Nice Guys
DC: Our titular hero is the kindly best friend to all, obsessed with movies and would give anyone the shirt of his back.
VD: The hero, who keeps the titular diary, is a vampire who likes old movies, doesn't kill people for blood and would sacrifice himself in order to keep his loved ones safe.

Bad Boys
DC: Pacey was the son of the chief of police, reveled in trouble-making behavior, slept with a teacher and often took off running whenever things got messy.
VD: Damon has the town sheriff after him, delights in all manner of bad behavior, killed a teacher and makes big bloody messes and then takes off running.

Dark-Haired Ingénue
DC: Joey was the sweet girl who was taken for granted by her male best friends until she finally hit puberty.
VD: Elena is the elegant sweet girl who has made her ancient vampire boyfriend feel like he was young and in love again.

Tempting Blondes
DC: Jen Lindley was the sexy girl who got sent to live with her prim and proper grandmother in Capeside because of a sex scandal.
VD: Caroline is not quite as overtly sexy as Jen, but she sure has no problem hooking up with a mysterious new guy in Mystic Falls in order to get attention. She lives at home with her rule-abiding mother, the town sheriff.

Hallucinating Girl
DC: Andie had a whole heap of mental problems that caused her to hallucinate her dead brother at one point.
VD: Bonnie doesn't have hallucinations so much as premonitions, but her friends think that instead of being psychic, she might be mentally unstable.

Townie Culture Clash DC: There was much talk about Joey being from the poor side of town, and even Pacey ended up working as a hired hand for a while. Definitely a big rift between the classes in Capeside.
VD: Vicki constantly talks about being from the poor, dead-end part of Mystic Falls and worries that she's going to be stuck there forever.

Unfit Guardian
DC: Her mother was dead and her father was in jail, so Joey's upbringing was in the hands of her older sister, who had a baby of her own to cope with.
VD: Elena's parents died, so she's being raised by an aunt who is far more interested in her own social life than coping with her Elena and her brother. And Vicki also has an absentee mother, no father and seemingly no adult supervision at all.

Random Entrances
DC: Joey famously used a ladder to climb through Dawson's window for visits, and traveled by boat to get to his house.
VD: While they don't always enter through the window, Stefan and Damon easily arrive for (mostly unannounced, often unwanted) visits via any available opening.

Love Triangle
DC: Best friends Pacey and Dawson were often at each other's throats competing for Joey's affection.
VD: Brothers Stefan and Damon nearly resort to killing each other in order to win the affection of Elena (and before that her doppelganger Katherine).

Hip Lingo DC: One of the trademarks of the show was that the teens were very verbose and used gigantic vocabularies in their highly-adult sounding conversations.
VD: Although Damon's actually older than any adult, he strives to stay relevant by using current LOLcat and text messaging slang in order to come off as younger.

Horror Themes
DC: In the first season, Dawson was obsessed with making a horror movie, and later in the series the teens spent time on a seemingly haunted island. Oh, and their ratings dropped, which was also terrifying.
VD: Instead of making a horror movie, the characters in this show are actually living in one, running for their lives from a deadly vampire. And I'm sure there's more than a few spirits haunting that creepy old graveyard.

Additionally, both series have a weird obsession with old things. On Vampire Diaries, it's all about the compasses, other heirlooms and the age-old vampires. On Dawson's Creek it was Grams.

OK. I'm probably going to hell for that one. Other similarities you've spotted? Share them below.