A friend of mine and I (we are both Aussies) had been staying at my Grandma's house in a rural village in UK and were trying to make our way back to London on Boxing Day. The fact that it was Boxing Day meant that no buses were running, so we started sticking our thumbs out to try and hitch a lift to the nearest town's train station. As you would expect, picking up two 19 year old blokes in the middle of nowhere was not an attractive proposition to your average passerby.

Eventually a guy comes along and picks us up. Tells us he hitched all the way across Europe back in the day so he empathized with us. Says he's on the way to pick up his son (our age) from work, a department store that happened to be on the way to the station.

His son gets into the car, understandably pretty bemused as to why his dad has brought two random stragglers with him!

We get to the station only to find that it's closed, because, yes, it's Boxing Day and trains weren't running either (we hadn't really thought this through). Guy says:

"Don't worry lads, all the family are around ours for Christmas dinner. My brother lives in West London so he can give you a ride there at the end of the night."

So we found ourselves, two foreign students, invited to a complete stranger's Christmas dinner party. We all had so much fun and drank so much that we completely abandoned the London idea and went back to my Grandma's at the end of the night.

And the kid who was our age that got picked up from work? He ended up being my Best Man when I got married 15 years later. True story!

5th grade, my best friend at the time was in a basketball team, just a small town league for kids. I never really played basketball, so I was planning to watch the game then we'd hang out. It was the first game of the season and my friend was getting his uniform from a table when a dad running things asked me what team I was playing on and I said no, I'm just here to hang out with my friend.

He shook his head and said, "No, that won't do. You're on his team, too" and handed me a jersey. Then he went ahead and paid my registration fee.

More than the money, it was the proactive nature of it that struck me at the time. The thing is, if I had asked my parents they probably would have signed me up. But it was one of those things where it would have never crossed my mind to ask. I ws as one of those kids that needed a push every now and then and rarely got one.

I never got very good at basketball but I never missed a game and had a great time with my friend. So not a tragic or desperate story, but still meaningful to me all these years later.

I was driving from Sacramento to Reno, and there was a bad snowfall up in the mountains. I ended up getting struck in a small country town, and couldn't get up an iced hill. I thought I was going to be stuck there the entire day (at least), but a stranger pulled up in their pickup truck—with four wheel drive—and towed me up the hill and to safety. That's the most significant act of kindness I can remember—from a complete stranger.

It's a bit dark, but I'm doing much better now, so happy ending. No need to wish me well or anything, I'm the happiest I've ever been (thankfully).

After reaching an age where bi-polar disorder goes full swing, I was unable to manage manic episodes; they'd spring up and I'd be awake for days and then crash horribly. I lost all hope that I'd be able to hold down a typical job ever again. I became a 24h/7d alcoholic with the goal of never being conscious and trying to sleep through life until it ended.

I was at the local shop where I bought my booze buying a bunch of beer and vodka around 7-8am. A guy near me at the counter made a comment about what a great party must be coming. I looked at him, probably dead-eyed, and said, "I'm an alcoholic."

He put his hand on my shoulder. He didn't say anything. It was just a moment of compassion. It was deeply kind. What was communicated was simply that someone cared and, to this day, I wish I had a way to thank him for that profound gesture.

I live in Minnesota and do not own a snowblower. Probably my mistake, but I always joke that I get most of my exercise in the winter. Snow is really heavy for those without context.

A couple years ago we had a particularly bad snowfall. The plow has a nasty hate filled habit of dumping all its snow in my driveway. I had a drift at the end of my driveway about 4 feet high and 6 feet deep. Literally up to my chest. I had spent a solid hour just chipping away at it trying to get my car out and had made very little progress.

Right as I was about to give up in frustration, a man in a bobcat drove by. Moments later he turned around, came back, and asked "would you like me to clear that for you?" I told him that would be amazing. Took him a couple minutes and then he waved and drove off before I got a chance to offer him any money or even thank him.

I think about this guy pretty often, it's absolutely the random act of kindness in my life I have appreciated most.

A recent lesser snowfall for context:

https://imgur.com/a/1un20s7

I've got a weird one from a bank.

I was driving from South Carolina to Virginia, I was completely broke, and had exactly $20 in cash, and only a couple dollars in my checking account. I did my math wrong, and didn't have enough money for enough gas to make it home. I was trying to draft behind semi trucks and drive slow to conserve fuel, but it wasn't enough.

I called my bank at the gas station with my needle on empty and asked what would happen if I overdrew my account by $50, and the guy on the phone asked me to explain the situation. Afterwards he said I was good to go.

I asked, what does that mean? He said there's now $50 in your account. You can use it to fill up your car on your debit card.

I filled up my car and made it home. When I checked my account later, expecting to see an overdraft fee, there was a deposit of $50 from some account I didn't recognize. The guy had just transferred me $50 from his own account. I never figured out who this was, so ~18 years later, I'll take this opportunity to say: thank you sir.

I don't know that this is THE nicest thing anyone has ever done, but it was a small thing that made a huge difference in that moment.

My best friend, his girlfriend, brother, sister and I piled into a minivan in July of 2018 and drove from Boston to SF. Best friend and I both took jobs there out of school and decided to make a trip of the life move.

We painted BOS > SF on the back window. At a gas station in Memphis a random guy walked up to us and said "Make sure you go to Graceland. Can't miss it."

We sort of smile and nod politely and then walk into the gas station to use the bathroom, reload on snacks etc.

10 mins later we come back outside and the same guy comes over "I bought you all tickets to Graceland, who can I text them to?"

Truly such a sick moment. Graceland was a highlight of the trip and to have someone just do such a random kind thing made it that much better. Long live Elvis, long live the King. Thanks again to whoever you are that did that. Respect.

