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AIBU?

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Original poster

What is the strangest coincidence you've ever experienced?

565 replies

kickly · 03/02/2017 22:48

As above.

OP posts:
Hayels · 04/02/2017 13:06

When I was a kid, my dad worked for a big company that every year had a Christmas party that was a weekend away in a hotel at a seaside town about an hour away. The same families went every year and I became good friends with two sisters with very distinctive tight curly hair who's dad worked with my dad and although we never saw each other in between, we always met up at this hotel for the weekend and had a great time til I was about 12 when they stopped putting the weekend on and I never saw them again.

In my mid-twenties, I started a class at a gym and instantly recognised another attendee as the older sister. I went over and asked if she was 'Vanessa', she said yes, and I asked if she had a younger sister called 'Stephanie' and she said yes. So I started talking about this weekend away we used to have and she looked at me like Confused
She said her dad had never worked for that company and she had never been to that seaside town- she was the exact image of that girl with the same tight short curly hair and her and her sister had the same names.

daimbar · 04/02/2017 13:07

In my last job I sat next to a woman called Ruth.

My best friend who worked in a different company in a different part of town sat next to a man called John.

It turned out Ruth and John were married to each other.

questioningitall · 04/02/2017 13:38

Went to stay with my friend from school in the school holidays. She lived in Africa. Through resemblances in family photos we discovered my grandfather and hers were cousins. Freaked us all out.

ChuncaMunca · 04/02/2017 14:11

Met a guy who hit on me. Really fancied him.

Turned out I worked with both his wife and his mistress (in completely different jobs).

My luck! Confused

ThanksForAllTheFish · 04/02/2017 14:15

I have a couple of stories.

No matter where we go on holiday DH always meets someone he knows. It's became a running joke with us now. We book a holiday and then take bets on what random friend that he's not see in years we will meet once we are there.
The one time it didn't happen was a short city break we got through the whole 3 days without meeting a single person. Our flight back was via schiphol airport as direct flights where too expensive. We stopped for something to eat before catching our flight home only to sit down the next table to a couple he knew. They we travelling the opposite direction to us and booked to stay in the same hotel we had just left.

What else. I have a doppelgänger who I used to see on the train quite a lot. I was tempted to speak to her but was never brave enough. I'm convinced she must be a long lost cousin or that my dad had an affair or something because we look so alike and lived in the same area of the same city. I moved away from that house to another area and a few months later I seen her again in a shopping centre, pushing a pram (the same one I had but in a different colour) with a toddler in it that looked the same age as my own DD (at the time). Very strange coincidence.

ThanksForAllTheFish · 04/02/2017 14:26

For got to add to the doppelgänger story. When I was in uni I made friends with a guy who was convinced I went to the same school as him. I didn't. He said I was in the year below him and knew my name. I thought it was strange at the time but just thought he must have got mixed up. I now wonder if it was actually my doppelgänger he went to school with and if so she has the same name as me which would be even stranger.

FineSally · 04/02/2017 14:26

not sure you'd class this as coincidence or a bit woo.

I am into genealogy. Many years ago, I posted a query about a census entry on Genes Reunited and a guy replied with some helpful info.
He mentioned there was a chap with the same surname living in his (very small) village and wondered whether we were related. I didn't know about that branch of the family but researched it & yes - we are second cousins. Up till that point I had no idea I had any living relations in that part of the world.

A year or two later we went to a fairly large, busy, country fair in that area. I was in one of the tents and turned round to see an old chap standing behind me. I just KNEW. I said, are you XX and he said, yes, who's asking.

He knew my gt grandfather & my gt uncle so we had a lovely chat about families.

notyourmummy · 04/02/2017 14:46

My sister was estranged from her dad (my dad had brought her up since she was a toddler). He was last known to be living up north, we as a family were in the East of the country and she was living in the West Country with her boyfriend, and working in a hospital. A man was brought in by ambulance, terminally ill and there was little they could do. He passed away in a&e and when they were trying to contact his next of kin, it became apparent that he was her birth father.

fj3568 · 04/02/2017 14:51

In 1998 I was posted unexpectedly to New York ( from London) I had a kitten who was used to a big garden and was worried about how she would cope in an apartment so a colleague took her. Fast forward 7 years and I was living in Washington and the colleague turns up, living opposite me with the cat

Agerbilatemycardigan · 04/02/2017 15:20

My 2 eldest DDs were born 11 years apart, but were both born at 7.40 at night and both weighed exactly 7lb.

