Astonishing coincidences in your life

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I want to know about amazing coincidences you’ve experienced. I was talking to a friend the other night, and several of mine came up:

  • I attended high school in Japan in 1986-87. In about 1991 I was in a bar in Athens, Georgia, with my friend Wes. He pointed to a guy on the dance floor and said, “That guy’s a wild dancer!” I looked for a second and replied, “I went to high school with that guy in Japan. Our fathers were great friends. He and I and his sister spent a few long nights at the White Stag Pub in Hong Kong drinking Chinese beer. And I was on the track team with him in 1987.” Had neither seen nor heard from him since.

  • I’m living in Iowa in 1998. I’m talking to a friend of mine from North Carolina. I ask what city she’s from, and she says Southern Pines. “Really?” I ask. “When I was a summer camp counselor in North Georgia in 1990, I had a camper from Southern Pines. His name was Garrett… um…”

“Logan?” she says. “He’s my little brother’s best friend. I’ve known him since he was two years old.”

  • It’s September 2000. It’s a Friday, and I’ve left work (in Memphis) early to fly to San Diego for a long weekend. I’m in a bar in the Dallas airport, watching the Sydney Olympics’ opening ceremonies on TV and drinking a Shiner Bock. Someone walks into the bar and I look. It’s my boss from work, who I saw at the office about six hours ago. Completely unrelated trip.

  • I’m in this terrific Irish bar in Manhattan called Rocky Sullivan’s, and it’s Dec. 30, 1999. The friend I’m hanging out with has gone to talk to someone he knows, and I start chatting with the guy sitting next to me. After 15 minutes or so, it turns out we were in a class together at the University of Georgia in 1993.

Now I’m aware that there’s nothing totally amazing about all this, if you take the broader perspective; we’ve all met probably a thousand people in our lives, and people spread out a lot these days, &c. The amazing thing would be if this never happened.

Still, it’s always intriguing and a bit unsettling to picture the web of people one has met stretching out around the world, and fascinating when one collides up with it again from a different direction. Plus it’s just human nature: Anecdotal evidence is far more compelling than statistical evidence.

So share some stories of tremendous coincidences. Preferably not that happened to someone you know, but that happened to you.

2

I think there are too many astonishing coincidences in my life to name. I barely even notice them anymore. :wink:

3

We’ve just found out that my neighbour for years and years- and me- were in the same kindergarten class. He recognized me finally by my nose. :O)

4

When my family and I were at the PNE quite a few years ago (or maybe it was Expo '86?), this kid came up to me and said hi, I took one look at him and realized that I knew him from summer camp a couple years previous! (he was about 5 or 6 at the time I knew him, and I was maybe 10 or so) I even remember his name, which could be so common that I’ll put it here: Christopher Wong.

There, now you see why I let you start this thread, jackelope. You have more stories than I do, and I don’t think it’s showing off, myself. :slight_smile:

F_X

5

My mother and my wife’s mother had the same first name.

My father’s first name and my wife’s father’s middle name were the same, and many people knew my wife’s father by his middle name.

Both names are very common names, but still . . …

My sister (my only sibling) was born exactly one month before the attack on Pearl Harbor - same year, same day of the month. I was born exactly one month before the Japanese cease-fire (not the official surrender) - same year, same day of the month. Perhaps it is best that my parents had no more kids.

6

I ran into a couple of my brother’s friends in London once, and one of my colleagues in grad school grew up on the street where my parents live now and attended the same undergrad college I did. We had never met.

7

Well, Robert, they could have had two more kids, to make sure they finished whatever war they started with #3. :smiley:

OK, here’s one:

Long, long ago, when I was a bookkeeper for a restaurant, I was driving to work early in the morning (I and the cooks arrived hours before anyone else), and saw a guy walking down the street with the grooviest hat!

I mean it kicked ass; a crocheted number with a huge brim, and psychedelic colors.

I was instantly smitten, and felt a sudden, uncanny urge to stop the car and meet the man (a man I assumed to be homeless, though I’m not sure why) wearing that hat.

My urge was short-lived, killed in its tracks by my Rational Side, which reasoned that the fella (whom I could only see from the back; long hair, tattered army jacket, sideburns) could turn out to be a complete whack-a-doo, or possibly think I was one for stopping my car just to comment on his hat! And he’d be right–I mean what the hell was wrong with me? Why was I so drawn to THIS person out of the hundreds I encountered each day (I was also a waitress at the restaurant)? And what would I say, anyway? “Uh… I just wanted to meet you, because a person who would wear that hat seems like somebody I’d really like…”.

So I drove on, unlocked the restaurant, and settled in to count the previous day’s dough, still thinking about the guy in the hat (though, to be honest, I’m not sure if I was obsessed over him, the hat, or the fact that I might seriously be losing it over this whole Cat-in-the-Hat business).