I saw my mom do something as a child that really stuck with me. This was back in the 70s cause I’m old. It was summer in the Midwest we were in the car in a store parking lot gettin ready to leave. An African-American lady pulled into a spot beside our car. In front of her was a pickup truck with two men and a pregnant woman. They started accosting the lady telling her she had bumped their vehicle and now the pregnant woman was in pain. This was the 70s so everyone’s windows were down so we heard the whole thing. The gist was these people were clearly trying to extort money from this lady. My mom got out and dressed them down because she had been watching and the ladies car didn’t touch their truck. They sulked and drove away. The lady was very afraid and very grateful. This was a time and place where not a lot of African Americans lived. That really stuck with me over the years.

It was threatening to rain but I thought I could make it to my destination so I bolted out the door. Half way it started pouring. I stopped in the middle of the side walk, under a tree. I was watching a cat further down the sidewalk that was in the same situation so I didn't notice a lady pull up with her car.

She just handed me an umbrella and drove off after I said thank you.

My chain had slipped off the rear sprocket, wedged itself between the gear and the frame. I forgot my toolkit and I was unable to free it. I was miles out of town so a walk back was going to take hours. A guy on a motorcycle rode by, looked at me and turned around. He got off his bike, got his tools, and freed the chain in seconds. I was profoundly grateful. Years later, I happened across a cyclist in a similar situation. I helped him and I told him I was simply paying back the first guy who had helped me. It felt really good.

I was driving to my first “real” tech job about 500 miles away from home at the age of 18. All my assets in my beater of a car, and about $120 in my bank account at the time.

My car broke down at a rest stop due to overheating and would not start again. I called a local shop on a Sunday afternoon and some guy in a tow truck pulled up and brought me to his place.

He knew immediately it was some fuel control module that dies when overheated, and just so happened to have a car he was working on to resale with the same one. I truthfully told him I probably couldn’t afford to pay him for it until I got my first paycheck and he asked how much I had. Told him about $120 to my name and he just charged me $100 and said I was good to go.

I (barely) made it to my new spot at 4am or so going 35mph to keep from overheating again. Flashers on the whole way there. Used my change jar to pay for my final tank of gas.

I didn’t fully realize how much that repair should have cost - plus the tow - plus the same day off hours service.

I think about that guy a lot and it’s informed my charitable giving ever since. I like to think I’m still paying it forward to this day when situations arise for me to help out someone in need who isn’t asking for a favor first.

Given the response I got from family when I called them to ask for a $100 loan to pay for gas on that trip informed my relationships with them for life. A stranger went out of his way more than supposedly close family did during my most dire (at the time) emergency I had ever experienced.

I was at a waterpark as a young teen and ended up trying the wave pool, but even being tall for my age I was shorter than a typical adult. When I first went out the waves weren't turned on/going yet, but once the waves started everyone moved forward and the crowded pool compressed even more, plus I got pushed even deeper into the deep end, and basically I sank down because I couldn't really get any space to swim and everyone else was standing. It was so packed with people that eventually (without my realizing at the time) it became impossible to move arms and legs enough to stay up, kinda like a crowd surge but in the water.

I must have been too shy to think of climbing onto the person next to me. My best guess is that I was "jumping" up off the bottom to get brief bits of air while hoping it wasn't in the middle of a wave. After doing this for a bit, could be just seconds, I started to panic (I really couldn't tell you how long, felt like forever). I heard a whistle and somehow this lifeguard was there through the crowd within seconds (they had been standing along the wall of the pool but I was more in the middle).

The people all around me shoulder to shoulder hadn't even noticed what was going on, I still feel amazed the lifeguard could pick me out from thousands of heads and get to me.

(I don't know if this can be considered "nice" cause it was their job, but it's something that has always stuck with me).

My family lived in an apartment near a cemetery when I was 10, the complex stretched along the old cemetery wall made out of massive granite stones. Nearly all of the people living in the complex were elderly.

When I came home from school I would sometimes kick ball against the wall and I could spot old people looking at me from the windows, they would stare at me for a long time.

One summer an elderly woman came out on the balcony and invited me to come up for ice cream, my parents had warned me to beware of friendly strangers but my judgement at the time was that it was a neighbor so they must be friendly.

I entered and to my surprise the woman wasn't alone, she lived with her husband who was sitting in an armchair and they both looked to be in their 80s. They seemed very happy to have me, we sat down on the balcony and I remember feeling a bit awkward as these two strangers looked and smiled at me as I was eating the ice cream.

I don't think they ever had any children.

This memory sometimes resurfaces, and now at 41 I realize how sad and wonderful this was at the same time.

We moved away shortly after and I never saw them again.

I met a Tesla engineer on Reddit a few years ago. We got talking, he referred me to Tesla, and I ended up getting an offer for what was basically my dream role.

He was a complete stranger and incredibly kind, supportive, and helpful throughout the process. Still grateful for that. Small acts like that restore a bit of faith in humanity.

It also reminded me of a Steve Jobs quote:

“Most people never pick up the phone. Most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people who do things from the people who just dream about them. You have to act, and you have to be willing to fail. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.” - SJ

Traveling around India I ate some food at a train station before boarding an overnight train and became extremely sick. I arrived early into Bikaner and as I started wandering around I became more and more delirious, to the point that I don't have clear memories of what happened after for a day or so. A (not well off) family however found me, brought me to their home, put me up in a rooftop sort of room, called a doctor, and then fed and took care of me for the next few days. They refused to accept any payment except for the rehydration packets they'd bought. I am forever grateful to them and I think of it and try to pay it forward whenever I can.

