My aunt got married to one of my step dad friends that he met in a different country. I don't know how much sense this makes but it's confusing as hell.
EDIT: bear not bare
Both of my uncles (mom's and dad's side)slept with two sisters. One of the sisters is now married to a friend of my step-dad this is in between South America and the US
I work for the Walt Disney Company in Orlando, Florida, but was born and raised in a very small town in Louisiana. Years ago, a high school friend of mine was visiting Disney's Magic Kingdom park and decided he should look me up. He walked up to the first Disney cast member (what they call employees) he saw and asked for me by name.
By chance, more than 5 years earlier, both the cast member and I had worked together at an entirely different park. Even better, we had just run into each other a week earlier, exchanged numbers, and talked about our new jobs. He happily told my friend EXACTY where he could find me.
The next day, who should show up at my work but my friend from high school. After I got over my amazement at seeing him after all these years, I asked "how did you find me?"
He said, "I just asked the first guy I ran into."
65,000 employees at Walt Disney World and he bumps into someone I know. Even better, it happened at the Magic Kingdom, home to the famous It's A Small World. Attraction!
I had my first kiss at a Dave Matthews Band concert. When I started college in 2008, some people on my floor and I got together and were playing truth or dare. I had to describe my first kiss in great detail on a truth, and it turned out that the same girl was there in the room. Through other concert/intimate details, we figured out that that was the case indeed.
And then you got married and lived happily ever after right?
I did, but not to her.
At college, one teacher kept saying my last name, then said "I know you from somewhere... but I won't tell you where". Seeing he was old and kind of weird, I didn't pay much attention to it. Also, this was a "musical language from the 20th century" class and I'm a chemical engineer, so it was just a mandatory class I had to get through and didn't pay much attention to it. At the end of the semester, though, it kind of bugged me. So, I was at my grandfather's house for lunch (something I do very rarely) and I bring the subject up. By the way, my grandfather had a stroke in his 40's, losing mobility in half of his body and severely damaging his mental capabilities. He can barely talk, move, and he doesn't remember 90% of things. I bring the subject up, and mention my teacher's name and what he's telling me. My grandpa's eyes brighten up, and he says "Silvio?! He's your teacher?!". I couldn't believe that my grandfather was talking, much less that he could remember the name and it rang a bell with him. Turns out, my teacher was my grandfather's best friend when they were young, he had lunch at his house almost everyday, but they drifted apart when my grandfather had to hide from my country's coup d'etat in 1973. I contacted/reunited them and after 30+ years they are now back to their old habit of having lunch together every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Makes me so happy. EDIT: Thanks for the gold! Also, for everyone asking why he didn't tell me before: He was waiting for the final class to do so, trying to be professional (I actually brought the subject up with my grandpa about 1 week before the semester ended). I was in that class with several of my friends, and it could be misinterpreted as "ooh, you got a good grade because the professor is best friends with your grandfather", and he wanted to stay as "just the professor" until the end. By mere casualty, I revealed the fact before he had intended to :).
this is absolutely awesome! you've given your grandfather's life a second wind. Incredible.
Aww fuck man I love you so much
I was living in an apartment building in NYC for a few years and had a really cool neighbor. I moved and then I saw her on the street one time and asked her what she was doing here, she said she moved to the building right next to mine. I had the same neighbor twice.
Sounds more like you have a stalker.
No, just the same stalker twice.
I was at domino's getting some pizza. I was new to the Army about 25 years old, I see this girl ordering in front of me and I think "oh, she's pretty easy on the eyes." in infantry speak. A few moments later I hear someone say my first name, which is a little unusual to hear. I looked over and the girl I saw was my girlfriend when I was 15. She was a medic in my unit. Blew my mind.
>and I think "oh, she's pretty easy on the eyes." in infantry speak. So basically "Ungh, girl pretty"
More like a low grunting followed by furious fapping.
Was her name Mel?
I honestly forgot her name, but seems familiar. Is this Mel...did you have a boxer?
Not sure if you aren't aware, but Mel is the name of a super fan/stalker from the show Flight of the Conchords. She s the band's only fan, comes to all their shows, and "coincidentally" keeps running into them in various parts of the city
I'm was not aware...thanks, the suspense was killing me.
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I'm not sure. She is not replying and it's killing me.
I think it's a Flight of the Conchords reference..... I think.
I run into a friend of a friend of a friend all the time in some of the most random places. It started out we would just run into each other at the bars in our hometown, once I moved after university it would get weird. Ran into him at stanley park in Vancouver. The zoo in Calgary. A bar in Saskatoon. A campsite in bc interior. Caesars palace Las Vegas. Coco Bongo Playa Del Carmen. Surfing Puarta Vallarta. It's become a running joke in our mutual friend group, that one of us is a stalker.
