Have you ever had a random encounter that you still think about?!

[TeethKicked]

Years ago dh and I were driving through country lanes in deepest darkest Oxfordshire ( insofar as Oxfordshire can ever be deep and dark!) But we didn’t know where we were, and I wouldn’t have the first clue how to get back there again.

A car coming the other way (the only car we’d seen in a while) drew level and stopped. The woman driving it told us she was a registrar and couldn’t find the wedding party and asked if we had seen them.

We apologised and said no, we hadn’t seen anyone at all, and off we all drove. I’ve often wondered:

A) Did she mean that the wedding party were also driving around the lanes of deepest darkest Oxfordshire?

B) Did she mean that she was lost and couldn’t find the wedding venue?

C) Did she mean that the bride, groom and guests hadn’t shown up so she was out hunting them down?!

D) Did she ever find who she was looking for, or was there a bride and groom somewhere waiting and wondering, and did they ever get married?!

All this wondering from a two minute encounter! Anyone else?!

I was 22 and in Camden. Just in jeans and a t shirt but I must have had the confidence of youth on my side because the most good looking boy in the bar literally shoved people out of the way to come over and tell
Me he thought I was very beautiful and could he buy me a drink. I said no Thankyou because I had a Boyfriend at home. It's never happened to me before or since to be singled out like that. It gave me such confidence for a while. Ridiculous really. He was probably drunk as a skunk.

I was on a bus going from Wandsworth to Clapham Junction to go to work one morning (it must have been between 1991 and 1995 because I moved after that). A man got on and he was the most amazingly beautiful person I had ever seen. Other people (women I think) were eyeing him up too so it wasn't just me. He was very tall, slender with wide shoulders and he had the most perfect dark skin that looked as though it was backlit from inside his face. I mean it really glowed and had perfectly even tone, no scars or different coloured patches. He had a fabulous suit with a wool overcoat that looked as though it had been made for him as it fit so perfectly. I got the same bus every week day but never saw him again.

I may have told this before under a different username.

I often have quite odd and vivid dreams and had one which I told DH about where I had gone to visit a house. It was quite ordinary from the outside, but inside was a long corridor with doors along it. One door opened into the loft space which was open over the whole house with a sort of mezzanine level and bracing joints stretching up and sideways, a bit like the roof in a medieval barn.

Several months later we were on holiday with DC and got chatting to a man and his son on the beach who were metal detecting. They had a couple of dogs with them and during the course of the conversation it turned out that they lived not far from where we were staying. They invited us over to see their dogs (at the time one of my family was working as a dog groomer so I said I'd pass their info on).
We got to their house and the man gave us a tour. The house was reasonably ordinary from the outside other than it had a sort of coal shed leading into a cellar which ran right under part of the ground floor. Inside was a long corridor with several doors. One of which opened into a loft space exactly the same as the one I'd dreamed about. That was really bizarre.

@TeethKicked What a lovely thought, yes it would be lovely if they thought of us sometimes also.

@ZarquonsSandals ....

"The house was reasonably ordinary from the outside other than it had a sort of coal shed leading into a cellar which ran right under part of the ground floor. Inside was a long corridor with several doors. One of which opened into a loft space exactly the same as the one I'd dreamed about. That was really bizarre".

So it was a long corridor, in a cellar, running right under part of the ground floor yet one of the doors located there opened into a loft ? Don't grasp that at all.

I do get random flashbacks once in a while of random one off encounters

Possibly triggered by music, tv or whatever I'm experiencing at that moment

TBH h try

My friend and I were about 15 and chatting on a street corner on the way home from school, at the point where we were due to go our separate ways.

A tall tramp wearing a backpack came staggering down the road muttering to himself. I would have given him a wide berth, but my friend wasn’t fazed and said hello. He told us he was ex-army and was looking for a place to sleep. He ended up philosophising about life in general and giving us advice. Then, he said goodbye to us and carried on down the road.

After a moment, I looked around to see where he was walking, and he’d vanished! But there was nowhere he could have gone. My friend was facing the way he was heading, and she said that one second he was there, and the next he wasn’t. We walked around for a bit looking for him, but we couldn’t see any sign of him. To this day, I wonder how he disappeared. At the time, I decided he was some kind of prophet and wished I’d paid more attention to what he’d said.