We had driven to a small remote village on Vancouver Island BC, to catch an early morning ferry. We had reserved a room at the only motel in town. We got there around 9PM. The a*h** owner ignored the doorbell and did not let us in (we could see him moving around in his attached residence). We went to a restaurant that was just about closing, told our story, and asked the owners if there were any options. Their friend, who was hanging around there overheard us .. he invited us to come over to his house and spend the night. The next day he insisted on buying us a wonderful breakfast.

When we got back home after the long trip, we sent him a nice sweatshirt with "New Jersey" on it.

3-day bike trip, NYC to Provincetown. On day two, our group split up and I was riding with a close friend. 15 miles into the 100-mile day, we got our 3rd flat. We had only carried 2 spare tubes.

We had barely pulled our bikes onto the sidewalk when a woman in a sedan slowed down to ask if we needed help. We said yes and she quickly pulled over. We piled our bikes into her car, trunk open, and she drove us to the nearest bike shop.

Turns out her family member ran the shop.

Truly saved our day. We made it to Provincetown and 15 years later still remember her so fondly and are so thankful!

This is my earliest memory. When I was two, and did not yet know how to swim, I was visiting with family who had a place right on the river Thames near Henley. I was running around with my seven cousins, but I was the youngest and at some point found myself alone. I wandered out onto the towpath beside the river, where they had a small jetty.

Earlier an older cousin had been out in the canoe and it looked easy enough. I put one foot in and realised my error immediately, toppling into the water. I remember clearly the water bubbles going by and thinking 'Oh dear, my mum is going to be so angry about this.' I came back up and saw a couple now running up along the path -- they had seen me go in.

I don't remember anything else. I'm told the man fished me out and then there was a great kerfuffle as I was hung upside-down and coughed a bit. My cousins got a massive earful from my mother, who was furious with the eldest in particular for losing track of me. My father taught me to swim.

The man was thanked profusely, but we don't know his name. I hope he had a wonderful life and I'm grateful for mine.

I like this. I hope this thread fills with many more comments.

I think it's important to remember especially in traffic and such that cars aren't cars, they are people. I have no idea the real ratios, but imagine 20% are genuinely good people, 60% are just going about their lives, and 20% are miserable for some reason and drive like miserable people. It's easy to think everyone else is an idiot and become aggressive, but remember it's a small percentage who actually agitate you.

Now to answer the question. I guess it's when I was a kid, I'd completely torn my ACL but they wouldn't operate until I was done growing. I don't know how old, 12 maybe? I was in Washington DC running across a busy street when my knee slid out of place and I fell in the road. A Mercedes stopped, purposely blocking both lanes of traffic, and a husky middle aged black lady in scrubs got out and dragged me out of the road onto the sidewalk. She asked if I was ok, and I was as it happened here and there, and off she went. It was such a kind gesture in a city that seemed so cold and always on the go.

In the UK we used to have a nationalized rail system. People were always rude about the late trains, stale sandwiches etc. But I once managed to leave a bag Xmas present on a train. I only realized when I got another train. They were so helpful, they managed to find the bag and have it sent on to me. I think we lost a lot of that good will when the UK rail system was privatised. And the privatised trains were still late, but much more expensive.

Not a stranger but strangers I was returning home from an event early evening. Being absorbed in my thoughts. I got both my front tires free spinning without traction in a ditch.

Although this was in Nigeria, we have this certain camaraderie through hardship, it was still extremely surprising seeing a group of 6 men come out of nowhere, having nothing to do with each other aside being passerbys join hands, exerting sweaty effort to get my car out a ditch by 8pm.

Left me quite an impression

I could write all day about the times people helped me that I know about, and there's others I suspect, and surely others I never suspected.

One that comes to mind was when I was on my own as a teen, and fortunately had a community college co-op student internship. My coworkers looked out for me in various ways, both professionally and personally, as if it was just ordinary for them.

I also found some similar above-and-beyond goodness by people at Brown University.

So that's what I knew in adulthood, until later disillusionment.

I still try to promote the way that I know exists, and I recognize a lot of other people who live that, or are ready to switch to it.

When I was young, my future wife and I went on vacation to Tahiti. We took a bus from our hotel to the Capital probably only 3 to 5 miles away bust still a good walk away. I thought it would be easy to get a bus back both because I knew a little French and because I assumed buses could either go clockwise or counterclockwise around the island. Long story short my assumptions were bad and we got lost.

We stopped at a bus stop to regroup and there were two local men, construction workers as I recall, sitting at the stop. They got us back on track but more than that, they cracked open a 6 pack of beer and shared it with us. I dont know what those beers could have cost but it was not cheap. They were regular guys and we were lost rich tourists. In no world I would have imagined would they have shared those beers with us but there they were and they ensured we got to the hotel as well.

I will always remember that kindness.

Back when my daughter was small, I was waiting in a line to get to the ticket window at the ballpark. A woman walked up to us, said my daughter was lovely, and gave us 2 tickets to the premium section of the park (the fancy bathroom section as my daughter called it). We saw Manny Ramirez hit his 500th! What a nice gesture. Whenever we went back, and when I was making a bit more money, I always bought one or two tickets after that to give away. Being unexpectedly nice in an unexpected way not only put a bit of joy in my life, it prompted me to do the same. That reminds me. I need to do something unexpected for a stranger. Thanks for the reminder!

Stopped in the dark on a December night on the shoulder of an interstate junction to change a tire after I had a blowout while driving. Under normal circumstances, I probably could have handled it myself, but I was getting about four hours of sleep a night because of tinnitus.

