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Original poster

What seemingly insignificant event changed the course of your life?

126 replies

ladybee28 · 21/01/2019 18:26

Someone asked me this morning how I ended up living where I do (small island off the coast of Africa), and the genuine answer is that my ex-boyfriend's roommate found a good deal on a surfboard on eBay...

My boyfriend at the time and I were living in Senegal. Things had been pretty crap between us for a while, and when we had a huge row one day, it felt like we needed space. So he moved out, and started sharing a new place with a surfer.

One night they got pretty drunk together and this guy found a surfboard for sale on eBay. Only thing was, it wasn't in Senegal – it was on the island where I now live.

In their drunken state, they bid on it, they won, and they decided to book flights to pick it up (it's not so far, flights were fairly cheap). My ex thought it would be romantic to book me a flight too, as a 'make-things-up-to-you' getaway.

So off the three of us fly for a long weekend... in which I reach boiling point with said boyfriend, break up with him, and decide to stay on this island for a month to cool off.

3 years later... here I am still! And I often wonder where on the planet I would be if that surfboard had been listed somewhere else...

What random event / insignificant thing ended up playing a huge part in your life story?

OP posts:
Original poster
ladybee28 · 21/01/2019 18:27

(Just realised that this could sound like Daily Fail storybait. It's not, I promise!)

OP posts:
LuxuryWoman2018 · 21/01/2019 18:36

I just want to hear more about your life now OP 😀

Magicstar1 · 21/01/2019 18:43

I was walking around town and found myself outside a motorbike shop. Id always loved looking at them and wandered in. I ended up chatting for ages, got the name of a good instructor and booked lessons.
I ended up getting my own bike, splitting with my boyfriend of four years, making a whole new way of life and meeting my DH on a charity run.

SlowNorris · 21/01/2019 18:43

Me too! What’s the island? Where are you from originally?

TimeIhadaNameChange · 21/01/2019 18:54

Watching the BBC children's drama programme. It sparked a life-long interest in a specific type of literature, which I ended up studying at university. That, in turn, lead to where I'm living now, many, many miles away from where I grew up (both metaphorically and physically).

Iagreewithmrsdevere · 21/01/2019 18:58

At our senior school we were allocated at random to either French or Spanish. Being in the French half has shaped my entire working life, including on two occasions (@20 years apart) losing my job in horrible circumstances which seriously impacted my mental health. Now doing very well professionally but I definitely do not take it for granted.

EastMidsGPs · 21/01/2019 19:02

Falling over a man who was sitting crossed legged on the floor of a bookshop.

I married him 😂😂

MrsGrindah · 21/01/2019 19:03

I offered to go to a meeting on behalf of my boss.During the meeting a bloke popped his head round the door and bam! Love at first sight.Five weeks later left everything to be with him and here we are twenty years later.

pumpkinpie01 · 21/01/2019 19:04

I did work experience at school for the standard week. One day in and I swapped with a friend as I thought my placement was boring. Fast forward a few years and I was pregnant by the bosses son , a definite life changer !

Jenala · 21/01/2019 19:06

I split up with my first boyfriend when I was 17. A few weeks later he invited me to see his band play at a local gig. I said no as I was meant to be working but at the last minute (being a flakey teenager) called in sick so I could go. My now DH was also playing that night. I asked him to give me a lift home and we've now been together 12 years. At the time I was due to start an aupair job in Europe and cancelled it to see where things would go with him. Everyone said I was mad to do that for a guy but I just had a feeling. I'm glad I did but it massively changed the direction of my life. I often wonder where I'd be now if I'd gone to work that night and then gone off to be an aupair.

Hefzi · 21/01/2019 19:08

OP, I want to hear more about your island!

Moaning to an undergraduate tutor about hating UK placements because the weather was always shit. He had just received a letter from a research organisation overseas. Suggested I try them. The rest is history!

I am not working in the same field as I was at the time, but the region I went to is now my area of professional expertise in a completely different discipline.

NoMoreMarbles · 21/01/2019 19:09

My sister had arranged for us to have a night out "just is sisters" on Easter Sunday Nearly 15 years ago now and cancelled at the last minute (went to watch her then boyfriend play darts Hmm) an old friend contacted me out of the blue about half an hour later to see if I fancied a drink so I invited him to the social club where I used to work. I ended up staying there after he had left for another drink and met my now DH Smile

I had no plans to go there that night and things might have been very different if my sister hadn't have sacked me off for her boyfriend!

EastMidsGPs · 21/01/2019 19:09

@MrsGrindah

We married 9 weeks after our first date. 30 odd years ago now.

