Some people believe that there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Everything is intentional and meaningful, nothing is random. But when you just so happen to run into your next-door neighbors halfway across the world from where you live, it’s hard to call that anything other than serendipity.

People online have been sharing the craziest coincidences that they’ve ever experienced, so we’ve gathered some of their best stories below. Apparently, the world is a lot smaller than we think it is, because people manage to find connections no matter where they are on the planet. Enjoy reading through these tales that might blow your mind, and be sure to upvote the ones that convince you that coincidences are 100% real.

#1

I once left my phone in a taxi. The next day, I used FindMyiPhone and tracked it to a street where I spotted the car – and what looked like my phone inside poking out from the cushions. But when I knocked on the door of the house it was parked outside, no one answered.

Since I was leaving the city soon, I was keen to get it back before it conveniently ‘disappeared’. So I hung around for a bit. After a while, another guy showed up and was clearly waiting for something too. It was a bit awkward, just standing on opposite sides of an empty street, so we got chatting. Turns out, he’d also left his phone in a taxi – but in a completely different one.

Then, about half an hour later, another bloke appeared and was also obviously waiting for someone, just staring at a house fron the opposite side of the street. We tried bringing him into our club, but he was really standoffish. Pretty sure he was a proper stalker, not like us hobbyists.

Anyway, I got my phone back in the end.

Another weird coincidence: I bought a domain name for a business—just a random name like “Flying Foxes” or “Wandering Rabbits” (not the actual name, for privacy reasons). The business ended up doing surprisingly well, and I realised I needed the .com domain too.

Annoyingly, it was already taken by an author promoting a book about an American Civil War battle. Since their book was printed years ago and seemed to be not much more than a pamphlet, and I had a bit of money by this point, I figured it was worth trying to buy it. I googled the author’s name and, bizarrely, not only did she live in the UK – she lived in the same town as me. I emailed her, and it turned out she was just three streets away. So I popped round with some cake and she sold me the domain for £50. I still see her around town.

Image credits: thespiceismight

#2

I was at a download festival some years ago. I was drunk and in the middle of the crowd watching a band. Beside me there were two guys speaking in a different language which I recognised, I asked where they were from and they turned out to be Norwegian.

These guys were the only two Norwegians I’d met since college where we had a Norwegian exchange student. So! I mention her name and that she’d joined their military. They ask which regiment, I tell them… He then rang her and passed me the phone.

Still blows my mind.

Image credits: eca3617

#3

I was in a bit of a bad place following a horrible divorce and subsequent even worse short term relationship and decided to f**k with it all, applied for a job in Australia working in a very niche role. Got the job, sold my house and all my stuff, got the pets all jabbed and crates made.

Then 6 weeks before going ran into an old friend who told me about my ex husband, who was moving to Australia to work in a very niche….. you get the gist.

Reader, I bottled it and never went.

Image credits: Even_Passenger_3685

#4

I flew from Newcastle to Gran Canaria, midway through the holiday, we booked an excursion for a jeep safari through the mountains, we pulled up at a zoo and went in, we walked further up through the mountain to an animal show that was sold out but they managed to squeeze us in, we took our seats and waited for it to start, turned around to find our next door neighbours sitting there.

Image credits: GingerCatDog

#5

Went on a lads holiday to Agia Napa after a-levels. One night hanging around a pool after all the clubs had shut I watched a guy push his friend in the pool. The security guard at the hotel threatened to taser him and he cried. Fast forward 2 years later went to university and stood drinking in the kitchen with flatmates on our first night. Guy started telling a story about how he went on a lads holiday to Agia Napa and one night he pushed his mate into the pool and a security guard threatened to taser him and his mate burst into tears. Mad that we ended up living in the same dorm.

Image credits: Infamous_Hippo7486

#6

In the 90s my dad had a Nissan Sunny and my uncle had a Nissan Micra. As a joke my uncle tried his car key in my dad’s car to see if it would open because they were the same manufacturer. Lo and behold it works, however my dad’s key didn’t work in my unlcle’s car. Few months later we’d been for a forest walk and got back to the car to find my dad had locked his keys in the car. Luckily for us there was also a Micra parked in the car park so we waited for the owner to get back. He tried his key in my dad’s car and we were saved a call to AA.

