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Original poster

Strange coincidences...

52 replies

WinterIsComing84 · 12/09/2018 08:33

I was reminded this morning of a holiday around 4 years ago, in the US. We were staying in San Francisco and went on an arranged day trip/tour one day. Got talking to another Brit on the coach. We were discussing where we lived, and when I told her where I lived, she said that her DD had just bought a house in the same town. I asked her whereabouts her daughter lived - after some to and fro questions, turns out her daughter was the lady who had just bought the house next door to us a few weeks prior.
Really bizarre.

Any other weird ones?

OP posts:
Saggital · 12/09/2018 08:36

1 out of 5,000 conversations with different people is sure to throw out a ‘coincidence’ like this. It’s the bell shaped curve. Rare but it does happen.

Bunnyhop1502 · 12/09/2018 08:37

Not that strange but I went on holiday to Tenerife and at the airport bought a book randomly by a writer called Lily Baxter. When we arrived at our apartment there was a book on one of the beds by Dilly Court. Turns out they are the same woman who just writes under two pen names!

SnailMailFan · 12/09/2018 08:43

We we were on our honeymoon on a small Greek island and met husbands cousin, who had been too ill, apparently, to come to our wedding!!

LanguidLobster · 12/09/2018 08:44

A friend's work team won an award (opera + hotel event) and he invited me. When we got to London as soon as I saw one of his colleagues I thought she was the sister of someone I worked with (never had met her, and my colleague hadn't said she had a sister).

So I eyed her up stealthily and couldn't ask her directly as I would appear mad, but sidled up and dropped my work into conversation and yes they were sisters!

It was weird how I knew instantly

Justmuddlingalong · 12/09/2018 08:45

We were on holiday in 1 European country, but travelling by train for a day trip into another European country. The train was very busy but we found 2 seats together. There was an older couple sat across the aisle from us who we got chatting to. They were American and as we're Scottish they were interested in which part we lived as the woman's grandmother was born in town X. I was also born in town X and as I had my passport with me, I could show her. Really weird coincidence.

Tiptopj · 12/09/2018 09:06

I was trying to remember the name of a book I loved as a child. I couldn't remember the author or anything only that it involved children and a magic tree. A few days later I bought a magazine that I didn't normally buy to read on my lunch break and on the back page they do a celebrity interview. I can't remember who the celebrity was but they were asked what their favourite childhood book was- Enid blyton's the enchanted wood. They was the book I was trying to remember!

LanguidLobster · 12/09/2018 09:08

@Tiptopj I loved that book

Hallouminati · 12/09/2018 09:24

I was on a long mini bus journey going to a rain forest in Australia, there were only about 8 of us on the bus. I was with a friend and we were talking about our hometown in the UK. The woman sat in front turned round and said she couldn't help but overhear us and she was from the same town. After a bit of a chat it turns out she went to school with my auntie!

tigercub50 · 12/09/2018 09:29

For our first anniversary, DH & I had a free night in the hotel where we got married. We had just arrived & put the bedside radio on. It was Classic FM & they were playing Pachelbel’s (sp!) Canon which was the tune we signed the register to! I had a little cry then texted everyone to tell them 🙂

AamdC · 12/09/2018 09:34

I have lots of holiday coincidences but the most recent. happened to my parents, they were in a lift in a hotel in spain and got talking to a couple from a fishing town in the northwest of England (my parents also live in the northwest but about 50 miles from the town) my dad told them they had someone round every friday selling fresh fish, from their town , turns out it was their nephew ! They ended up borrowing the couple's kettle and giving it back to the nephew when rhey were back home Grin

cantfindname · 12/09/2018 10:01

I was in a pub having lunch in a remote corner of Exmoor when a coach party arrived. All oldies and they came in and sat down.. to my complete horror I realised two of them were my neighbours (who were the chief reason for needing a holiday!) We lived 250 miles away so what were the odds of this happening?

