Page 4 | What’s your sliding doors moment?

bibop · 02/12/2021 10:28

@AffIt

I rejected an Oxford acceptance, because I was very young and they wouldn't defer entry for a year.

I ended up travelling and working abroad before accepting another university offer (Russell Group, but not Oxbridge).

Twenty years later, I have several degrees, a lovely life and career, but I do wonder sometimes...

I went to Oxford and here I am wondering if that was my sliding doors moment... and wishing I went somewhere else. Oxford was highly stressful, dull, there were an awful lot of intellectual snobs and the teaching was overrated. I was jealous of my friends who seemed to be having a ball at other universities.

dudsville · 02/12/2021 10:32

It's also meeting someone for me. Had I not met my horrible ex, I also would have been very unlikely to have been able to do something which gave me independence and financial security (incidentally these are things he hated!).

LindaEllen · 02/12/2021 10:57

@SoniaFouler

Everything is a sliding doors moment. If you had left the house five minutes later that one time you might have been hit by a car, etc

Yeah, this. Every single tiny choice you make changes the whole trajectory of your life - perhaps not all choices cause huge changes, but every single choice you make changes something, which will change something else, which could then change something major.

Of course there are larger ones. If I hadn't gone to a pub for a drink on a particular day (and I really didn't want to go, and I was toying with the idea of cancelling) I would never have met DP.

Bellafrenum · 02/12/2021 11:00

Mine was a phonecall I nearly didn't make. I got a voicemail about a job interview but didn't see the vm until a week later. I was applying for loads at the time as had just finished uni. Nearly didn't bother calling back as I had already missed the proposed interview time, but I thought it was worth a shot so I called back. They hadn't filled the position and agreed to see me the next day. I owe my marriage, children and 80% of my friends and possibly even my current career to making that call.

Marmite27 · 02/12/2021 11:08

@Whitefire

Isn't the end of Sliding Doors left with the message that the planets will still line up at some point?

(Obviously you need to also believe in fate and destiny)

I have a couple of these! My BIL and I are meant to be in each other’s lives it seems

My FiL and DF had job opportunities in Canada and if they’d both have accepted DH and I would have been at the same school. They both declined and both families stayed in England.

Both families holidayed in Cornwall. I have a photo of me aged 12 and my brother on a beach and you can see DH and his family in the background.

We also both had the same uni course down as our first choice, but he ended up going through clearing and going somewhere else.

We ended up meeting on a dating website, when I clicked a button accidentally which sent a message, which I then followed up with - a please ignore that I did it by accident! My MIL says the universe heaved a great sigh of relief the day we met for coffee and it didn’t have to work at getting us to meet anymore

Also my mum stopped on the motorway at the site of a minor collision to give first aid (Dr). When I called her later that night she asked how our night out was, I said
We didn’t end up going because SIL’s new boyfriend who I was meeting for the first time had been in a car crash and wasn’t feeling up to it. My DM says when she stopped that day she never imagined she’d end up a guest at their wedding and her grandchildren would be cousins to that persons.

PrincessPaws · 02/12/2021 12:15

I had given up OLD, but one night decided to give it one last go before deleting the app for good. Matched with my now husband

Bookworm20 · 02/12/2021 12:25

Had my ticket and visa to go backpacking in Australia in my late teens.
A month before leaving I met a guy. We got on so well. The night before I was due to leave, I decided not to go to Australia.
Me and the guy split up 2 years later. Was by then settled in an ok job, renting a house etc. OK life but pretty boring.
Always wonder where i'd be now if I'd just got on that plane.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 02/12/2021 13:37

Very late one Friday afternoon in 2004, I was looking for some information on a client’s website. Out of curiosity in clicked then”work for us” button. I applied for a job that was closing the evening, with very little thought put to the application. Ive been there ever since.

royco · 02/12/2021 13:38

@Tiffbiff

Just that really! Watched sliding doors recently ( for those that haven’t watched it- a film that follows the life of a women had she caught the train and if she hadn’t caught the train)

Mine is in my twenties I worked a season abroad and met my husband in the destination that I did- if they had sent me Tenerife who would be in bed with me right now?!

