I'm Adrian Ma, journalist. So is he. When we met, I learned we have even more in common

This First Person column is written by Adrian Ma, a journalist who lives in Toronto. For more information about First Person stories, see the FAQ.

There's a certain inevitability to Googling yourself. Call it curiosity or vanity, but we've all done it, right? Usually, I'm looking for old articles I've published or seeing if anyone's referenced an interview I'd done. But several years ago, on a day at work like any other, something unexpected happened: I found myself looking at the profile of another journalist named Adrian Ma.

When you live on a planet with nearly eight billion humans, you're going to come across other people with your name. But somehow it just hits different when you find out they also happen to do the same job as you.

This Adrian Ma works for National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington, D.C. I'm a huge fan of NPR. And the funny thing is, I became a fan of his too. He co-hosts The Indicator, a stellar podcast that breaks down economic stories in a way that's engaging and accessible.

Back in March, I was listening to his show while driving my young son to his taekwondo class. When he heard the voice on the radio say, "And I'm Adrian Ma," he lit up.

"Daddy, is this you?"

I sighed. "No, son. It's not."

Meet me in the multiverse

Over the years, as he became more prolific with his work, I started getting more emails and social media messages meant for him. On occasion, when I'd search Google to update my portfolio I'd see his photo over my biography. We've even reported stories on similar topics. And perhaps, most disconcerting of all, I estimated him to be approximately 20 per cent more handsome than me.

But the more I learned about him, the more I saw the ways our lives seemed to run parallel. We appeared to be similar in age and were both from Chinese immigrant families. What else might we share in common?

This felt like a story to me. I had some time off this past summer, so I sent him an email with the subject line, "I think we should meet!" and proposed flying down to Washington for a weekend. A few days later, he replied back, saying he had been aware of me as well and would be open to meeting. "Sounds like fun," he wrote.

Finally, I would get to meet the other Adrian Ma face to face.

In late July, I found myself standing outside the NPR offices in America's capital city. As I walked up to the building, he emerged from behind the glass lobby doors. I recognized him right away.

"I have to admit, I've thought about this moment a dozen times," I said to him. "Like, if we shake hands, will we break the space-time continuum?"

He considered the question. "I feel like the world is already weird enough," he declared, extending his hand.

We shook. The meeting of the Adrians had begun.

Among other similarities, we both avoided careers in law

The other Adrian took me on a tour of the NPR newsroom and studios even the iconic Tiny Desk where musical luminaries from Taylor Swift to T-Pain have performed. We then hopped in his car for a trip to Hyattsville, Md., the suburb just outside of Washington where he grew up.

As we drove around, we exchanged rapid-fire questions about what we'd bring to a desert island (we both said guitars), our favourite movies (his was Zoolander; mine was Step Brothers) and what our last meals would be (his grandma's fried rice, my choice was dim sum).

But what I was most curious about was how he got into journalism. I knew from his online bio that he'd completed law school, which was another connection between us. My parents' dream for me was to go into law, a prestigious and potentially lucrative profession. But I followed my heart to become a reporter. I wanted to know why he made the switch.

It turns out, his folks had also wanted him to become a lawyer. But as he was finishing his degree at the University of Maryland, Adrian couldn't shake the feeling that he really wanted to give journalism a try. Despite the "low-key horror" expressed by his dad, Adrian followed his gut to New York City where he studied journalism at Columbia University.

He told me about his love of journalism, the way it confronts you with something new every day, the way it's interesting even when it is hard. Listening to him was galvanizing; this was precisely how I felt when I stood up to my family's wishes to pursue my own career choice.

We chatted for hours, eventually stopping for some Chinese food, a nod to our shared heritage. I found out that we both spoke a little Chinese (Cantonese in my case, Mandarin in his) and we both had done some reporting in China.

As we rounded out our trip, I explained to him how learning about his existence had rattled me a bit after all, we're pretty much the same age, except he's the Adrian Ma hosting an acclaimed show, whereas I'm a longtime writer who only recently started dabbling in radio and wish I had his kind of profile.

But it went deeper than that. As a millennial who is part of the first generation to adopt social media, I've grown up with the message that we all need to have a brand, that we're all the stars of our own stories and we need to show the world what makes us unique.

In a way, discovering him left me feeling just a little less unique. How do I move forward in my career feeling like there's a better, more successful version of me out there?

Then he dropped a surprising bit of information. See, I had always assumed I discovered him first. But it turns out, it was the other way around.

"I was out there Googling how to become a journalist. And I stumbled upon you. I was like, my God, there's already an Adrian Ma doing journalism? And it's very possible that I was jealous of you because you're doing the thing that I want to do that I don't have any idea how to do yet."

We were total strangers, but at different points in our lives, we saw each other in the distance and imagined what it would be like to be the other. And this revelation filled me with gratitude. Because if there's another Adrian Ma in the world doing journalism, I'm glad it's this guy.

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