Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

What are the biggest coincidences that have happened in your life.

132 replies

Lardychops · 12/05/2025 18:27

So five years after being on a kibbutz in Israel I was a passenger in a car with a friend in Hendon. The car came to a sudden stop at a zebra crossing. A startled girl flicked a V sign before we both realised we knew each other from the kibbutz!!

That SAME day on my way home to Harlow I got in the train and quite literally sat down next to a lad that had been on the same Kibbutz!!! He and the girl were not connected in any way - It felt barmy at the time and I imagine the odds were millions to one!!!

DH sister married a man she met in France and at her wedding it turned out he and ones DH’s old university friends had been Penpals while at secondary school- I mean what are the chances??

Anyone else had any bizarre coincidences like this - or more so ??

OP posts:

imnotwhoyouthinkiam · 13/05/2025 23:03

Twice we've been on holiday (in the UK) and bumped into people from home. Once was DS' teacher which he was horrified by!

My mums best friend is my Godmother. She's also related to my dad, although I have no idea how, and was nothing to do with my parents meeting.

My best friend at secondary school and I had almost identical surnames. To the extent teachers used to get them wrong. And more than once we were accused of lying about which name was which. My DCs father (who i almost married) had that same surname. So the name I'd mistakenly been called hundreds of times nearly became my name.

MigGril · 13/05/2025 23:04

Went on Holiday in the UK when DD was a baby, in the swimming pool bumped into my Uncle and his family who live the other end of the country to us. We had a lovely meet up and meal out with them.

Neither of us new we where going on holiday or where it was just a happy coincidence.

2chocolateoranges · 13/05/2025 23:09

Dh and I were on holiday at popular seaside resort in the Uk, we were at a popular tourist attraction where we climbed to the top and met his childhood friend who he hadn’t seen for years, bizarrelly we met him on holiday the year after too!

we always joke, I wonder if we Weill meet Ryan this year

Neverenoughbiscuits · 13/05/2025 23:15

I have two:

Once when I was travelling abroad for work. I was working in a very niche field at the time and the place was very remote - 9 hour bus ride from the plane. I went to check into my hotel and on the front desk was an old friend from school. She was working in that country and they'd brought a load of translators in for the event I was attending. It was very surreal.

The other one was when we were attending a wedding. I got there and there was another of the school mums from my DC primary school (which was very small so knew her quite well). We were a bit baffled to see each other there so I asked how she knew the bride and groom. The bride was her husband's cousin. The bride was also my second cousin. We had no idea of the connection.

Toseland · 13/05/2025 23:23

Went to an open day for uni. Noticed a woman at a mainline station, we went in different directions. Oddly found myself sitting nearly opposite each other on the bus, wondered laughingly if she was going to the same place as me. She got off the stop before mine. I walked up to the building and bumped into her again, she'd got lost. We ended up sharing a house together!

Latenightreader · 13/05/2025 23:31

On holiday abroad about 15 years ago with a small tour group - 10 of us in total including me and my mother. One evening at dinner we sat a couple we had only spoken to briefly before. It turned out that the man and my mother had grown up within a few streets of each other, and his best friend (who he hadn’t seen since 16) was her cousin. We were able to reunite them after over 50 years.

What was weirder was we were supposed to go the following week but it was full. They were supposed to be on the non-touring beach holiday by the same company but made a mistake whilst booking.

Latenightreader · 13/05/2025 23:40

Another - as a student I went to visit a school friend at another university. She warned me there was a theme night and I should bring a costume. I didn’t have anything but was able to borrow from someone on my landing. At the event I was chatting to someone who said a school friend of his was at my uni and mentioned her name. My response? “know her? I’m wearing her clothes!”

Arina22 · 13/05/2025 23:49

I bought a house in a very small town in Ireland.

I went to London for the weekend. A woman asked me for directions. I said "i dont know sorry, im just visiting".

She said "oh are you irish. My dad was irish. Hs was from X street in X town"

It was not only my town, but also the street that i was living on

FoxChops · 14/05/2025 00:00

I’ve mentioned this a few times before

40 years ago, aged 13, I had a book called ‘Come Back Lucy’ by Pamela Sykes. Really loved the book but of course, who knows where it went to over the years?

anyway a few years back, in a fit of nostalgia, I went on Amazon to try and find it. It was out of print at the time but I found one on their marketplace for a few quid. Seller up in Scotland - I’m in the south east of England

ordered it and it arrived a few days later. Opened it up to see my name and address, written on the title page, in my own handwriting - just as I would do to all the books I owned

yep - I’d bought my own book back, many decades later

imnotwhoyouthinkiam · 14/05/2025 00:06

Oh I've thought of another one.
I was working the night shift with a bank nurse I'd not worked with before. He mentioned he was from Sierra Leone, and I decided not to do that stupid thing where I say "oh my friend is from there, maybe you know her lol". Then he showed me pictures of his grandchildren. Not only did he know my friend, he's her dad

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 14/05/2025 00:06

DS teacher was complaining to me that he was looking forward to the holidays. The following week we bumped into him in a car park in France 😂

thismummyslife · 14/05/2025 00:10

We recently sold our house, when looking at the deeds we spotted that the previous owner had lived on my street where I had grown up and parents still live, this is 20 miles away so not round the corner or anything!

Crushed23 · 14/05/2025 00:15

isait · 13/05/2025 22:36

I had a dream about David Walliams, An hour later I was on my way to work and I randomly bumped into him in the street!

I was walking around Central London listening to a podcast where the presenter slipped into the conversation that he now lives in Marylebone, London (he’s American and I always assumed he lived in the US). Minutes later we walk past each other on Regents Street.