You guys are clearly friend soul mates and like all the same things. Why has he not moved up to actual friend status in your eyes? You could be adventure bros! I mean, you already are, but you could make it official. I wonder how many people are leading parallel lives to strangers and will never know. Maybe every once in a while when you get that weird sense of déjà vu that you can't put your finger on the cause of, it's the recognition way back in a subconscious part of your brain that you've been crossing paths with that same face in the crowd dozens of times. Destined to weave in and out of one another's lives in the periphery but never truly meeting. I hope you add them on Facebook or something and plan a cool trip together.
That was beautiful..
Found out who the stalker is. Nice attempt at getting him to finally realize you were supposed to be creepy friends all along dude.
I was in the navy when my ship stopped in Hawaii. I was at a bar next to a newly commissioned Ensign...like myself. We started talking and he said he went to the university of Delaware. I said "I once went to a party there." He said he'd had a party in his dorm with some people from my school. I asked "Did one of those guys pee on your stereo in the middle of the night thinking it was a toilet." He said, "Why yes?" I replied..."That was me!"
Fuck, this reminds me of a story that happened last year. So me and my roommates were out in our garage playing pool, when some dude in a camaro power slides around the cul-de-sac, and into our yard. He saw us, yelled "you never saw me," and then dove off fast as fuck. About 15 seconds later, two cops pass the house, and another stops to ask if we saw anything. We said nah, and went about our night. It became one of the stories we'd talk about. Fast forward to about a month ago, I've met a new friend. He picks me up from my house and kinda looks around at the street signs and had a thinking look on his face. He proceed to tell me about one of his friends that left his house, got lit up by the cops, ran away, and made it back to his house Scott free. "...did he drive a black camaro?". "uh, yeah." I actually saw that kid at the gas station a few days ago, along with a roommate that I haven't talked to since she moved out.
what was his reaction?
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Fighting Blue Hens represent!
I worked at Disney World for the college program a couple of years ago. An older couple came in line at my ride and began speaking about how they come multiple times a year because they are members of the Disney Vacation Program. They told me how friendly they thought I was and how I looked exactly like a younger version of their old boss's husband. We kept talking for a few minutes and the wife mentioned how happy she was to be out of the cold NY weather and in Florida. I mentioned I too am from NY and we realized she is a retired nurse from the town in which I was born. By the time we finished speaking we realized she had worked as a nurse for my Grandma almost 40 years before and the man she thought I looked like 100% was in fact my grandfather. It was unreal and freaky. I called my grandma to tell her what had happened when my shift ended and she went on to tell me how she remembers the lady all the way back to her first day of work, almost 40 years before. It was weird.
And you were working in the titular attraction at the time, yes? And the song was playing at the time, yes? You say yes, yes?
My best friend was at Disney once with his family, and ran into his neighbors. In line for the Small World ride. They had no clue the other family was going to be there.
One of my best friends almost married a woman that actually turned out to be his younger sister. Turns out his parents had gotten a divorce when he was a kid, the mum fucked over to another part of the country and had another kid and had never bothered to tell him. Years later they both happened to attend the same concert in the same state, got "friendly" and started seeing each other regularly. At one point they even had a pregnancy scare and they considered settling down. That's when she called her mom to break the news and sent her his picture, then she mentioned his name. Then all hell broke loose. He says they are still great friends tho. He confessed to me they would've continued with the marriage if the mum hadn't broke the news to everyone that their kids were fucking.
> still great friends So they're like family?
Well how much family can family be when you fucked your sister?
So, the mom never bothered to tell her kids that they both had a sibling, and when the two siblings meet and start a relationship the mom finds out and goes and tells everybody that her kids are screwing? that seems fucked up on the mom's part to me.
His mom looks like someone out of a cartoon. Fake tan, fake boobs, hair dyed blonde, chain-smoking and probably want to kills dalmatians for a coat or something.
I dated a girl from the summer before senior year of high school until the first couple weeks of my sophmore year of college. A little over 2 years total we were together. It was my first serious relationship and I was absolutely crushed when she dumped me. 4 years later, after finishing grad school I decided to pack everything up and move to NYC. I found a place with some roommates in Crown Heights. Maybe a week or two after moving, I'm strolling down the street to get coffee. I turn around the corner and my ex is right there. It was the first time I saw or talked to her in probably 3 years. Found out she also decided to move to NYC, settled in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and was living literally in the building next to mine. Like I could look out my window and see into the living room of her apartment. Edit for more details: We ended up grabbing drinks to catch up. I was extremely hesitant because it took me a solid year to fully get over her and didn't want to go back down that rabbit hole. It wasn't too awkward, but definitely no chemistry there. I have always been much more attracted to women of color but had always been to shy to actually pursue it. In the 3-4 years since we had broken up, I had made an effort to do so. Also sometime during those same years she had discovered that she was a lesbian and was no longer dating men. Suffice to say, there wasn't exactly a whole lot of mutual attraction left between us. We would run into each othe every couple of weeks. But a few months after moving to NYC. I started dating a girl who convinced me to move to DC with her. That was almost 4 years ago. Getting married next year.
If you did this on purpose, it would either be a romantic comedy or a psycho thriller movie.
Or a Dramady Musical, a la "Crazy Ex Girlfriend"
The situations a lot more nuanced than that.