Another one - about nine years ago I was shopping in town by myself and stopped at a small restaurant for lunch. I was feeling quite down as my lovely two-year-old cat had recently died and I’d been put on capability procedures at work (which I ended up passing). I saw a middle-aged couple on the next table, but I didn’t take much notice and they left before me.

A few minutes later, I asked for the bill and was told that the man at the next table had paid it for me, because “she was all on her own”. I was touched by this random act of kindness and I wish I could have thanked him, whoever he was.

In my late 20s I went to a stuffy drinks reception with my then boss. It was wall to wall older men. Boss went to speak to someone and took me with him to introduce me, other man was with a younger guy, around same age as me. I ended up spending the evening chatting with younger guy, we were the only people in the room by about 30 years. We had lots in common, he was great company and very good looking! He told me he wanted to go to Australia but was concerned about his career. I told him about my flat mate who had just got back from a year in Oz and had the best time of her life.

A month later I went to the pub with my then bf and younger guy was there. I went to say hi and he said it was his leaving do, he'd thought a lot about what I'd said and was going to Australia! We chatted for a bit and as I went to leave he said "you can come with me if you want?" Oh god I was tempted, I had felt a real connection with him, things were not good with my bf and I was in a real rut but I said I couldn't - I was just too sensible.

But here I am now, 50 and divorced and I wonder what my life would be like now if I had said yes.

No it was a long corridor in the house leading into the loft, just like my dream. The way the loft space was configured structurally was the same as my dream.

In my dream, the house didn't have a massive cellar.

Realise I didn't write it as clearly as I could have.

In my early 20s, I got the last train from Paddington to Cardiff on a Friday night. It was packed, so I was in the corridor, and got chatting to an Irish lad around my age, who was off to Swansea, Haverfordwest and the ferry home the next day. We sat on the floor talking about our lives, why we were going to Wales, and he got a pencil and drew a map of Ireland on the wall to show me where he came from, and I drew a map of Great Britain to show him where I grew up. (Sorry, British Rail...)

At Cardiff, I got up to get off, where my parents were waiting on the platform (because you could do that in those days) - and just as I stepped down, the Irish man jumped off after me and kissed me full on the lips, right in front of my parents, and then got back on the train as it pulled away. No mobile phones then. I hope he's had a good life.

At a festival in the 90s and not having a great time with my then partner. In the early hours we had a disagreement and I left our tent crying, to walk it off.
As I was walking along this lad appeared at my side and asked if I was OK. We walked and talked, and then he put his coat around me because it was chilly. He bought me a cup of tea and we sat and talked and watched the sunrise. He was so calm, and caring. There was a wonderful energy about him. It was the last day of the festival and as the site started to wake up he took my hands in his and said 'you can come home with me if you like? It's a house-share, you're more than welcome' and for a split-second I really thought 'what an adventure that would be' and then reality set in and I said I really needed to get back to my partner.
I've often wondered how my life would have turned out if I had followed my heart that morning and gone with him. And I think about him too and how life worked out for him.

2008, I think.

A few years ago after being ghosted by my then coward bastard bf I attended Notting Hill Carnival with some friends to help me get over the heartbreak. It was only a few days after the split. After a few hours I got really tired and sat down in front of a shop and just watching people dancing and drinking when this gorgeous lad came and sat next to me. We talked for hours and he was absolutely gorgeous. I told him about the recent split and how I was questioning the "what if's" feeling somehow it was my fault. He talked sense in me especially when my confidence was so low where I felt I was undeserving. I fancied this guy so much though with his piercing blue eyes but because I was so overwhelmed with anger and heartbreak I didn't act on it and I felt guilty if I did move on. He gave me his number so I could call when I had time to think but I didn't give mine back and said I will text him. I didn't text back I don't know why, maybe he reminded me of the time when I was at my lowest. I still have his number now saved as 'mystery man' but I'm happily married :) I do wonder what happened to him whether he actually waited for that call but he did kind of help me lift the clouds out of my way.

Love this thread

Not a woo or coincidence one but I remember school closing early on a snow day when I was a teenager and me and a friend were in a very giggly, excitable mood walking back to hers.

There was an elderly lady a few metres in front of us and she turned around and said something along the lines of "how lovely to hear two friends having such a nice time together, it makes me think of my childhood best friend". It was really unexpected and so sweet of her, we thanked her and walked with her for a little bit before heading off to my friend's to make snowmen and cookies. That was about 12 years ago but I think about that little encounter a lot, it was just a really happy day and she was a very nice person.

I used to live in Australia and on my way to work I'd stop and talk to this nice old couple who would sit at the bridge and catch crabs.
Years later I became good friends with a man online through a mutual hobby. It turned out the nice old couple were his parents.

Some gorgeous stories on here.
Mine is a bit more melancholy. I can't remember all the detail as it was decades ago, but:
I used to get a coach to work every day and one day a woman sat next to me and we exchanged small talk. I was v early 20s, she was maybe a decade older. She was nice enough but a little intense.
A few days later I got a phone call at work, put through from reception, and it was her. I'd told her where I worked and she'd obviously just called and asked for me (I don't remember giving her my name but suppose I must have).
We met up (can't remember where, probably a pub or cafe) and among other things she was telling me about her marriage, and about how she was lonely.
I was very socially maladroit then, and quite shy/reserved, and not really very good at either making light conversation or doing the supportive/listening thing. My main memory of it is her talking a lot, being again quite intense, and this sense that she wanted something from me, but I didn't know what it was.
I don't think we met up again and I don't think I heard from her again. I think about her occasionally still, and wonder how things went for her and why she chose me – and if she ever wished she'd talked to someone more chatty

Where in Liverpool was that @squashyhat? I’m due to visit soon and would love to see that.

thanks!

Mine's not as nice as most others but I do think about it.
As a teenager I regularly played truant and on one occasion had taken myself to a secluded local viewpoint which you had to access down a long path. At the end, there was a bench which overlooked the golf course. It was a favourite spot of mine to sit and read and smoke. As I got closer to the bench, I came upon a middle aged man, dressed in a sky blue skirt suit, tied rather rudiment-ally to the back of the bench, bent over it at the waist. He asked me to untie him, which I dutifully did. I was in such a "don't give a fuck" stage of life (oh so cool and unflappable as all teens try to be!) that I brushed it off like I saw this every day and we sat for a while smoking and enjoying the view before he wished me a good day and sloped off. I don't know if he was waiting for someone (who presumably later arrived, saw I had interrupted their game and turned around and legged it!), if he had been with someone but I interrupted them and the other person had left unseen or if he had been stood up. We seemed to respect that neither of us were doing what we should have been that day so I didn't tell anyone about it until years later.

I am in my 40s now but still vividly remember being in a city centre when I was around ten and staring at a teenage girl who looked effortlessly cool. She caught me staring and I looked away embarrassed but when I glanced back she gave me the most beautiful smile. I still remember the kindness that she seemed to radiate and how good she made an awkward little girl feel!

PocketFullOfPuddocks, that's really sweet!

I was walking through a very poor poverty stricken village in Russia. I walked up to a bus stop to catch the bus. There was a girl around my age standing there. She was so beautiful. Think tall, slim with pale skin, green eyes and long auburn hair. I thought about chatting to her, (I often chatted with strangers when travelling) but then she looked at me and gave me the most evil smile. I was so taken aback. I just walked past her. I was so creeped out, I didn't want to catch the bus with her. I went to the shop, bought some drinks and snacks and caught the next bus. The way she looked at me still creeps me out whenever I think about it.

I've remembered another one.

Back in the early 90s, when I was 15, my mum and I were waiting for our very delayed flight from Rhodes to Newcastle after a holiday, and we got talking to a very beautiful young woman with an even more beautiful baby. She was clearly very anxious about the flight delay - with very good reason.

She'd married a Turkish man who'd turned out to abusive and kept her a virtual prisoner. She'd been planning her escape for months - saving up tiny bits of her housekeeping money, searching for her passport which he'd hidden. Eventually, once she'd found it and saved up enough money, she'd stashed both under the baby's blanket and taken her "out for a walk" - then got on the next ferry to Rhodes.

Once there she contacted her family, who got her on the next flight to England, which happened to be ours (she was actually from London). Of course the longer the delay the more worried she got that her husband would find her. Mum and I assured her that if that did happen, we'd do everything we could to protect her and her daughter. We would have to - luckily for her she'd started chatting with two bolshy women who'd have had no problem causing a massive scene to keep an abusive bastard away from her!

Luckily, it didn't come to that - we eventually boarded our flight and made it back to the UK without incident. We saw her after got through arrivals, being joyfully greeted by her family who'd driven from London to collect her. I can only imagine the relief she must've felt to be finally home and safe.

I often think about her and wonder what happened to them both after that. The baby will be nearly 30 now, and quite possibly a mother herself. I hope they both had happy lives.