About 20 minutes later, the kitchen manager peeped in and said we had a new cook he’d like me to meet…

…and in walked that hat!

Unfortunately, the face beneath it turned out to be somewhat unattractive…

…but I fell madly in love with the motherfucker anyway.

Not at that moment, of course, but eventually, after working together for awhile, there was love, sweet love! :smiley:

After we started dating, I told him about having seen him walking to work on that first day, and how I almost stopped my car just to meet him because of his hat.

He told me he’d found the hat in someone’s garbage.

No wonder I thought he was homeless at first.

8

While walking down the streets in downtown Palo Alto, I noticed this other guy staring… and when I looked closer, I realized it was my fencing coach from college. This would have been a lot weirder except that since I went to college in LA, he wasn’t THAT far from his home territory.

On the other hand, while on vacation in England, my family was wandering through Yorkminster (a cathedral) and I literally ran into my high school art teacher, which was very weird indeed since I went to high school in Seattle. Truly a small world.

9

i don’t know if this counts, but i think it’s pretty cool. one time, i was watching the simpsons, and in it lisa had a friend named erin, which is my name too. captivated by the use of my name on tv, i kept watching till the credits, noticing that erin’s voice sounded vaguely familiar. when the credits rolled, i saw that the voice of erin was done by…christina ricci! and everyone tells me i look like christina ricci!

well, i was amazed…

10

Mr. Adoptamom and I took our kids on a quick trip to a them park last weekend. 20 year old daughter brought along two friends who were to pay for their own admission tickets ($33 each - total 66). Friends of daughter paid us back for pre-purchased tickets and after a bit of thought, DH and I decided to give the back to the kids cuz they’re poor, starving college kids. Return the $66 to them to squander willy nilly.

Check into hotel later on that day. Rooms are too far apart, one has not been cleaned and we go down the the front desk to lodge our complaints. Manager walks us to his office and asked what he can do to make us happy. I outline our original requested rooms, he makes them happen and I ask what about our trouble to accomplish this? He promptly knocks $33 off of each of the two rooms - there’s our $66 back we refunded to the kids earlier. Cool huh?

11

I’ve written one book. It’s for a very specialised market that only a few people would be interested in.

I was at a dinner party where I met a guy who said he ran a shop somewhere in an area of London called West Hampstead. I don’t live or work there, and had never visited that part of London.

One weekend I went to a party and ended up crashing overnight at a friend’s house in West Hampstead. In the morning, I made my way to the train station. As I did so, I passed a shop and happened to look in the window. I then walked on.

The shop owner rushed out, halted my progress and re-introduced himself. It was the guy I’d met at the dinner party. It just so happened that a customer had just wandered into his shop asking about me and my book. At that moment, the shop-owner had looked up and seen me peering into the window.

He invited me to come back into his shop and meet this customer who was inquiring about my book. If you think about this from the customer’s point of view, you’ll understand he was suitably stunned that he walks into a shop, asks about an obscure book and its equally obscure author, and the shop-keeper walks out and walks back in again with that very author! (Reminscent of the Annie Hall scene where Marshall McLuhan just happens to be on hand to refute a point in an argument).

12

My sister and I stepped onto the same bus one stop apart in the middle of the Loop in Chicago. At the time, I lived in Champaign. she lived outside of Milwaukee, and neither of us knew the other was in Chicago.

13

  1. Back in '89, we were on line for a ride at MGM studios, when my 3 year old sister starts yelling, “Grandma”. Of course, there are a lot of little old ladies in Florida. But, nevertheless, there was my grandmother, about six people ahead of us in line.

  2. My dad and I travelled from NJ to San Jose, CA, two summers ago to attend an international gay chorus festival. One night, halfway into the week, all of the choruses were invited to a theme park. While we were waiting to get on a roller coaster, I was introducing myself to someone, and told them where I was from. The guy behind me said he was from New Jersey, too, but a different town. He was from the town my parents grew up in. Turns out he went to school for 12 years with two of my uncles. We didn’t know he was going to be there, we didn’t even know he was gay!

14

Happens to me all the time.

Back when I was single, I was out at a club with a girlfriend and we started talking about first loves. I told her about mine, how we’d split up six years before, and said I wondered what I’d do if I ever saw him again. He walked into the club about four minutes later. This in itself was pretty weird, but what makes it weirder is that we had lived in the same town all those years earlier, and we now both lived in a different same town 40 miles from where we started, and we both had moved to the new town within two weeks of one another.

One of my friends picked a guy up at a SF convention and brought him back to our hotel room party. I started talking to the guy, and we realized we had a lot in common. We were having a great time with all the “Oh, wow, me too” stuff, when he mentioned his last name. Turned out that his father had dated my mother in high school, and his mother had babysat for me when he and I were both little. It took him a minute or two, but he remembered me.