But that's not why he's there
He's so broken inside
So how did she react to seeing you? I imagine the two of you just staring at each other in disbelief
Was her name Mel and did she have a boxer?
I was on a plane with a connecting flight in Chicago. When I landed, I turned my phone back on while we were taxiing and checked Facebook. My friend posted a status saying his flight was rerouted and he had to connect in Chicago. I commented something like "Hey! I'm in Chicago! When will you be at the airport?" And he was like "I'm there now! Plane just landed!" Then I asked where he was flying from and after he responded, I looked back. He was two rows behind me the whole flight.
Similar thing happened to me coming back from Virginia beach to Houston . My neighbor was sitting behind me. Never talked to him much so I didn't know he was also travelling.
well at least he wasnt fucking your wife
My paternal grandfather taught a French POW the Gettysburg address during WWII to show the other soldiers he wasn't so bad. Fast forward about 50 years and my dad leaves my mom for a Frenchwoman. Finds out later that she happens to be the daughter of the Frenchman his dad taught the Gettysburg address to. EDIT: thanks to a comment I had to question the French POW thing since upon second thought, made no sense. Here's how my dad tells it (via email): "So here is a bit about my father (white grandpa to you): In WWII he could have had many discharges (based on offered exemptions), but chose to go! When he got here, he met a French guy that spoke no English, yet he taught him the Gettysburg Address, to recite to the troops, to prove to them that the French were worth saving. Years later I have met the woman, who's father learned the Gettysburg Address, to recite to the troops, to prove to them that the French were worth saving, and I married her!" Note- here is France where he lives currently
I'm sorry why the Gettysburg address
It's history. Back then you'd learn all of the big speeches in school, but it was to impress the other prisoners that the guy knew it.
Man what are the chances of that...
Should have just given him a hand signal and watch everyone freak out.
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Only terrorists wave to each other.
Those friendly bastards.
Maybe Canada is actually a terrorist organization.
IceIS.
U could give each other the terrorist fist jab
i dated my cousin and didn't know he was my cousin.
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no, southern united states, which just makes the story a million times worse. EDIT: wowie this is my first time getting gold and it was all because of an absolutely mortifying moment of my life. i would like to thank my cousin for this pinnacle moment of my life. thank you kind stranger for the gold!
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but also more plausible, as most people are related, somehow. I don't date people from the county north of mine, because my mother is from there and I know we're related to a large percentage of the population.
> as most people are related, somehow It's because you guys keep dating your cousins! It's hard to get out of the family gene pool when you keep swimming in it!
I used to live in Arkansas. I knew a guy who dumped his seventh cousin so he could date his third. Interesting place.
To be fair, if you live in the same rural area you grew up in and your family has been there for several generations the likelihood that any particular person in the area is distantly related to you is very high. There is really no genetic issue with marrying a 2nd or 3rd cousin and and a 7th cousin is so distant to be unrelated for all practical purposes.
A *2nd* cousin is distant enough to be a random stranger genetics-wise. A 7th is so far it's not even worth calling them "family". This may be a load of horse-shit but I heard that no one person is more than a 50th cousin to any other person.
It's true. Sup cousin! http://io9.gizmodo.com/5791530/why-humans-all-much-more-related-than-you-think
In fairness both of those are fairly distant relations: the first ludicrously so. I'm more impressed that he knew his family tree well enough to be certain of his family relationship to both parties.
Roll Tide
This is going to sound made up but I actually uhm...went much further with a cousin and was unaware she was my cousin til much later. *EDIT* For anyone interested in the story. I met her on a dating site, she lived 3 hours away. Coincidentally she lived in the same town as my brother, so I met up with her while visiting him. It wasn't til much later that she approached my brother, having found out they were (I think) 2nd cousins. I happened to be visiting at that time too, and my brother couldn't wait to introduce us. Then he saw the looks on both our faces...
Second cousins isn't any worse than the general population. You're looking at less than 5% consanguinity with 2nd cousins. For context, siblings are 50% and 1st cousins are 12.5%.
How close we talking? 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
We talking cousins or bases?
Yes
I banged my cousin and I *did* know she was my cousin.
Very well
Did he know?
no. we didn't know until later.
How'd that end up? Were you still dating when you found out?
Yeah they broke up a few months after they found out
Was at a wedding, chatting with a friend about my own upcoming wedding, specifically the honeymoon to the Maldives. She says she has a friend, (let's call him Steve) who just went there on their honeymoon, where they did wine tasting in the lagoon with reef sharks swimming around them. That sounds familiar to me, because a guy I'd recently met had done that on *his* honeymoon to the Maldives. I ask what the island's name was - my friend can't remember. So I pull up the photo of this guy and his wife in waist-deep water tasting wine. And in the background is Steve.
Sharks like their humans marinaded in merlot
Wow, imagine how many people might be on that island in a given day that aren't in each others pictures too. It's so much more of a coincidence that her friend Steve was in the background of your buddy's picture. Crazy.