I was very nervous when a random guy stopped. My initial thought was, "Am I about to be robbed?" But it turned out that he was just a local aerospace engineer, and it was his hobby to help stranded motorists.

Did a road trip in our teens from Melbourne to Sydney. On our way back we stopped at the petrol station at Pheasant's nest. We were nearly out of petrol, didn't have any money. My friend had some cigarettes, so we started awkwardly trying to sell a pack to people, just needed about $20 (back in those days petrol was a lot cheaper and obviously the dollar had better value). We approached a lady with her kids, told her our story of needing petrol to return home, and we had some cigarettes if she needed. She straight up gave us a $50 without asking anything in return.

This has been burned in my memory going on for more than 25 years. I have gone over and beyond for both people and strangers, but I have yet to be in a similar situation to pay it forward.

A stranger risked his life to save me from drowning in Costa Rica.

I'm continuously delighted by the whole open source software ecosystem. I'm using nixOS with KDE and this setup has made me feel incredibly powerful and excited about computers once again. I'm very grateful to the thousands of open source contributors that have made this possible.

I had finished my hamburger, zoning out. I had my guitar with me, having had a belowpar band practice, while waiting for my therapist appointment. Life was heading downwards in a slow, but steady, fashion.

This wonderful woman came over and asked if I wanted a hug. It warmed me to my bones. She said that "people should do that more", or something along those lines, and disappeared.

I don't remember her face, I just remember the warm feeling in my chest.

There's a corelation between how nice people are in general and how well laws are enforced. More consistent enforcement means people trust that other's are not getting away with stuff and so they can settle into assuming the best most often, instead of having to worry.

I feel like many places have forgotten that. Maybe law enforcement got too expensive or there were too many corrupt police but so much now is no longer enforced and so the selfish "it's okay if I can get away with it" types are winning.

I planned to propose to my girlfriend at sunset on the coast. We walked along a path and I got out my camera, ostensibly so we could take photos of ourselves using a small tripod I brought. I was going to take a few photos using the camera remote, then propose and keep taking shots to capture the moment.

As I was setting up the tripod on a bench, and man who was walking by offered to take a photo for us. I didn't want to explain what was going to happen, so I declined. But he insisted that he had the exact same camera, and would be happy to take some photos.

I lowered my voice so my girlfriend wouldn't hear, and said "Ok don't react at all, but I am about to propose to my girlfriend." He nodded in understanding and calmly took the camera. He took a few posed shots and then gave me the signal. I got down on a knee and proposed (completely forgetting what the speech I had prepared, of course), with him taking photos all the while. I'm certain that the photos he took (in manual mode!) turned out much better than what I would have captured at sunset/dusk, via remote.

A year or two later I mentioned to my then-wife that it would have been nice had we invited the man to our wedding. She laughed and said that she always assumed he was a photographer whom I had paid to be at the location at that time. It took quite some convincing before she understood that he was just a Nikon photog who was in the right place at the right time.

It was snowing. I scraped the windshield of my car. When I was done, I turned the key - and the battery was dead. I shrugged, gathered my belongings and was about to go back into my apartment building. But a woman who has just arrived in her car came up to me. And she asked, “Is your car not starting? You can use mine if you like.” I had needed seen here before. I took it. I returned it with a full tank in the evening. I’ve since had two other random strangers lend me their car, both in Germany and in the US. It’s something I wouldn’t have believed people would do. And it’s something I wouldn’t have accepted out of fear. But I had learned: Being kind and accepting kindness are two sides of the same coin. The one cannot exists without the other.

My old BMW GS (motorcycle) engine jumped timing chain for whatever reason and completely gave up the ghost on a busy highway in Poland, a random motorcyclist on a streetbike saw the white smoke cloud and understood what happened to me as I coasted to the side of the road, he stopped, asked a few details and said "get on your bike, I'll push you to the nearest shop". I didn't speak Polish and his English was not great too, but we managed to understand each other. To this day I do not know how he managed, but he was able to control the gas on his bike, align himself to the back and off the side of my bike and kept giving me these push impulses so I could keep moving, and moving we were, we travelled ~6 miles to safety doing ~30mph, I thanked him and we went out separate ways. This experience feels surreal, I literally didn't spend any time in danger lingering on a busy road side or waiting for a trailer, which can take hours.

Not the nicest thing, but when I was grocery shopping for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, a stranger shared their “secret” for picking out good sweet potatoes (she was making sweet potato pie). She picked out a few for me. Just one of those warm fuzzy moments that we never get enough of.

I think if I'd go down memory lane I would come up with quite a lot. But one sticks out immediately.

I was in Thailand on a bus, with only Thai people, it was a really local bus. The bus would stop around every 30 miles/50 kilometers. I didn't know that. I needed to get off at a particular stop as it was close to the meditation retreat I was going to (Phitsanulok). I miss the stop. I figure it'd be fine. I didn't realize the 30 miles thing. So after half an hour of driving I ask the bus driver when it's going to stop. He said he'll stop in another 15 minutes.

It was about to get dark. I asked him if he could please stop now. I was 25 miles away, it'd be rough but 8 hours of walking is doable. He stopped, now I was on the side of the road. It had gotten dark.

I noticed houses next to the side of the highway. It was a strange sight to walk next to a highway and see houses next to it. In one case, I saw a father, mother and 2 children outside ready to go inside.

I asked them for help. They didn't speak English but listened. With our hands and feet and a bit of Google Translate, I got to tell them my story. The father looks at me with understanding eyes and gestures for me to get on the back of the moped. I get on the back. He brings me to a police station. He says they'd take me to Phitsanulok.

