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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What is the strangest coincidence you've ever experienced?

565 replies

kickly · 03/02/2017 22:48

As above.

OP posts:
Timeforteaplease · 03/02/2017 23:02

On holiday in the US traveling with a friend. Friend spots somebody she knows in the middle of San Francisco. What are the chances of that? But it gets doubly weird when it turns out I know the same person - but through a completely different route. Spooky.

Jellybean83 · 03/02/2017 23:08

Very similar thing to me Timeforteaplease, but it was my DP. Had been going out around 3 years and we were in NY and all we could hear was someone shouting his stupid childhood nickname, turn around and it was a friend he grew up with, turns out I knew the friend too as we went to the same school.

floopyloopy · 03/02/2017 23:09

Mine is a weird one...

1997 my boyfriend wouldn't get a mobile phone. He used mine which was annoying. At V97 you know when v festivals had years... - you could text an SMS to the crowd which was displayed on a big screen.

I sent a message saying 'John - get a phone!' I saw it and we laughed. I stepped back and trod on a phone in the grass (Sony Ericsson). I held on to it and waited for someone to call so I could give it back. It rang about 48hrs later (those were the days). I had a very aggressive person on the end. I said I'd happily post it back if they'd tell me where to send it. Whoever it was hung up. Phone was disconnected.

I gave the phone to John. I had the same phone so we had the correct charger 😊 such simple times!

PiggyPlumPie · 03/02/2017 23:11

DDs new uni friend is American. Her mum and I share the same first name (not particularly common). Both dad's support the same football team and both girls were bought the same set of advent books as babies!

Londonjam · 03/02/2017 23:11

I got engaged three years ago in New York. I later discovered my ex boyfriend also got engaged on the same day also in New York

WorraLiberty · 03/02/2017 23:12

My cousin went to a football match at Wembley stadium (which holds 90,000 people) years ago and struck up a conversation with the guy next to him.

The guy was from Ireland and when my cousin asked whereabouts etc, it eventually turned out he was his first cousin on his Dad's side.

His Dad had died when he was very little and his Mum lost contact with that side of the family.

They're all happily in contact now and regularly visit each other.

exLtEveDallas · 03/02/2017 23:13

Hmm, mine wasn't great, although it makes me laugh now. Sat in temp (military) accommodation in Bosnia waiting for onward transport. With 3 other females, all strangers. One is waxing lyrical about her boyfriend...took about 10/15 minutes to realise she was talking about my (stbx) husband.

Awkward.

Grin
citybushisland · 03/02/2017 23:14

I've lived all over the world but only once met someone who came from my birthplace*, ever, he was born in the bed next to me on the same day (47 years ago), attended the same nursery school and then my family moved away, 10 years ago he married one of my best friends from boarding school. However we recently (ish a year ago) moved to Yorkshire, two of the mothers of girls in my daughters year not only come from there, but were born in the same hospital in the same week as me, went to the same nursery school, and one of them has parents living in the house directly opposite the last house we lived in, in the midlands.

*you wouldn't think Maidenhead was an unusual place to come from would you

floopyloopy · 03/02/2017 23:15

My dh was born in Maidenhead 47 years ago!!!

citybushisland · 03/02/2017 23:16

Don't, it's getting scary Grin

ThinkPinkStink · 03/02/2017 23:16

Pretty outing, but hey ho.

I met a guy OLD in 2005, he was hawt very nice, handsome, charming, funny, blah...

We went on five dates we had got fruity.

On the fifth date he asked if we could be in a relationship.

Within ten minutes he asked what my father's surname was (I had my mother's) I told him, he commented that it was strange as that was also his paternal grandmother's maiden name... long story short, his grandmother was my grandfather's sister... he was my second cousin or is it first cousin twice removed?

Excitedforxmas · 03/02/2017 23:18

I live 250 miles away from my parents. When my dad was doing his family tree he discovered that his ggg grandparents had lived in the same town I'm living in now!