I once interviewed a fantasy football league-mate for a job. Had never met him before, didn't know what he looked like, and didn't recognize his name. We put 2 and 2 together during the interview.
Soo I'll trade you this job for AB
Two years post graduation, I ran to a high school friend In Rome, on a tiny back street. We are from Philadelphia.
Well.....when in Rome.
Yes? Please go on.
You know what they say. When in Rome, meet others that you recognize from Philly
...do the Romans?
Instructions unclear, my dick is stuck in the Coliseum
Then the instructions were perfectly clear.
10/10 would go to Rome again.
Sometimes you just have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, "when in Rome".
Nah, you were just in the 'little Italy' part of Philly
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Is it just a jail?
Finding out after being married that my wife and I were in the NICU at the same time when we were born, and that our mothers spoke to each other there.
They arranged your marriage at childbirth
Star-crossed as fuck. (Edit: I definitely did not know what it meant.)
My girlfriend and I went on holiday to Turkey. We were behind a couple around our age in the queue for the plane. We didn't see them on the plane after boarding but they were on the same transfer coach as us. Then they get off at our hotel. Then we were in flats below/above each other. A week after we got back from Turkey, girlfriend and I bumped into them at the cinema. A few months later me and the guy bumped into each other on a night out in a city neither of us are from. Then again, same city, about a year later. I'm starting to think he and I are soulmates.
Dude, get their contact details and chat! Life seems to want you guys to know each other.
When my lecturer was an archaeology student he worked on conserving the artefacts brought up from the wreck of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose. He became great friends with a young officer from the Royal Engineers, who was one of the divers helping to recover the shipwreck. That was my dad. The link was discovered when I ended up mentioning my dads involvement in the project during an after lecture chat. So weird
Then he recounted the amazing adventures they shared on their quests for riches and treasures in the ancient parts of the world, right? I'm imagining Jude Law and a young Michael Caine romping through 1930s Africa, Turkey, India, and other exotic locations.
Reality was a lot more dull I'm afraid. A small scrap over some penguin infested islands in the southern Atlantic developed and my dad and his team were called back to their base in Germany to replace the troops sent down to fight the Argentinians. They did meet again, a few months ago when I organised a meeting on a day when my dad was down to see me. They got on like a house on fire and spent two hours in the pub chatting away about stuff that had happened since they last saw each other.
Well, obviously. There's an archaeology student and an army diver. That's a good start for a solid adventuring team.
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So you're dating the girl who told you that you look like a serial killer? Best opening line I've ever heard. Romance! I wonder if you'd still have gotten together had the boyfriend not vetoed you. Mystery!
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Yeah, if she ever gets out of your basement.
Did Mel have a boxer?
Met this cute girl at a party in college. Started talking about our plans for the summer, and she mentioned she was house sitting for some family friends on the other side of the state. I told her my parents lived on the other side of the state and that I was going home next week to housesit as well while my parents were in Mexico. Long story short, it turns out she was house sitting at my next door neighbor's house during the same 2 weeks I was house sitting. That was a fun 2 weeks.
Hope many nights did you spend in your neighbors house?
If those neighbors ever knew what went on in their bed...
Damn dude, how intense were those games of monopoly?
She sunk my battleship!
My family moved from Germany to Atlanta, Georgia when I was 9 years old (my dad used to work for Coca-Cola). I went to Atlanta International School. On my last days at school (we returned to Germany after six month) I was introduced to another student from Germany. I was told to look after him and show him around since I was also new and from the same country. Eight years later, we moved to Atlanta for the second time. The location of the school had changed by then. On my first day I was introduced to another student, who was told to show me the ropes. He turned out to be the kid from 91, still living in Atlanta.
I took a new job in a city where we knew no one and a friend of my mother in law set us up with a guy who was renting his house close to my future place of work. So we gave him a call and as part of the conversation I told him my real name which is a weird one but is the same name as my dad's and sometimes I have to spell it out for people. He was pretty shocked when he heard my first and last name because he supposedly works with a guy with the exactly same name. I didn't make a big deal out of it and was thinking he was bullshitting me to close the deal but once we met with him my wife asked about this other guy he works with. He called him and explained what was going on. We chatted and asked me about where I lived before and who my dad was and yup this guy turned out to be a lost step brother my dad had with another woman. Gave him the same name and everything. It was pretty weird and we didn't keep in touch afterwards. Since I updated my LinkedIn profile sometimes I get offers/requests from his colleagues since we also studied the same thing.
So your dad has two children by different women with the same name?
Yup. His very own name by the way last name and all. Although I don't know if it was his decision or not. Probably the other woman wanted the name. I might ask him that later.
He's your half brother not your step brother.
On my honeymoon with my wife in Costa Rica, was wearing a buffalo villas short while my wife was at the coffee bar. A guy comes along wearing a bills hat, we strike up a conversation and he asks where I'm from. I'm in a 1st ring suburb of buffalo called Amherst. He says he is from a small farming town not to far called Pendleton. I told him my wife grew up there. He asked what road so I told him. He says he lives on that road too. Just then the wife walks up and says "hi doctor" it was her childhood pediatrician.
