To ask about this utterly random coincidental meeting?

[TeeGypt]

In 1999, I went on an 18-30 type holiday to Magaluf. The hotel reception was mainly manned by an old English guy called Mick. He was quite a character, most notable for telling everyone that checked in that he had a cosh under the counter, so not to give him any trouble.

Over the 2 weeks we got to know him a little bit but ultimately we were just another group of “revellers”, and at the end of the holiday we went home. Mick was occasionally mentioned when reminiscing but that’s about it.

Earlier today I was coming through the train station and popped into a branch of Co-op for something. Never been in before. While browsing, I heard a voice that I recognised talking to member of staff - I turned to look round and it was Mick from the hotel!

After getting over the shock that he was still alive (he seemed ancient back in 1999), I asked whether he used to work in hotel in Magaluf. He said he had but was retired.

I told him I remembered him from 26 years ago and he was impressed by my memory. He said he still lived in Mallorca but was over visiting his sister. He was only in the station because he was changing trains and the onward service was cancelled.

Anyway, we went our separate ways but it seemed like an amazing coincidence.

Anyone had anything similar?

We met the people we had sold our boat to on the other side of the world. We had sold them a Thames river cruiser and we met them in a virtually empty hotel in Papua New Guinea. This is years ago (I was a child) when we lived there for a summer because of my Dad’s business.

I went to Akumal, Mexico to a beautiful but fairly small hotel to get married. My wedding only had 4 guests, and the day before our wedding someone who was there the day me and my wife met walked passed us in the lobby and turned out they were staying in our hotel

Mine was also an 18-30’s holiday back in the early 80s. I had a one night stand (well twice) with the rep. Roll on a few year’s and I saw him in Woolies on my lunch break. I didn’t approach him and hid till I could sneak out. Gave me quite a shock!

I lived in Guernsey in the early 90's and visit every couple of years. I was walking along the beach there one morning when I heard my name being called. It was a colleague from where I now live in N Wales who'd just arrived on the ferry that morning with her dad. She didn't know I'd lived there.

No way

This is so cool!

My dad can bump into someone he knows anywhere in the world. It's like a weird talent he's got (or he just knows a lot of people).

We were in London for the day for a hospital appointment, we came through the barriers at the tube station. It was absolutely heaving and as I came through this guy walked straight into me. We both looked up to apologise and it was my cousin!
We hadn’t seen each other in person for about 20 years as we live hundreds of miles apart. He was in London with his family for a long weekend trip.

In my Nan’s last months of life, she’d made contact with some relatives that she’d previously lost touch with, to say goodbye I suppose. They happened to be visiting when I also visited. I hadn’t met them before - we chatted and they seemed nice. The weird coincidence is that around 8 years ago, it turned out that they were living just a few minutes walk away from where I was living. I went out walking with my young children almost everyday in the village, passing their road and sometimes going down it. Nan hadn’t realised they were living there as they’d lost touch. How strange it is that my neighbours on the next road were actually related to me (my dad’s cousin) and we never knew.

Guy on checkout in a shop in Dubai mall asked me if I still lived in Canterbury ( I haven’t since 2010) he then said he recognised me from when he worked at M&S in Canterbury - not 10 minutes later I bumped into an old Canterbury neighbour in the same mall - totally weird!!

I once met someone from the same small town as me on the other side of the world in a student hostel! We lived just a few streets apart!

This has happened to me so often:

• 1980s, as school in London area, bumped into my French teacher in Edinburgh
• also 1980s, bumped into my Latin teacher in rural France
• 1990s, I stayed in a youth hostel in Californian and the other women in my dorm knew my brother
• also 1990s, I was in a bar in rural Belize and got chatting to a German guy who was good friends with a colleague
• 2000s - on a plane from Lisbon to London and we bumped into 2 couples on the flight who lives on the same village as us
• about 10 years ago, went to Florida and bumped into a family who we knew from DC1's hobby

Back in the 80s, I lived in a HMO with my ex for a while. This week, I was out with a friend and some other friends of hers I’d never met before.
Travelled back with one of them as we needed to catch the same train. I asked whereabouts he lived. He named the road I used to live on so I asked for more specifics. He’s living in the same HMO in the same room!