Image credits: wendz1980

#7

I got on a train in Nottingham to go and see my friend Jo in London, and sat at a table with a random woman. We got off at the same station, took the tube, got off at the same station again, and then walked the same way until she got to her house. After she went in I knocked on her door. She was not happy that I had followed her home at night, but I was quick explain she lived with my friend Jo. I guess London’s not that big.

Image credits: Jonseroo

#8

I watched a murder documentary and served mother of the victim the next day at work.

Image credits: idontlikemondays321

#9

When I was a teenager me and my dad planned to go to the Lake District. We stopped off at his best friend’s house which was only a few minutes from our house to pick something up. After a quick chat, nobody mentioning anything about plans, we were on our way. We drove for a couple of hours and stopped off at a café. When we were ordering in this café in the middle of absolutely nowhere with about 5 customers, my dad’s best friend that we just saw a few hours earlier pulled in. Apparently we were all going to the Lakes, nobody mentioned anything, and stopped off at the same café. That was a weird one.

Image credits: pickindim_kmet

#10

I was reading a story from a local news site about a woman who had had a bad experience in a pub. Then I got a notification on my phone saying that someone had liked me a on a dating app… and it was the woman from the news story! It was definitely a real person, she had a linked instagram account with lots of posts.

Image credits: ans-myonul

#11

As a young lad I did the French exchange thing. I was staying with a family in some random part of southern France. One day we went to meet the older brother returning home by train. As we’re waiting on the crowded platform, I spot… my brother. What. The. F**k? He was doing the Inter-railing thing… and he’d only ended up at that station because he’d f****d up and got on the wrong train.

Image credits: unsquashable74

#12

I’ll start by saying that I used to run a lot, done over 100 parkruns and volunteered a fair bit.

In 2023, I had a month in Australia and had planned 3 parkruns, the last being in Sydney. While I’m waiting for the briefing I see someone who is identical to someone I know from my local parkrun in Scotland. I thought I’d go and ask for a photo together, as my friend would never believe she has a doppelgänger. As I got nearer, she turned around, looked at me and gasped “it’s YOU!!” And I gasped “it IS you!” She was on the first leg of her honeymoon, so we did indeed get a couple of photos together, 10,000 miles from home!

Image credits: Regular-Whereas-8053

#13

Not me, my sister, but close enough…

A few years ago she went ‘up the city’ as we refer to our nearest one, to look for a house to rent, at Number Y on Street X. Had a look around, went back to our mum’s and told her she’d been to see this house on Street X. Mum asked if it was number Y. Sister confirmed it was. Mum said that she’d spent the first few years of her life there, back in the 60s.

Image credits: geekroick

#14

In 2001 i was backpacking round China with a couple of mates. In Sichuan province we pitched up in this little bar. There were about 8 people there all sat round one table, and the owner told us to join the group.

I sat down and realised I was opposite a girl i went to school with, who lived literally 100 yards from  my folks house. We started laughing at the coincidence and then the bloke next to me says he’s from the village up the road. So fully half the customers in this bar in China were all from a 5 mile radius in Shropshire 🤷.

Image credits: NorrisMcWhirter

#15

A girl and I were going through a break up and went for a hike/walk to talk things over. We get to the to this look out point and there was a bench with a plaque on it that read “Bob and Jane’s place”.

Our names are Bob and Jane (not our real names).

It was so weird. We took it as a sign and kept going. We did eventually break up after a few more months though. But still wild.

Image credits: Big_Introduction1329

#16

I’m Irish but live in Scarborough, we don’t get many Irish people here. I work in a hotel. Irish guest checks in so I get chatting to him. I ask where he’s from he tells me, I say no way my aunt lives in that county, I say which town fully expecting to not even know of the place but no it’s the same one my aunt lives in. Population of 1000 people. My aunt used to cut his hair.

Image credits: -myeyeshaveseenyou-

#17

In 2010 I was 20 years old working a dead end job in a bowling alley ( where I also worked with my now wife) we used to have scores of foreign exchange students get booked in in groups of 60-100 from Spain, France, China etc. Any way we had one group of Chinese kids and we would have to type in their names and one kid was named Simba (they usually choose English names to help us easily pronounce them) who was super talkative practicing his English. Fast forward 2 years and we had enough of smelly shoes and decided to do an online teaching English as a foreign language course and move to China.