In the police station, no one was there. There was one light on and blinking. The room itself looked grey-ish white. I felt like I was in the beginning scene of a horror film. Before the father left, I asked him why there was no one here. He told me that the policemen were having dinner and they'd probably be done in an hour. I sat there for an hour.

The policemen came out, they looked at me surprised. They spoke English, I told them my situation. They said "alright, get back in the car". And they just gave me a whole ride of 25 miles to where I exactly needed to be.

To say that I was grateful would be an understatement. I offered them money, because while I know that they are just working, I reckon that this type of stuff is not in the job description of a policeman. I was purely offering it out of gratitude. They said no. I offered 2 more times, they still said no. I did my best to show I was incredibly grateful and I think they got the message, haha.

Thanks to those Thai policemen, and other acts of kindness I've experienced over the course of my life, I will pay it forward. Not because I feel I have to, mostly because I see how wonderful that attitude actually is.

I love going out of my way to help people, but hate when people help me or give me gifts. I don’t know how to experience “pure” gratitude that isn’t overwhelmed by guilt.

I should probably talk to somebody about that…

During COVID, by father was dying in a hospice center (from something else, not COVID). Because of the circumstances and the condition of the medical system, it was impossible to get into where he was to see him, and the staff was too overworked and understaffed to find a way to connect us to him. He was alone, fragile, dying, and terrified.

As my mother and I sat in the reception area fighting with the hospice administrator, a medical transport pulled up and unloaded another patient. After putting the new patient back in their room the driver walked up to us as we were sliding into a heated argument with the hospice administrator.

She asked the administrator what the problem was and was told that policy was visitors can't be going into the patient area and it was very firm. They'd had issues with the local government about being slack about it. The driver turned to me and said something along the lines of "here's what we're going to do:

Since I can apparently run around freely in this place, I'm going to find your father and put a star in his window so you can always find where he is.

Number two, I'm going to give you a set of full hazard gear.

Number three" and she turned to the administrator put her finger up into her face and very sternly said, "they are going to hire you as a part time employee, in maintenance, or IT support or whatever, and your hours of employment here are going to be whenever you need to visit your father."

she turned back to me, "but this doesn't mean it's a free pass, you are going to wear all of this hazard gear whenever you come 'work' here, promise me that okay?"

She then took the administrator off to a side room, had a conversation, and I had a piece of paper to sign about 30 minutes later making me an employee of the hospice.

I made it into and out of the hospice without incident for the next week until we decided to bring my father home to die as he wasn't receiving almost any care there. I don't know what the ambulance driver and the administrator discussed, but I suspect it was the absolutely woeful state of the facility.

The look on my father's face when a head-to-toe masked man entered his room the first time, and when I took my mask off to show him I was there for him, and how the terror just simply fell from his face, is something I will always remember as is the kindness of the driver who put herself out there for us.

The period was incredibly hard, beyond the situation with my father, the medical system was in absolute shambles, and as my father's health was rapidly deteriorating, it was among the only kindness we received during that wretched journey.

Me, Austrian and two Austrian friends were doing a road trip through western Canada. We had a rental car with a remote key fob, and forgot the key fob on the cars roof when driving off for a multi-hundred kms trip. It obviously got lost and when stopping the engine at some random town along the way, we couldn't start the car anymore. (Luckily we had the trunk open when realizing that.)

An elderly lady we met at the parking lot offered us, three random strangers in their 30s stay at her place for the night. Her nephew even drove to the camping area where we headed off and probably lost the key. It was heart-warming.

After returning home we sent her a huge Christmas packet with typical specialties from Austria. (Pumpkin seed oil and others. :-) )

I'll write her a letter this Christmas.

When I fainted on a crowded bus i Buenos Aires (as a tourist from Sweden) the bus driver stoped to check on me. When I wanted to get off and rest a while, two other passengers got off the bus with me to make sure I was okay.

I'm sure there must be more instances, but that's the first one I can think of.

Some years ago, I left my wallet at home and had filled my car with petrol at the petrol station, and the lady behind me paid for it and refused to give me her details so I could return the money.

I was blown away and so grateful.

I have paid it forward many times over.

Eating at nice restaurant with my entire family. When we finished the meal the waiter came out with a dessert and said that someone across the restaurant paid for our entire meal. I was shocked, I looked around and I think I might know who it was, but they were already gone. That was probably a $150-$200 dollar check. I'm still shocked to this day.

Similar to the author’s story, I crashed on my bike going pretty quickly on a busy road. No serious injuries but I ended up with scrapes and a softball-sized bruise which lasted over a month. But after I fell and got off the road a man sitting on his porch eating dinner asked me if I was ok. I told him what happened and he quickly grabbed some tools to fix my bike and alcohol and bandages for the wound. His roommate came home and assumed we knew each other but nope he was just my guardian angel. I hadn’t thought about this in a while… now I’ll be sure to remember it again.

On one of my many trips to Europe, I was wandering around the downtown area, and having walked a great deal sat down on a park bench to rest.

Two very beautiful young ladies came up to me, and said you look like you need a hug. Instantly my spidey sense went on red alert, as I figured these two were pickpockets or scammers or ladies of the evening, since I was much too old to be of interest to them, and no woman has ever remarked that I was handsome. I asked them what they were doing, and they said they were just doing a project spreading kindness.

So I said ok and one of them gave me a truly wonderful hug, and I said thank you and they went on their way.

All I can say is "wow".

I live in a neighborhood where every street has a cul-de-sac. Outside our neighborhood is a busy road. About 6 months ago our 100lb Great Dane escaped out the front door while we were bringing in groceries. My wife and I chased her around the neighborhood trying to get her back. We lost sight of her and she eventually ended up in the middle of that busy road. A young college aged kid saw her in the road stopped his car and chased her back into our neighborhood. We cornered her and I grabbed her collar. The guy headed back to his car after the dog was caught. I should have got the guys name. I was so angry at the dog I didn’t really know what to say to the him but I am still so thankful. It could have been a very sad day for our family without his help.

