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We all probably see so many random strangers every day that we forget in mere moments. However, there are sometimes those weird little meetings or realizations that just are a reminder that the world can be more interconnected than it seems and that truth can be stranger than fiction.
Someone asked “Was there a time where you realized it was a small world after all?” and people shared the strange and sometimes bizarre coincidences and encounters they’ve had. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to tell your own tales in the comments below.
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#1
I studied abroad in the US in my junior year of high school and was placed in a 400-people town somewhere in the midwest. My hostfamily took me to the closest McDonald's one night and I overheard the only other customers speaking my native language. I turned around and it was my brother's elementary school teacher and her husband on a US roadtrip.
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#2
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and I moved to a tiny fishing village in Alaska for 7 years on an island with only 2,000 people or so. One day I get a call from my dad and step mom because they were on vacation in a small fishing town in Ireland named Cushendall and had run in to someone I knew. Apparently a random person on the street had heard his American accent and asked for some tips on places to stay nearby. My dad noticed that he was wearing a hat from the town I lived in and asked if he knew me, and he answered that he had just had dinner with me a few nights before all the way back in Alaska.
#3
My husband, some friends and I had a drunken cab ride from Fremont street to the strip in Vegas a few summers ago. The driver was an immigrant from Serbia and was chatting with my husband about sports, soccer in particular, when I jumped in asking if he supported Red Star Belgrade. He went crazy - "f**k no, man, Partizan all the way!" and told us he had been a bit of a hooligan and had beaten many a Red Star fan. It was a memorable ride for sure, particularly as he was swerving the car like crazy whilst on his diatribe. My husband likes to remind me of the time I nearly got us killed by a crazy football fan.
Almost exactly a year later, we jump in a cab at the Venetian hotel in Vegas. The world cup is on, and the driver makes small talk about that days results. He tells us he's from Serbia and this time it clicks. I tell him "hows about that Partizan?!" and he's delighted I know of his team. My husband tells him that he drove us around a year ago and the driver exclaims "the Celtic fans from Glasgow!"
He continued chatting away about football til he dropped us off, remarking that France were due to play next but he didn't like them because of "that f*****g Griezmann. Hate Griezmann."
Any time we've watched a game with Griezmann playing hubby and I both shout "hate Griezmann!" in honour of our Serbian friend.
#4
I met a woman from Belgium at a party and asked her, as a joke, if she knew my childhood friend who had moved there when she was about 12.
Turns out that the lady I met at the party didn’t just know my childhood friend, but they were really close friends. party lady even put me and my old school friend back in touch.
#5
Coworker always said she liked my house. Turns out her grandparents built the house but had never met her.
#6
I met someone in Korea while travelling. When I went back to work and told one of my colleagues about it turns out she was her bestfriend.
Agfox 4 days ago
My wife & I were waiting to board a flight from Korea back to Australia via Malaysia. A message in Korean came over the PA & the guy in front of us - the only other Caucasian person we could see in the queue - asked us if we understood the message any better than he did, ie not at all. We started chatting with him & discovered he'd previously worked with my wife's younger brother at a niche global organisation
#7
Im from germany so my family and I visited austria. We were on a 3000m Mountain and suddenly my art teacher stood behind me.
Sue Denham 4 days ago
I travelled to switzerland from New Zealand and bumped into the sister of my friend who lived just around the corner from my home.
#8
This happened to my wife.
She was getting her masters degree, and part of it was watching a nurse do a presentation on a baby she helped deliver 26 years before hand. This was done in a hospital on the other side of the US. As the nurse describes the case, my wife realizes that she was the baby this person delivered.
She walks up to the nurse and explained that the baby turned out fine. She literally made chit chat with the nurse who helped bring her here.
DennyS (denzoren) 3 days ago
That must have been a great moment for the nurse who delivered her.
#9
Used to pitch softball in the US and had a friendly rivalry with another team pitcher."
"Went on vacation and missed the playoffs as I was in London. I'm checking out the royal museum and run into that pitcher on the day we were supposed to be playing against each other.."
"So we got a beer instead.
#10
Went to New York for a weekend with my girl a few years ago, we were walking up the Empire State Building and walking down the other way was my ex-girlfriend from my small town that i grew up in and had not chatted to for years.
I grew up in a small town in Southern England, wtf?
#11
I went on holiday near the Everglades in Florida many years ago. I support an English football (soccer) team called Scunthorpe United. We're not really good and we are in the fourth division of English football, we're not like Manchester United.
