Odd Coincidences...

[Ross Macintosh]

I've heard other's stories about odd coincidences they've experienced but never really had one personally until yesterday. I'm hoping others will add to this thread with their own stories.

Here's mine...
Yesterday I was returning to our Island on the ferry boat. Up on deck I overheard a tourist couple talking about one of the small islands they could see. They clearly were confused about which one it was on their map so I decided to offer some local knowledge and started a conversation. In talking I learned they were from Vancouver (which is over 6000km away from here). I told them I had been to Vancouver last year to visit a jail project there. Here's the coincidence: It turns out the man just happened to be the architect of the jail I had gone to visit! How freaky is that?

Regards, Ross

[Gaieus]

I spent a semester at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania - about 50 miles from Pittsburgh) and once we were travelling down to Washington DC. One of my fellow students there from the same university back here at home said he had a (Hungarian) friend, a certain "Péter" there who we were going to visit at his home.
Anyway, we got there and he opens the door and to my biggest surprise he was a guy who went to the same secondary school I did and we used to sing in the same choir.
Hm...

But my mother had the strangest experience I believe. As retired, she now works part time for a Chinese company as a lawyer. The owner once took her (and some other staff) for a vacation to China and while they were travelling around in some remote province, my mom's Chinese boss just ran across another Chinese man there and they started to talk in Hungarian.

It turned out that they know each other from Hungary but they can't understand each other's local spoken (Chinese) languages so their "common" language is Hungarian.

I never thought it was a "world language" in which other foreign people communicate

[Krisidious]

my mother Brenda Rand, is from Tulsa, Oklahoma. she had moved to Nashville, Tennessee. she also had 2 horses, so one day she was at a small feed store in Clarksville TN. a small Army Base Town... while she was there she ordered her feed and sat down and waited for one of the men to load her truck. there were a few other people in the store waiting on their orders... after a few minutes the old timer running the store called out "Mrs. Rand" to which my mother and another woman both stood and walked towards the counter... some what taken back, (my mother and I have both never met another Rand out side our clan) a small coincidence, after a few moment the two realized who one another were... she was my mother's cousin, whom she had not seen or heard from for some 45 years, and what's more, they both lived in the same area out side Nashville and both had young daughters attending the same school in the same class and were already fast friends, the young girl it seems, had her father's last name.

the two had been driving their little girls to school, standing next to one another waiting for them, and dropping them off at one another's house for most of a year with out knowing they were long lost cousins. and the two girls had become friends with out knowing that they were related to one another...

[tinanne]

Many moons ago, I was living in Southern California and an old boyfriend of mine had a friend named... well, actually I don't know his real name. We always called him "Sluggo", I don't know why. Sluggo was the sort of person you can't miss or forget. He is about 6'4", big build, long hair, gotee and a master at rebuilding old cars. Anyway, a few boyfriends later I was at Lake Mead with a bunch of friends and we needed supplies. If you've ever been there we went to the little Overton store on the docks. I was watching the fish and I hear "Hey, Sluggo".... I'm thinking no way, when I turned it was him. He looked exactly the same.

[Paul Russam]

Between 87 and 97 I lived in London and shared a few houses with a few people but no one quite like Meg for meeting people she already knew.
Meg is from Darien, Connecticut and went to school in Tennessee (I think). She would repeatedly bump into people from Darien or people she went to school with whilst getting on or off a tube train but the weirdist one was when she was temping at some big office and one day the big boss heard her accent and asked where she came from, the conversation went something like this:
'Where are you from in America?' he asks
'Connecticut' she says
'O I've got a house in Connecticut' he says
'Where abouts?' he asks
'Darien' she says
'Wow, that's weird, that's where my house is' he says
'What street' he asks
'Bla Bla Bla street' she says (Ok I don't actually know where but you get the gist)
'Silence'
'Uhhh.... that's where my house is!' he says.

It turns out that it was the house opposite Meg's mothers that was never occupied!

Meg quite use to this sort of thing was quite unfazed by it but he was just a little shocked by all accounts.

[boofredlay]

My father just a few weeks ago went to Santa Barbara California for a friend's wedding. At the reception he struck up a conversation with one of the caterers. The groom's son was a gourmet chef and worked with another woman catering events and they were both at the reception. The woman is who my father was talking to.

"So", she says, "where are you from?"
"Huntsville, Alabama but I used to live here on the Mesa" he said.
"Really, so did I. What street?"
"222 Balboa drive." he said.
"No way, that is the house I grew up in!" she said.
"When we moved in", continued my father, "I had to replace the sprinkler system, a few holes in the exterior walls and a door that had been kicked in. All by what seemed to be a large animal"
**"Get out, that was my pony!"**she cried...

That one was just too weird. I am getting chills just typing this.

Thanks for the thread Ross. Good stuff here already.

[Daniel]

What feels like many eons ago, there was a waitress named Sadja at my favorite lunch spot. One day, when informing me she would be leaving to move to Colorado, she started talking about her (rental) house, how much she would miss, how perfect it was, etc. Skip ahead many years later, I am house hunting, trying to find something in my price rangge somewhat close to work. No luck. Out of curiosity, I drove into an area I had never been in and discovered a small neighborhood of small, newly remodeled houses for sale. They weren't advertised for some reason, so I discovered them purely by chance. Found the perfect house - right size for a single person, completely renovated (and no occupants since the renovation), and affordable - they were practically giving it away. A year after I moved in, I received a letter from the election commission addressed to Sadja.

[juju]

In my younger years I used to share a house with some other mates. Things went great, they had their parties and fair share of women suitors. One lady, in specific, caught my eye (let's not mention she was a swimwear model at that time) but I never thought anything about it because she and my friend had stuff going on.

So about two years later in another town (an hour's drive from the previous) I was sharing a house with some mates again. One morning, as I was on my way out to work there is this knock on the door. I open.

o_O

There she was standing, in front of me. I was like, WTF?!

It turns out she had some stuff going on with one of my (now other) mates. That was very unsettling to say the least. Small world we live in.