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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:
Worryabouteverything · 14/05/2025 09:37

My Sil is a great photographer takes lots of pics all the time.
Looking at some one day from their holiday in new Zealand in the background was our next door neighbour.
The next year they went to Canada and the neighbours were in the background again.

OhGodImBloated · 14/05/2025 09:40

These Stories are really interesting!

mine is less wow but I realised when my son was in year 2 that there were three other boys (one in year 1, one in year 3 and one in year 4) all with the same first name as my son (which isn’t typically super common) and all with the same birthday!

TheWibble · 14/05/2025 09:43

On holiday in Cyprus, and found a lovely little family-run restaurant. We went there several times during our holiday. On the last night we were chatting to the owner and mentioned it was out last night. He asked where we were heading home to, and when I said Birmingham he mentioned his son lives in Birmingham. It turned out his son lived a few doors down from my parents and also worked in the same building as me, but for a different company on a different floor.

LushLemonTart · 14/05/2025 11:37

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!

That's amazing. Hope he still has it.

LushLemonTart · 14/05/2025 11:40

BendingSpoons · 14/05/2025 08:36

We sold our car. We then moved house, about 90 mins away. I then saw someone driving our old car near our new house.

As I just read 90 minutes they said it on tv!

Boredmum24 · 14/05/2025 11:43

My daughter and her husband were in the special care baby unit at the same time

LushLemonTart · 14/05/2025 11:47

Boredmum24 · 14/05/2025 11:43

My daughter and her husband were in the special care baby unit at the same time

I had to reread that 🤣

LushLemonTart · 14/05/2025 11:49

@ShieldMaiden8 sorry reread it and you do still have the number plate.

Arina22 · 14/05/2025 11:53

I went on holiday to a remote part of an island.

The first people i met were a family from my village at home.

I said "you dodnt say you were coming here!".

They said "you didnt say you were coming here"

I dont know if these are coincidences or it just being a small world!

Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:28

lobeydosser · 14/05/2025 03:26

One day on the family summer holiday in Turkey we take the water taxi from the hotel across to the nearest town. Meandering through the market my DD is highly embarrassed to bump into one of her teachers😮
Meandering a bit more through the town, DH decides he needs a hair cut. Ignoring lots of other barbers closer to the waterfront, he settles on one in a back street. Waiting for him, we budge up to make room for a couple of locals. Turns out not only do they speak English but they run the dry cleaners a mile away from us in North London!

Seems on this thread that teachers do get about!!!
x

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:29

DinoLil · 14/05/2025 08:52

Lost touch with a friend about 25yrs ago.

6yrs ago I decide to move away as my DC had left home, the house I'd been in for 20yrs was too big so I wanted to downsize to a cheaper county.

I found a little house I liked, bought it, on moving in day there was a card from the previous owner saying they'd lived there 20yrs and raised a family and hoped I'd be happy. Same kind of card I'd left for the people who bought my house.

Decided to see if DF was still around as this was an area she used to live in. Tracked her down and we arranged to meet for a coffee.

Turns out I'd bought her daughter's house.

This is lovely x

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:30

Lavenderandbrown · 14/05/2025 02:38

I was randomly assigned a numbered passcode in the late 90s (4 digits) and have used it ever since for banking and other things like my phone passcode. Turns out it is my now DH’s birthday and birth year and he’s been using his birthday as a 4 digit passcode for years also.

walking in Epcot exiting the shop in Germany and there are my cousins passing by.

enjoying the pool at a resort in Florida and there are my across the street neighbors on the other side

That’s some hardcore coincidences wow !!!
x

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:30

KateWithTheGoodHair · 14/05/2025 03:11

Love these! Several times in my life I have thought of someone randomly, then I see them moments later.

For instance, I’ll be walking down the street to grab something from the supermarket and a person will walk past me in the opposite direction and I’ll think, “oh that looked like some random person I was at school with 30 years ago who I’ve never thought about since” . Then i’ll step into Tesco and there is the actual person I haven’t seen for 30 years doing their weekly shop.

This has happened many many times.

Same here!

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:31

OnyourbarksGSG · 14/05/2025 08:24

I was involved in a hobby. I’m British and a friend came over who recently moved into our town from South Africa. I told him about me travelling to America to visit an expo and the American guy arranging it was worried as he couldn’t get in touch with his friend and he had been AWOL for 5 days and he was supposed to be giving a huge talk and series of workshops. Friend sitting next to me drinking coffee points to the magazine on the table and says “ that guy ? I went to school with him and our mums are best friends. He was attacked by an animal 4 days ago in the bush and he’s had to have surgery in some tiny hole in the ground hospital to save his arm, then he had to travel onto a city for more surgery. He won’t be going to the expo “.

sure enough, 4 hours later it was confirmed and my mind was blown that somehow a South African id just met knew the person my American friend was looking for, half the world away.

mind blown! X

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:33

LuckyLois · 14/05/2025 08:56

While backpacking through South America as a teen before uni, I met a girl in a hostel dorm who mentioned she was going to the same university as me - we exchanged email addresses as we thought it would be a long shot we’d bump into each other again seeing as we were doing very different courses. Arrived for my first day in halls and she was in the room next door to mine - still friends 25 years later and were each others’ bridesmaids.