Last week, I was over at a friend’s house when her neighbor came by to drop something off. I’d heard my friend mention this neighbor from time to time, and I’d seen her once from a distance, but had never met her until then. As she was talking to my friend, I suddenly realized I’d gone to high school with her.

It’s gotten to the point that if I go more than two weeks WITHOUT something weirdly coincidental happening, I start to get nervous.

15

I’m at the American University Overnight and I’m standing in line with a cute girl who happens to be from Bethlehem, PA. When I hear this I mention this girl I was in an internship program with who is also from Bethlehem. Apparently, the girl I’m talking to saluditorian at the high school where the girl I was in the program with was valedictorian.

And the plot gets thicker, the valedictorian never had to take finals because she had migraines or something, but in the three weeks I spent with her she never mentioned them. Later I asked someone who knew her better during the program (our relationship was rocky at points) and he said she never mentioned them either. I guess I caused some trouble in Bethlehem.

I hope the girl at the overnight decides to attend AU too. She was cute, and I could tell she had a thing for me :cool:.

16

One time one of my friends called and said he and a couple friends were meeting at a bar, so I go down to meet them. While I am waiting One of my old college friends , from another state, walks in recognizes me and we start talking. While we are talking, One of his former coworkers, from a third state, walks in recognizes him and sits down with us. Then her boyfriend shows up and sits down with us as well. Finally My original friend walks in and it turns out the boyfriend was the guy we were originally going there to meet. I just kept thinking “The circle is now complete”

17

I think the oddest coincidence involving people story I have goes something like this:

In Sacramento, California, I was working at Starbucks, and when I worked in the evenings there was a really nice guy who always ordered the same thing. I knew he was single and looking and he was just a really nice charming guy in his own way, so when my boyfriend and I (now husband, we met while both working for Starbucks) decided to give a barbecue and invite this nice guy and the nice lady that we knew from the morning shift, another regular, pretty interesting and funny and single and looking as well. Anyway, so one night I’m steaming up the guy’s (let’s call him John) soy for his decaf grande soy latte, and I tell him that we’d like him to come over for a barbecue on Friday night, and we’d like to introduce him to a lady we think he’d really like.
“That’d be great,” he says, “I don’t suppose you also planned to invite Jane Johnson, did you?”
I was a bit surprised, because that’s exactly who we were inviting for him, and I hadn’t even known he knew (duh, what would be the point of introducing two people you knew knew each other?) and so I just said, “Uh, yeah, how’d you know?”
“She’s my ex-wife.” He says.

I had no idea, but I guess I had good instincts of who would do well together, or who would have, er, in the past.

Sacramento has a population of roughly 370,000 people so it’s not really a small town, but it sure felt like one. I couldn’t go to the grocery store without running into somebody I knew. I grew up in a small town and didn’t see my neighbours as much as I did when I lived in Sac.

18

That’s a great one, but I knew someone who had you beat; she was my advisor in college. Her mother’s mother and her father’s mother had the same first name and maiden name. Both of them were named Catherine Blue before they married. (I assume they did research and determined not to be related. One hopes.) Anyway, they gave her the first name Blue, which I always thought was cool.

Great responses here, everyone; I’m having a great time reading these. Keep 'em coming…

19

Several years ago, I kept noticing a particular book in the bookshop that I just hadn’t got around to buying. (Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith; very good read BTW). After a couple of weeks, I eventually bought it and didn’t get around to actually reading it for several more weeks. Once I started, I uncharacteristically stopped half way through and only resumed a month or so later. Towards the end of the book, the time and date of the pivotal event are noted. When I read the particular paragraph, I looked up at the clock to notice it was about fifteen minutes after the time noted. A few seconds later, I realised however, that the date was spot on. I thought this and the way I’d been delaying up to this point was kind of creepy. Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, excuse the absence of paragraphing. My RETURN and ENTER keys aren’t working. Good rationalisation for springing for an iBook perhaps?

20

Strange coincidences about my ex-husband, before we met:

For years he was the manager of my dad’s favorite steak house (not a chain), we had been there many times together.

I owned a condo and there was a large trash bin enclosed in brick, except for one side that had a three digit number on it…the number was the same as my ex’s apartment number when we met.

I had lived in an apartment for a year and a half…when I went over to my ex’s for the first time…he was living in the same apartment complex, in the building attached to the one I used to live in…When I lived in the complex at the same time as him…he lived in the same building with his ex GF, on the first floor…me and my ex BF on the second floor. (I don’t remember seeing him.)

His dad was remarried, as was mine…they both had cats named Max.

His Dad’s middle name was Butler…my dad went to Butler High School (a stretch, but still)

His Dad’s first name is Cecil…and I love Straight Dope! (well okay, that was totally lame, but true)