Me and my parents stayed in a holiday home, and so we went to buy some groceries at the local Walmart one evening. So I go round one of the aisles - and there is a kid wearing a Scunthorpe shirt! Yep, of all the shirts of a sports team, there is a kid walking around with my team's shirt on. I was just ecstatic to say the least.
#12
My ex-MIL is from Trinidad. We are in the U.K.
I work in a hospital. One day a new doctor started on our ward. We get chatting and she mentions she is from Trinidad. I say something along the lines of ‘small world, MIL is from there. She asks for MIL name and starts laughing when I tell her.
It turns out MIL and the doctors family have been friends for about 40 years and come from the same small town.
It freaked me out a little to be honest - I mean, thousands of miles away from Trinidad, and they are from the same small town!!!
#13
I used to travel the world for work. One trip I was drinking with this guy in an airport bar in Texas. A few weeks later, I walk into a restaurant in Maracaibo, Venezuela and I hear “Hey slider728!!!” It was the bar dude from Texas.
#14
My stepdad was south African. Ran his own business here in the UK. One day a new client comes in, they get chatting, and he notices my dad's South African accent. Says he, too, is originally from SA. Asks my dad where he used to live, and says "me too !"
Comes back in the next day with a photo (black & white - little South African humour there) of a group of kids, aged about 10. Says to my dad " this was a birthday party I went to when I was 10" He points at a boy and says "that's me". Then he points at another boy in the photo and says to my dad "that's you." He had a photo of a party my dad had attended something like 40 years ago on another continent, and neither of them knew each other !
#15
I was moving and driving from NJ to FL, stopped at some random gas station in the middle of no-where South Carolina and had heard someone call my name.
It was an old high school friend from NJ who had moved away years before. No idea he even moved away and we were literally the only 2 cars at the gas station. It was extremely weird but we had a great laugh, chatted for maybe 10 minutes, and we went on our way.
#16
A girl I went to elementary School with wound up in the same mental hospital as me.
#17
Yeah. I dated a guy in college. Nice guy, we had fun. We were just too young to be serious, and that was that. Years later, and many miles away, I bought a horse. It was a random thing, just read an ad. His sister was the seller.
#18
I was introducing a guy to replace me at work in a town I was leaving. We had never met before, but it turned out he had not only worked (briefly) at the new place I was starting at, but also grew up in the house next to the one we just bought there.
m6nbtfpx7q 3 days ago (edited)
My best friend from when I was five and lost touch with by seven, ended up living in the house three houses down from the one my family moved into my last year of middle school (13 years old) Central Florida is a big place really and of all the neighborhoods we ended up right next to each other. I also saw my ex sister in laws teacher get killed on some train tracks by my house (well we didn’t see it happen, just after as she was being loaded into the ambulance, I was probably eight), another ex of mine had actually gone to the same elementary school as me when I was eight, we met when I was 21. Maybe the people running our simulation are just lazy.
#19
Yeah, my family and I had booked a kayaking trip on our vacation in Norway. We're from a small town in Southern Wisconsin. Our tour guide was from a town 10 miles down the road.
#20
I was 5900 miles away from home on a ferry and ran into the parents of one of my students.
#21
We were on a family vacation in Greece. We met one of my mom's former classmates while standing in line at a local attraction. The thing is, they were classmates in Romania, my mom lived in Hungary and the former classmate lived in the US and they haven't met since graduation. And they both spotted each other in an instant too.
#22
Met a guy from work in Verona, Italy. We were there on a trip just for a couple of hours only.. and I met him there on some random street. That was some crazy a*s coincidence.
#23
My brother went to Florida with his friends family. He met this girl there, hung out with her the 2 weeks he was there (with his friend too). About 6 months later he goes to Moscow with my grandfather for a trip to Russia (this was 1991). He's at a shopping plaza near their hotel, who does he see, the same girl from Florida.
A few years back, my family was at the beach with my father-in-law. The waitress at one of the places we stopped for breakfast was my father-in-law's neighbor growing up.
It truly is small world.
#24
Yes, it was when a girl that I met at a water park showed up to my grandma’s funeral.
