Wonder
People Share 19 Moments When They Felt “This Really Is A Small World”
Was it fate? Was it a coincidence?
The world is a small place if you compare to other planets that are tens of times larger than Earth. But that is true in a sense as travel has been made easier and faster than before. You can be on the other side of the world within half a day, a distance that you can be easily tackled on an airplane.
Meeting your ex on the same honeymoon destination as them, working with the twin of your ex-colleague after quitting your old job; the chances of these happening are slim, yet, here you are. These stories
1.
“Driving through France in the middle of the night, stopped at a service station and the friend I was travelling with noticed we’d pulled up next to a colleague of his.” – albinoloverats
2.
“In 2004, I went to Canada to study. I was searching online to find someplace to sleep, and then I bumped into a random guy on Craiglist or whatever website it is. He was at the time looking for someone to share his apartment, so we talked, beginning with a monthly charge then into life in Canada. As the conversation went on, we found out that we came from the same city, same school and same year! I was in classroom 1, he was in classroom 6, probably that is the reason we have never met in high school. Then I carried on, asking where he lived in our hometown, turned out that we were living in the same condo plaza! My family was in tower 3 floor 4, he was in tower 5 floor 5.
I immediately dialed my dad’s mobile and told him my surprising finding. My dad was having lunch all by himself in a restaurant near our home. He went silent for a while, then replied to me, “I think the family of the guy you talked about is just sitting a few meters from me. They are getting the call from their son apparently, and are looking and smiling at me.”
Our two families had been close friends for a while. However, his dad made loads of fortune from family business a few years ago, and the entire family immigrates to Europe, we have lost contact with them since then.” – Eggmatros
3.
“Saw 8 kids at Disneyland from my soccer team at the same time. Either it was coincidence or those bastards went without me.” – NovelProfessional767
4.
“I was at university in another city. Found home, and found out that my soon-to-be-roommate was the classmate sitting next to me in high school, whom I had lost contact with.” – Lupus_in_Pardula
5.
“On my honeymoon, I ran into my high school girlfriend at a resort in the Caribbean.
One evening my wife was taking a nap so I thought that I would just go out on the balcony and take in the view. I look over to my left, and there was Gina. I had not seen or spoken to Gina in at least 8 years at that time. Turns out ha she was there on her honeymoon as well. So it is a pretty small world when your high school girlfriend is in the next room over, and you are both pretty far from home on your honeymoon.” – REDDITprime1212
6.
“During my childhood, I moved around a lot. From ages 6-13, I lived in this one house, but unfortunately, we had to move. I loved that house despite all the family arguing and other stuff while growing up. Cut to now; I’m 26. My bf and I were talking to his family friends at a small party last week. It turns out they now live in my childhood home and they claim its haunted.” – RisingInkwell
7.
“My dad was South African. Had his own business in England. One day a new customer came in, who was also South African, from the same city, roughly of a similar age. So they got talking, ‘Did you go to so and so place, did you know so and so person… etc.’
A few hours later, this customer returns & asks for my dad. “Look,” he says. “I went home, dug around, and found this. It’s an old photo of a birthday party.” It’s a group photo, in black & white ( was probably about 1935) of some boys, maybe 10 years old, all posed nicely for the camera. “That,” he says pointing to one of them, “is me. And that,” pointing to another, “is you!”
This man had once, and only once, met my father, 50 years earlier, on another continent, and had a photo of the event.” – mozgw4
8.
“My fiancee and I were buying tickets for a Rammstein concert. It took forever because they were selling out so fast, so we were clicking a ton until we got two.
A few hours later, we called a friend to see if they happened to get their tickets, and they did.
When we told each other where our seats were….they are sitting directly next to us. The stadium is huge, no clue how the hell that happened. Damn COVID… I wanna see my boys!” – SqueegeBeckenheim
9.
“I had gone to a small resort in Montana over the summer (we lived in California). I stood there with my family for a week. During that time, we talked a bit with some of the servers at the restaurants and got to know some of them pretty well.
Well, that November, my family went to Paris for Thanksgiving. During our time there, we visited the Louvre museum. While we were walking through the museum, someone walks over to us and asks “I feel like I know you from somewhere”. Turns out, it was one of those waiters from the resort in Montana. I still think about that moment to this day.” – TheGlueofElmer
10.
“My wife was born in the state of California. In a hospital that technically no longer exists (it burned down and got rebuilt). She was born with a heart murmur.
About 24 years later, she’s at college getting her master’s degree in Vermont. While doing her master’s degree, a nurse from California spoke to her class. Telling them about a familiar case of a heart murmur in a newborn infant. How one of the hardest pieces of the job is you never know what happened after patients with problems like that leave the hospital.
It was my wife’s case she was talking about. She ended up getting to speak to the nurse after her presentation. The nurse who was instrumental in her birth.” – Morvack
11.
“Left a job to go to the other side of the country and work somewhere else. Ended up working with the identical twin of the guy I’d worked with at the old job.” – QuokkaMocha
12.
“My first girlfriend’s mom and my mom used to work together and were friends when they were pregnant with us.” – Aldakoopa
13.
“My wife and I lived in the same county (260,000 population roughly) but did not go to any schools together or anything like that. We connected in our late 20’s through a mutual friend.
When I proposed, my mom and her mom ended up meeting obviously. My mom recognized her mom and told me she was pretty sure my fiance and I had been preschool classmates. Lo and behold, my mom digs through many pictures, finds the preschool class photo, locates me in the photograph, and guess who is directly next to me in the photo? My now-wife.
We printed out an enlarged copy of the photo and displayed it at our wedding reception.” – TerpsMakeMeDrink
14.
“College roommate dated a girl during a semester. They broke up. A few years after graduation, he started dating another girl. He went back home with her for Thanksgiving dinner and his ex was there. They were sisters.” – kukukele
15.
“A friend of mine was showing my wife and I a video of a church conference that took place about 5 years ago. My wife was watching and said, “Hey, I think that’s me!” She was in the background of that video. We didn’t even know these people at the time this video was recorded.” – duende_hunter_2000
16.
“I was working in a call center and I needed a caller’s Social Security Number. He gave it to me and I said, ” No, yours… not mine” . Then it dawned on me that his SSN was the same as mine… but with 2 numbers reversed. We were born the same day, in the same hospital.” – Ethandrul
17.
“I flew to Florida, 2.5 years ago, to go scuba diving. First time traveling in awhile specifically for a scuba trip, traveling alone. Get on the plane to come home Monday morning early, sit down, start prepping my headphones and music for the flight, when I hear an awfully familiar voice.
It took me like 5 minutes to prairie dog to check it out (socially awkward introvert present!), to find that my uncle is seated 2 rows directly behind me.
He doesn’t live in Florida. And he doesn’t live in my home state either. He just happened to be on that particular flight going from one to the other for work.” – IDidWhatYesterday
18.
“Had a best friend in second grade. Then I moved away out of state and didn’t talk to him anymore.
In college, my roommate had a co-worker over, and after we introduced ourselves, the co-worker recognized my name, and I found out he was my second-grade best friend. Ends up we didn’t even go to the same college; he was in the area for a co-op. Now we’re good friends again after 15+ years.” – PerdyFly4aSenpai
19.
“Live in Canada, I used to travel for work. I went to the UK, landed in London and rented a car to drive to the job. Stopped at a highway rest stop on the M1 and got some McDonalds, went outside and ran in to my next door neighbour from Canada.” – cybermericorp