Oh and there is another one:

• about 2001, I was waiting for my luggage at Dhaka in Bangladesh and a waiter from my local Indian tapped me on the shoulder

I started a thread about coincidences like this yesterday - what a coincidence lol!!!!

I can’t wait to read through all these responses too as they fascinate me !!!!

Xxx

We ended up on holiday in the same hotel in Rhodes as our next door neighbours. We were on the same flight, and had no idea until we were sat at the departure gate that either of us were going.

I went to uni (the same course) with a girl whose mum lived in the same dormitory room as my mum during her college years. Friend's mum even came to my mum's funeral as they were best friends and kept in touch after graduation. My mum died very young at 24 when I was just 18 months old.

We emigrated to Australia. Went to look at some new build houses the real estate bloke was the same man who bought a house from us in England seven years earlier.

I moved from the northwest to the southwest in 2008 aged 25. Years later I was walking down our nearest towns (very rural ) high street when I heard someone say my name… I thought it sounded waaaay to northern to be one of my friends! It was my midwife from when I had my eldest child in 1999!!! I was gobsmacked! Turned out she holidayed there every year!. I’ve now moved back to my home town and haven’t seen her once!!!

A lot of it isn't actually that random and has some foreseeability or predictability about it

Eg the holidays one happens a lot, but not surprisingly that other people you know or have a similar lifestyle to you in a certain part of the world are likely to like similar things to you so pick the same holidays, locations, venues etc

Went on hols to Menorca about 25 years ago. Met another couple who had been on same flight as us and in same hotel for a drink after one night. Got chatting. She was a theatre nurse in same hosp as my aunt, he was a dental technician and had trained with an ex's brother under the ex's & brothers uncle and even stranger my sis was renting the house her brother had rented before her and they were able to describe the decor of said house to me.

When travelling around Australia, we pitched a tent in a very random spot right next to someone my DH knew as a teenager in the UK.

I've told this one before on MN. About 10 yrs ago i was waiting at a bus stop with DH and the bus was late so we said we'd try to flag a taxi while waiting. We were chatting about pocket money when we were kids and I was talking about a penny sweet type shop in my town (same county, 20km or so away). I was telling him about the man who owned it who took over from his Mum and there was a scandal in the family, nothing interesting really. I said we always referred to the shop by the man's name 'Bob' because when my friend got a job there as a teen she used to always say 'I'm on at Bob's at 11 tomorrow etc." When we got older going to pubs and that we used to meet outside Bob's, it was always 'see you at Bob's 8pm'. Dh asked where is Bob now and I said I had no idea, the shop closed about 10 years previously. As we spoke DH flagged down a taxi and I sat in then noticed the driver was Bob. I swear to God. I thought I was going crazy but I checked his ID. Still blows my mind

I met one of my now husbands friends, she said the area of London she lived in and I said oh that’s where I was born; turns out she lived in the same house I had lived in until I was 3. Went on holiday to Portugal with my mum, there was a singer in the hotel who turned out to be my manager from a previous NHS job who had quite the career change! Moved to a village in Scotland a few years ago, made friends with a school mum who turned out to be a friend of my sisters from when she lived in London, and I’ve met her husband many times at parties over the years but somehow had never met her. Oh and I was on a work trip a couple of months ago, was chatting to someone who works in the same specialty as my mum - turns out my mum trained her 30+ years ago when she worked at a university at the other side of the country. The world’s a small place, I love how interconnected people’s lives can be without them even realising.

We bumped into folk from the same village as us at the zoo.

Not really that random till I mention it was Perth Zoo, Western Australia - and we live in a small village in the north of Scotland.