Reddit user Palehant asked:
"What was your best 'it's a small world' moment?"
Neighbors
When a neighbor of mine when I was a kid moved from Italy to Argentina, but we both ended up in the same dorm when we arrived to University in the UK...
Military Life
Had a best friend in California 3-5th grade. I moved and lost contact.
My freshman year of high school I moved to JAPAN and he was one of the first people I ran into. Became best friends again.
GiphyMissed Connections
One of the best? My current manager knew my brother who has a different last name then me. She was talking to me about a time in high school where a guy was terrible to her, I asked who... it was my brother.
I've also met my S/O about 5 times before truly meeting her. She danced with my sister's best friend.
She was friends with my step dad's youngest brother. She went to private school with a really good friend of mine who I played soccer with.
She was friends with a girl I had a huge crush on all of middle school. I didn't truly meet her until my sophomore year.
Keeping Up With The Joneses
My daughter and I went on a weekend trip to Chicago. Our neighbors went to Chicago the same weekend.
My daughter said "Maybe we will see the Jones in Chicago." I laughed and explained that there are millions of people in Chicago.
We ran into the Jones in Chicago.
GiphyCameo
A few years ago, I went camping with a friend, her family and some family friends. Got talking to a few girls there about hobbies we had when we were younger, and discovered that me and another girl had both been majorettes when we were little.
She had some old videos on her ipod, so we decided to watch them. In one, she collected an award for coming 2nd place in a competition, but for some reason her dad had kept filming after she'd gone back to her seat.
Lowe and behold, my name gets called, and you can see a little 6 year old me wander past to collect it.
Pure fluke, 10 years later, a considerable distance away from where we both grew up.
All In The Family
I tutored Woman A in Biology for about 4-5 months in 2005.
Hooked up with Woman B about a year later in 2006.
Hooked up with Woman C about a year later in 2007.
Woman C then introduced me to her mom who turned out to be Woman A and they told me that I "might" know their aunt who turned out to be Woman B.
Small town life.
Layover
Middle Europe inhabitant. I met a girl on internet randomly from Baltic states like 3 years or so ago. We have been chatting ever since, planned some meets but never got the chance to make them work since we both are high school students.
This summer, I was travelling and my flight went from Germany to Finland (no direct flights). I was hanging out in the airport and hear a familiar voice from endless calls say my name.
Lo' and behold, the girl I chatted with for so long stood in front of me. We haven't planned to meet or anything. She traveled to Turkey and had a plane here as well. We had a great time talking and laughing at that the world is, indeed, a small place.
GiphyFrom Down Under
I traveled from Australia to the US and the first person I ran into was a guy from my work.
Us Australians are just absolutely everywhere at all times.
He just wanted to know if you got those reports done before you left.
Online
I was playing Left For Dead 2 online in my college dorm and one of the guys that I was playing against was going to the same university, staying in the same dorm, on the same floor, like 8 doors down the hall.
We poked our heads out into the hallway and said hi, then went back to our game and never spoke again. Sometimes I don't believe it actually happened.
A couple of years ago, I was playing Rust a day or two before Christmas.
Joined a random server, quite quiet, maybe 20 people online. Got speaking to some dudes. Usual stuff 'where you from? etc... Scotland, ok me too! City? No way!' Then same town... same area of the town...
Guy literally lived around the corner from me.
GiphyCzech Yourself
I was in an island in Malaysia (I’m from Indonesia). I hung out with fellow solo travelers from all over the world, Poland, Egypt, France, Algeria, Italia, US, Czech, and many more.
I talked to this girl from Czech, I told her that I have a friend in Prague and visit him every now and then.
Turned out she’s friends with my friend’s colleague, and she lives on the street next to my friend...
- hellotyo
Well Read
Bought a book called Illywacker by Peter Carey at the WHSmiths in Victoria Station in 1993, read it, sold it to a second hand bookshop in Eastbourne a few weeks later.
2003, living in Dallas, got talking to a girl on a flight who was reading a book, told her about the book, we talked on email a few times but things petered out.
Few weeks later she orders Illywacker used on Amazon, shows up, my name is written on the inside cover.
Been together ever since. And we still have the book.
- cbohno
GiphyDNA
Me and my siblings all have different dads, (our mom didn’t hide this from us and was honest about our family history, which I appreciate) and one Christmas we decided to take DNA tests.
Several months later one of my siblings found out they had a sister with an almost identical first and last name to mine. After some research, we figured out they went to the same high school, at the same time.
- sniffmynips
The Early Bird
I live in Cambodia, one Saturday arranged to meet some friends at a bar we didn't ever usually go to, I ended up getting there a lot earlier and as I walked in I banged straight into a guy who was leaving.
Was one of my old best friends from my old home town, who I'd lost touch with over a decade before. Last I knew he was in Mexico and I was living in London at that time and had come to visit Cambodia for a couple of weeks.
A surreal experience and had I not got there 15 mins before I was due to we wouldn't have crossed paths.
- bongpros
GiphyThere is a website where you can get people to house-sit for you when you are on holiday (useful if you have animals). A lovely Australian couple came and house sat for us for two weeks.
On our return we got chatting and I mentioned I had an Australian cousin. He lived on the east coast whereas they lived on the west coast.
But then it transpired they had also house-sat for my cousin two years earlier...