First thing that comes to mind is a young man in Tokyo taking me and my then-gf to our ryokan after we asked him for directions. He walked over 20 minutes with us, clearly using up his entire lunch-break at work, to get us right to the door, going completely out of his way. We were just asking for general directions, but he took us all the way. We couldn't believe how gracious he was, and luckily we were able to gift him some chocolates from our home countries. Not a good lunch, but I hope he enjoyed them.

I had many cases of help from strangers in my life. One was not from a total stranger, but still.

I was couchsurfing with a bicycle, and was not able to find a place to stay on the last day. So, instead of trying I asked a guy where I stayed the first day if I can return. Not only he agreed, but also helped to get to the airport with my packaged bike.

Another case was when I stayed in Jordan, and the guy who I rented apt from helped us so much for free. He helped us to get to the dead sea (with two bikes, no less!), fought for the price with street traders so we could get an honest price and so on.

And the final and best story is about a people who found us trying to put up a tent during the huge storm in iceland.

They invited us to spend a night in their camping cabin and shared their dinner with us. This happened after we were going 12 hours through the storm with a heavily packed bikes. IT felt like an angels touch. I almost cried due to happiness (I hardly ever cried back then).

They broke my ribs when I had a cardiac arrest, doing vigorous CPR. Would not be posting this now if it wasn’t for them. I was basically alive when the air ambulance landed, but wouldn’t have been otherwise

Just now, I'm travelling through India, and today was particularily rough. (I'm trying to go from Delhi Airport to Agra). Multiple Ubers turned out bad (scams, no-show, or fucking with pickup point). I spent several hours in this limbo getting nowhere. I end up taking a train without ticket on advice of multiple people around me, since the counter refused to sell me one.

Turns out, wrong train, going slightly the wrong way. But a guy walks up to me in the train, asks me where I'm going, and starts to help me get to where I need to go. He arranged a bunk for me, talked to the conductor for me, bought(!) another train to Agra for me, called hostels in Agra, etc etc. I've had multiple such encounters here in India, of people going so far out of their way to help me here, something you would honestly never see in my country Germany. It's like a strange incongruence, with one fraction of the population hell-bent on fleecing you for all you've got, and another that will go way further out of their way for you than you could ever imagine.

Was busking on Oxford with an accordion. An American tourist gave me a bottle of wine.

Less exotic than some stories here but I remember it 20 years later.

About six months ago I was walking home from the grocery store in Sparks, NV and decided to stop by the local swap/meet. I had all my groceries in bags that I was carrying. During my time there I was jostled by the crowd and felt a little uncomfortable. When I got home I dumped out my groceries and found _two_ boxes of Girl Scout cookies that I didn't buy (I hadn't even seen any for sale). I had been reverse pickpocketed! I'm going to remember that for a long time :)

1. on A9 near nurnberg we caught a ride with a musician from munich (he played trumpet and showed us his music when i asked if he had any recordings in the car). it was heavily raining and it was late in the night. as we were approaching munich, he got off the highway and i was worried how we were supposed to get back on the highway in the middle of a effing night, but he just drove home and we stayed overnight. we ate breakfast together with the whole family (wife, kids) and he drove us off to the nearest autobahn entry on his way to the conservatory (he used to teach there) - we were going south, to italy. that's first top of my head, surely there is more. good times. we connected, big time.

Took a few months off of work and decided to bicycle through the Philippines. One day was a very hard mountain stage, driving from Bacolod to San Carlos, on Negros island. Arrived at the top completely exhausted, layed on the roadside in an attempt to recover. Suddenly a car stopped and a young couple of locals handed me a sandwich and wished me luck. I'll never forget them

I worked on a summer camp in the USA in the 1980s. We had a day off and went into the small local town (Kent, Connecticut IIRC). A small group of us British students went into the local bar for a beer before we went back to camp. The barman/owner was quite slow about giving us the bill for the beer. This is going to be expensive, we thought. But he just said 'It's on the house. Tell people Americans are nice when you get home'. It was a small kindness, but greatly appreciated by some poor students.

They made some open source software for me ;^)

Kinda a similar story, I slipped off my bike at the end of a wet turn and scraped up my leg.

A woman passing by saw the whole thing, and said she lived nearby and would happily run me a bath.

I took her up on the offer, and, um, I was a few hours late to work that day :-)

I was backpacking in Australia in 2008. I talked to a girl when I was driving up the east coast und she gave me her brother’s numbers and said to call him when I was visiting Perth (west coast). I did, he invited me to live at his house for six weeks for free. After that, I was invited by a German to live at her house in Melbourne for another two month. I was so short with my money and that both were incredibly kind to me.

I missed last train due to delays and there was a group of in the same situation. One nice person offered me to that I can sleep on their couch. And they were so nice to give me a ride to the station the next day.

I was so angry at first when I found out that this was my last train and I missed it but it turned out to be great story I can tell :)

Thank you strangers, I'll repay it back to somebody in the future

They hired me. That was in 1996 and I still work for them today.

I ordered the wrong thing on doordash yesterday and the store manager called me to ask if i was sure i wanted a pizza with no toppings. good on her for not delivering me a plain crust nothing pizza. she even had it in the oven already just in case. s tier human being

Someone held a door open for me so I had to pick up the pace.

I'm ugly so strangers aren't nice to me.

