Page 11 | What is the strangest coincidence you've ever experienced?

Namechangearoo · 04/02/2017 20:10

@ImperialBlether I left for uni when I was about 18 so either I didn't pay attention when I was a kid to my neighbours, or managed to completely forget him in the intermediate 10 years! It certainly was a complete shock for me.

As for him, I guess I'd changed a lot between 18-28, so I know he didn't recognise me either!

BikeRunSki · 04/02/2017 20:14

On the way to Scotland one summer, we stopped at Carlisle Services and bumped into someone from work. Odd enough, but service station are sparse north of Carlisle. DD (was about 3 at the time) was desperate for a wee, so we briefly exchanged hellos and rushed off.

The man in question died shortly afterwards and never came back to work. I am not at all religious, but I'd done lots of work with him in the year or so before hand, he always asked after my DC and I after his DGC, and have idly wondered whether I was somehow "meant" to run into him with DD that day.

PidgeyfinderGeneral · 04/02/2017 20:22

I went on holiday to a Greek island which was a bit off the beaten track and involved a flight to Athens, then a very long ferry trip. The first person I saw when I got off the ferry from Piraeus was a guy I used to deal with in a work capacity but hadn't seen for about 10 years. Very freaky. We both did a bit of a double take and were like WTAF.

ElsieMc · 04/02/2017 20:23

I was adopted as a baby. I traced my birth mother but the intermediary told me she wanted nothing to do with me because her "real" children would be ashamed of her.

Years later I looked on facebook and saw a woman with the same name (she has been married a few times). I showed my dh the picture asking if he thought it could be her. He said no, definitely not.

Last week I had another look and there was a new comment by her daughter in law who has her previous surname. I then quickly followed the links and traced her daughter (unusually spelt name) and son who closely resemble each other.

I showed my dds and grandchildren and they were astonished that I had not seen the similarities because to them it was so very clear.

Today I was shopping with my gs's and in the changing room I glanced in the mirror and I saw my birth mother's face looking back at me. How could I not have seen it.

aliceinwanderland · 04/02/2017 20:24

Another one - on safari in africa with a large group organised tour. Got chatting to a fellow traveller who started telling me about a party he'd been to at this "amazing" flat. Turned out it was our flat - but not our party!

WishIHadTheWherewithal · 04/02/2017 20:27

Early one Saturday morning while my DH was out with the dog, our landline rang briefly and then stopped. I checked the number, and it was DH's parents, so I suggested my DH rang them when he got home.

He did, and got through to his Dad, who wasn't the usual phone answerer - he didn't like talking on the phone much and his mum usually took calls, but she'd popped out, so DH and his Dad had a chat for the first time in a few months (we live at opposite ends of the country). DH's Dad was adamant no one had used the phone that morning, and so was DH's mum when she got back, so we couldn't explain the missed call.

That evening, we'd gone out for a meal - and sadly got a call that my DH's dad had had a sudden cardiac arrest, and died after being taken to hospital.

My DH said afterwards that if it hadn't been for the strange missed call, he wouldn't have been able to remember the last specific time he spoke to his dad - but thanks to that, he'd talked to him on what turned out to be the last day of his life.

munki · 04/02/2017 20:43

On my 30th birthday, I was staying at my parents. I woke up in the morning and decided that I would finally get round to reading a copy of 'The Magus' by John Fowles that they had in the bookcase in the bedroom I always slept in - that I'd been meaning to read for years and years but never had. Got it down and finally opened it, and it had an inscription in the front from my mum to my dad, wishing him a happy 30th birthday.

herethereandeverywhere · 04/02/2017 20:46

At a wedding of two friends in town on South Coast. The year before one of our mutual dear friends had died of cancer. We all missed him and knew how much he'd have loved to be there. He was very close to the couple, the groom was a pall bearer at his funeral.

Anyway, wedding ceremony goes nicely, as does the breakfast. Then after the breakfast we were milling around the venue waiting for the evening do and there were other guests there for a different event. Who should appear from the crowds but deceased friend's sister! She was 100 miles or so from their home town in the SW and the bride and groom were 100 miles or so from the opposite direction in the SE! Neither had an inkling the other would be there. Total coincidence.

It was such a source of comfort to so many friends there that day.

MaybeAFool · 04/02/2017 20:49

I used to work in the head office of a national security company, based in Nottingham. I made friends with a woman who worked in a subsidiary office in Kent. We met several times at various work functions and always got on really well.
She emailed me one day to tell me she was going to Leeds to visit family, but was stopping off in Nottinghamshire for 2 nights to see an old school friend who has moved to Nottingham, and did I want to catch up for a coffee while she was there?