Mummyoftwo91 · 12/09/2018 10:06

Saw my next door neighbour walking down the same street as me while on holiday in South Africa

Roomba · 12/09/2018 10:13

My friend and I were looking through some old photos of us from the 1990s when we spotted something really weird. In one photo of me in a nightclub, my partner was dancing away in the background, about a foot away from me. Thing is, I didn't actually meet him until two years after that night, when we were at uni together. We both grew up in different cities to each other, the nightclub was in yet another city and we'd both only been there the once as we weren't really into that sort of music but got dragged along with our friends. And the uni where we met was in yet another, fourth city.

Original poster
WinterIsComing84 · 12/09/2018 11:52

Some of these are amazingly fascinating! Thanks for sharing Smile

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 12/09/2018 11:56

Important to remember all the people you bump into on holiday you don’t know......!

A man popped up in the swimming pool next to me in Florida- it was my neighbour’s plumber who had been “called away on an urgent job” so couldn’t finish their bathroom til the following week.

YesItsMeIDontCare · 12/09/2018 12:07

Not really a coincidence but still amuses me...

I had DS when I was 32, met the lady who became my best friend at a post natal group. Turns out

  1. We went to the same school
  2. Her best friend from school was my next door neighbour
  3. We "adopted" the same donkey from the same sanctuary and when the donkey passed away we both chose the same new donkey to "adopt".

There's so many ways that we are so similar and there's always something new to find out!

Cindersdonegood · 12/09/2018 12:36

I went to Barcelona and saw my cousin. We both live in the UK but I hadn't seen her in over 4 years. We had to go over a thousand miles away to bump into each other.

CMH123 · 12/09/2018 13:14

Staying in hotel in Singapore, went down for breakfast. The restaurant was almost full so ex H and I asked a couple sitting at a table for 4 if we may sit with them. Got talking to them, realised that not only were they from the same Worcestershire town as us, but that they lived literally 3 minutes drive away.

ScrumpyCrack · 12/09/2018 13:24

I think only Roomba’s could be labelled a strange coincidence, the rest are barely even coincidences!

Justmuddlingalong · 12/09/2018 15:24

I see the thread police have arrived. Hmm

happinessischocolate · 12/09/2018 15:49

When talking to my boss about the town I lived in 40 miles away, he remembered going on holidays there as a child, on further investigation it turned out he had actually stayed in the flat I lived in and had photos of him and his family in the garden.

JohnnyMarrsRedGuitar · 12/09/2018 15:51

When DH started a new job he came home and said 'I work with someone who knows you'. It was the best friend of my own best friend's brother, who I'd known since he was little.

Just after me and DH got together we went to pick up DD from school. When DH saw DD's teacher he said 'I know her, that's Mrs (Best childhood friend's mother)'. He'd spent a huge chunk of his childhood at her house.

All this doesn't seem so remarkable until you realise that we grew up nearly 400 miles apart at opposite ends of the country and he's 12 years younger than me.

redexpat · 12/09/2018 16:05

There's an episode of this american life about coincidences. It's really fascinating and highly recommended!

JynxaSmoochum · 12/09/2018 16:08

DH bought a new suit a few days before my cousin's (bride) wedding and was assisted by a very helpful member of staff.
We travelled 150 miles to the wedding.
We sat down for the wedding breakfast, and the groom's uncle complimented DH's new suit... he was the assistant who sold it to him a few days earlier! We'd been arranged onto the same table because we live in the same town, but it hadn't occurred to the couple that we would randomly meet days beforehand Grin

FingerlingUnderling · 12/09/2018 16:09

On a pontoon in the Indian ocean waiting for a small plane ride to a tiny island in the Maldives, chatting to the lady next to me. We had identical wedding rings and it turns out her and her DH got married in the same village as us, the day before us and we were in the hotel having a drink that they had their reception in while they were partying away! I even saw her in her wedding dress.

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