To ask about this utterly random coincidental meeting?

I've posted this in an another thread about coincidences. My sister and I found ourselves talking to each other at work. We were living 400 miles apart, both working for fairly small companies, neither knew the name of the other's employer so it wasn't until she gave her name that I twigged. The two companies didn't do lots of business together and neither of us spent all day on phone calls.

I bought some items from a guy via Gumtree.
At the time, it did occur to me that he was very handsome (perhaps a little older than myself).
I thought about him every now and then thereafter.
Fast forward three years and and I bought something else off Gumtree, went to collect and the very same man answered the door (different location / 10 miles away or so). I recognised his face immediately and was gobsmacked - felt myself go red in the face (because I just hadn't got him out of my head).
That was two years ago and I've not seen him again, but why does he keep entering my thoughts?!
Maybe third time lucky? I wish.

I was little, about 9, at sleepaway camp at a lake. I’d convinced my parents I wouldn’t be homesick but I began to cry. And this nice lady took aside and comforted me. She made sure I was okay every day the rest of the week - we became pals.
I grew up, went to uni and started working. One morning I had to go to the courthouse - there was my old friend, dressed in a smart suit, holding a small bouquet of flowers. I had to introduce myself, but she remembered me, and she began to cry.
She was eloping and nobody knew she was there. I watched her get married.

Grew up in school with a lad who was my best friend, I can't even explain beyond best friend,soul mate, sadly both of us had to deal with both our mums and cancer around 18 just as we started going out together properly. We drifted apart due to all that was going on in our families, appointmens,helping with care etc. My family moved very quickly from our home village to be nearer a hospital for my mum's daily chemo and some operations.We lost touch. By the time I was 25 things had settled, my mum had recovered and wanted to move back to our home village, I was so excited to see my best friend but when we moved we found out he and his family had gone and that his mum had died from the lung cancer she had..Nobody knew where they had gone. I searched all the usual channels, rang old numbers and by age 32 had still not found him..By now we are in 2019 and my mum booked a 2 week break in wales in July, off we went and near the holiday cottage stopped at a supermarket for supplies. As my mum was unloading the trolley I was idly glancing about and literally the saying your heart stops for a second and the next thing I was flying across the aisle to the next till down saying oh my god oh my god, he looked up yelled my name and the next thing we were both hugging and crying and talking nonsense. His very kind manager let him off work right away and once he learnt the story of how I had been looking and turns out he had been looking for me the manager let him have the 2 weeks off on holiday with us. We were married 31 days later and now have 4 beautiful kids and my now hubby/best friend moved back up to us and got work. Life circumstances separated us but I will never ever forget till the day I die how we found each other again oh and I have 3 pets to 🤣🤣

I'm Irish & In my 3rd summer at Uni, I worked as a waiter for the summer in a resort in Maryland, on the East Coast of the US. On my first day at work I met another new waiter, an English chap, called James. We got chatting, and he asked me did I happen to work in Toronto the summer beforehand, I did. Then he asked me did I work with 2 English chaps Tim & Marcus. When I said I did, he then asked me could I remember calling into their rental house one afternoon on our half day on our way to go swimming- I did. He then told me that he shared that house with Tim & Marcus (& about 12 other students) and he remembered me calling in that afternoon to their house in Toronto the summer previously. How mad is that!?

So I'm Irish, studying in Ireland, starting a summer job in Maryland in the US, & an English colleague, who is over from the UK & is also working as a waiter for the summer, recognises me from calling into their shared rental place one random afternoon in Toronto, Canada the summer before. Crazy coincidence but true...

I took part in a very niche Clubhouse (online audio discussion) group, about 20 people, for a few months a couple of years back. One day we were visiting friends a long way from our home and we went to the pub for lunch. Next time I went on the Clubhouse group one of the regulars said "Were you at XYZ pub last week? I thought I recognised your voice". It is amazing how much detail the human brain can store about nuances like that, as I think I have a pretty standard accent.

Another coincidence, not for me but my dad. He went on holiday to a holiday camp, a very small family run camp in Somerset, called St Audries Bay (may still be around). Although it was a holiday camp it was catered and had a dinning room where you had your own table allocated for meals, sometimes people were put with you to share the table, he was not pleased to discover that our dinning table was to be shared with his boss and his family! It was such a small place it was so odd he went there as well for the same 2 weeks. I wonder if the place thought we knew each other as we were from the same town and even odder his boss had the same surname as my dad so that would make sense for the site to think our families were related.

Mainly manned by Mick from Magaluf!

Please tell me the train station you bumped into him in begins with M too 😆

I was introduced to someone at a works function in another part of the country. He lived in the same city I was from, but I hadn't lived there for decades.
After some polite chat about the city, it turned out that he lived in my childhood home.

Another one: I was at a theme park in France with some friends as teenagers. We were queuing up for a rollercoaster and were idly watching the train going round, when my next door neighbours went zooming past in one of the cars.

In 1982, I was 17 and went to Ibiza with my boyfriend, whilst there I got stung by a bee, which was on my inflatable lilo when I sat on it, I shot up from the lilo and screamed, this was at the beach and was seen by a few people around.

Back in my hometown in Sussex, I went to my local pub and a man came over to me and said, I remember you from Ibiza, you got stung on your bum on the beach! I must have made a bit of a commotion, but what are the chances of someone from my hometown seeing that and being in my local pub, recognising me from that event.

@ThemUnsYouseUnsthats hysterical!

I called a patient in (sexual health) and it was none other than the ex boyfriend who had cheated on me when I was 17, in a clinic 100 miles away from where we both used to live. He’d given a false name, otherwise I would have recognised it and avoided calling him in!

That was a fun reunion 🤪 I sent him back out to the waiting room for a colleague to see him as it would’ve been totally unprofessional for me to continue the appointment!

My husband and I were travelling back home to N Ireland from a camping holiday in France. We were driving from Dover all the way up through England and then to Scotland to get the boat.

We stopped on a whim to get a cup of tea in a service station somewhere in the north of England. Sitting in the cafe, my husband suddenly started laughing loudly and I glanced up to see my parents (who also live in N Ireland) sitting a few metres away. They’d randomly decided to have a few days away in Cumbria.

Even funnier was that they were heading in the opposite direction to us and only ended up on our side of the motorway because they’d got lost.

We bumped into folk from the same village as us at the zoo.

Not really that random till I mention it was Perth Zoo, Western Australia - and we live in a small village in the north of Scotland.

I met one of my now husbands friends, she said the area of London she lived in and I said oh that’s where I was born; turns out she lived in the same house I had lived in until I was 3. Went on holiday to Portugal with my mum, there was a singer in the hotel who turned out to be my manager from a previous NHS job who had quite the career change! Moved to a village in Scotland a few years ago, made friends with a school mum who turned out to be a friend of my sisters from when she lived in London, and I’ve met her husband many times at parties over the years but somehow had never met her. Oh and I was on a work trip a couple of months ago, was chatting to someone who works in the same specialty as my mum - turns out my mum trained her 30+ years ago when she worked at a university at the other side of the country. The world’s a small place, I love how interconnected people’s lives can be without them even realising.

I've told this one before on MN. About 10 yrs ago i was waiting at a bus stop with DH and the bus was late so we said we'd try to flag a taxi while waiting. We were chatting about pocket money when we were kids and I was talking about a penny sweet type shop in my town (same county, 20km or so away). I was telling him about the man who owned it who took over from his Mum and there was a scandal in the family, nothing interesting really. I said we always referred to the shop by the man's name 'Bob' because when my friend got a job there as a teen she used to always say 'I'm on at Bob's at 11 tomorrow etc." When we got older going to pubs and that we used to meet outside Bob's, it was always 'see you at Bob's 8pm'. Dh asked where is Bob now and I said I had no idea, the shop closed about 10 years previously. As we spoke DH flagged down a taxi and I sat in then noticed the driver was Bob. I swear to God. I thought I was going crazy but I checked his ID. Still blows my mind

When travelling around Australia, we pitched a tent in a very random spot right next to someone my DH knew as a teenager in the UK.

Went on hols to Menorca about 25 years ago. Met another couple who had been on same flight as us and in same hotel for a drink after one night. Got chatting. She was a theatre nurse in same hosp as my aunt, he was a dental technician and had trained with an ex's brother under the ex's & brothers uncle and even stranger my sis was renting the house her brother had rented before her and they were able to describe the decor of said house to me.

A lot of it isn't actually that random and has some foreseeability or predictability about it

Eg the holidays one happens a lot, but not surprisingly that other people you know or have a similar lifestyle to you in a certain part of the world are likely to like similar things to you so pick the same holidays, locations, venues etc

I moved from the northwest to the southwest in 2008 aged 25. Years later I was walking down our nearest towns (very rural ) high street when I heard someone say my name… I thought it sounded waaaay to northern to be one of my friends! It was my midwife from when I had my eldest child in 1999!!! I was gobsmacked! Turned out she holidayed there every year!. I’ve now moved back to my home town and haven’t seen her once!!!

We emigrated to Australia. Went to look at some new build houses the real estate bloke was the same man who bought a house from us in England seven years earlier.

I went to uni (the same course) with a girl whose mum lived in the same dormitory room as my mum during her college years. Friend's mum even came to my mum's funeral as they were best friends and kept in touch after graduation. My mum died very young at 24 when I was just 18 months old.

We ended up on holiday in the same hotel in Rhodes as our next door neighbours. We were on the same flight, and had no idea until we were sat at the departure gate that either of us were going.

I started a thread about coincidences like this yesterday - what a coincidence lol!!!!

I can’t wait to read through all these responses too as they fascinate me !!!!

Xxx