Recently, we took a look at a Reddit thread that asked, "What was your 'Wow, this really is a small world' moment?'" Well, their wild responses sparked even MORE great stories from our very own BuzzFeed Community! So with that in mind, here are even more stories shared that prove it is, indeed, a small world after all:
1. This wild discovery:
"In 2011, I went to Vietnam with my husband. We went to a salon we really liked, so I recommended it to my mom, since she was going to Vietnam two weeks after I came back to the States. My mom went to the same salon and spoke casually to the woman who was helping her.
The woman asked my mom where she was from, so my mom told her our city and state. The woman then told my mom her twin sister had JUST moved to the same city to marry a man — then she said my dad’s name. My parents were divorced at this time, but my dad was still living with us while he was looking for a house. My parents were on good terms, but my mom had NO IDEA he was in a relationship, much less with someone who was 25 years younger than him. My mom traveled halfway around the world to find out my dad remarried behind her back."
2. This traveling friendship:
"I moved a lot as a child, so I knew no one everywhere I went. While going to high school in Las Vegas, I met a dude named John in my band class and we walked the same way home, so we became sort of friends for that year. Toward the end of the year, I moved to Texas and told no one beforehand.
I was at a pep rally at this new school and I was lost. I had no idea where the auditorium was or who anyone was. I turned down a random hall and out comes John, looking just as lost as I was. He had moved directly down the street from me!"
3. This everywhere man:
"There was this guy, Steve, who I knew from the next town over. The joke was that he knew everyone. I went to my BFF's prom with a guy who needed a date. She lived a good distance away from me, but who was at her prom? Steve.
Fast-forward to college, my new friends tell me I should talk to Michele because she's from the same state as me. Michele and I get to talking and she mentioned a friend from back home who was coming to visit her. She pulls out a picture, and not only is it from my BFF's prom — she was Steve's date!"
4. This run-in:
"I ran into my flatmate on a back street in Venice while we were both traveling separately in Europe at the same time. We hadn’t made any plans to catch up on our travels, so it was spooky!"
5. This coincidence sandwich:
"My husband and I have quite a story! As a kid, he lived in the same neighborhood as my grandparents, which I visited often. He would also bike to the neighborhood I lived in as a kid. As teenagers our families lived less than a mile from each other. He also worked at the Wendy’s we would go to.
When we got older, he worked at the same college I attended. His aunt and my aunt were friends — which we didn’t know until my bridal shower. My parents and my in-laws went to the same high school. His ex-wife had a business right down the street from where I worked at the time. Another one of his aunts and my aunt worked together. My husband and another aunt (I have a BIG family) worked in the same building, same floor, different companies. And, even after all that, we still only met four years ago via mutual friends."
6. This love story:
"My husband and I met online when I was 24 and he was 25. Despite him having moved around a lot as a child and me switching schools a lot growing up, we somehow both attended the same high school for exactly one year when we were 14 and 15 before BOTH OF US moved to different schools. I hadn't noticed him in high school, but when I showed him my picture from that year, he was so excited because I was the girl he'd had a crush on and had been too shy to talk to back then!"
7. This born best friend:
"My son's best friend was born in the same hospital on the same day that he was, though they wouldn't meet until seven years later in a different town, almost an hour away from that hospital. I'd had a very long, hard labor and then emergency C-section and stayed in my room for a week recovering. I never met any of the other moms, but they did wheel another little baby boy's bassinet through my room while I was there, and we always joke I met my son's friend first."
8. This airport bump-in:
"I live in Toronto, and while I was walking through Frankfurt airport in Germany, I bumped into my next-door neighbor. We were there for completely different reasons. It was wild to literally bump into your neighbor halfway across the world."
9. This blast from the past:
"I was a photographer working on a cruise ship in Alaska and saw someone wearing a hoodie for a university in my home state. I asked them where they were from and they said, 'Oh, it's a super small town you've probably never heard of..." It was the town where my dad grew up. I asked if they knew him, and sure enough, they were his next-door neighbors. He cut their grass for them until he graduated high school and moved away!"
10. This Milan magic:
"On a trip to Italy, we ran into some family friends in one of the domestic airports where we randomly had a layover. Then, on the same trip while at the train station in Milan, we saw one of my dad’s childhood friends. They recognized each other instantly, and still had mutual acquaintances!"
