We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the most interesting coincidences or "small world" moments they've ever experienced. Their stories were both fascinating, and a little eerie! Like seriously, my brain won't stop singing "It's a Small World" on loop. Anywayyyy, here's what people shared:
1. "I was at a cosplay convention and ran into a girl wearing the same cosplay as me. She gave me a hug and we took a couple pics together. Later that month, I started my first year of college and was looking for a place to sit at one of the dining halls. I met a girl and asked to sit by her (just because I liked her vibes), and after some conversation, it turned out that not only was she the girl I met at the con, but we had also run into each other at the exact same convention the year before that as well. It’s been almost five years since that happened, and to this day, she’s one of my best friends."
2. "Nothing like meeting a guy on Match, dating him for a bit, and going to a wedding with him where his best friend ended up marrying a girl I rode the school bus with in elementary school, and who had lived right around the corner from me. Her cousin, who graduated in my high school class and had been friends with me when we were little, looked dumbfounded when she got up from the bridal party table and saw me standing in line for the bar. I had to call my mom from the reception and tell her because my (now) ex couldn’t understand why it was so shocking. The wedding was over an hour away from my hometown, and this girl’s new husband had zero relation to where we grew up."
3. "My wife and I were returning from vacation in Milan, Italy to North Carolina, where I had a task force meeting the following week. Our flight was delayed and we ended up having to spend the night in a Heathrow hotel. The next day, we were riding in the rear of a crowded bus from the terminal to the plane when I realized a group of 8-10 travelers around us were discussing the topic of my task force. They were presenters headed to my meeting!"
4. "A tourist, in town for the first time, came into my bookstore and was going through a box of mostly junk, like books with no cover or ones that were falling apart, that I hadn't gotten around to throwing out. He found an old beat-up copy of a Greek play, and on the first page was a note from his grandfather to his father. It was a birthday present in 1969 for his dad."
5. "I do family trees for practically everyone I work with, and I once did the trees of the two women in the training department where I worked. They'd been working together for five years, sat in cubicles next to each other, and were best friends. Well, it turns out [they] were cousins, too. They had no idea. One was from Tennessee, and the other from South Carolina, and they had no clue there was any connection between them. Also, I did another guy's here at work, and it turns out he's MY distant cousin. He had no idea he'd ever had family in this state at all!"
6. "I’m from a small suburb of Detroit. One summer in college, my parents took my brother and I to Paris and London for a family vacation. While at the Louvre, we somehow bumped into a teacher from our high school that we had both taken a class with. We ended up running into him again the next night at a restaurant. So weird."
7. "The ONE time my husband tried internet dating (when it was still new), he matched with a girl, and while they were chatting about where they were from, he mentioned that he didn't have contact with his dad because his parents split when he was little, but he knew he lived in [name of town]. Turns out she had family there too. No big deal; lots of people do. They keep sharing information about themselves — pleasant, get-to-know-you stuff. Then, at one point, she goes silent for a while, and then asks if his father’s name is [name]. He was surprised and confirmed it. She told him that she was pretty sure they were first cousins, because that was her uncle’s name. They unmatched."
8. "I (from California) went on a trip to Rome when I was 16. While in Rome, I was walking up the Spanish Steps with our travel group and ran directly into one of my former volleyball teammates and her father. We lived 10 minutes away from each other in our hometown, then bumped into each other on summer vacation halfway across the world. This was the second time something like this happened to our family. First time we went on vacation to Hawaii when I was 6, we ended up staying down the hall from another family we know from my hometown. Spent the entire vacation riding water slides with the other kids."
9. "About seven years after university, a friend from university who I was still in touch with emailed me from Japan (we're from Canada but from two different cities across the country) asking if I knew so-and-so. As it turns out, the school she was working at had a new staff member from my hometown. They got to chatting about how she went to university there. At some point, it was mentioned that he used to do gymnastics, to which my friend said, 'My friend K used to do gymnastics too,' to which he said, 'KW?!?!' (me)."
10. "My family is pretty extroverted. My mom used to tell people, 'My kids could walk into an empty closet and come out with a new friend.' We come by it naturally. We were taking our first vacation south of the Mason-Dixon Line in Hilton Head when I was 10. Both sides of my family tended to stay in Pennsylvania, so this was a big deal. My dad has always been a fan of hot sauce, so we made time to hit up a hot sauce store one day while it was doing the usual hour or so of afternoon summer rain. My dad is a guy who will talk to anyone (something I inherited), and struck up a conversation with the owner. Turns out the owner's wife went to high school with my dad, and her brother played football and baseball with him. First time anyone in several generations had gone south, and OF COURSE we ran into someone who knows my dad. A small world, indeed."
