Oh, the places we'll all go.
The destinations that await arrivals are endless.
And the people waiting there for us may be familiar.
Isn't it the craziest thing to run into people we already know or are somehow connected to in lands far away?
Is that fate? Destiny? Or just an oddity of life?
It happens more than one would expect.
Redditor jredd7605 wanted to hear about the times people randomly saw someone they knew in an unexpected location, so they asked:
"What’s the farthest place in the world from your home that you ran into somebody that you know?"
Full Circle
"Grew up in Ohio. Ran into my high school history teacher in Rome. (Ironically, in the Coliseum, and yes, he taught world history)."
- Raeliya
rome GIF Giphy
Barcelona
"Hung out with some people in a hostel in Barcelona. A year later randomly ran into them at the Grand Canyon.
- schamburglar
"I once met some guys in Barcelona and then saw them outside a bar in Amsterdam a week later. I guess this one isn’t completely crazy since we were both traveling around Europe at the time, but it seemed like an insane coincidence."
- 2ndChanceCharlie
"I’m Brazilian. I was living in Barcelona and met a bunch of Brazilian guys who lived in London during a New Year's party. Two months later, I was walking by the most random street in Paris (not touristy at all) and bumped into him."
- lthomazini
Again and Again
"Met someone in the UK who knew my family, and we randomly saw each other again on a beach in Ghana 💀."
- WoodenRevenue9919
"I guy I knew from college was on vacation in Europe and met a girl from China. They hung out for a bit and went their separate ways. A few years later, he was on vacation in South America and ran into her again. They are now married."
- rogercopernicus
"That sounds like the universe accidentally hit copy-paste on your life. Crazy how the world feels huge till you bump into someone from your past in a totally random beach thousands of miles away. Makes me wonder if we're all just living in a small town disguised as a planet."
- Accurate-Bus-4149
Ride Along
"Bumped into my middle school bus driver on a night train in Kyoto. Instant detention flashbacks."
- silver_grain_dust
"Strangely, my situation was also with my school bus driver. All 4 years of high school, I had the same driver; she was awesome. Fast-forward to me traveling from Massachusetts back to my hometown in New Mexico at 22 years old, and while in St. Louis, I'm standing in line to change BUSES AT A GREYHOUND STATION, and my BUS DRIVER was right in front of me. We were both heading back home. Rode next to each other the whole time. Longest bus ride we had ever shared, and we had shared a lot!"
- goodest-noodle
2000 Milles
"At age 30, I ran into my 3rd-grade best friend, more than 2000 miles from where we last saw one another. At age 11, he moved, and we neither heard nor saw one another for 20+ years."
"I joined the Army, then 4 years into my term, Amir walks into my unit, and it's my time to explain that I know him from our past. My mother was the school's photographer. The next day, I show up for work with a photo that Mom sent me overnight. It was a class photo from fifth grade where Amir and I were in the front row with our arms draped around one another. We don't hang out anymore, but we had 5 years in our 20s and 30s to hang out as adults on the other side of the continent that we met on. Small world for sure."
- Javajax1
Let's Party
"Not know directly, but I met a guy who went to high school with my sister at a house party in Shanghai."
"We grew up in rural Nova Scotia."
- Milligoon
China Holiday GIF by Virgin Atlantic Giphy
At the Hotel
"My sister and her family from Florida stayed in the room across the hall from my Mom and me, from the Midwest, in a hotel in Los Angeles. We didn't know of each other then, as my sister had been given up for adoption, and it was years later when we found each other and connected that we found out we stayed at the same hotel at the same time years earlier, and probably passed each other in the hall, not knowing. Gives me goosebumps thinking about it, how close we were."
- OkBee3439
Symphony Under the Stars
"Not me, but one time in Australia, I was organizing a group of people to the free Symphony Under the Stars concert in Sydney's Domain. I invited my colleague from work, and she invited her friend from South Africa. They were walking through a group of around 100,000 people when someone ran up to the person from South Africa. They were friends from school and didn't know that each other was now living in Australia."
- flingebunt
I know you...
"Oklahoma and South Korea. I was stationed in Oklahoma, and I got a kitten when hubs deployed for Desert Storm. I was in too, and the very long hours my poor kitten was alone for around 14 hours a day. I found a nice military family who took my cat. Two assignments later, in South Korea, walking down this small 'mall,' a guy walking toward me, I recognized his eyes."
"I stopped. He stopped. He said, 'I know you.' I said, 'I know you too. You have my cat!'”
"Turns out he did have my cat, and that Milo was the best cat he’d ever had."
- MtnMoose307
The Odds
"I was studying in Groningen, 2 hours away from my hometown. Then I went on exchange to Melbourne, Australia, and saw 2 guys from my high school, which was in my hometown, at a bar, and apparently they were also on exchange there. One of them was the ex of a friend of mine. What are the odds?"
"Oh, and another one, I went to a wedding of a friend of mine in Spain, while I live in the Netherlands. We entered the room through the back and walked towards our arranged seats. And who was I sitting next to, a girl who was an old classmate and the ex of another friend of mine. She was there as the photographer."
- theconfusedpigeon
By Chance
"Not me, but my Grandfather. He fought in Burma during WW2. Whilst there, he bumped into both his brother and the next-door neighbor by chance. Both were serving with other units and did not know he was there until they saw him."
- EnglishWolverine
Penguin Hello GIF by Pudgy Penguins Giphy
Pretty Cool
"My wife and I do an away Mariners trip every year. This year we were in Philly, and I happened to run into an old friend who used to rent our basement. He still lives near us in WA, but was visiting family in PA and decided to hit the same game."
"Also, not really someone I knew, but I was wearing a Tacoma Defiance (the Seattle Sounders lower-level team) hoodie in Florence. A woman walked by and commented on it, and I explained that, yeah, it’s the Sounders lower-level team, and she said, 'Yeah, I know my son plays for the Sounders.' It was our CB, Jackson Ragen’s mom. Pretty cool!"
- NWBF7109
5400 Milles
"Hahaha hahaha. I have an amazing story for this, but the details are so specific it would out me."
"Short version, I ran into an old family friend that I had never met before, 5400 miles away from our hometown. Also, I was carrying around a photo of a family member from decades earlier that he happened to be in. Was his wife pretty amazed? freaked out? that I had a photo of him in my purse."
- horsenbuggy
Read the Logo
"I was skiing in Lake Tahoe, CA, and was wearing my dad’s work jacket with his company and name embroidered on the chest from a company he owned in Montreal. I got on a ski lift with my dad’s old business partner, whom he had worked with before I was born. He read the logo and was like, 'Where did you get that jacket?'"
- nitroracertc3
Let's Talk
"I'm from New Orleans and was in Roatan, Honduras. I actually didn't know him as he was from California, but he saw my Marines tattoo and asked where I'd been stationed cuz he was a Marine, too. I told him, and he asked if I knew another Marine in NOLA, and sure enough, I did. So I got his contact info, and now they talk again."
- MajIssuesCaptObvious
marine GIF Giphy
Sometimes the world really is a small place.
It makes you wonder, is the Universe guiding us?
Are coincidences really?
Maybe all yes to it all.
Running into familiar faces in far-off countries is wild, though.
It's sort of like living two blocks away from the love of your life in childhood, but never meeting until you're 30!
@GregAbbott_TX/X