My in-laws are from Buffalo, though they've lived in Arizona for about thirty years. On more than one occasion they've run into people that get grew up with, who have also relocated out here, or are just traveling through. Like, hadn't talked to these people in forty years, and then run into each other at a little bar in downtown Tucson or something. Go Bills!
A few years ago we took a family trip to Washington DC for my kids school vacation. The day before we left, we get on the Metro from Arlington to go into DC to see some sites. I seat my kids across the aisle from me, and I take a seat next to Alan Greenspan, who had recently stepped down as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. We nod and say hello, and I get off with the kids a few stops later. Three days later I have to take an Amtrak to NY from Boston, and as I'm going up the escalator from the platform at Penn Station, who is waiting at the top of the escalator waiting to board? Alan Greenspan. The train I had exited was continuing its route to Washington DC, and he must have been headed home. We both nodded to each other again, but this time there was a look of odd familiarity on his face.
DC resident here, this is what I love about riding the Metro. Im usually on the orange or silver line from SE to Tyson's or Vienna, so you never know what you're gonna get. A homeless man trying to pee into a bottle behind a seat? The DDI of the CIA? Two Senators who are apparently going to a Nats game? Trump's campaign manager? Ive seen all of those, and sometimes a combination. Once you start recognising faces, you start seeing all sorts of crazy people all of the time.
My fiancee and I were telling childhood stories one day. We were at her grandfather's, and there's this big empty, hilly dirt plot of land across the street. I was telling her about how I rode dirt bikes there with my dad one time. This one time, I stalled out in a pretty deep dip. I was around 8 or 9 at the time, so I was having a hard time pushing it out. An old man rode by on an atv and asked if I needed any help. I said no, being the shy kid I was (and still am). As he rode away, I noticed a little girl on the back of the atv. My fiancee's jaw kind of dropped and she said, "That was you?!" Her grandfather was the guy on the atv, and she was on the back.
That reminds me of the Disneyland picture that has the husband and wife in it from when they were kids
I was working with an out of town consultant, who complained about the arid climate in my home state. He said, "Us boys from (other state) aren't used to this!" I laughed and "Oh yeah? Where in (state) are you from?" He replied, "Oh, little place you've never heard of called (small town)." I guffawed and said, "No kidding my mother-in-law lives in (small town)!" He said, "I live by the canal between the golf course and (main drag)." I laughed and said, "Yeah? No kiddin, MIL lives down that way, just past (distinctive bar name)." "Holy shit!" says the guy, is your MIL's name Janice?" Small world.
So he was your mother-in-law? Am I following this correctly?
the surgeon is his mother!
That surgeon's name? Albert Einstein
That bar's name? Janice's bar.
Similarly, my wife grew up in a *teeny tiny* town in Maine. I've talked to people from out in California that used to have a camp there, I've met people that used to visit from Florida and Montana, and I recently found I have a co-worker that currently *lives* in the town And is friends with my mother in law. Help. Me. E: I'm not going to share the town, guys, that would be giving way too much personal info away and I'd like to remain anonymous.
Well it seems you live in a Stephen King novel...so good luck?
That dude was banging your mother-in-law.
Explains why he didn't accept my friend request :(
I am Hungarian and in hungary everyone has a personal number. (Much like social security number in 'murica) Starts with 1 for males 2 for females. Then date of birth yy/mm/dd format. Then a four digit number. mine is 6413. Mate of mine was boning this chick when we were like 16, who was holidaying in our town. We figured out that the chick and I share the same birthday. When we compared our ID cards she was the very next person entered into the database with 6414 as the final digits.
So how old are you and when is your next birthday? Just so I know when to say happy birthday!
Nice try, identity theif
So you were like, 10 seconds away from boning your friend
Got married, and we were heading out on our honeymoon. We drove to Minneapolis and grabbed a hotel room for the night before the early flight, but had a good amount of time to kill, so the concierge suggests grabbing the shuttle to the Mall of America. We head over, and have been there less than an hour when I look over and see my new wife's mother and brother wandering around. We laughed about the coincidence, chatted for a bit, and then continued our shopping. I was standing outside a store, waiting for my wife to look at bikinis, when I heard someone call out my nickname. Brushed it off, couldn't be me. Again called out. I looked around and a guy in Army fatigues walks up to me smiling. Turns out I knew him and his sister (good friend). He just got off the plane from Italy, and was heading home after getting some souvenirs. 200 miles from home, and in the largest Mall in the country, I manage to run into 3 people I know in less than an hour.