9GreenBottles · 03/02/2017 23:21

I once needed an Indian visa and had to go to get it in person as I needed my passport for another trip before I travelled to India. The man sitting next to me in the consulate was very unsure about how to fill in the form. I went to India a couple of weeks later and bumped into the same man in the hotel lobby.

chipmonkey · 03/02/2017 23:23

Went to the US to work one summer as a student with two classmates. Were given an apartment to live in and our bosses' daughter was our room-mate. One day bosses' daughter brings two friends over. My classmate goes "Helen!" on seeing one of the friends. It turns out that the friend is the first cousin of my classmate's friend. They had met the previous summer when Helen had visited her cousin in the tiny West of Ireland village where my classmate grew up.

IvorHughJarrs · 03/02/2017 23:24

I have not lived in my hometown for many years and my DCs have grown up over 50 miles away from it. My DD went to uni in a different city again and made a close friend from yet another city. After a couple of visits I was talking to this girl and she said I had an accent just like her mum, asked where mum was from, my hometown, which school did she go to, my old school, she mentioned her mum's maiden name and it turned out we knew each other at high school!

auldfuckingspinster · 03/02/2017 23:27

I kipped on the couch of a guy that I knew from the message board of a band in London. We were sitting chatting when his flatmate arrived - she used to be a barmaid at my local in Edinburgh and attended my dad's funeral. Twas a bit of a head fuck!

RobinIsThicke · 03/02/2017 23:28

Discovered a colleauge lived next door to me. Then later discovered we share the same birthday.

....wow that was boring

FusionChefGeoff · 03/02/2017 23:28

Was 15 and on my first trip to London with a friend. My Dad got into the same tube carriage as us. He went to London max twice a year. We tried to work out the odds but gave up!

unicorn5629 · 03/02/2017 23:29

When me and my now DH got together as poor students I was running low on cash one day before getting an early morning bus to work.
He lovingly gave me his card and PIN to borrow... I had to look twice when he wrote it down... it was the same as mine !!!!

Yambabe · 03/02/2017 23:30

DH and I were on holiday on Florida last year, driving down the Keys in an open-top car with the radio on (get us lol). Generic soft-rock music station cos that's what we like. Every now and again we would go off the main road for a drive around where the actual people lived and a nosey. Occasionally we would get lost.

One of the points where we got lost DH pulled over so I could check google maps and find our way back to the road. He was right under the street sign, and unusually it was called No Name Road. So naturally at that very moment U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name" came on the radio!

True story, I have it on video.........

PenguinRoar · 03/02/2017 23:31

I have an unusual full name which I share with someone else who works in the exact same unusual profession.

We got to know each other forwarding each other random mistaken emails!

gentlydoesit89 · 03/02/2017 23:33

DP and I were talking about my playing piano when I was younger and he mentioned his uncle having a beautiful grand he'd take me to see and play one day.
This was all arranged, only when we arrived at the house I'd been there before and already played on said beautiful piano as his uncle was my music teacher for 8 years Grin

Teaholic · 03/02/2017 23:35

I was at work at my desk in my office in the city over a decade ago when my direct line rang and it was the department store Peter Jones to tell me my fridge was ready. Haven't ordered a fridge I said. ARe you Mss T Holic they asked. Yes I am. Your fridge is ready. They hung up. I googled my name. It came up with a doctor in Waterloo hospital. Rang the hospital and asked to speak to 'my name'' weird. Got put through instantly and tentitively said ''your fridge is ready...........''' Fantastic!!! she said, thank you! I'll be in on Saturday.

Anyway. I'd never ordered anything from Peter Jones. Why did they ring somebody with the same name as the person who had ordered the fridge and how did they get my direct line?

I've pondered this for a decade.

ferriswheel · 03/02/2017 23:36

I sadly had a miscarriage, a year (almost to the day) I delivered my first baby.

I had my second baby, a year exactly to the day, I had my third baby!

Chicken4dinner · 03/02/2017 23:36

On holiday in quite a remote place in Asia.

We get chatting to the couple next to us by the pool. It turns out they live not that far from us. They say they are considering a move to a new block of flats in the area.

DH doesn't know where the flats are so I say "you do know. It's the new block behind your sister and BIL". (Only I used their names, let's call them Fred and Frieda)

The other couple say "you know Fred and Frieda?"

It turns out they are very close friends and have known them for years. It was a bit mind blowing.