Mine was probably choosing one job offer over the other. I then met my husband at work. I wonder where I would be now if id have taken the other job!

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 02/12/2021 13:45

A few years after I graduated - mid 90s- a colleague went to work abroad. He’d been the year above me at university and we had some mutual friends, so I knew him a bit out of work (and admired him from afar). I was the designated driver on his leaving do. As I dropped him home, he asked “why aren’t you coming to with me?”. I said “because you never asked!”. He asked me then. Despite being 23 with no responsibilities, I declined. Sensible head said “Do not follow a drunk man you don’t know very well to the other side of the world”. I drove myself home, alone. Heart has sometimes wondered what might have happened.

SnekkinOnDown · 02/12/2021 14:01

When I was 22 I'd just left a very abusive relationship with twins babies. I had been rehomed in a very poor town and couldn't afford a car. One day I was struggling with a double pram, a10 and a 20 month old and shopping bags. My bus was late and it was absolutely pissing down and so I took shelter in a Connexions carers office. I had left school with no GCSEs . They told be about a new programme at a university that took mature learners and as I seemed eloquent I should apply. I sat down, filled in the form and wrote a 1000 word personal essay right there while my babies napped.

Had an interview 3 weeks later. Started in the May dont an intensive access and then my BA started in September. Meet my husband and 20 years later we have 4 kids and are deliriously happy. All Becuae a bus was late.

SnekkinOnDown · 02/12/2021 14:03

Should also add that the Oram I was pushing was bought in the town is relocated to. I only found out after we met that Id bought the pram from his mums shop in the market and he has been putting display cots together the day I'd collected it (even though neither of them lived in the town).

user1471543094 · 02/12/2021 15:39

Got a text from a friend saying a guy she worked with has asked for my number.
I was with another friend at the time who advised me against it (male friend - turns out had ulterior motive!) If I had been on my own I would have said yes, but at the time had questionable judgement so listened to friend.

FF a few years and the guy who asked for my number was best man at my wedding to DH. Certainly never would have happened had I went anywhere near his best mate!

Rainbowsew · 02/12/2021 15:59

Not getting into first choice uni so ended up meeting DH at the one I did go to.

Newgirls · 02/12/2021 16:10

I had two job offers after uni. One in my home town, better money. The other a dream job in the city. I took the lower paid one and have loved my career ever since. I would have been a lot better off with the other one but would have def spent my life wondering what if

Otherpeoplesteens · 02/12/2021 16:14

Decided to apply for voluntary redundancy ten years ago from a secure well paid public sector job and combine the payout with my life savings to do an MBA and further my career.

Biggest mistake of my life, one that I have regretted ever since although I live in hope that will change. Finished the (brilliant) course penniless with no job, haven't ever found secure income since. Would have lost the roof over my head if my Dad hadn't stepped in.

Was contemplating ending it all when the opportunity came up to return to my old boarding school - the one place in my life I had ever felt truly content - and get involved with it on a voluntary basis. I went, thinking it might be a potential networking opportunity and while I still have no job, I met the person to whom I am now married with two children.

Eminybob · 02/12/2021 16:14

I was stood up for a date once. Because he didn’t show, I met another guy that night who went on to become an abusive partner and completely changed the course of my life. As in, moved country etc. We obviously split up but if we hadn’t met I would never have ended up where I met my current dh and would have a completely different life.

BlooBagoo · 02/12/2021 16:18

The "I wouldn't have existed without..." ones just reminded me of something my sibling, cousins and I found out at our grandmother's funeral a few years ago.

She was in her early teens during WWII and lived in a big city so she was evacuated to the country. Which happened to the area where our grandfather was from. He was older and was away in the RAF at the time but he must have come back on leave at some point and they struck up a friendship which later led to love.