ShieldMaiden8 · 14/05/2025 00:16

At 16/17 my son went urban exploring with a mate at an abandoned farm. He came home later that night with a licence plate he had found in hay barn. He nailed it into the bit of wall above his bedroom door. A few weeks later he was visiting his dad and grandparents and they were talking about their first cars and license plates that they remember from cars they owned over the years etc.. his dad said the plate number to a car he had and loved when he was in his late teens/ early20’s, when my son recognised the number plate, it matched the plate he had found on the farm (they compare photos and ran it online too) a good 40 miles from where his dad lived, happened to be the plate of the the car his dad had in his 20’s and loved and not only that it was the plate that belonged to the the car we drove him home from hospital in, we actually sold it not long after he was born to a guy who scrapped it a few months later so no idea how that plate ended up on a abandoned farm all those years later but we still have it!

GreyLion · 14/05/2025 00:21

I’ve had many strange coincidences happen to me in my lifetime. I’ll share one

A random conversation was had with friends that if we had a dog what would we call it. I said the name I would choose. A while later we adopted a dog that had already been given the name mentioned in that conversation

Slurple · 14/05/2025 00:24

I grew up in the UK and later lived in Australia for a year - didn't know anyone out there and had no links, but whilst I was there I became good friends with a South African girl, K
A year later when my visa expired, I returned to my small hometown in England. Whilst I'd been away, some of my friends had befriended a South African girl, H. H and I got chatting one night shortly after I'd returned and it turned out that she and K were very good childhood friends! their Dads had been best friends in SA, the daughters grew up together and eventually moved to opposite sides of the world - I just so happened to eventually live in both places and become friends with both of them!

madmeg1952 · 14/05/2025 00:24

When my kids were about 11 and 8 we took our caravan to a campsite in the Black Forest. A couple of days later I saw a familiar van pull into the entrance - it was my younger DDs best schoolfriend and parents! They camped next to us. A couple of days later a family arrived at the tent across - they were my friend's next door neighbours! None of us knew the others were going there.

A few years on we went to Disneyland (major treat!). First day at one of the parks and the same best friend above and parents were on the same little train into the park and later in the day we came across my elder DDs best friend and family queuing for a ride. We had a marvellous time with all of us together. Again, none of us knew the others were going.

albalass · 14/05/2025 00:26

Bumped into my GP while travelling in rural Asia - at first I just knew I knew her face but was so out of context it took a while to realise how I knew her.

Worked abroad on a placement with lots of Canadians, Australians and Americans. One day we were told another Scottish person was arriving. The others were saying to me 'maybe you'll know him' (I think they thought Scotland was.a very small country). I told them not to be ridiculous. Turns out I didn't know him but his sister was best friends with my friend's sister. So our paths probably would have crossed eventually even if we hadn't both chosen to work on the other side of the world to home.

Turfaccountant · 14/05/2025 00:33

Met a couple at a friends dinner party. Turns out they were both on their 2nd marriage, the man got married to his 1st wife, 20 minutes before we did at the same place, v quiet wedding so we invited them to our raucous evening do. The day we met was our (and his obviously to his 1st wife) wedding anniversary.
Couple of months later, the new wife we met at the dinner put up a photo of her at her 1st wedding, she had hired her wedding dress, turns out to be the exact dress I bought from the shop when they were selling them off...the exact dress. We've all become great friends and it still blows our minds.

Judystilldreamsofhorses · 14/05/2025 00:39

Kind of a different vibe, but this kind of thing happens to me a lot. At uni just before mobile phones were really a normal thing (only for business people!) I would often think of calling someone, then find they were already on the line, ringing me at the exact same time. My best friend was a guy called Scott who was tragically killed in an accident a few years later in his mid 20s, and it used to happen to us all the time. The now equivalent would be at the weekend we were out for lunch and as we were walking home I thought it was a perfect day to walk our old neighbour’s dog - she moved abroad at the end of last summer, and I miss her and my furry wee chum so much. When I checked my phone there was a WA from her saying a song we both liked had come on the radio and made her think of me.

spoonbillstretford · 14/05/2025 00:45

After we had been together a few years, DH and I realised that we:

Weighed exactly the same at birth
Got the exact same GCSE, A-Level and degree results
Have the same blood type
He was born at midday, I was born at midnight

spoonbillstretford · 14/05/2025 00:53

We were on one of tinier isles of Scilly and saw no-one all day. Except DDs' headteacher. They were not particularly impressed 😅

On holiday in Turkey, we booked on a day trip. There was a minibus for 12 people. We were travelling with relatives and took up eight of the seats. The other four people it turned out were all born in the same tiny village we live in. Birds of a feather etc.

TropicalRain · 14/05/2025 01:01

@FoxChops wow! How it must have felt to open the cover and see your very own same handwriting.😲

Delphiniumandlupins · 14/05/2025 01:03

My elder sister and I have never lived near each other since she left home to go to college at 18. We probably saw each other a few times a year. My first permanent job after uni I was working for a small electronics company in Hertfordshire and phoning a supplier in Aberdeenshire (again not a huge company) and found I was speaking to my sister! We didn't know the names of each other's employer.

familyissues12345 · 14/05/2025 01:03

A couple of things -

My boss and I went to the same school as each other. Doesn’t sound that coincidental, but it’s a different county than we live in now. Finding that out was really weird!

My weirdest coincidence is though that there’s within 2-3 days there is the same age gap between my Mum and Dad as there is between me and DH as there is between DS1 and DS2. Now that I do find a bit freaky

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6