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Original poster

To ask for your stories of strange coincidences?

350 replies

Pepperwand · 02/07/2019 20:17

Today I stopped at a petrol station and wanted to put £30 of fuel in the car but it blipped over to £30.10. When I went to pay I also bought two lottery tickets for £5 so paid £35.10. As I was putting the tickets in my purse I found two old lottery tickets so got them checked. First one won £30 and the second £5.10!

So, can I ask for your stories of coincidences?

OP posts:
TroysMammy · 06/07/2019 23:55

When our great aunt died my cousin was given a very old embroidery sampler. She took it home but never got around to getting it framed. One day rummaging around in her cupboards she came across the sampler and the date sewed into it was the date she found it.

Following on from my earlier coincidence, my DP also has a friend with the same name as my exH.

Witchend · 07/07/2019 00:08

I worked in a wedding venue. Someone came in and asked to book the venue on a specific date in 18 months' time. We had almost no bookings within 6 months for that far ahead, but it just happened the one we had was on that same date, and they'd booked it several weeks previously.
As we talked through alternatives with the couple, an email came through. I glanced at it and it was from the people who had already booked the room asking to swap to the next weekend.
Very happy couples!

SukiPutTheEarlGreyOn · 07/07/2019 00:27

While travelling as a teen doing volunteer work as part of a small international group in a distant country, I got on with everyone apart from one person. We disliked each other on sight but then bonded after discovering, to our surprise, that we were both from the same obscure small town (and have been close friends ever since). The same week I visited a city some distance away and stayed in a hostel and got chatting to a girl while at a cafe. During conversation, we also discovered we were from the same home town and it turned out she had just completed volunteer work in another country with my ex-boyfriend (who was from a different continent). On the crowded bus back to my volunteer work, I turned round in the aisle and bumped into someone I had been to school with who had been visiting the city on a whim.

On a sadder note, a month later while working on the same volunteer project there was a tragic accident on the site of another project a few miles away during which the British boyfriend of one of my Finnish friend’s died. Five years later, while working in a different country for a large international company, I was promoted to a new position and discovered that the young man that had died was the nephew of my new boss (during a conversation about volunteer work where my manager mentioned the sad loss of his family member). The family were then able to be put in contact with the Finnish friend (who they had known nothing about) who was able to reassure them how happy and fulfilled the boy had been whilst travelling. It still amazes me that such a very obscure link was able to provide comfort both to the still grieving family and also to the friend who felt closure having met them.

sobby · 07/07/2019 00:38

Last year I was at a small charity garden party in a little tiny village with my friend. I was browsing through the second hand book stall and didn't buy anything. We went to the cake stall and got a drink, I suddenly heard a voice behind me that I recognised and it was my neighbour who lined in the house opposite to mine , very strange as it was a farm house in the middle of nowhere.

I decided to go back to the book stall, I saw the book "Of Mice and Men" and asked my friend whether she read it at school as we both went to the same secondary school. I decided to buy it and when I looked inside the cover it was stamped inside with the name of my old school

Wilhamena · 07/07/2019 00:47

When I was 18 I had just started a new job being one week in. I lived in a small village and the only friend I'd had moved a couple of years before so and I had not seen her since. One of the girls at work asked me if I wanted to go to a disco and stay at hers overnight. As I never went anywhere I said great. On the day when I got home from work a message had been left to say my old friend was coming to take me out for the night and would pick me up at 7.30pm. We didn't have a phone so I could not let her know and my bus (the only bus) was leaving at 7pm. I found out the next day my friend with others had been in a car accident.
3 years later, after getting back with a boyfriend, who was a fast driver, the first time we went out he made me put my seatbelt on which he had never done before (it wasn't required by law back then) . A few minutes later he had to slam the breaks on. If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt I would have gone through the screen. Somebody was watching over me...

Ella1980 · 07/07/2019 01:03

When I was 17 I met a lovely lad in a club who ended up being my first boyfriend (we were together 6 years). We both lived in the same big town.
Turns out his parents and my parents had both lived in the same street for quite a nunber of years-for both sets it was their first married home together. My ex-boyfriend's parents still live there to this day and we remain friends ☺

goodfornothinggnome · 07/07/2019 01:16

I want to share mine from yesterday.
There are 3 men in the UK with DHs first and last name.
One of them turned up to the same gym as DD and me yesterday. Literally 30 seconds after us, he said his name just after we had said DHs name because DDs membership is linked to DHs.
I turned and said, you've the same name as my husband! First and last.
He said it was astonishing because it's a rare name, and he has never been there before, his home club is the one about 30 miles away, which also happens to be our home club.

Turns out that whilst weve never met, he paid for DHs membership, and DH was paying for his for about 6 months, until DH realised his membership wasnt actually linked to him

My other is how I kept incidentally .missing DH.
He used to park his car opposite my flat when I was 17-18. It took until I was 20 and moved away a d him to get rid of that car for us to meet

floribunda18 · 07/07/2019 04:02

When we had my dad's funeral the personalised registration plate on the hearse had the name of his dog, who had died a couple of years earlier.

HerRoyalNotness · 07/07/2019 05:05

I live abroad and met a UK family in our sports club. I posted a pic on my FB and an online mum friend from a MN group said that’s my best friends daughter!