11. "I am from Texas and happened to be living in Bayonne, NJ for a job. I went to the gas station and ran into some guy friends. They were going to the race track, and since I was off work, I joined. At the race track, someone kept calling my name. I looked, and it was my first cousin. Talk about a small world."
12. "I live in New York and just went to Florida to visit some friends. While on my layover in North Carolina (that I shouldn't have had because my initial flight was delayed), I saw friends of mine from Florida! They're originally from my city, but moved to Florida a number of years ago. Our moms were really good friends. They weren't even traveling to/from New York, but were on their way home from a wedding in Virginia. Of course we took a selfie and sent it to our families. It was great seeing them."
13. "Military brat. Lived in North Carolina until the summer after eighth grade. Moved to the upper peninsula of Michigan. After high school, I went to a college two hours away. My dorm neighbor had a guy she met at orientation over in our common area. He said something about living in North Carolina, so I asked where. He said the city just outside the base, as I often do when describing home. Turns out we went to sixth and seventh grade together until he moved, and then we ended up at the same college. I had to have him show me his ID before I believed it was him."
—cb83
14. "I was chatting online with an old acquaintance who I almost never talk with. We were discussing a landscape photo he posted, which I thought was really cool. This lead to him sharing a link to an amazing landscape photographer who travels the world photographing some stunning scenery. About a week later, while working at a retail electronics store, I was helping a gentleman who needed advice on large storage (multi-terabyte range). I had asked why he needed so much storage, and he mentioned he was a landscape photographer and had very large files he needed to store. As a photographer, I asked to see his work. As it turns out, he was the photographer my friend introduced me to not a week earlier. By the way, my friend doesn't know him personally and was just a fan of his work. He lives in a completely different town, so there was no direct link to any of us anywhere."
15. "I was on a family trip to Tokyo over Christmas in 2018. One night, everyone wanted to go to one of the giant Uniqlo stores. I was standing around waiting since I wasn’t doing any shopping. When I looked up, I realized that the guy next to me was one of the anchors on CNBC. I said his name, he looked at me and smiled, and I said hi. Fast forward to March of 2023. We were on a family trip to Europe and were getting ready to fly home from Lisbon. My wife and I were at the airport and in line at our gate waiting to get our passports checked. I turned around, and the guy right behind me was the same CNBC anchor I said hi to in Tokyo."
"I said his name, he looked at me and smiled, and then I said, 'You’re not going to believe this, but…' and I told him about our run-in in Tokyo. He remembered the trip, but obviously didn’t remember me. We chatted for a bit and then separated when we got into the gate area. We ended up next to each other in the immigration line at Newark airport too."
16. "My childhood friend Paul was my next door neighbor in my birth hometown. One day, we found out that he and his family moved away, and after some time passed, my family moved to a different town too. It wasn't until fifth grade that I discovered Paul was in my class. Apparently his family moved around a lot, because after fifth grade, Paul moved again and I never saw him again. Later, as an adult at my retail job, my husband came to pick me up after work and we hung around to talk to my coworkers. We needed a plywood board to help fix the box spring on our bed, and we were trying to bounce some ideas off my coworkers since plywood was expensive. A customer overheard our discussion and offered for us to pick up some plywood she had at her house. We found out through discussion that she was Paul's mother-in-law, so I got to see him again."
"Also, my best friend is a distant cousin of my husband's family, and her husband was also my childhood friend before I met Paul. I found out when I looked through old family photos."
17. "My mom moved around a lot as a child due to the nature of her dad's job, so she met a lot of kids over the years, but never really had long-term friends. In second grade she met a little girl and they just clicked, becoming really close in the time she lived in that town. Eventually, they moved again, and when she was in fifth grade, the class project was to get a randomly assigned pen pal and write to them. The girl assigned to her was her friend from second grade. They lost touch again when they both moved."
"When my mom went to college, it was in a town near where her family was living at the time. By this point, they had moved about six or seven times all over the United States. As part of the college requirements for freshman, she lived on campus with a randomly assigned roommate. When she walked in to meet them, it was her best friend from years before! They've now been best friends for most of their lives, and still get together for a weekly coffee and chat."
18. "After university, my sister started working with a car insurance company. She was still living at home, as was I (university days). I answered a call from a policeman wanting to speak with my sister regarding a traffic report. It was a short conversation. Later that night, I was at a friend's place 40 minutes away, and I headed home tired. It was late and there was no traffic, so I was speeding a bit. I got pulled over by a cop who, after getting my license and insurance, started to giggle a bit to himself, which I thought was odd. He went to his vehicle and came back and asked if I had a sister named so-and-so. I said yes, and he said, 'I called your home earlier today.' I said, 'You spoke with me earlier today!' He let me off with a warning. LOL!"