After a year of teaching in one city we decided to move to a different city in the summer holidays and one of our contacts mentioned they needed some foreigners to judge an English competition so we obliged. We got on the bus to the a**e end of nowhere and who was getting on with us….Simba…in China a country of 1.4 billion people.

Image credits: oliphant212

#18

When I finished my A-levels in the ‘90s, my college held an end-of-term party (proms not being a thing in the UK then) I was seated at a long rectangular table for dinner, away from my friends, and opposite a boy I hadn’t met in the whole two years I’d been there. We had a nice chat and a laugh, all just friendly, and said goodbye after dinner.

Two weeks later, I was on a family holiday in Disneyworld Florida before starting university and heard someone call my name. It was the same boy! He was on holiday there with his family too. Neither of us had mentioned this at the party. It felt such a bizarre coincidence. Never saw him again after that.

Image credits: prankishink

#19

It’s very complicated but:
1. I had to phone a man at the BBC, a huge corporation. I didn’t really want to call and wasn’t going to. (Admin, nothing glam).
2. I also hired a man at work who was bipolar, and spoke to him about making reasonable adjustments.
3. I looked on a bipolar charity website and found a number for employer support.
4. I called the number. It was a wrong number …. but was the direct dial to the man at the BBC I wasn’t going to call.

Image credits: mackerel_slapper

#20

Called my mate on his landline back in the day. Before the phone even rang I heard him on the other end saying “I’m just calling (my name)”. I went “hello?” and he was like “what the f**k?”.

Image credits: thornfeels

#21

This is one of my favourites…last summer I was on vacation in another country, 4000 km from home. My travel companion got sick on the last day so I had a day to myself with no plans. I posted in the local subreddit to ask for suggestions. Shortly after, I got a DM from a stranger who had looked at my post history and seen that I’m into pro wrestling, so he invited me out to a wrestling event that night.

I thought hell no, I’m not meeting some random Reddit stranger in a foreign country alone! But he sent a link to his Instagram and I clicked it out of curiosity. Turns out the random Reddit stranger was one of my boyfriend’s oldest, closest friends who had just moved to the city. So we ended up meeting up and I had the time of my life.

I can’t get over the fact that in a city of millions of people, so far away from home, from a subreddit with hundreds of thousands of users, the one person who reached out to me directly was my bf’s bestie.

Image credits: anon

#22

In 2009 I did the mongol rally and then after that I did a ski season in st Anton Austria.
One night in the mongol steppe we met a load of other ralliers. Then again in ulaan bataar again bumped into a load of ralliers. Then on the way back I drove to Moscow and bumped into more ralliers. Same guy each time.
He also happened to be living downstairs from my mates in st Anton also doing a ski season.

Image credits: Dudd-is-here

#23

My wife and I were stood behind our next door neighbours in a queue at an ice cream shop in Wales and we live no where near Wales.

Image credits: anon

#24

I lived near Reading in the late 90s before going off on a backpacking trip to Australia. Few months later I was working in Sydney and started chatting to a girl. Turned out she’d moved into the same house I’d lived in just after I’d left the UK.

I also met a guy in a Sydney hostel and borrowed $10 from him, didn’t see him the next day and then moved on. Few months later I’d moved to Munich and walking along the main shopping street, I saw him again, gave him 10dm and that was it, never saw him again.

Image credits: irrealewunsche

#25

About 15 years ago, took a trip to New Zealand (from the UK) and was travelling around in a van. In travelling through Christchurch, we need to do some shopping, the main supermarket was closed for some reason so we drove around some suburban place and randomly found a small supermarket. Decided to stop there and pick up some stuff, walking around the fruit and veg section I hear “oi, BigBlueMountainStar”, looking around in shock, there’s my boss’s boss staring at me and waving.

Image credits: BigBlueMountainStar

#26

Husband and I took our children to a massive fireworks event at Alton Towers many years ago.

there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people there! we then found that stood right in front of us were my cousins who live in Wales and I hadn’t seen them for a few years.