Agerbilatemycardigan · 04/02/2017 15:22

Also, forgot to mention that my DGD was born exactly 14 years to the day that my DF died.

Original poster
kickly · 04/02/2017 15:32

Do you have a strangest coincidence to add at all OP?

The only one I can think of which is pretty lame is when I thought about a schoolfriend that I had not seen in about 20 years who lived abroad and then I saw her in the street a few days later.

OP posts:
Sparklycurtainpole · 04/02/2017 16:45

I had to do a double take on Facebook a couple of years ago. Four friends had all posted exactly the same picture of themselves in a group shot at the finish line of a charity race. I knew all four of them from different parts/circles of my life but had no idea they knew each other and turns out none of them knew they had me in common! One was an old friend from primary school, another I used to do bar work with as a student, one a 'mum' friend and another an ex colleague.
I genuinely thought Facebook had gone a bit weird and was duplicating posts!

Sparklycurtainpole · 04/02/2017 16:52

Oh and another one which spooked me out. About 12 years ago i used to work with a Geordie guy who looked a bit like robson green. He moved away and we didn't keep in touch and I hadn't seen him since. The other night I had a dream and robson green kept appearing in it.
The next day I was at a big work conference and who sits down on the chair next to me? Yup, my ex colleague the robson green lookalike 😵

mumwithovertime · 04/02/2017 17:11

My no 3 dd was born close to Christmas ( 24th December )
As Christmas presents from an aunt my 2 elder daughters received anatomically correct dolls, one of each sex .
My 4th pregnancy resulted in twins ! One of each sex ! ( no history of twins in my family ! )

Pigsbum · 04/02/2017 17:21

I had one today actually, my do bought me a watch I wanted for xmas and when I opened it it wasn't working, a bit of a shame but no dramas I just needed a new battery. So today I fiiiinally remembered to take it with me when I was leaving the house and noticed that not only was it working again but the time was correct! Shock

lalalalyra · 04/02/2017 17:31

I've just realised another one through reading the thread. I share my birthday with one of my brothers. My sister and other brother share their birthday. It's not something I've ever really thought about because my Grandad and his brother share a birthday, and my father was born on their birthday so it's a 'thing' in the family. However, I have just realised that my siblings who share their birthday have the opposite date to mine - for example if mine was 6/3/yy then theirs is 3/6/yy. Which is kind of weird.

CaoNiMa · 04/02/2017 18:00

Ooh I thought of another one!

I left my small village outside of Liverpool when I was 18, and never lived there again. Aged 28, when I was living in Shanghai, a Malaysian woman came to work at the magazine I was writing for. She mentioned that her husband came from Liverpool.

A few months later, said husband attended a work party with us, and we got chatting. It transpired that he was born in my small village. He'd left for Hong Kong as a young child, so we didn't know any of the same people, but still!

Rainydayspending · 04/02/2017 18:07

When i was 14 i was on a holiday with my youth group in Snowdonia. We watched a steam train (Ffestiniog) train go past one day. I took a picture. The youngish lad guarding waved at me.
Many (20 +) years later, at the end of a painful divorce I met a man. We bonded gradually over many things including he could answer questions about trains from my 4 year old and we loved North Wales. We got married. We looked through an old photo collection of mine at my parents. It's him. Him in the photo. Grin

badhotfanny · 04/02/2017 18:23

I don't know about anyone else, but I am FASCINATED by the ones where people appear in other people's photos. Fascinated.

aliceinwanderland · 04/02/2017 18:25

Walking along Oxford St thinking about a uni pal who I hadn't seen for 5 years and who I thought was overseas, and then turning the corner to see her standing across the road.

jayho · 04/02/2017 18:31

Lived in multicultural part of east London but white british couple, went to Jamaica on holiday, taxi driver from airport was our neighbour's brother.

Prometheus · 04/02/2017 18:32

On holiday in Florida and did a day trip on an airboat in some swamps to see the gators. One other family on the same boat as us. Got chatting and turned out they were from the same, very small town we lived in.

ImperialBlether · 04/02/2017 18:32

@Namechangearoo but how did you not recognise the guy if he used to be your next door neighbour?

Rachie1986 · 04/02/2017 18:35

rainyday that is awesome.