Robert Trebor 3 days ago
When I was in the Navy going through training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois, I was going into the chow hall one day wearing my working uniform, which has my name stenciled on the front of my shirt. This other young sailor comes over, and asks if I was related to somebody named Bob [with my last name] from Savannah. Georgia. I said that he was my great uncle and that I was in part named for him as I was also Bob. He said that 2 summers that he was in high school in Savannah he was able to get a summer job at the Great Dane Trailer company. Each summer, he met on a number of occasions an elderly man named Bob who someone told him was the semi-retired chief engineer of the company. On the second summer that he came my uncle remembered this guy's name and remembered that he had said he wanted to go into the Navy after high school and said that he would help if he could. In the fall of the year that he was still in high school and still too young to go in the Navy .
Robert Trebor 3 days ago
... Navy he saw my uncle's obituary in the newspaper and he got permission from the school to go to the funeral. And I met him halfway across the country. He went to the funeral because my uncle had been so fine with him so helpful and so friendly, and he had not gotten much of that from most of the adults in his life. I was glad to tell him that my uncle was like that to everybody and I was so glad to hear it in his case. When I passed the incident on to my uncle Bob's two children they were both amazed and gratified to hear about this. His son actually remembered seeing a bunch of youngsters at the graveside service none of whom that he knew, and had wondered at the time who they were. My cousin was all his life so painfully shy socially, that he didn’t go over to find out who they were, and was happy to finally know.
Load More Replies... GlitterPanda 3 days ago
details on this one would be cool, I really want to know how she was connected to your Grandma
#25
My (half-)brother recently left his wife and got a new girlfriend.
Turns out his girlfriend is the granddaughter of our dad's ex-wife. My brother was once the step brother of her mother. In theory, he could've been her (step)-uncle now.
Small world indeed.
Some Random Person 3 days ago
I can hear the opening melody from the 80-90s Santa-Barbara series
#26
I had a professor in college that I took evolution and biology with. She started each semester with “I know what you all have been doing in the shower” ...science experiments. This was in Florida. I was in Germany a few years later on vacation and I was in a bravarian castle when I see that same professor. I went up to her and she thought it was a joke that her family had put me up to until I said “I know what you’re doing in the shower”.
#27
I posted a picture of my homecoming outfit on Reddit earlier this fall (homecoming is a football game/dance that happens in the fall for American highschoolers). A couple hours later, I got a DM from some guy saying that he was probably going to come across as super creepy, but he was pretty sure he went to school with me because I looked familiar and our homecoming was on the same day. I asked him what our school mascot and colors were, because I wasn't about to name drop our school, and he immediately got them right.
I know he's a junior and a band kid, but I never asked him who he was. I'd honestly rather stay blissfully ignorant. I never tell anyone my Reddit account because I've opened up here about my self-harm and childhood trauma, so it's weird to think that there's some kid at my school who potentially knows all of that stuff.
#28
I was interviewing to a job across the country, changing industries and everything. Well, the guy who was interviewing me, who would be my next boss, went to college 25 years ago with my previous boss from my current job, who had just left a couple months before. When I said his name dude's face just lit up. They haven't talked in decades.
And what makes it even more bizarre is that the city they went to college with is distant as f**k from both jobs. So they had 25 years of following opposite paths and careers just for me to end up in the middle and connect their lives again.
WindySwede 4 days ago
I wonder if op got the jobb. No more info on Reddit and no one posted anything in reaponse either.
#29
I met my horse riding instructor (with his two ridiculously hot redhead twin daughters) while on a Cruise on the Nile. We are from Europe. We locked eyes with one of the daugthers and i'm fairly sure she recognised me. It was 20+ years ago and I still regret not having enough balls ( we were around 16).
#30
My father moved to a small town in rural Midwest in 2000 from the southern part of the US. Prior to that, he lived his whole life in Europe, both eastern and western but is originally of Slavic descent.
When he moved to this new Midwestern town, he started looking up Slavic last names (not many given the size of this place) to find new friends and started calling them. One of the people he called shared the name of someone he worked with when he lived in Eastern Europe back in the early 90s.
He didn’t think much of it because there are a lot of common names in Eastern Europe. But the guy then told him that his occupation was the same as the person he knew with the same name. After probing further, it turned out that that this actually was his colleague, and that they both somehow ended up in the same tiny a*s middle-of-nowhere Midwestern town, and came there under the same exact circumstances.
It still blows my mind to this day.
What do you think ?
cerinamroth 3 days ago
My aunt and uncle were hiking in a remote area of South Island, New Zealand. Not a soul to be seen for hours until they met some hikers coming the opposite way. It turned out to be their next-door neighbours from Oxford (UK) - neither couple had told the other that they were going on holiday! :D
KatSaidWhat 3 days ago (edited)
Dated a guy in last year of high school 1991 in South Africa, moved to London in 1997, discovered in 2000 that his sister and I were good friends without knowing this. Also high school classmates 1991 were at the same youth hostel I arrived at in 1997 in London. I've had a few more of these.