Image credits: DebraUknew

#27

Someone I hadn’t seen in years recognised me on Reddit me from a comment I made about running through a field away from a bull pished years ago. Small world.

Image credits: crimsonavenger77

#28

About 15 years ago I was hopping around on Youtube and listening to music. I was into Les Mis at the time and and was watching a video of Colm Wilkinson singing Who Am I? clipped from the 10th Anniversary DVD of the show.

With the song playing I scroll down, noticing the view count on the video showing 24,601. Just a moment later Colm belts out the final line: ‘Who am I? …. ***two, four, six, o, ONE!’***.

Image credits: versionofhair

#29

When I was about 12 years old (early 90s) I was at a jumble sale and was looking at the board game ‘Mastermind’ for sale for a quid or something on one of the stalls when I heard a voice behind me “oh, is that all I’m worth nowadays”? I turned round to see it was the fella from the picture on the box.

(As soon as I wrote this I got a thought that it was a random bloke winding me up and my dad playing along and I’ve thought it was true for the next 30 odd years but it was in Leicestershire where the game was made and I think the guy on the box was a local so I’m pretty sure it did happen but I’ll defo ask my dad to confirm when I next see him).

Image credits: serfdudewithattitude

#30

I did two marathons timed to the second with a chip on ones trainers. Both were 4hr 21 min 37 seconds.

#31

That is odd.

We went to London to catch some of the 2012 olympics.

Bumped into my brother in law there – neither of us live in London or the same place.

#32

Not mine but my girlfriend at the time. We lived in Norwich, and she was on holiday in New York. At the top of the Empire State Building, she had a small panic attack and the security guard came over to help her. He started chatting to help her calm down, and she mentioned she lived in Norwich. He said no way, my daughter lives in Norwich. Eventually they discovered, she worked behind the bar at our local pub five minutes around the corner and had served us many beers. I still don’t quite believe it.

#33

At the start of Covid a David Mitchell event got cancelled in London, I was super disappointed. After covid during the same week as that David Mitchell event I met him outside the Plaza Cinema in Truro and nearly had a heart attack. The three people I had been going to that event with were literally at my house at the time. I still think about it.

#34

When I was 10 we were planning a family holiday to New Zealand over Christmas. My parents owned a small house sign making business at the time and a woman came in and ordered a sign for a friend of hers who… lived in New Zealand, right near where we were going on holiday. My dad was able to hand deliver one of his house signs to someone on the other side of the world while on a once in a lifetime holiday.

#35

Don’t know if it’s a coincidence but my grandad has a habit of meeting people he knows wherever he goes. Now within 20 miles of where he lives I can understand but I was once on a skiing holiday with them in Flaine and was getting off a ski lift with him when we heard “Alright Arthur what are you doing here?” And getting off the seat behind us was an old colleague he worked with years before!

Another time he was visiting my village Christmas market (I live 80 miles away from my grandparents) and he bumped into his friend who was the warden at a country park he was a volunteer at.

On a cruise he bumped into another couple he and my grandma both knew at one of the stops they had, their friends just so happened to be on holiday in the place my grandparents were docked at, they saw them sat outside a cafe.

There’s loads of other times it’s happened to but these are the most memorable ones. My grandad knows ton’s of people but that’s because he is very easy to get along with! And he will talk to just about anyone 🤣.

#36

Went to uni a few hundred miles from home, came from a relatively small town. First night there, the local pub had a welcome night for new students hosted by some of the second years.

Sat down with a couple of people I knew from home and a girl approached us. She was one of the ones there to show us the ropes.

She’s in the middle of explaining that she moved from south Africa and only knew one Scottish family but they were nowhere near.

Yeah, my childhood best friend’s yearly holidays to South Africa were with her family. It was her pool they saw a hippo in once.

#37

Started talking to a random person at my uni – same course but in the 4th year. She started asking me where I was from, then gets more and more specific, then asks for my primary school… turns out her dad was my year 4 teacher!