We met up in the city, had a lovely afternoon and then I asked where her friend lived in case I could drop her off on my way home. Turned out her friend was my next door neighbour.
And if that wasn't weird enough, her family members who lived in Leeds (brother and sister in law) - their son went to uni with my DH's niece. Same course.

GlumsTheWord · 04/02/2017 20:54

My Dad died on the same date as my Mum - 20 years later.

GuiltyPleasure · 04/02/2017 21:01

Introduced MIL to DD's boyfriend. She was asking about his family. He mentioned the name of his grandfather. MIL says I used to work with someone of that name 50 years ago & went to his wedding. Yes it was of course her old work friend & we all now live in a completely different part of the country from where they grew up, so what were the chances of their paths ever crossing after so long.
On a slightly more embarrassing note, a few years ago, I'd just moved to London &
found myself squashed face to face on a rush hour tube with a guy I recognised as having had a very brief holiday fling with a couple of years earlier in Ibiza

Penhacked · 04/02/2017 21:03

Loving these. My mum had lost weight. She smacked my db when he was little when out and about (she said the only time she ever did!) and lost her very unusual 22ct wedding ring in the market. She bought a new one but the lower ct made her finger sore. She looked around for something to replace it and found one in a pawn shop in a different town. It fit her. It was her ring.

Penhacked · 04/02/2017 21:06

My own is I always went on holiday as a child to the same European resort. Met dh who is from a different part of the same country. Dh found a job in a tiny town I had never heard of and we moved there. Went to the nearby seaside for the day and everything looked familiar. I now live where I spent all my childhood holidays and it was completely by chance!

MTMFH · 04/02/2017 21:11

When I was just over 30 weeks pregnant, I had dinner at my friends house. We discussed how I was most likely to go into early labour out of our pregnant friends as I had had issues getting pregnant. I left her house that evening with back and belly pain but dismissed it as an upset stomach and didn't say anything to her. My waters broke the next morning and our DD was born 9 weeks early. We hadn't found out the sex of the baby or told people names we liked. When we announced the birth, the same friend said that after I'd left her house, her and her DD put on a film soundtrack, which happened to be a film with the same name we had picked for our DD.

bigredboat · 04/02/2017 21:24

My friend went abroad on holiday a few years ago, the travel rep at the hotel had the same (unusual) surname as me - turns out it was my cousin!

peppersaunt · 04/02/2017 21:29

On holiday in the U.K. (from U.S.) and turned on the television. The BBC was showing a documentary featuring my cousin.

SpongebobRoundPants · 04/02/2017 21:33

Just thought of one that happened fairly recently.

When I was younger I loved Jacqueline Wilson books and owned most of them, however I got rid of them over 10 years ago. I saw a few in a charity shop for 20p each and couldn't resist buying them only to find my name written inside the front cover! They were my books

CrazyCatLaydee123 · 04/02/2017 21:34

Mine Dad and FIL are both called David. When DH and I first bought our house, we had a lodger. His dad's name was David. After he moved out we got another lodger, who's name was... David.

Champagneformyrealfriends · 04/02/2017 21:39

I went to London for work and bumped into my sister (didn't know she was there for the day!) at the bottom of the escalator at KGX.

willdoitinaminute · 04/02/2017 21:39

I was born on the exact day my DHs father died. I didn't know until we had been together for 12mnths.

FitbitAddict · 04/02/2017 22:02

When I lived in London, I once got off the tube at Charing Cross only to discover that my best friend from school (we went to school in Devon) had been in the next carriage with her boyfriend and they were on their way to visit his parents in Kent.

When my now-DH told me his bank PIN it was the day of his birthday followed by the day of my birthday. It had been issued randomly by his bank decades ago and he continued to use it from then on.

marriedtogrumpy · 04/02/2017 22:07

DH and I grew up 110 miles apart.

When both sets of parents met for the first time it became apparent that my father's childhood friend and my (soon to be) MIL's best friend were twins who had been brought up separately.

My father remembered travelling on the back of a motorbike as a teenager with his friend to meet his twin in the 1960's

Kevinbaconsrealwife · 04/02/2017 22:15

My DH and my best friend we're born on the same morning of the same day of the same month of the same year....we all call them the twinnies...

My parents were in a very remote part of The Gambia with half a dozen other strangers on a trip when my dad heard his name called - it was a man he had sold a van to the month before...

My two closest friends at middle school had exactly the same first and surname, spelt exactly the same...

Love these threads :-)

Kevinbaconsrealwife · 04/02/2017 22:18

Oh and also , my paternal grandparents both died on an Easter Monday, many many years apart...

Greyboot · 04/02/2017 22:21

My best friend is an identical twin.
I share the same birthdate (year included) with my friend's twin's best friend.