- flounderbout
So back in 3rd grade I met this kid that we shall call Ben. Well, Ben was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. around the time I switched schools. So, me and this kid were good friends up until about 6th grade to when he moved to Germany.
Well back in like August or July of 2019 I joined a group post on Xbox for an rp thing on Minecraft. Well me and this guy that everyone called Chance became good friends.
Then me and Chance were playing some game together when he was talking about living in the USA and moving to Germany so I asked him some questions and come to find out it was Ben.
I got reunited with my old friend from my childhood over an Xbox group post and didn't realize it was him until months later.
- Ivarthegreat95
My family and I spent our holiday in Hong Kong and my friend went on a school trip there around the same time. I joked that we might see each other there.
Then we bumped into each other. Twice. Once in a theme park and the other in the train a few days later.
Bear in mind that we didn’t know about each other’s itinerary so it was a complete coincidence on both times.
- mostlikelytocry
GiphySmall Town
While in the military, I was reassigned to a base in a different part of the country.
Not long after arriving, my wife ran into an old friend from high school, who, as it turned out, had also recently been stationed there.
They both came from a small town of only about 3,000 people.
- itsallalittleblurry
Secret Superpower
I have a superpower of sorts, to attract people I know.
Take me anywhere and there is a 90% chance we will run into someone I know. It can be anyone, from anywhere, at any time.
So I have a ton of "it's a small world" moments. People from work, from volunteer shifts I've worked, from school, anywhere.
Well, it's not a superpower to me, anyway. I consider it a blessing and a curse.
- geico_fire
It really is a small world, isn't it?
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u/WillyWonnka asked:
What was the biggest coincidence in history?
Here were some of those answers.
Locked In A Fig
GiphyIn 1938, a baby fell out of a 4th floor window and onto a man sweeping the street named Joseph Figlock. They were both injured, but survived. About one year later, the same baby fell out of the same window and was caught by Joseph Figlock.
Death Taxi
In 1974, a taxi in Bermuda struck a man named Erskine Lawrence Ebbin who was riding a moped, killing him. Exactly one year later, the man's brother, Neville, died while riding the very same moped...
...on the very same street...
...after being struck by a taxi...
...driven by the same driver...
...carrying the same passenger.
Damned Dam
The first man to die during the building of the Hoover Dam was J.G. Tierney, on December 20, 1922.
The final man to die during the project was Patrick W. Tierney, his son, in 1935...also on December 20.
D-Day
In the days leading up to the allied invasion of Normandy, a British newspaper's crossword puzzle solution words correlated with the code names related to the attack. Words like Omaha, Utah, and even Overlord and Neptune.
The coincidence scared British high command so much that they arrested and interrogated the crossword's creator.
Unfogging The Future
In 1898 a novella written by Morgan Robertson was published, it was a story about an "unsinkable" ocean liner named Titan which on a night of April was struck on its starboard side by an iceberg and was sunk in the North Atlantic, 400 nautical miles from Newfoundland. Fourteen years later it's 1912 and the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic departs from Southampton on its Maiden Voyage and is struck by an iceberg on the starboard side on the night of the 14th of April and sinks in the North Atlantic, 400 nautical miles from Newfoundland.
If you'd like to read more about it here is a wikipedia article with exact details.
She Used To Be Mine
American writer Anne Parish was in Paris at a bookstore and found a copy of an English language children's book, "Jack Frost and Other Stories." She hadn't seen a copy of it since she was a little girl and remembered it being her favorite so she bought the copy and went to meet her husband at a nearby cafe. She explained to her husband how much she had loved the nursery rhymes as a child and began to recite some of them from memory. As he was leafing through the book the pages turned to the inside cover and written on the inside it said "Anne Parish" And was followed by her childhood address.
Brutal Life Mirror
Edgar Allan Poe published just one novel: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, released in 1838. The novel tells of a doomed Antarctic journey in which four shipwrecked crewmen decide to eat cabin boy Richard Parker in order to survive.
In 1884, four crew members survived the ship wreckage of a vessel named the Mignonette. The survivors decided to eat their cabin boy in order to live. As fate would have it, that cabin boy's name was Richard Parker.
Invaders
When Soviet archaeologists opened the tomb of Tamerlane, one of Ghenghis Khan's descendants and a conqueror in his own right (founder of the Timurid Empire), an inscription inside the casket was found, which read, "Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I." Three days after the tomb was opened and the body removed, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union via Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion of all time. To add to that, Tamerlane was re-buried with full Islamic ritual in November 1942 just before the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Plunging The World Into War
In Limburg, the Netherlands, there is a tradition of an old (fantasy) military style parade and Marksmen's competitions. Once a year all 150 or so guilds/association come together for one big festival which is called OLS (Old Limburgian Marksmen's festival). The winner gets to organize this festival to upcoming year. It is a big honor to win the marksmen's competition as it in groups of six and the marksmen have to hit every shot at a cubes as small as 0.5x0.5x0.5 cm at a distance of about 22m until there is only 1 team left.
One of the smallest townships (about 50 inhabitants) has won this competition twice. Once in 1914 and once in 1939. Twice it messed things up big time all over Europe. They have since disbanded their 'schutterij' to prevent WWIII.
The Lawless West
GiphyThe case of William and Will West who were identical to each other in physical appearance. They were, however, not at all related to each other. Apparently, one of them was a criminal and they arrested the other one which created a lot of confusion. Because of that, the idea of fingerprints was invented in 1892.