#38

I got married in Scottsdale, AZ in 1999. My husband and I decided to dive up to San Francisco, with a 24 hour stop at Disney (never again) in Anaheim CA. On our second day in SF, wandering around the shops on Fisherman’s Wharf, I felt somebody tickling my b*m. I looked up, to see my husband way across the other side of the shop and swung around, ready to punch the person behind me. It was my mum. She had decided that rather than fly back up to Washington State, she would drive through SF and stopped at the pier for lunch.

When getting ready to move back to the UK, my husband was taking a road trip with all our boxes to the port of LA, with three of his friends, to have a guys weekend at Six Flags. I left three days later with my best friend to drive my two dogs to NW Washington (27 hour drive) . We had to pull off the highway in Valencia for fuel, lunch and coffee, only to bump into my husband and his friends in a taco shop. This was early 2007, before constant phone contact. I don’t think we’d even spoken since the night before, as I was on a girl trip and he was on a guy weekend. We’re talking about 12 hours away from home, in the middle of Orange County.

#39

I used to have a taxi driver I’d use regularly when I needed to get back from work (worked in a nightclub and lived the next town over, so it was either walk, wait a couple of hours for the bus or get a taxi. I appreciate now that it wasn’t really the most sustainable job but I enjoyed it).

One night I was on a night out and got a little bit too tiddly, and got put in a random taxi home by a couple of mates. The next morning I realised I didn’t have my wallet on me, and a few days later got (I’m assuming) a letter from the local police station saying they had my wallet – which they did, with I’m assuming, all the money still inside.

Fast forward to what must have been three or four years later, I called my man for a ride home with some mates (while considerably more sober) and he was busy so sent one of his colleagues. Turned out the guy he sent was the guy who’s taxi I was bundled into and the guy who found my wallet, and he remembered me (because god knows I didn’t recognise him) and reminded me of that dreadful night.

So I gave him a big tip and thanked him very much and that was that. I guess it’s not that weird but one of those small world things.

#40

Flew to Melbourne for a work trip. Queuing at passport control with hundreds of fellow passengers when I got off the plane I glanced around the immigration hall and caught the eye of the bloke in the adjacent line just at that moment snaking back on my line. It was actually a colleague from a previous company I had worked at seven years prior and hadn’t seen since moving half way across the UK from Peterborough to Bristol. Turns out we were both there for two weeks for work meetings and staying half a mile away from each other and booked on the same return flight.

#41

I’ve told this story before but anyway…

I’m just casually doomscrolling on my phone when Facebook makes a friend suggestion to me. It’s someone I knew at school but was never part of the same group of friends and there was little to no real overlap between our friend groups after leaving school. I hadn’t seen this guy in twenty years.

Facebook has never once suggested him as a possible friend l before this and I’d never searched him on Facebook.

Anyway, I send the Friend Request and he accepts. The very next day I’m walking home from the pub after a few jars when who the f**k do I see walking towards me? The very guy I’d connected with on Facebook the day before!

We live in completely different parts of the city. He doesn’t drink at any of the places I do or patronise the same clubs. There’s like zero overlap in our friends and acquaintances. Yet here we were! We had a brief chat to catch up then went on our way.

#42

We (UK residents) were on a train in Canada talking to a local. He asked where we lived and we discovered that his English penfriend lived on the same road as our ex-neighbours.

Same trip, a bus driver in North Vancouver was describing a coffee shop he’d loved and remembered fondly from a recent visit to the UK; It’s two minutes walk from our home.

We stayed in a B&B. The woman that ran it was from the UK. She came from the same village as my Godmother.

#43

One New Year’s Eve my housemate and his girlfriend had different plans to myself and my other housemate. This was in a time before mobile phones, and our events were pretty much on opposite sides of London (we lived in West London, and we were going to South and they to North). We decided to meet back home around 6am and share a bottle of champagne before bed.

Anyway, as the night went on, the inevitable happened and me and the housemate I was with realised it was almost mid day on New Year’s Day and we hadn’t left to go home yet. We eventually staggered to the tube station, and for some unknown reason got on *the wrong tube*. Anyway, we sat down right opposite my other housemate and his girlfriend, who for some reason had also decided to get the same wrong tube at the same ridiculous hour.

#44

I had a book which had been signed by the author with a personalised message.

At some point, someone got me an exact duplicate sans the message. By mistake, I accidentally gave the signed copy to a charity shop in Yorkshire.

About a year later, I was on holiday in Italy, a quieter bit not far from San Marino. A little one-horse town. Anyway, I pass by a shop which had some non-Italian books outside, and would you believe it? My personalised copy.

#45

We ran into my brother and his family in rural Wales at a random castle. We are from Canada. He was living in Dubai. We didn’t know we were both on vacation, let alone in wales

The chances we’d pick the same time, country, town and tourist attraction from opposite sides of the world are minuscule.

#46

I worked at a movie theater in my early 20s in the region I’m from. I met a lot of people I will be friends with for the rest of our lives, including a guy named Seth. We became really close. Around the same time, I started making a public access show with a childhood friend who had moved two hours away. I’d go up there to the mountains to make the show sometimes. My childhood friend worked at a place in a rural-ish area that made local commercials and informational videos. A little two-man production company. They had an intern named Cameron, who was from the area. I became friends with Cameron. My friend and I made the public access show both in our hometown and in the rural area he moved to. Cameron and Seth were on different episodes of our show and never met.

All four of us ended up moving to LA at different times—-me, Seth, Cameron, and my childhood friend. About 5 years after I moved, Seth and I are hanging out at my apartment, catching up. He had told me about his new girlfriend, and had said several times how much her and I would get along.

Cameron lived in LA and we hung out, but moved back during the pandemic. He told me about his sister, who also moved to LA. He had said several times how much her and I would get along.

Seth told me his girlfriend’s brother, named Cameron, was hired on a popular tv show, but was waiting for the pandemic to be completely over to come back from the mountain town they lived in to take the job (but he mentioned the name of the town) and take the job (this was 2021). We were drunk as f**k, and I said “That’s weird, *my* friend Cameron from (mountain town he is from) got hired on (popular tv show) and is wait….” Seth said “…is his last name (their last name)?!” “….yes”. Seth met Cameron’s sister completely independently at a restaurant they ended up working at together in LA. Seth and I are from the Bay Area and Cameron and his sister are from a place two hours away from the Bay Area. Maybe it’s not that weird of a coincidence, but I think so!

#47

OOOOH I GOT THIS ONE

Me and my sister shared a dream. We were going up this tall cliff with our chess teacher Mr. Macho (name change) and jumping off. We were surprised we didn’t die at the bottom. We went back up another time. And another. On the third time Mr. Macho didn’t come back up with us. We looked at each other in the dream like “oh no…” and woke up.

I know we had the same exact dream because she woke up and immediately told me “I had the weirdest dream!” and when she told me it all, it was my dream!

We had school that morning. As soon as the bell rings for the class we are told there will be no pledge of allegiance. We will be holding a moment of silence for Mr. Macho. He died in a freak sport accident the night before. He went instantly from what I heard. Rest his soul.

It’s not the first or last time we’ve had experiences. I think we both have abilities related mostly to the dead and dying. It’s just the first and only time we had a shared experience.

#48

I was visiting my grandparents in France from the US last year. The day I arrived I posted a story of a sunset from the balcony with the location tagged. A friend from the US I had lost touch with and hadn’t spoken to for 8+ years (we didn’t follow each other on IG, my profile is public) looked at my story and reached out saying he was visiting the city and we should catch up.

When we met up I said it was wild that he had reached out and happened to catch me when were both visiting this city (I don’t go often, it was his first time). He said it wasn’t entirely a coincidence, he had seen me a few days ago in a certain neighborhood but I was too far away to catch my attention so he decided to look me up on socials. I said that was impossible as I’d just arrived a few hours before I posted that story and came straight to my grandparents’ home from the airport, so it couldn’t have been me. His mind was blown as he said the girl looked just like me. Anyway we had a nice time catching up and have rekindled our friendship. Kinda felt like the universe was telling us we should lol.

#49

On a road trip 1,600km (1,000 miles) from home we were letting kids play and up drives our friends who lives on the other side of the world.

