Grew up in a poor, tiny, shit ass town on the east coast, US. In my 30’s I moved to Colorado for school. One day while at a Target I hear someone behind me shout my full name, I turn around and it’s a girl who was a couple years behind me in high school. I didn’t recognize her and I never would have, as she was someone I never really paid attention to, and she looked way different now. To this day it amazes me that this person recognized some guy who she wasn’t even friends with 13 years after high school, in a completely different part of the country.

Someone guessed my last name from my face and height.

In certain circles my family is famous enough that it makes sense, but eerie having someone ask you (in a town you’re not from) “are you a ____?” is very weird.

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I have run into family and friends accidentally at airports multiple times now. One time I just saw friends at their gate and went over and talked, another time got a text from a family member saying “I’m on a layover in X airport” in a conversation and I was like no way, me too, and we met for lunch.

I got a work/travel visa for Germany and spent a year living in Berlin with a bit of travel here and there. Early in my year, I stayed at a hostel in Kreuzberg.

I stayed there long enough to get to know one of the receptionists there. One day she adds me on Facebook. A few days later she told me she was creeping my page when she noticed a familiar hostel that I mentioned in a post. It was a hostel in Sydney, Australia where I also stayed for two years on a similar work/holiday visa. This was a couple years before my stay in Germany.

We got to talking more and it turns out we both were in the same hostel in Australia at the same time. It’s possible we saw each other at some point but neither of us remember. She did mention a specific weather event that happened during the time we were in Sydney so seems our time lines match up too.

We ended up staying friends for my time in Germany and even hitch hiked together to Warsaw and back at one point. One of the nicest people I’ve met in my travels, hope she’s doing well these days.

Not exactly what you’re asking for, but it felt really small world to me.

I saw Anthony Bourdain on TV review a Bánh Mì restaurant in Vietnam and told myself I would eat there someday. Went to Vietnam, pretty much the first time I traveled ever. Went to the Banh Mí place. It was at night, there was a very long queue to get in, I waited in line and ordered. At the counter and on the walls, multiple snippets of newspapers and pictures of Bourdain with the staff and chefs. I sat down with my food, and as I started eating, I received a notification on my cellphone from my local news network at the other side of the world : Bourdain just killed himself.

It felt very surreal. I was looking at all these pictures with the feeling I knew something all these people didn’t yet.

I ran into someone I went to high school with three times in one day. All different locations, all outside of our hometown.

First time it was kinda funny. Third time was a little awkward lol.

My boss and I both lived 2000 miles away in Provo, Utah 25 years ago at the same time, close enough I could see his place from my apartment, but never met there that I know of.

When I first moved to another city for work across the country, I was looking for furniture for my new place. So, naturally, I used the local marketplace to find some cheap stuff. I found a bookshelf that was only $20 so I contacted the lady and went to pick it up. When I met the lady, she looked familiar to me but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was only until we talked that I realized this is the same girl that I sold my drawing tablet to back home before I moved across country. She was a local from my home town. She had moved there for a few months to clean out her grandparents house. I met her the day she was leaving.

I ran into a girl I went to school with in New Zealand (school was in the UK). Didn’t know she was there working for a year, and even if I had, what were the odds I’d end up in the exact bar she was working in?

I have a very small set of friends, and I got my PhD in Indiana. Randomly, while renewing my visa in England, I bumped into some friends who were just traveling.

Probably when I was going to a graphic arts design class in California and realized one of the guys was a classmate in high school. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, except my high school was Frankfurt American High School in Germany. The kids there were from all over the US.

Memory is a bit blurry, but pretty sure that:

When I was in school in the US, I met someone with the same last name as me and she even had the same exact date of birth.

But actually its not that surprising… 90% of Chinese diaspora are from like Taishan, and places nearby usually have very similar last names.

But its so freaky how we were born on the same exact day, AND have the same last name, I think she was also born in China if I remember correctly (pretty sure she spoke Cantonese very well, American-born ones are usually less fluent).

Sometimes classmates joke that we are twins, some actually asked us “Are y’all twins or something”, and like we had to very often clarify that we’re not related by blood.

(Or are we? Maybe I have a long lost twin who knows? 🤔)

Side note: In the same class, there was also another kid with the same birthday, but the birthyear was one year off, and I forgot if his last name was the same or not. Also Chinese American, but American-born.

I also share the same last name with a famous influential Chinese Politician… okay I’m not gonna elaborate who, don’t wanna get doxxed xD.

My son was dating the ex girlfriend(and baby momma)of my wife’s ex boyfriend’s (and baby daddy) best friend.