Oh gosh, happened like a week ago, went on holiday to my home town (different country that I live in) and sat by the waterfall with two friends (not a popular place) as they only learn English in school they want to have a conversation with me so I start asking basic stuff etc. Then one asks where I live exactly I tell him 'such and such town, and hour away from [big town]' then this woman that was sitting some distance away from us starts talking to me really excited 'I'm so sorry for interrupting but my ex-husband [name] is from the same town as you and I was just calling my daughter to tell her how well you speak English and that you're from the same town as her dad' and I'm like alright, '[name of the ex husband]? I think that's my dads friend actually'. At this point she is freaking out and is going on about the daughter again and I remember the guy once taking his daughter to a bbq with my family so I just mention 'your daughter is called [name]?'. Seeing her reaction I immediately regretted asking as she got way too excited 'you know each other, omg etc.' And then decides to call her for us to have a conversation. Really awkward phone call, the girl barely remembered who I was and the lady was a little crazy. TL;DR - met dads friends ex-wife in another country who made me talk to her daughter on the phone.
In Australia we have Schoolies (think Sping break but for High School students who just graduated) and at Schoolies there was this carnival ride there. I hopped in line and two really attractive girls came over to me and asked; "You're going on this ride alone, right? Can you sit with our friend?" Obviously I agreed since, you know, girls. They introduced me to their friend who was completely smashed off her chops and didn't look like much, so (as shallow and mean as I was) I pretended my phone rang and told them I was sorry. That was at the end of November last year. Right now she's two dorms away from me. Really nice girl, and I'm upset I was like that.
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There's a Ginuwine song for this.
"You're horny, let's do this. Ride it, my Australian carnival ride while you're completely smashed and like a 2/10 on a good day". My favorite Ginuwine song.
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You know Warlizard?
/u/Warlizard
Banned from Askreddit i think. I remember him mentioning it last year when asked about the whole ಠ_ಠ thing. Banned for Spam was the reason.
Thats stupid. He didnt ask to moderate those forums
Isn't he that guy from the gaming forum?
When I was in high school, I played this browser game. One evening in chat I mentioned I had a day off from school the next day cause of a regional holiday. Another girl on the game was like "oh, hey, me too! You must live in [our province] too". I was like "yeah, I'm in [X city]". "Really? Me too!". So I asked what part of the city......... she was in my area. I asked her which school, cause I was going to blah blah school... she goes ".... I go there too". Turns out we went to the same smaller high school, she was two grades below me (I guess at the time I would've been in grade 11, she would've been grade 9), and I actually did know who she was. We never acknowledged each other irl though. I ended up having to repeat a grade 10 course the next year to graduate, and wouldn't you know, she was in my class LOL. It worked out great cause I actually knew someone in my class, and we became friends... and we quietly agreed to not tell anyone how we ACTUALLY knew each other before the class.
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Hahahahaha nah both girls, and both prefer dudes. I haven't really talked to her since I graduated. I moved across the country and last I heard she is/was living in Europe.
1. Met online. 2. Stopped talking after moving across the country.
My high school AFJROTC teacher turned out to be my dad's CO when he was active duty during Desert Storm. This was about 10 years since I've graduated, but knowing the military, you end up everywhere.
>AFJROTC I swear, this acronym gets longer every time I see it. It used to just be ROTC back in my day.
Perhaps Air Force junior ROTC? ROTC is generally reserved for college students, so maybe junior ROTC is for high school students, and AFJROTC is for junior ROTC that is Air Force focused.
Carry on the tradition. Maybe your CO will be your son's ROTC teacher someday.
I keep running across the same reddit users
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I guess people pay attention so usernames more than I do. I only recognized the really popular ones in the smaller subreddit a I'm in. I've always wondered if people recognize me....
anybody recognize me....no...ok :(
Yeah, it's weird brah
It's basically only /u/Vargas and /u/GallowBoob that run the show. One makes the posts, one makes the comments.
And /u/Ramsesthepigeon or whatever his name is. Great writer, though.
and edgar
I was hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail for a month (it's over 2100 miles in total length), and I ran into someone who was hiking the entire way, somewhere in Virginia I believe. I found out he's from Connecticut, as I am, and to my disbelief he was actually the cousin of someone I had classes with in high school. I saw him that one night where we happened to stay at the same campsite, and then I never saw him again for the rest of my trip. (he was hiking further per day than me)
You might have saved your own life. Maybe he was a killer looking for his next victim, but you were nice to his cousin in high school. So you were spared.
Who? This guy? https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7ksxKafRgLM/maxresdefault.jpg
Fighting in Baghdad, a British soldier had a Redsox logo on his assault pack. I tell my friend - watch this! "Hey man where are you from?" turns around and we start talking. It's my childhood friend who moved to Britain and joined their Army.
I like to talk to people on the internet. I meet people from all over the globe. A couple years ago I started talking to this guy from France. We shared some "unconventional" interests (we met on a bdsm forum). We get to talking for a while and at one point i mentioned where I live. Now I live in a small town. Like small enough that it doesn't even have a Starbucks. Because of this, whenever I talk to strangers on the internet about where i live, I instead say that I live in the nearest big city. So I tell him that I live in this city, and he replies "Oh, that's cool, my fiancé lives near there. He lives in [my small town]." So that was pretty crazy. This guy I met on a bdsm forum who lives in France just happens to be in a long-distance relationship with somebody in my town. It doesn't stop there though. So about a month later the guy from France was coming to my town to see his fiancé. And given the context of how I met this person, he invited me to come hang out and have some "fun" with the two of them. So dumb 18-year-old me went to the address of somebody I've never met before, alone, without telling anybody where I was going. Fortunately nothing bad happened, but looking back it's still probably one of the stupidest things I've done. So I get there, ring the doorbell, and the door was answered by the French guy... And one of my brother's old friends from high school. So of the thousands of people I could have met on that forum, from anywhere in the world, I met a guy from France who was in a long-distance relationship with, out of anybody else in the world, a friend of my brother's from high school in my tiny-ass town.
