How random is this?
In the past 3 months, after years of flying and hardly ever even seeing anyone in the airport I know, I've now had 2 close encounters.

I was taking my my seat in FC and an attractive lady was getting settled in the seat next to me. She looked familiar and when she set her boarding pass down, I saw her name. We had dated for about a year 28 years ago, she never married. The breakup was a good one so we were able to catch up during 1 hour flight.

Then last week, I board my flight in FC and end up sitting next to my next door neighbor.

Who else has a small world story?

(1) Ran into a colleague of mine (he is BOS based, I am STL based) on ATL-LAX. The kicker is both of us had been firing emails back and forth discussing some project deliverables for most of the flight.

(2) Ran into a bschool classmate in DTW. I would say this is pretty normal, but he is from & lives in Tokyo, happened to be flying back after a conference in the lower 48.

(3) Not me, but Mr. aerostl was on AA to Dallas to do some surveying, when who gets on the plane and claims the seat next to him? Our landlord.

16 years ago my wife and I bumped into a local neighbor as we checked in at a Sandals resort in Jamaica. Back home we frequently saw him going door-to-door wearing a nice suit, handing out religious pamphlets, and enthusiastically soliciting converts to his well-known and very conservative religion. He was a nice guy, but annoyingly persistent in ringing our doorbell and trying to convert us. In Jamaica, he was on the beach as we arrived... enthusiastically competing in the final rounds of an organized beer chugging competition. Looked like he was pretty good at it too. We made eye contact, and he was obviously embarrassed. He never made another appearance on our doorstep back home after that.

Did he further embarass himself at dance competition in the weekly street party in front of the resort?

Twice I sat a row in front of a Site Manager all the way from TPA-ATL-DXB-OAA-JAA. Not quite as uncommon, but the odds of taking vacation at the same time and booking the same flights is pretty rare

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Thanks...
Obscure2k
Delta Moderator

Once on a plane and again in an ATL skyclub, I've run into friends.

The most interesting encounter was about 20 years ago when we were living in El Paso. There was a female panhandler who used to set up camp nearly every day on one of the freeway off-ramps that both my wife and I used daily. We would occasionally give her a few bucks. So, we were very familiar with her. She would sometimes have a couple of kids with her. We saw them enough for them to be recognizable as well.

Well, who do you think we saw at Disneyland one day? Yup! The panhandling business must have been very good to her.

Funny you should mention that (small world, I guess. ). My wife called me this morning to tell me that she boarded her flight in F and ended up sitting next to our former next door neighbor.

Several years ago, we took a cruise with my parents and, on the second to last day, ran into my parents' next door neighbor. It was a big ship.

Mike

With a shout out to the thread title...

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hope
And a word of fears...

Mike

Hmmm, there are conservative religions, such as the one I am a member of, that see alcohol as a gift to be enjoyed. But I suppose that is a conversation for OMNI.

Back OT, I was flying out of FRA-DFW and there was a good acquaintance and her son on the same flight. She had a cast on her leg and was riding in steerage. I made a quick call to the AA EXP desk and with the help of the GA I burned 2 SWUs to get her and her son into J.

Needless to say, she was glad to have bumped into me in FRA.

I have seen people I know even when not flying to/from the city where I live. This has happened about a dozen times even though I have few Facebook friends...I have fewer than 10 Facebook friends.

That's because I don't use Facebook and only friend people who insist. If you're my real friend, you're not listed as my Facebook friend.

We were on holiday in London and I was on a side street in St. James' returning to the hotel after doing a bit of shopping and I hear my name being called. I wasn't aware of anyone else on the street and didn't think to look up right away because, really, I wasn't expecting to see anyone I knew. She called out again and sure enough, it was a friend of mine from home. How random was that? We still laugh about it.

Ya saw a college friend in Bahamas after about not seeing each other in about 2 years. We were both staying in the same Hotel on vacation. Was interesting.

I'm not going to count the planned meetings of which I'm sure we all of some stories.

I once called my parents house sitting at the ORD AAdmirals Club only to have my mother tell me my father was also on a stop over there and flying AA. A few view of the monitors to find out which gate had a flight to BWI and a 5 minute walk and there he was. I wasn't sure he was happy he ran into me until I told him he could get free coffee as my guest back in the club

Another time I was returning a rental car to AUS when I look in the rear view mirror and see someone who looked a lot like my sister. As I'm taking my bags out of the trunk a little kid grabs my leg. I look down and see my nephew! While I knew they were in TX I had no idea they were in Austin or their itinerary. The staff at the AAdmirals club were nice enough to let me have 3 guests and we hung out for a while before boarding different airlines to different parts of the country.

Its pretty normal for me, I would say that once every 3-4 trips I run into someone I know from somewhere. I either know a lot of people, travel way too much, or both.

I went to a conference last year and sat down with two other strangers to chat over lunch. A few hours later, all three of us ended up on the same regional jet in first class, without previously knowing we were all leaving the conference a day early to catch the same flight.