MakeItAmazing · 21/01/2019 19:13

My friend was offered a job she didn't want. On a whim I said I'd have it. No thought at all. Got the bloody job didn't I. If I hadn't I wouldn't now live hundreds of miles away from people I wish I lived nearby too and would be probably married to my first love.

Tentomidnight · 21/01/2019 19:15

I love this thread. So many positive stories!

MrsGrindah · 21/01/2019 19:15

And as I write this we are settling down to watch a box set having both spent ten mins looking for our glasses!

TaintforTheLikesOfWe · 21/01/2019 19:16

DH tried to lift an overloaded wheelbarrow that I had stacked a load of bags of cement onto. He popped a primary tumour in his abdomen we didn't even know existed. He has had it removed and hopefully will stay well. He would be dead now had we not discovered it.

NeverHadANickname · 21/01/2019 19:21

I was playing a random game on my phone where an ad for another one popped up. It looked interesting so I downloaded it. It was a game where you could interact with other people. I was happily single at the time but liked the opportunity to chat to other people. Fast forward nearly 2 years and I have now married and moved country to be with a man who is my world that I met on that game. Couldn't be happier.

SushiMonster · 21/01/2019 19:21

Uh, best story ever Op!

Mine was having a Ny resolution to say yes to things. At a party (on about 10 Jan so v new NY resolution). Chatting to a girl I didn’t know. She was being really nice and I felt like we were having fun. She invited me to go on holiday with them the next weekend. In my drunk state I said yes and we swapped numbers.

Next day had to send a cringey text message saying “hi, this is sushi, we chatted last night and you invited me on holiday. If that’s still cool I’d be up for it but if not, totally no worries” She replies with her flight details and I booked but from a regional airport.

Our flight arrived at the same time, and we meet at the baggage reclaim and there was a crown who flew from London. Turns out on of their other friends on the holiday fancied me, and she’s got talking to me and invited me because of that.

Long story short, I got a boyfriend and a best friend out of that holiday and am still BFFs with the girl and still going out with the guy 11 years later.

bloopertrooper · 21/01/2019 19:24

I went to the dentist...

...and happened to walk past a staff agency on the way back to the car. I already had a perfectly good job but I stopped and idly glanced at the cards in the window. There was an ad there and I thought "I could do that job" and I walked right in. It was like I'd been drawn there by some sort of force.

I met my now DH via someone I worked with there.

UnderHerEye · 21/01/2019 19:26

I think mine might be a bit big standard - friend asked if I wanted to go out for a drink, I was supposed to be doing an assignment I (uncharacteristically!) decided to leave the assignment and go down the pub- where i got chatting to a very sweet very hot guy- now my DH.

Bunnybigears · 21/01/2019 19:32

I went to the university I did because when I came for open day it was sunny and we had ice cream on the beach. Lived here ever since, met DH had kids got a lovely job in no way related to my degree and hardly ever go to the beach.

saphycat · 21/01/2019 19:34

I made the decision to kiss a wrong'un back in my teen clubbing days. Long story but he caused a huge row between me and the people I thought were my friends. A friendly Samaritan looked after me in the toilets when I was (drunkenly) inconsolable. She fast became my best friend, we had tonnes in common. She then went off to uni, and her room in halls was next to a lovely young man. Fast forward 8 years and we're going maid of honour dress shopping next weekend as she needs something to wear to mine and that lovely young man's wedding 💕

Owlish · 21/01/2019 19:37

10 years ago, 2 days after Valentine's Day, my abusive alcoholic boyfriend, texted me to say he'd met someone else (the night before Angry). He'd always had strops and sulks and I'd previously been suspicious of him and I'd always taken the fucker him back, but this time I'd had enough and joined an online dating agency. Two months later I met my now DH, who is 100 times that nasty twat could ever be.

Original poster
ladybee28 · 21/01/2019 19:40

Ahahahaha these stories are AMAZING!

Makes me think of that movie Sliding Doors – I wonder if we're all living different lives in a parallel universe somewhere...

For those asking about 'my island' –I'm originally from the UK, but live in the Canaries now.

Most of the wider context of my story is very outing, but in short I chose a pretty unconventional career path that took me all over the world from my early 20s onward (hence the relative ease of my "sod it, I'm staying here for a month and you can bugger off" decision when I broke up with the ex!).

The ex was what my grandmother would call a "Large 'Oops'" in life choices, but his willingness to make drunken last-minute flight bookings defined a lot of how my life looks today, so... gratitude where it's due, and all that...

OP posts: