What is the strangest coincidence you’ve had?

[Yoloohno]

Mine was I met someone on holiday in place A and had conversations several times during the week.

Fast forward 6 months and I got talking to someone on another holiday in place b and thought I know them but wasn’t sure where from, but not from that holiday or home but it turns out it was from holiday A.

I met a lovely lady who was in the hospital bed next to me when I had my dc, she had come down from Manchester for the weekend to visit family but went into early labour. She was an amazing help to me after my emergency c-section and would help me up and into the shower.

when we was leaving the hospital saying goodbye she said she was going back to Manchester and that was it until 8 years later my ds asked for his friend to come over after school for a play date, it turns out he was the boy who’s mum had helped me all those years ago.
Now 12 years later our Ds’ are best friends who share the same birthday.

This reminds me of when I was at a festival yeeeeaaars ago and I lost my friends in the crowd of thousands. One friend had his top off and in my drunken state, I'd be joking about his nipples.
So fast forward, I was looking for my friends and said to a random guy in the crowd, "excuse me, have you seen any nipples" and he turned and pointed through the crowd to where my friend was stood.
It was so ridiculous and insane that I couldn't stop laughing.

2 different houses I rented some years ago, friends came over and were amazed that they'd been there before, as had friends who'd lived there before me. I lived in a big city so was a weird coincidence for it to happen once, let alone twice. They both checked with their friends to make sure they weren't mistaken.

I've had two pairs of boyfriends ( 4 in total ) that had the same Birthdate, so 2 shared one date and the other two shared a different one, I only realised with the last pair because they shared a holiday birthday that was in the paper and recognised the mother of the past bf in a cut out in his baby book!

Goodness that's a muddle!

I grew up in a suburb of Birmingham and became friends with an American family who moved into my street. Many years later I moved to America and was taking horse riding lessons at the same barn as the daughter of one of the American kids.

Not exactly a coincidence, but a strange happening.
Many years ago when I was a student I had a placement in the same town where my elderly great aunt lived and I visited her quite a few times. The last night before I was going back to University I called in to say goodbye, and she gave me a ring she had had since she was a young woman. To be honest, I didn't really like it that much and it was several sizes too big for me anyway, but it became of great sentimental value to me as that proved to be the last time I saw her as she died a few weeks later.
Fast forward some years and I was staying at my parents house in the run up to my wedding and they were burgled. My jewellery box was one of the things that was stolen, and the thing I was most upset about losing was that ring which was in the box. Nothing was ever recovered from the burglary.
Then, about 5 years later I was sitting in my parents garden on a summer's day and I noticed something glinting in the sun in the crack between 2 of the paving stones of their path. It was the ring! Presumably the burglars must have dropped it as they left the house, but how did only that ring fall out, and how on earth did it lie undiscovered in that crack in the path for years?

We moved from Edinburgh to rural Ayrshire when our boys were 11 and 8. Some years later ds1 became involved with a local young woman whose granny had been born in our house.

@Saucepots. That must have felt so right

I went to look at a room in a flatshare and got chatting to one of the guys who lived there.

I didn't take the room, but less than a year later my now DH was advertising a room in his flatshare. A guy turned up to look round, and it was the same man from the flatshare I'd looked at previously.

Small London! To make it weirder, it wasn't even the same area of London.

Oh wow!! This is incredible.

Went to a jazz festival with my DH as guests of one of the bands. Got talking to the singer and it turned out she was a cousin of my mother.

These are all fascinating!

Nothing springs to mind for me

I spent the first half of my childhood in Pakistan, I was raised by a neighbour, she was my mum essentially. When I left Pakistani I had no way of ever contacting her.

I was then working in San Francisco for a short time and was introduced to someone else who was on a sedondment, their mum was the neughbour who raised me.

Not a hugely exciting one but always remember it as it was just so odd.

walking down the street in a random city I have never lived before in my 30s I saw a man walking towards me. For some reason the sight of him brought to mind a boy called Jason from primary school who I hadn’t thought of in literally 20 years. He had ginger hair, as did this man, but as he walked past me I realised he didn’t actually look like Jason at all.

Kept on walking with my friend and about 5 mins later who walks round the corner, Jason from infant school who sees me and recognises me and says “wow S I haven’t seen you in years! What are you doing here!”

so weird

When I was a child a new boy started at my school in September. In the August we went to stay with my parent's old friend about 300 miles away on our way to our family holiday. The new boy had moved from the same street my parent's friend lived on and we had stayed at.

I lost my lovely dad in 2021. For many years we belonged to a local am dram group. For a while I would re read old plays that we'd been in together - a comfort really. I also wasn't sleeping well and used to have radio 4 extra on through the night for company/background noise. This particular night I was reading Agatha Christie's 'A Murder Is Announced'. I set it down on, let's say page 46 and settled to sleep. When I woke the next morning the exact page of the play was being broadcast on radio 4 extra.

Me and DH were doing a jigsaw and pondering how they were made. A bit later we switched the telly on and the programme that was showing was one about how jigsaws are made!

I've had six really amazing ones. Here's one:

I booked a week in Malta for myself and my boyfriend, who lived 100 miles from me. The only reason I chose Malta was that I was browsing the last minute booking sites and spotted a good deal. He had left it to me to choose and book, told me to "surprise him" and he had no idea where we were going until after I'd booked it, and we were leaving about 3 days later.

The day we arrived there we were strolling around the tourist area looking to choose a restaurant when we came face to face with his next door neighbour, who had already been there a week. They had not told him where they were going, and he and I had never discussed going to Malta.

The odds against this must be many millions to one against.

My non religious GM was abroad on holiday and felt the draw to go into a cathedral of St Michael one particular day.
It turned out this was the same day my 54 year old dad back home died. His name was Michael.

And my grandparents and their son all shared the same birthday.

And the mum of my work colleague lives in the same bungalow my GP lived in for fifty years before they died.

I've got two:

• DH and I were watching a TV programme about cats. Our cats were with us. A cat on the programme caught a mole and left it on its owner's doorstep. We commented on this unusual catch and that you never see moles, just their hills and none round us. Yes, sure enough, next morning we woke up toa mole on our doorstep!

• I went to a televised football match and rang my mum to remind her it was on. It was very noisy and I wasn't sure if she could hear me. She said she knew it was me calling as she could see me on the phone on the telly- the camera cut to me just as I rang her

We now live in South West London but I grew up in a small village in Hampshire.

Got talking to one of the mums who had a daughter in the same year as mine. It turns out that she grew up in the next village to me. Not only that but we were born on the same day and the same month as each other but a few years apart.

rang somebody up to see of they wanted a CD I found in a charity shop..they told me then had found my lost car key under their sofa (lost a long time)
I went to use my car later that day and realised I had lost my only other key..never did find it

One that sent spooky shivers up my spine...

Woke up one sunny Saturday morning, a London spinster with no plans. On the spur of the moment I just left the house, not knowing where I was going to end up. I started driving south from central London and ended up on the A3 and on there saw a sign for Brighton, and thought, yeah, I'll go there.

Got to Brighton, parked up and walked to the beach, which was thickly crowded with thousands of people. Picking my way through, trying to find a tiny patch of shingle to lay my towel, I saw a woman who was the spitting image of my mother. I was so fascinated that I approached closer, and to my utter amazement found it WAS my widowed mother, who also lived in London, and who I had not spoken to for a couple of weeks.

Neither of us had EVER spoken of going to Brighton (or anywhere else) for a day trip, weekend or holiday. She had never been there before, had never gone alone on a day trip anywhere, and she wasn't a spontaneous type of person. She'd got up that morning, seen a sunny day and on the spur of the moment went to Victoria station and caught the train to Brighton.

Even if we had both known the other was going to be there, the odds against finding one specific person in a crowd of thousands were millions to one against.