I was at an antique shop in Alameda about to buy a pulp sci-fi book. It was just a couple of bucks, nothing expensive. But the card reader wasn't accepting my Apple Pay. Another guy shopping there offered to pay for me. I told him I could Venmo or PayPal him the money, but he wouldn't take it. It wasn't a big deal in terms of money, but he didn't have to do that

When I was very little, like 4 or 5, a new family moved in on the street. I was curious, so I took my little pedal-racecar down the street to where they were moving in to say hi and welcome to the neighborhood. The dad of the family caught me staring wide eyed at his enormous collection of CDs and vinyls, and asked me what my favourite song was. I thought for a while and then told him track 3 from Nevermind by Nirvana. He told me to listen to the local radio station the next day at 3pm.

Turns out he had his own show on the radio, and he played my song! Well, Nirvana's song, but the one I picked. He even dedicated it to me and everything! I thought I was bonafide rockstar for years after that!

I guess I should qualify the story by saying, he was a stranger at the time, but not for long. His son was 2 years younger than me and we became best friends, and he was like a second dad for me too. But that came later.

Bobo is not with us anymore, but here's to his memory.

Didn't expel me from university for an insensitive prank I accidentally sent to the administration instead of my friends. I discovered the university's email server was unsecured and thought it would be funny to send fake emergency alerts to my friends from the official university email. I mixed up the "from" and "to" fields though... oops.

I went to surf at Lower Trestles and forgot my leash. Someone nearby had a spare, gave it to me, and told me to keep it.

When I was very green, a nice startup CEO gave me a job I wasn't really qualified directly.

Within 3 years I went from a college dropout with nothing going on to making 6 figures.

That was a long time ago and I've been comfortable ever since.

2 evictions before I turned 19 and I haven't been evicted since.

Life is good.

Oh, you jogged my memory. Coastie here again. Soon after moving to the west coast, 1980-ish, I lost my wallet around Easter, on or about University Ave in Palo Alto, and a kind stranger found it and dropped it off with police, IIRC. He wouldn't take any more than a lunch or dinner at the Good Earth. This was B.C. Before cellphones.

On the other side of the coin, I was leaving a thrift store in San Leandro and saw some black thing on the road. I was stopped at an intersection and picked it up. It was a wallet with $500 in it and a woman's out of state personal and business ID., but no local address or phone number. I took a real chance and left it with the thrift store staff, hoping they could find her. Perhaps she was just there? Well, they said later that they found her through her bank, and returned it to her. I forgot if it was before or after, but I did purchase two Klipsch Heresy Speakers there for $50 total.

Stories like this always hit me harder than I expect. Not because they're dramatic, but because of how quietly competent the kindness is

I missed an unprotected international connection out of New York due to a weather 6-hour delay.

Another passenger saw me crying on the phone with my father when I had to ask him to help me buy a new ticket back home. He (and another elderly passenger) cheered me up and offered me to stay with him until the next flight out the next afternoon.

Took me (male, 21) to his room, took care of me until my flight and told me to pay it forward.

It was one of my first intentional trips and it had all gone to shit even before this event. I flew back home with like 30 euros on my account.

When returning to Washington University in St. Louis, I was walking a few miles with some luggage. Someone offered to carry one piece with me to the dorm. It was only after reaching the dorm that I realized she was barefoot!

It’s cool that this isn’t an Ask HN post yet there are still so many personal gems of stories in this thread. Good on ya, lads.

Just recently I was going through my wallet downtown and I inadvertently dropped a $20 bill. A street denizen in a wheelchair picked it up and scurried to catch up with me and handed it to me. He would not take anything more than a thank-you.

I'm wondering if altruism is in decline, in this selfish age of social media.

I sometimes even get the feeling that altruism is seen as a weakness these days.

thank you for this uplifting thread!

---

I had some young family drama which kept me from studying for my first oral university exam. so I talked with the prof about it. he told me to bring a sick leave attestation from Dr such and such - or to come and give it shot. gave it a shot. "you can do much better that's obvious. I'll give you the weakest passing grade or I fail you and you redo the exam. your choice." wow.

I am running through my memory bank, and can't really think of one outside friends and family.

OTOH, I seem to be "that stranger" whenever possible. And that's mighty satisfying. People I've studied under or assisted with computer support have a habit of getting Nobel Physics Prizes. I have aggressively looked for and found, owners of lost cell phones and ipods.

Sorry to disappoint!

BTW, a friend is an M.D. While I was visiting his home, his cat scratched me, and I asked if he had any betadine. He didn't. So, you never know. Having been in the Coast Guard "Semper Paratus" always ready, I tend to bring small tools and first aid with me when I drive, but the only application so far was someone whose battery died in the SFO cell phone lot around midnight, and I had the jumper cable handy. The more serious one was when I was coming home and saw a light flickering in the neighbor's detached garage. Well, he wasn't welding. It was an electrical fire, and I made sure they knew about it post haste (they were watching TV in the front room). And that's about it.

old guy gave all his money and energy to start a school to keep civilization from going bonkers. i never knew him and he never knew me but we still are related.

I love the story. The road rash picture that shows up in the OpenGraph preview makes it awkward to share, lol

I was in a city in a foreign country once and completely lost. A local showed me the way to my hotel and walked at least a mile with me. This was a long time ago but I still remember her kindness.

I can't really think of anything unfortunately, except courtesy stuff like holding a door. People don't really interact with strangers where I live.

My rc drone lost signal and flew out of range several miles away. Being from a small town, the person who found it eventually found out it was mine, and he returned it.

Reading all the other comments really puts a smile to my face (as cliche as that sounds).

I was sent to collections for a rabies vaccine (well the immunoglobulin post-exposure part was the real expensive one) that was supposed to be reimbursed under a pharma/CDC program. Something like $17k.