Chich 3 days ago
Was one of several instructors on a live structure fire training course. We were from several scattered departments and had only met just before the sessions. at the end we were given T shirts which I put away and never wore. About 10 years later and over a 1000 Km from where the course had been I am moving to a new job. Found the tshirt and decided to wear it one day on the drive. Stopped in a restaurant. Walk in the door and a guy calls me over. It was one of the other instructors who was on a road trip and had decided to stop there as well. Had not seen each other since the training. He recognized my T shirt.
Nikole 4 days ago
Only slightly odd because this ex was from the Chicago suburbs (but had been living in Arizona for a while)… About 13 years ago I was walking around downtown Chicago in the winter during my lunch break from work, as I tended to do. I was approaching a bridge and there were two people walking towards me, but they were still pretty far away. The guy was tallish and carrying a skateboard. The person next to him was female and my first thought was “Aww a dad and daughter”. Get closer… Nope… It’s my first (and most formative) ex walking with his very tiny new girlfriend (he always said he wanted a short girl with dark hair and olive skin). They have a kid now and live in the cultural mecca that is Indiana.
Zephyr343 3 days ago
Indiana is beautiful! My favorite part is the sign "now leaving Indiana"
Load More Replies... Ariom Dahl 4 days ago
When our son now aged in his 50s started school I discovered his teacher and I had been at high school together. :)
Bob Brooce 4 days ago
I had a junior high social studies teacher who had been my mother's math teacher around 9th or 10th grade. Not really a small world story, though, because I went to school in the same school district as my mother.
Load More Replies...
BookFanatic 3 days ago
A new coworker had just learned my not-at-all-common last name and I guess it struck him as odd enough to mention to his wife. Who called me at work the next day and asked me if my parents were (name of Dad) and (name of Mom) and if I'd lived it (town I grew up in). Turns out she was our neighbor back in the day and babysat me regularly. I had no memory of her, of course, but I called my mom and her story checked out. Lol
SweetCheesySpaghetti 3 days ago
I went to a very small college in the middle of nowhere in the northeast (only 250 people lived on campus). I became very close friends with the guy that lived the the dorm room directly below mine. Turns out, his girlfriend not only went to the same tiny art college as my high school best friend, but she lived in the dorm room directly below my friend!
Christos Arvanitis 3 days ago
My buddy and I went to pick up his college girlfriend our freshman year from her dorm in Massachusetts. Her roomate came along. We started the usual smalltalk. Figured out that she and I lived in the same town in Maryland 12 years earlier. Dropped by my family home and dug out my 3rd grade class photo which showed both of us in the same class!
GalPalAl 3 days ago
Used to work as a career advisor for an art school that is no longer around. Went to Italy on vacation and ran into a photography student I knew quite well and was surprised to see she was living there and working in the same shop I happened to visit. The family joke was my mom would always bump into someone she knows anytime we go someplace. This was the first time it happened to me.
Apatheist Account2 3 days ago (edited)
I have two: went to my brother's wedding in Devon (I was living in west London), and met someone from my badminton club who turned about to be a co-worker of my new sister-in-law. My parents bumped into an old school friend of mine (I stopped contact with them when we were about 30, long story) while holidaying in Madeira, where my parents had a time share.
Howl's sleeping castle 4 days ago
Colleague of mine wanted to set me up with his roommate. He told both of us about each other and really tried to sell it. But we decided to talk over the phone first before meeting. Turned out he was my younger sister's classmate and lived only 200 meters from my parents place. We decided not to talk again
Fabulous chocolate cookie 4 days ago
I had some of these moments. Recently when I met one of my coworkers during a road trip in Asia. And when one of my neighbors appears to be the coworker of one of my friends who lives across the country.
Liz The Biz 3 days ago
When I was a kid my dad worked at a factory which, at that time employed about 500 people. No matter where we went for a day out or holiday, my dad would always bump into someone he worked with.
Lena Flising 3 days ago
Husband and me traveled to London, England for the first (and still only) time in 2017. One of the first people we bumped into at the London airport was a colleague from work, in our little Swedish town. He was going home to Sweden.
cerinamroth 3 days ago
My aunt and uncle were hiking in a remote area of South Island, New Zealand. Not a soul to be seen for hours until they met some hikers coming the opposite way. It turned out to be their next-door neighbours from Oxford (UK) - neither couple had told the other that they were going on holiday! :D
KatSaidWhat 3 days ago (edited)
Dated a guy in last year of high school 1991 in South Africa, moved to London in 1997, discovered in 2000 that his sister and I were good friends without knowing this. Also high school classmates 1991 were at the same youth hostel I arrived at in 1997 in London. I've had a few more of these.