So I guess if it wasn't for WWII then my dad, aunts and uncles wouldn't have existed and therefore the same for me, my sibling and my cousins. But at the same time I often think about how many people were killed during the war and you never know what they could have gone on to do.

My parents also met at random, DM had gone out to a party with her then boyfriend who was acting like a total prick. So they split up while standing in a queue for the bar. As he left she shouted that the guy behind her would buy her a drink instead. That was my DF.

SleepingStandingUp · 02/12/2021 16:43

It's always weird to think how unlikely each of our existences are, let alone our an sector's and the pathway to us. Dad have a wank before sex, that's SleepingStandingUp gone. Or one of the older kids had had a nightmare so no sex that night etc

turnaroundtime · 02/12/2021 16:55

@SleepingStandingUp

For those saying well leaving the house 5 minutes later counts etc, in the spirit of the movie unless something significant happened that day, it doesnt count.

When I got my a level results, because of the way general studies works, I actually had a choice between my first and second choice. I was in Sri Lanka, my sister told me over the phone and I pretty much said "the first one!" which of course was highest offer not my preference per se. I wonder, it was such a different course, I'd have been away from my ex, further away from my bf and the mess that I caused with those two, wouldn't have met the guy who's meeting of resulted in me attempting suicide, possibly would never have joined Samaritans, wouldn't have met the guy who I told I liked who's rejection spurred me on to accept the POF date that ended in marriage and 3 kids....

I'm sure other changes would have caused a similar cascade but that's the point where I feel my life truly hung between two fates

But so many things in life are significant. If I hadn't travelled to another country where I met my dh. I I hadn't had sex at the exact moment I conceived each of my children. Had I stood 2 feet ti the left I would have been hit on the head by a falling coconut. Had i done anything differently I may be dead. It's a pointless game.

SleepingStandingUp · 02/12/2021 17:01

But so many things in life are significant....
I I hadn't had sex at the exact moment I conceived each of my children... arguably most peoples lives wouldn't be much different regardless of which sperm got jiggy on which egg. I say that as someone who had to give up work to care for a DS with wonky Chromosomes so arguably a different combo would have made 46 not 48... but I don't think it would have significantly and long term changed our life*
Had I stood 2 feet ti the left I would have been hit on the head by a falling coconut. Had i done anything differently I may be dead. It's a pointless game. but for most things there isn't an obvious point when you avoided death or a coconut so it doesn't count.

Purplewithred · 02/12/2021 17:04

If I'd said No to the solicitor who was persuading me that everything was OK with the flat I was trying to buy I wouldn't have bought it, wouldn't have nearly been bankrupted, and would't have met my controlling arsehole of an ex. But then I wouldn't have my lovely children.

I often think of that moment.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 02/12/2021 17:13

I met a friend of a friend home from uni, he arranged to call me next day. Another one of his friends was there and told him I was seeing someone else. He never called. A year went by and his friend came home and we hooked up. Awful first date. He went back to uni and didn’t see him for about a year. Then he came home because of a death, we started going out. 40 years married soon.

weegiemum · 02/12/2021 17:22

I was really unhappy when I didn't get a place in halls of residence for my first year at uni, I had to go into private digs. In second year everyone was moving into flats with people from halls, so I decided I'd like the halls experience. First day there I met my now dh, a wee fresher. We've been married 27 years and have 3 dc.

pisspants · 02/12/2021 17:59

I was in a long distance relationship in my late teens/ early 20s and hadn't seen my bf for a long time (over a year) and was getting very close with a guy at the time and I think something was brewing. One night he was due to come round and we would have been alone together. He came round but I had fallen asleep and didnt hear him knocking at the door. We didnt see much of each other after that and I ended up staying with Mr long distance, moving near him and marrying him then had 2 DC. We're now divorced. I always wonder what would have happened if I had answered the door to the other guy.
I suspect I would have ended things with Mr long distance and the kids would have never been. Very odd.