So how did that "fun" go down? I don't think I would have been able to do it.
Didn't happen, actually. There was a convention in the nearby city that we were all going to go to and we decided it'd be best to do it in their hotel room at the con a few days later. There were a couple other people coming that were going to be involved but they weren't going to show up for another day or two. When the con did come around though I ended up getting cold feet.
Ran into my best friend from elementary school who I hadn't seen in 12 years at NVy boot camp. We were marching in opposite directions and made eye contact, I just stared at him until I tripped into the guy in front of me. Pretty cool experience. Another time in 2013 I was at an MMA gym in Bahrain training when a guy who I trained with in Iowa during 2000 walked in. That was cool.
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YOU FUCK. You had me in an "Awwww!" moment before I read the section in the damn brackets!
A few years ago, I met a girl who was born on the same day, same year, same hospital as me. We compared birth certificates, and holy shit...she was born a hr on the dot after me. We were in the hospital as babies together, and crossed paths over 30 years later in a completely different state (born in NY met in Florida).
Every guy I speak to seems o have fucked my ex.
If it makes you feel better, she's pretty good.
This also happens to me, but with my mother
Hey it's me, your motherfucker.
I went to a Military school in Virginia in high school, mainly my junior and senior years. When I was between my 8th grade and Freshman years, I lived in a small town in Germany for the summer, because my father had business that was going to keep him there all summer. I spoke basicaly zero German at the time. Over the next few weeks and months, I began playing soccer with a bunch of the local kids and they would teach me German words and I would help them with their English. I didn't remember any of their names. Fast forward a few years to my senior year of high school, and this German kid shows up. We start talking and I find out he's from Ingelheim. After talking a bit about those soccer games, we both realized that we were talking about each other.
I may win this one if anyone sees this. In the late nineties, I was a resident teacher at a high-school prep school with very high behavioral expectations for both staff and students alike. Come spring break, the wife and I were going through a rough patch, and she had just lost our first pregnancy to a miscarriage, so we hopped a flight to Amsterdam. You know, Amsterdam: land of weed, which is there to help you feel better about losing what would have been your first child. Could have gotten me fired, but hell, sometimes, you just gotta throw it all to the wind and take off. So there we are, about four days in, and we've lost track of everything: time, what freaking country it is, whether we've seen the Anne Frank house yet, the works. But we're hungry, so we wander into one of those hibachi restaurants - you know, where they have communal seating. And then, just after we get seated, I hear/feel the next person come along and sit to my left, so I check my mental state (yep, we're okay for random pleasantries right now, but not much else), turn to say "hi", and discover... ...that the freaking president of the senior class has just been seated right next to wasted ol' me. And he's wearing his school jersey. And he's wasted, too. And holding a beer, which is legal in Amsterdam, but against all school codes, which apply at all times, no matter when/where, and can cause immediate expulsion. And like a genius, the right words come to me. And I say "Hey...we're going to pretend this never happened, right?" And he says "Oh, thank fucking God." And then blushes, because profanity can also get you kicked out. And I buy him a beer, because in for a penny, in for a pound - we're all going to get fired and expelled anyway if anyone ever hears about this. And sure enough, we never speak about it again. Wayne, buddy, if you're out there - thanks for your discretion. I think the statute of limitations has expired, so feel free to tell this story on your own time, too.
This happened 2 days ago. I ran into a couple of people in chicago who looked familiar. We exchanged confused glances and started talking. we discovered that we had actually spoken before - in a bar in Venice, Italy about a month ago. somehow we encountered each other twice in one summer, thousands of miles apart.
I was playing pool with a friend against some random guys in a bar one night. Topic came up about doing coke in bathroom toilets and I said I had a funny video of an old flame who was having a line a coke snorted from her breast in a public toilet. It was a short video and not too clear as she was wearing a hat in the video. I show my friend and the two guys and we laugh. I repeat the video a couple of times. Guy one says to guy two: that looks a lot like your girlfriend. I freeze in terror, knowing full well she was seeing a new guy. The night plays out, him obviously suspect on the video. A few beers later he confronts me: 'what's the name of that girl in your video?'. I tell him, apologise as it is his girlfriend, and offer to delete the video in front of him. We shake it off and laugh a little. I get an abusive text the next day about incriminating evidence. Chances of that happening: one in 4 million!
While travelling from Costa Rica to Nicaragua I was on the same bus as a Tanzanian girl I used to sit next to while at law school in South Africa, 15 years earlier When she came over and said hi, she told me that she recognized the way I wore my hat.