Chich 3 days ago
Was one of several instructors on a live structure fire training course. We were from several scattered departments and had only met just before the sessions. at the end we were given T shirts which I put away and never wore. About 10 years later and over a 1000 Km from where the course had been I am moving to a new job. Found the tshirt and decided to wear it one day on the drive. Stopped in a restaurant. Walk in the door and a guy calls me over. It was one of the other instructors who was on a road trip and had decided to stop there as well. Had not seen each other since the training. He recognized my T shirt.
Nikole 4 days ago
Only slightly odd because this ex was from the Chicago suburbs (but had been living in Arizona for a while)… About 13 years ago I was walking around downtown Chicago in the winter during my lunch break from work, as I tended to do. I was approaching a bridge and there were two people walking towards me, but they were still pretty far away. The guy was tallish and carrying a skateboard. The person next to him was female and my first thought was “Aww a dad and daughter”. Get closer… Nope… It’s my first (and most formative) ex walking with his very tiny new girlfriend (he always said he wanted a short girl with dark hair and olive skin). They have a kid now and live in the cultural mecca that is Indiana.
Zephyr343 3 days ago
Indiana is beautiful! My favorite part is the sign "now leaving Indiana"
Load More Replies... Ariom Dahl 4 days ago
When our son now aged in his 50s started school I discovered his teacher and I had been at high school together. :)
Bob Brooce 4 days ago
I had a junior high social studies teacher who had been my mother's math teacher around 9th or 10th grade. Not really a small world story, though, because I went to school in the same school district as my mother.
Load More Replies... BookFanatic 3 days ago
A new coworker had just learned my not-at-all-common last name and I guess it struck him as odd enough to mention to his wife. Who called me at work the next day and asked me if my parents were (name of Dad) and (name of Mom) and if I'd lived it (town I grew up in). Turns out she was our neighbor back in the day and babysat me regularly. I had no memory of her, of course, but I called my mom and her story checked out. Lol
SweetCheesySpaghetti 3 days ago
I went to a very small college in the middle of nowhere in the northeast (only 250 people lived on campus). I became very close friends with the guy that lived the the dorm room directly below mine. Turns out, his girlfriend not only went to the same tiny art college as my high school best friend, but she lived in the dorm room directly below my friend!
Christos Arvanitis 3 days ago
My buddy and I went to pick up his college girlfriend our freshman year from her dorm in Massachusetts. Her roomate came along. We started the usual smalltalk. Figured out that she and I lived in the same town in Maryland 12 years earlier. Dropped by my family home and dug out my 3rd grade class photo which showed both of us in the same class!
GalPalAl 3 days ago
Used to work as a career advisor for an art school that is no longer around. Went to Italy on vacation and ran into a photography student I knew quite well and was surprised to see she was living there and working in the same shop I happened to visit. The family joke was my mom would always bump into someone she knows anytime we go someplace. This was the first time it happened to me.
Apatheist Account2 3 days ago (edited)
I have two: went to my brother's wedding in Devon (I was living in west London), and met someone from my badminton club who turned about to be a co-worker of my new sister-in-law. My parents bumped into an old school friend of mine (I stopped contact with them when we were about 30, long story) while holidaying in Madeira, where my parents had a time share.
Howl's sleeping castle 4 days ago
Colleague of mine wanted to set me up with his roommate. He told both of us about each other and really tried to sell it. But we decided to talk over the phone first before meeting. Turned out he was my younger sister's classmate and lived only 200 meters from my parents place. We decided not to talk again
Fabulous chocolate cookie 4 days ago
I had some of these moments. Recently when I met one of my coworkers during a road trip in Asia. And when one of my neighbors appears to be the coworker of one of my friends who lives across the country.
Liz The Biz 3 days ago
When I was a kid my dad worked at a factory which, at that time employed about 500 people. No matter where we went for a day out or holiday, my dad would always bump into someone he worked with.
Lena Flising 3 days ago
Husband and me traveled to London, England for the first (and still only) time in 2017. One of the first people we bumped into at the London airport was a colleague from work, in our little Swedish town. He was going home to Sweden.
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