11. This small town small world:
"I grew up in a very small town in northern Wisconsin with a population of about 1,200. A friend of mine was deployed to Iraq, and — while on leave — he spent a week in Germany. He took a tour on a train and got to talking with a couple in the same car. Not only were they ALSO from northern Wisconsin, they were from the same small town and knew his parents."
12. This found family:
"My brother-in-law was recently approached by a woman who works in his office and asked if he was connected to a specific man. He was — the man was his father-in-law, my father, who died several years ago. The woman had found my BIL’s name online mentioned in the obituary and wanted to confirm it was the same person.
The reason the woman was curious was because when her mother was a little girl, she and her family went on a vacation to Florida (this would be in the 1950s). One day, she and her siblings met a brother and sister their age on the beach, and were invited back to the brother and sister’s place for lunch. The woman’s mother said she was amazed when they were brought to this huge house and ate hot dogs and lemonade on the veranda. The woman’s mother never saw them again after that vacation, but she always loved to tell the story of that lunch with Spike and Muffin — my dad and aunt."
13. This wedding cake surprise:
"I got married in my hometown (Memphis), about 800 miles from where I live now. My husband's uncle died shortly after, so we traveled to Georgia for his funeral. My husband's grandmother was in poor health, and needed help traveling down to attend her son's funeral. She brought another family member with her — a distant relative to us — to help her the whole time we all were there. After the funeral, we were eating at the church sitting with my husband's grandmother and the distant relative.
We had just come from Memphis, so we were talking about our trip. The relative said her mother lived right outside of Memphis and owned a bakery. I asked her the name and, turns out, her mom — another distant relative — was the one who made our wedding cake. We had no idea!"
14. This diner surprise:
"I was traveling for work (selling medical equipment) and getting dinner in this tiny little town in northern Idaho. Like, we're talking you have to drive an hour through almost wilderness to get to this place. I happened to look up from the menu just as a high school friend who I hadn’t seen in close to a decade walked in with his daughter. He had just happened to choose that night to take his daughter out to give his wife a quiet evening to herself. Otherwise, I never would have known he lived in this tiny town!"
15. This unlikely dinner date:
"My husband and I went on a cruise out of California. At dinner, we were seated with another couple. As we talked, we realized we lived about 10 minutes away from each other in Indiana. We also learned that the guy and I had both grown up in Michigan — we'd even gone to the same elementary school!"
16. This generational small world:
"I worked at a grocery store in college. After a few months of working there, a coworker came up to me and said she had to tell me that 'every time she saw me, I reminded her of a girl she knew growing up.' I laughed and mentioned that my mom was from a few towns over, but my family wasn’t from that city. Turns out she was ALSO from the same town and, after talking more, I found out she dated my uncle in high school and college AND the girl I reminded her of was my mom!"
17. This freaky jury duty:
"My dad was called in for jury duty. He was being screened for the trial, and the judge asked if there was any reason that any of the potential jurors should NOT be included on the jury. My dad raised his hand — it turned out that one of the lawyers had been his college roommate. They hadn’t seen each other in almost 30 years!"
18. This accidental inspection:
"I was in a really bad car accident in October 2020 and I had to be cut out of my car. I broke my leg and several other bones. A few months passed, and a fireman came over to do an inspection on the windows of the house I live in. The fireman asked me how I was injured. I told him about my accident and, turns out, he was one of the fireman who cut me out of my car the night of my accident!"
19. This fated meeting:
"Years ago, I went on a cruise. The weather was so bad that instead of going to the island we'd originally booked for, we went to the Bahamas. I ended up running into a good friend from college at a bar one night, which wouldn't have happened if the cruise took its original course."
20. This adorable reunion:
"About 20 years ago when I was a kid in Kentucky, my dad had a coworker/friend he was really close with. He ended up getting another job in a different country, and they lost touch. My parents are now retired and live in Ft. Myers, Florida. Well, my dad reconnected with this old friend on Facebook (like you do) and, turns out, his old friend now lives only one and a half miles away! Like, in the next neighborhood over. They hang out all the time now, and it’s really sweet."
21. And finally — this absolute yikes:
"I hooked up with this guy I met on Grindr. A week later, I was talking to a guy at work who I knew was gay, and he introduced me to his boyfriend. Yes — his boyfriend was my hookup. We both just played dumb (like Academy Award-level performance dumb)."
Okay, so you've read their wild stories, but now it's your turn! Do you have a "small world" story? Share it in the comments below!!!