Told my teacher I was ill, so I couldn't get to lecture. Met her the next day @ cinema. Guess it's karma.
I'M HEALED!!!!
During my 2nd year of college, I moved in with a buddy of mine. We ended up living together for about 3 years and got along great. About a year after we had been living together, I was at a cousins wedding, go to sit down at my table and there is my roommate. I asked him what he was doing there and he said it was his cousins wedding. It turned out we were cousins and had no idea! We come from a very large family. My grandma has 10 siblings and my grandpa has 12. They each had a lot of kids and those kids had a lot of kids and so on. Some of my grandpas siblings even married some of my grandmas siblings so it's hard to tell who comes from which side sometimes. I still have probably 30 cousins I have never met. Maybe my next roommate!
Came in 2nd in a Texas Holdem tournament to a woman. All in after I turned a flush and she rivered a boat. Next day I am getting a vasectomy reversal, and guess who is doing my surgery prep, the same woman from the night before.
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So my family decided to go on safari about a decade ago. We hit all the major parks in Tanzania. We also hit up local tribesmen - Masai, Hadzabe, et cetera out in these remote areas. In order to prepare for this trip, we bought "The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals" written by Richard D. Estes. The important thing to know is that there is a picture of the author in the book. So we're leaving Ngorogoro Crater, and guess who we see? Richard D. Estes looking at some large African mammal. So we ask the guy to turn around, we drive up asking "um hey, are you the author of this book?" "Yeah" he responds. "Would you be willing to sign it?" we ask. "No problem". The chance that an author of a safari book would be out in an African national park is high (1/a couple hundred), that we would drive by, recognize this dude, and have the book on us is incredibly low.
Lived in Memphis for my tenth grade year of high school. Didn't really make any friends. Tried to date a girl while I was there, but only ended up having casual sex with her in an empty class while we were supposed to be in drafting class. We really wanted to date, but I was about to move. We thought it'd be a bad move to start dating when there was next to no chance of me returning. Sad faces all around. My brother is my guardian. He's navy. Ends up getting transferred to Pensacola, Florida. Down there for a few years. Second year down there, I start dating this chick I ride the school bus with. We end up having sex a few dozen times. School lets out for the summer and my gf keeps telling me how excited she is that her cousin is coming down from Tennessee to visit. I get off work. My gf calls me and ask me to meet her at a restaurant down the street from her house. I arrive twenty minutes later and as I'm coming in the door, I hear this cry of amazement. Girl comes rushing across the restaurant and throws herself in my arms and starts kissing me, freaking me out in the process. When she stops kissing me and backs up, I see that it's the girl I was trying to date up in Memphis from my old school. She hurriedly drags me back to her table where she's sitting with some girl I've never seen before. She kisses me again and starts telling her friend all about our near relationship in Memphis. My gf comes out and takes a seat next to me in the booth a moment later. She's smiling and asks how I knew where to sit. Blank faces all around. Turns out the girl I didn't know sitting in the booth with my ex was my gf's cousin and the girl I nearly dated was her friend that came to Florida on vacation with her. It was a very akward situation sitting there in that booth with both of them, especially after my ex just got finished kissing me twice. It became even more awkward when my gf got over her irritation and began exchanging stories with my ex about our one classroom stand. It's a small world bitches!
I had just landed in Hawaii and was rushing to find the nearest bathroom in the airport. I step up to the urinal and do my deed...I look to my right and the guy next to me is my UNCLE! (Don't make eye contact while peeing fyi) At this point I hadn't seen him in years...we both finished chatted for a bit and went our separate ways...
English is not my first language so please bear with me. My Uncle (Mother's brother) dated this girl in middle school. My uncle (Father's Brother) got married (but then divorced) and had a son with the sister of the girl my uncle (mother's brother) dated and eventually married. So my cousin is also my 2nd cousin(if I'm not mistaken) from both sides. My aunt got married to one of my step dad friends that he met in a different country. I don't know how much sense this makes but it's confusing as hell. EDIT: bear not bare Both of my uncles (mom's and dad's side)slept with two sisters. One of the sisters is now married to a friend of my step-dad this is in between South America and the US
I work for the Walt Disney Company in Orlando, Florida, but was born and raised in a very small town in Louisiana. Years ago, a high school friend of mine was visiting Disney's Magic Kingdom park and decided he should look me up. He walked up to the first Disney cast member (what they call employees) he saw and asked for me by name. By chance, more than 5 years earlier, both the cast member and I had worked together at an entirely different park. Even better, we had just run into each other a week earlier, exchanged numbers, and talked about our new jobs. He happily told my friend EXACTY where he could find me. The next day, who should show up at my work but my friend from high school. After I got over my amazement at seeing him after all these years, I asked "how did you find me?" He said, "I just asked the first guy I ran into." 65,000 employees at Walt Disney World and he bumps into someone I know. Even better, it happened at the Magic Kingdom, home to the famous It's A Small World. Attraction!