what are the chances.....

[T77911S]

so we went to darlington for the race this past weekend.
we were standing on the stairs waiting for the rain to stop and my wife sees a man a few feet from us that she went to school with. we are in south Carolina now and she went to school up in maine, that was also back in the 80's.
sitting 5 rows behind us was another friend that lives about 2 1/2 hours from us
sitting in a few sections over was some other friends of ours.

a few months back we were driving up to charlotte NC (3 hours) and we stopped at this Mexican restaurant. we sat down and sitting right next to use were some friends that live about an hour from that restaurant. what are the chances that you would run into someone you know in a restaurant that none of you even live close to.

[wdfifteen]

Weird coincidences like that happen to me now and then, but never that many!
When I used to travel to New York a lot on a couple of occasions I into acquaintances from my home town of 3000 people.
I was sitting in a hotel bar in Grand Rapids, Michigan with MrsWD. As we were talking she mentioned the town we live near. A guy overheard us and came over and introduced himself. He lived two door down from us.
I was in the Paris airport (or Rome, coulda been Rome) arriving for the marathon. A woman came up to us rather frantic and asked if we spoke English. She was there for the marathon too, and lived about 5 miles from us.

[GH85Carrera]

Back in 1968 or so my aunt and uncle came to visit us in Hawaii. My uncle was a Methodist minister at a church in Paul's Valley, OK at the time and lived in the church owned house next door to the church.

Anyway, we took them on a fun hiking trail know as the ʻAiea Loop Trail on the island of Oahu, HI. Back then the trail was very lightly used and not many tourists knew about it. It has some great overlooks and is a 5 mile long easy walking trail. In the middle of the wilderness in Hawaii 4,000 miles from home up walked the man that built the cabinets and the woodwork in the Parrish house. We were all amazed.

My dad was walking through downtown Hong Kong in the early 1970s and turned a corner and literally bumped into a man that he had gone to grade school with. They had not seen each other since, and both were just there for a few days.

[fastfredracing]

I've had some similar experiences .
About 10 years ago, I am in the little old antique Red and White grocery store in Hatteras, 600 miles from home. I turn the corner, and there is Steve, one of my customers . We both did a double take

[Tobra]

I have stuff like that happen to me fairly often

[IROC]

A colleague and I flew into Zurich, Switzerland a few years ago and are standing in the busy terminal talking (looking for baggage claim or something). A man walks up and hears our English and asked if we were in a group he was supposed to be meeting. He was American also. We weren't, but he asked where in the US we were from. We said "Tennessee". He said, "Me too". We talk for a bit more and come to find out, he was a preacher in a church in the little, tiny town I grew up in (Colonial Heights, TN).

I flew in to Lansing's airport and didn't have a rental car (just needed to get to MSU's campus and could walk from there) so I figured I would get a cab or something but ran into a guy in the Lansing airport I used to work with in TN and he gave me a ride to MSU.

Crazy.

[pavulon]

I recall listening to a podcast segment that did a reasonable job of laying out the numbers and odds of encounters as described. It took into account the number of people any single person knows (but has little appreciation of) and the number of people a normal person encounters in a day/week/year/lifetime (same). It makes the probability equation tilt heavily.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by pavulon

I recall listening to a podcast segment that did a reasonable job of laying out the numbers and odds of encounters as described.

The podcast is Radio Lab. The show is "Stochasticity." Radio Lab is one of my favorite podcasts.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91684-stochasticity

[LWJ]

Yes. I had lunch today with a supplier who I have only phone called and emailed prior to today.

Not only do I know his wife, I know many many people he grew up with.

Statistics are funny that way.

[TimT]

Many years ago I was at a Jethro Tull concert, during the break, waited on line to get to a urinal..finally get to a free urinal... I glance to my left, and my cuz is peeing right next to me, and next to him is my uncle, a Priest!!!...I just said I guess the is where all the dicks hang out...

I was more surprised at seeing my uncle than my cuz..

[rattlsnak]

I just had one yesterday.. ran into my niece at Ground Zero in NYC! (She lives in NOLA and was in NYC for a Bacherlorette party and I was there for 2 days for work) but my best one yet is when I was in France visiting Chambord (a big castle in the Loire Region) and turned the corner and literally bumped into one of my neighbors who lived three doors down from me at the time.. We all freaked out!!.

[p911dad]

I bumped into a guy I had soloed and taken up through Private Pilot in Upstate NY back in the early 1980's a few years ago at a gate at the Las Vegas airport. It was crazy, like no time had passed, and then have never seen him (or expect to) again.

[wildthing]

This rarely happens to me because my old network is in another country. My current network is only 14 years old. But I do believe in the expression, “it’s a small valley”.

[Adrian Thompson]

One of my closest friends is another Ex Pat Brit. He moved here in his late 30's. He was at one of his kid soccer games when his room mate from university calls to him. They hadn't seen each other in 20 years, they'd both moved here to the States and both live in the same community and their kids went to the same school.

[plumb4u2]

My wife and I went to the PGA golf tournament in New York a couple months ago (we live in Maryland) we sat down to eat lunch at a picnic table and right next to us was a husband and wife who are members at my golf club. There were probably 300,000 ppl at that tournament lol

[Evans, Marv]

I ran into guys I went to high school with walking down the streets of Seattle and Madrid. Once during my time in the Army, I was driving a staff car out looking for some place. I saw a guy walking across a parade field and went to ask him if he knew the place I was looking for. It turned out to be another guy I went to high school with.

[ckissick]

Way back in '85 I went to Europe with a friend, Dave, for 2 months. We had Eurail passes and stayed in youth hostels. So we were free to go anywhere and do anything. About a week in I met a girl in Norway and we hit it off. We spent too much time together so while we were in Sweden, Dave took off on his own and said he'd see me at the airport when it was time to go home.

After about a week the girl had to go back home and I wanted to see more of Europe, so we split up. I decided to go to Portugal. I got off the train in Albufeira, walked down the street, and there was Dave at a sidewalk cafe. After we both picked our jaws up off the sidewalk we had a beer and we finished our European vacation together, after all.

[SpyderMike]

After graduating college in NYC in the early 80s, I got a job in Hawaii. I was hanging on Waikiki beach one day during a busy time of year...the beach was really crowded. I was laying there tanning with my eyes closed. I briefly opened my eyes at the exact time that a friend from college walking though the crowd right past my feet.