That’s so lovely x

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:34

LushLemonTart · 14/05/2025 11:37

That's amazing. Hope he still has it.

Show quote history

Truly amazing!

OP posts:
Original poster
Lardychops · 14/05/2025 12:35

Worryabouteverything · 14/05/2025 09:37

My Sil is a great photographer takes lots of pics all the time.
Looking at some one day from their holiday in new Zealand in the background was our next door neighbour.
The next year they went to Canada and the neighbours were in the background again.

Lurking at the back lol! C

OP posts:
Gundogday · 14/05/2025 12:39

I was travelling from Wales to Hertfordshire. Decided to stop off at IKEA rather than service station for a break. Was walking back to the car and heard my name called. It was someone I knew from uni and hadn’t seen for years.

Arina22 · 14/05/2025 13:02

Im remembering a strange encounter i had. I have a very unusual name. Ive never met another person with my name.

I was on an aeroplane and walking up the aisle. My zip on my bag pocket was open and something fell out.

A man sitting on the plane called my name and said "arina something has fallen out of your bag". Thats not my name, but he used my correct name.

I said thanks, and i picked it up and sat down.

I then thought to myself later on, how did he know my name?

I looked at my carry on bag. My name wasnt visible anywhere.

Strange!

ChannelLightVessel · 14/05/2025 13:08

A few years ago, XH arranged tickets to go and see a famous DJ play at a local club. We went with a colleague of XH’s and his DW (I’d met them a couple of times before). As we were mothers in our 40s without suitable clubbing gear, both I and the DW had decided, separately, to go out and get a new top. As it turns out, the same top.

chergar · 14/05/2025 13:13

my aunt moved to a different part of the U.K. when she married, some years ago she went on holiday to somewhere in Europe (Spain or turkey or something) at a bar one night the got chatting with another British couple who happened to be from aunt’s (and our) hometown - the couple mentioned that they had a friend who was having a hellish time with her neighbours, the neighbours son was wild and a tearaway and gave the friend a life of hell and causing bother - turns out we were neighbours and the tearaway was my 4 year old brother, who was not wild or a tearaway just a typical 4 year old boy who liked to play with a ball in the garden

sowild · 14/05/2025 13:13

15 years ago visited another country with work and did a placement in a school there for 2 weeks. Public school in a middle class area of the capital city. This year I got to know someone from that country. Asked them about their childhood. They had attended the school I worked in.

MargaritaPracticallyCan · 14/05/2025 13:52

Back in the 90s, a boyfriend bought my parents a hand painted card from a craft fair, some 400 miles from where we lived at the time.
Years later, I'm married to DH who I met a long time after said ex boyfriend (absolutely no connection between them) and I had split up, I found the card, recognised the style of artwork, looked on the back, and it was signed by my DHs mum, who's an artist. Bonkers.

Worryabouteverything · 14/05/2025 15:30

Another one.
We went to gran canaria on holiday. Ds made a friend with a boy who turned out to live about 5 miles from us. DD made friends with his sister.
2 years later DS gets one of two apprenticeships for a building firm in the technical department. The other apprentice was this boy.
2 years later DD left school and went to college, first new friend she made was the sister. The sister should have gone to the college nearer to her home but it was oversubscribed.

madmeg1952 · 14/05/2025 21:45

Not quite the same but 5 years ago (during the dreaded Covid outbreak) we were on a world cruise. Covid hit us at Sydney and we had to change our route. We learnt that we were going to Freemantle, which is near to Perth, and I remembered that my cousin had emigrated there 50 years earlier, age 23. I managed to get his address from his brother (who lived near me) and we arranged to meet in Perth. He told me where he would be and said he'd be driving a yellow saloon. DH and I went to the area (a square park area with four roads in and out) and every other car was a yellow saloon! Suddenly I spotted another one at the far corner of the square and immediately shouted to DH "That's him". "How do you know?" asked DH and I said "Cos he looks just like his dad!". Now when I last saw my cousin he was 23 and looked exactly like Dave Davies of the Kinks (shoulder-length brown hair) - but by 2020 he was 73 and mostly bald!