Also my friend who lives around the corner is friends with my ex from my home country and his wife. I still haven’t mentioned it. It was a shock when I saw his pic on their FB when they met up on a trip for dinner. I won’t hold her poor taste in friends against her Wink

HumptyNumptyNooNoo · 07/07/2019 06:02

We were travelling across a country by train and bus and we seemed to be going the same sort of route as another European couple ... each time a western looking person joined our carriage/bus etc this couple chatted to them - and the man or the woman coincidentally has lived in the town or went to the same school or worked in the same office building etc with that person or one in the group each time ... after two days of listening to this - we asked them didn't they think this was amazing ? The burst out laughing and said they'd both been psychology students and just enjoyed the wonderment of peoples reactions when they thought they had a special connection to a random stranger !

sashh · 07/07/2019 06:11

On holiday in Cornwall aged about 8 or 9 with parents and db, we lived in Yorkshire.

We went to a beach one day, while walking down the beach my mum mentioned to my dad that she thought his cousin lived near (they had lost touch years before), just as my dad was about to agree his cousin said, 'hello dad's name'|

We had practically tripped over him, his wife and children. As they were local they didn't go to the beach that often.

Dimebag10M · 07/07/2019 07:08

My dad grew up in a barracks overseas, and later moved back to the UK. He later got a job as a police officer, and one day he had to phone another police force across the other side of the country. Whilst making conversation with a gentleman in the call centre (waiting for some results to come through) my dad mentioned he grew up in a barracks overseas, and said he remembered when he was 9 he was playing football with a lad who later fell over and broke his leg - my dad picked the boy up and ran him home. He was met with silence from the man on the phone - turned out he was the boy my dad carried home!

Toriadoria · 07/07/2019 08:21

My husband keeps seeing 12.34 everywhere yesterday we got a new car and test drove 2 he couldn't make his mind up which one to buy then he drove them both again and then he got out of the one car and time was 12.34 so he decided on that car Confused yes he is obviously very superstitious Wink

fiydwi · 07/07/2019 08:24

My mother was adopted. She had me at 18, when she later looked into her adoption it turned out she’d given me the same first name that her bio mum had given her. It’s not even a particularly common name.

Scotslaydee · 07/07/2019 08:34

I'm currently in gran canaria with my daughter 17, I began talking about the police song, every breath you take and I sung a bit to her, shed never heard it before,

we literally walked another few minutes around the town we were in and stepped into a supermarket, that very song was playing on their radio, it stopped me in my tracks and have to say freaked me a little bit

Scotslaydee · 07/07/2019 08:35

22.57 I see this time of night every night no matter what I'm doing it's been this way for years wish I knew why

thewildrose · 07/07/2019 08:49

@@@Nicknackpaddywack16 Gabriel?

We also have similar birthday coincidences in our family Smile

Nicknackpaddywack16 · 07/07/2019 09:58

@thewildrose yes!!! 😁

Nicknackpaddywack16 · 07/07/2019 09:59

That was meant to be a smiley lol Grin

StrandedStarfish · 07/07/2019 10:00

Husb and I decided at the last minute to go to an obscure destination for a few days. Flights only from major airport on the other side of the country.

Sat on plane at 33,000 feet when I hear the announcement every health professional dreads.. “If there are any doctors or nurses onboard, could you make yourself known to cabin staff” so I did... turns out the unwell woman was one of my patients, and the other health professional on the plane used to be a student of mine....

Woman was fine.

LindseyandMatthew · 07/07/2019 10:04

My daughter was born at 10.04 am and weighed 10lb 4oz

My middle name is my nannas name and my husbands middle name is my grandads name.

I had a best friend at school but we lost contact and have only recently got back in touch. We both have 10 year old daughters who we have the exact same first and middle name to, we never discussed this name at all

Trooperslaneagain · 07/07/2019 10:29

Loads

-Parents died on the same day, a few years apart

-Males in my Dad's family typically die aged 64 - one Uncle has made it to 70 (phew)

  • Dsis and BFF were bridesmaids and we all live in different parts of the UK (a flight away). We were chatting about dresses and they said they'd have a look in their closest towns on x weekend.

Both chose the same dress on the same day, totally independently. It was a famous national retailer, alright but they are completely different sizes, think size 10 & size 20. And I didn't care what they wore, what colours or if they matched, just that they felt good in them. They both rocked it.

  • Friend A has a not common name but was born in the same hospital ward on the same day as mutual friend's BFF. MFs BFF had overstayed in a country where you need a visa. Friend A tried to go to same country around the same time and was stopped at border control and was refused the flight because "she was already there". Spent time in the cells until she managed to prove she wasn't the same person.
  • Two friends at the same Uni together later were set up by mutual friends; got together and discovered they'd been at lots of the same parties though they have no recollection of each other
anothernamechange123 · 07/07/2019 10:36

I love this thread!

RiftGibbon · 07/07/2019 11:08

Not a coincidence, but odd. I have never met anyone who shares the same birthday as me. Not at school, not at work, not socially.

BlueJava · 07/07/2019 11:18

Me and ex-husband moved into a house, the original owners had the same surname (which was fairly unusual) as us and the firstnames were similar. Example with names changed: We were Simon and Nichola Tomkins, they were Simone and Nicholas Tomkins. We thought this a funny coincidence until the debt collection company turned up! I was fairly young at the time - it was only due to the fact my dad was with me that bailiffs were prevented from taking things (as they didn't believe the "we are the new owners" line). The guy also had a number of motoring and other offences which the police turned up about - the police were also doubtful until we showed them all our paperwork from the mortgage, house deeds pack etc! It was a bit of a nightmare for a while.