19. "I grew up in Wales, but now live in Yorkshire. Last year on September 11, I went on a city break with my boyfriend. We were in a pub chatting about the date and where we were when it happened. I explained that it was my childhood best friend's eighth birthday, and we were at her house after school for a party when we saw the news on TV. Over the years, we'd lost touch, but I always thought of her on that day. When we finished the conversation, I walked out of the pub, turned a corner, and there was my childhood best friend in the street with her partner. They'd travelled for her birthday. Wild how we both bumped into each other 300 miles away from where we grew up, when I'd only been speaking her name minutes before."
20. "My family and I were hiking Diamond Head on Oahu in Hawaii and I ran into a woman I went to high school with."
21. "On my 50th birthday, I took a trip from California to my birthplace in North Wales. I walked into a tourist shop and a woman I’ve never met called out my mom’s name (who had passed 25 years ago.) Turns out she was a good friend of my mom's. Apparently, I looked exactly like my mom."
22. "My grandfather lived in an apartment building in a suburb of a big western US city. For several years, we would spend our summers visiting him and using the community pool. My grandfather passed away, and I never thought about that building again. Flash forward 40 years from the last time I visited the building. I had moved all the way across the country and made a new friend. My new friend has a friend in the city where I grew up. That friend was having to move for financial reasons, and my friend was flying out to help move…into the same exact apartment building my grandfather used to live in!"
23. "I'm a professional photographer and kept running into this one couple at many different events. There was some downtime one night at an event, and I decided to speak with this couple. The wife had a southern accent, and I asked where she was from, and she said Georgia. Jokingly, I said I considered her a Yankee because I was born in Louisiana. Her husband asked where in Louisiana, and I said Shreveport. He said he was stationed in Shreveport, and I said I was born in Shreveport because my father was also stationed there. I gave him my father's name and asked if he knew him, and his jaw dropped and he went pale. He said, 'He was my sergeant!' Talk about small world!"
24. "When I was teaching high school in the US, one of the older teachers at the school found out my roommate was from the same small town in Michigan that he grew up in. It turned out that my coworker’s dad’s parents built the house that my roommate grew up in. They’d never met, as he’d moved away before his parents sold the house to my roommate’s parents in the '70s."
25. "Late February, 1989, the USS Nimitz (crew of 5,600) was finishing our deployment. The US Navy has a thing called a 'tiger cruise' where a sailor can have a relative finish the last week or two of the cruise with them. I had my much older cousin come join me. One day, I got off watch and caught up with him. He mentioned that he had met an F18 fighter pilot from my home city. A couple of days later, I caught up with my cousin, and he was talking with said pilot. After the initial military greetings, the pilot said to me, 'Your cousin told me your from San Rafael. You're so-and-so's brother. I went to high school with him. You look a lot like him.'"
26. "My brother and sister were in Istanbul traveling together and bumped into my dad's cousin and her husband (who we call our aunt and uncle because it's easier). My siblings randomly decided to go to Istanbul and had no idea our relatives were there at that time."
27. "I moved from Scotland to London when I was 7 years old. Fast forward to age 11 when I was on a school trip in Wales. We were kayaking and in this massive tent when another school came in. I heard the Scottish accent and instantly felt happy. I looked up, and in front of me was Amy, my oldest friend. Our mums were friends and pregnant together."
28. "A friend was over and we were chatting. I was telling him stories of coincidences in my life. As he left my place, he ran into my neighbor who lived in the unit directly next to me. It turns out they used to work together."
29. "My daughter was at Disneyland and saw a man wearing a Vietnam vet hat. She asked where and when he served, and it was the same place and time my husband (her dad) was there. Turns out he was a helicopter pilot that my late-husband was a helicopter medic with. He remembered my husband. He was the helicopter pilot my husband talked about to us because he would swoop through the trees to 'Classical Gas.'"
30. "A couple years ago, after going through old photos, my dad decided he wanted to get in contact with his old housemates from the '70s when he lived in the Bahamas. I found one of them, so then last year, my dad asked me to find another one. This one has a really common name, and one person by that name came up in the small Florida town I moved to from my home state of Pennsylvania. I obviously discarded that one because I thought 'what are the odds?' Turns out I had the right person, and I lived a mile from him for a whole year."
31. And: "I am originally from a small island off the coast of the UK. I live and work in a small town in the southeast US in healthcare. I found out that one of my patients owns a cottage on the island where I grew up, and my sister, who also works in healthcare, treats his wife when they are over there for six months of the year."
Dangggggg. What's a wild coincidence or "small world" moment that left you speechless? Tell us in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.