I begged the guy that helped me fill out the paperwork for that program to give me something proving the hospital was paid. He broke the law and gave me the whole month's reimbursed list of everyone in that program. Hospital made the situation go away in less than a day once they saw I had it.

I will never forget his name since he put his ass on the line doing that and I never met him in person, just a few phone calls.

Not sure if this qualifies as a "stranger", but a nurse at the UCLA Cancer Center in Santa Monica helped my family and I when my sister was on her last days, dying of cancer. It was a bunch of little things: she got us into a single-bed room; she cleared out a maintenance closet for the family to meet privately with doctors; she did some sort of meditation with my sister that helped calm her; she "translated" what the doctors were telling us; she told the other nurses (and the security staff) to leave us alone (visiting hours). Mostly, she was a human to us, not just someone doing their job. I'll never forget the horrible experience of watching my sister dying, but Nurse Suzanna made it so much better. She's an amazing person, and I'll be forever grateful to her.

BTW, here she is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-travis-rn-ocn-reiki-cert...

I lost my phone while I was out once. A stranger found it and started calling people in the contacts with my last name (I don't have any lock method) figuring they'd know a secondary way to reach me. That worked and I got in touch with him, and then he came by and delivered it back to me at my house.

When I was about 3 years old, a man in a car tried to abduct me right in my front yard by offering me candy to lure me closer. An old woman we did not know witnessed this from down the street, recognized what was off about the situation, and rushed over yelling, scaring off the man. Not sure if I would be here today if not for her. My parents never were able to find out who she was.

It is really interesting the very high percentage of comments are people who don't live in the US, or the story happened outside the US. I don't say this in a snarky "the US is full of assholes" way, just that's interesting and I'm not sure why that would be.

Invited me to his house to cut and shorten some shelves for me, after the hardware store refused because I hadn’t bought them there.

a blowjob

In general, I've found that people, even strangers, kind of look out for you. I've only had occasion to need this in America, but every time strangers have helped. What I found fascinating was that even late in the night, on a dark highway, a young woman would stop to assist. What a safe society.

Two of those occasions are when I crashed on my skateboard, and when I crashed my car. Both times, a young woman stopped to help me[0]. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to say when people haven't been kind to me. A girl on a train gave me the book she finished reading. A homeless guy helped me push a car[2]. I left my car open once with everything inside and a passing woman closed it for me and left a note.

But also the society built here assists competently when individuals cannot. After a motorcycle accident in the city, the ambulance was there to pick me up apparently (I wouldn't know, I have amnesia) within minutes.

We've always stopped to help when we can and have many times (a few in SF here[2]) but it is gratifying that others are also like that. The other thing I like is that people don't mind asking for help. I was at the Safeway up in Diamond Heights, all in my motorcycle gear (which some can find intimidating) and this old lady asked for help with her car boot. Why on Earth would I know? But it turned out to be a quick fix and while I sorted the latch out, this other elderly couple talked to me about the husband's Ducati which he used to have.

In fact, I have come to think about this non-kin pro-sociality as being some sort of sociocultural superpower among the societies that can practice it. It seems to me that the most successful societies practised this. Even in the age of empire, it seems some societies were more capable of pro-social outcomes. British imperialism was a brutal thing in many places and especially earlier in its time, but compared to intra-tribal violence among indigenous peoples it seems almost civilized. The bare minimum rise to civilization seems to have been to replace terminal fatal violence with non-terminal subjugation (which seems to have been a hard thing to achieve). The Maori left only a hundred or so Moriori alive, and ate and killed the rest. By comparison, the British had the Maori in parliament.

Similarly, the father of the Charlie Kirk shooter encouraged him to give himself up: placing his kin at the mercy of his non-kin society. I think this kind of non-kin pro-sociality is where the magic is in a successful society. But producing that is hard. As an example, no matter how much a young woman would want to help a man waving her down on the side of the road, she should not do so in Somalia. American society (and many others) has solved, for the most part, the problem of stranger trust. That enables this kind of cooperation, which enables large-scale coordination, which helps a society prosper.

This reminds me of what A Splendid Exchange says about the Qu'ran having rules on commerce and law: thereby allowing the Islamic world to prosper because any Muslim of the time could meet another Muslim of the time and know they lived by the same law (enforced by God, one presumes). This allowed stranger-trust across the seas.

Overall, quite fascinating. These societal innovations are devices that last for some period of time and provide a massive boost to those societies. Certainly whatever Dutch system existed to enforce joint-stock capital, a secondary market, and derivatives allowed them to coordinate to be the power they were at the time[3]. I wonder what the next such device will be.

The default of humanity seems to be to cooperate[4], so the hard part here is finding the device that fights exploitation of pro-sociality.

0: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2024-08-14/Fearless_Ame...

1: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Motorcycle_Accident

2: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-20/Car_Breakdow...

3: Though the flip side is the zielverkopers - people who turned labor into a tradable commodity but using what is in practice debt bondage

4: In some sense, all living beings are formed from cooperation

Another one just came to me, as I witnessed it yesterday on the train. A homeless man was walking down the train aisle, shaking a handful of coins and asking people for change in a long drawn out plead.

Everyone stared deeper into their phones until he went away, but when he came back a woman with a child handed him some change and he walked on without thanking her.

The kid asked "why did you give him money mummy?" and her response was simply "you see homeless, you give money" and that was the end of it. I just liked the implicit matter-of-fact decency in which she lived her life.

Warn me antipsychotics cause diabetes

Someone gave me the quarter I needed to unlock an Aldis Grocery Cart

Sent me 260 dollars.