#50

I was standing at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, a friend from highschool, let’s call him B, was visiting and we went on one of those walking tours. Just as the Tourguide pointed at the French embassy 3 girls walked by and shouted Viva la France! Then walked off to take a Foto in Front of the gate. B suddenly peeled off from the group saying, hey, I think that’s V! V was an exchange student from France while we were in highschool (Midwest USA btw) and indeed, there she was, visiting Berlin with some friends. She was so surprised when we talked to her, and we met up for drinks later that evening. We talked a long time and found out they were staying at a hostel , they had tried out couch surfing but said no one had responded to them so they gave up.
That’s where I realized she had contacted me on Couch Surfing (without recognizing me) and I hadn’t responded because all they wrote was: we are 3 French girls, do u live near the city? And I thought it was Spam.

#51

I was best friends with a girl from K-12 and I officially ended our friendship in my early 20s for a variety of reasons. After a few years without us talking, one night I had a dream about her. (This was already unusual, because I normally don’t have dreams about myself or people I know irl) It made me feel sad. I wanted to reach out and text her something but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I checked my Instagram, and I had a message from her saying I was in her dream the night before. Oh.

That was a few years ago and we still haven’t met to have a conversation in person, but we do message on IG from time to time. That event made me realize I was hurting myself by refusing to be vulnerable and acknowledge the fact that I’ve missed our friendship.

#52

I had a close guy friend in elementary and then I moved away so we drifted apart and lost contact. One of my high school friends was off to college and on day 1 text me “do you know xyz, he’s my dormmate. When I mentioned what city I came from he mentioned that he had a friend move away to there and said your name”. I dont have a common name so they realize they are both friends with me! Their college was in another state than the one we all 3 grew up in so what are the chances. That same guy friend later did this contest that recognized creatives….he was on it with another friend and saw me in his IG comments! He texted me like wtf do you just know everyone or what? 😅 and it doesn’t stop there. He met his wife in another country – she is friends with my other friend and we went on a trip to Italy together as a group. We have 50 mutuals but only half are classmates. We are not in the same industry. We do not have a mutual hobby except photography.

You know how people can be separated by a few degrees and there’s usually some weird string that connects? I’m the weird string usually but for some reason, this guy and I orbitted around each other in random ways.

#53

This one probably sounds silly, but I was on a run like a year ago and listening to a wildlife podcast. The hosts on it started talking about how they always have a knife on them, and the culture of being a guy who grew up getting knives as gifts, swiss Army knives, and always being prepared with one on their belt, etc. They were bantering about it for like 10 minutes, all the ways it’s useful, etc. This also wasn’t even connected to the topic of discussion either – it was just a random tangent they went on at the end of the episode.

Well the episode finishes, and I decide to put on a year-old episode of a totally *different* podcast based around a reality tv show I’m into. It’s a real comfort listen where they rewatch tv episodes and talk about them, and I realized I’d never finished listening to this one episode so I threw it on.

So I press “play”… And what do I find myself in the middle of this host talking about? How he’s not a “knife guy” and he’s never prepared with a knife on his belt, and how he always wonders what those guys are like; he even mentions never having grown up with getting them as gifts, swiss Army knives, etc. and how he doesn’t know what people do with knives who have them. This was also just a random tangent and not really connected to the episode at all.

My run was only like 30 minutes too. So for me to listen to two different perspectives on the exact same random topic, in two different types of podcasts with wildly different styles, premises, subjects, and hosts, recorded over a year apart and in different countries was just… So bizarre. I actually stopped running and checked what I was listening to cause I couldn’t understand how I was hearing the same conversation again. What are the chances??

#54

My parents had a good friend when I was very young who had a daughter a year younger than me. My parent divorced my mom moved out of the area, she drifted apart from them, but would occasionally (like once a year maybe) have a phone call with the wife (they eventually got divorced too). As a kid my dad stayed in touch with them so I was still friends with the daughter until I moved in with my mom full time (around 12 ish), but I’d see her occasionally when visiting my dad. Fast forward 13 years my mom and I are in SFO international terminal, and run it to the mom and daughter and they were gonna be in Paris the same time we were (we were flying to London first then Paris, they were going straight to Paris). So we got their info (cell phones weren’t really ubiquitous at this point Facebook didn’t exist) and we spent several days with them exploring Paris, it was so much fun.

#55

I was listening to a local radio blues and soul show one Saturday night. It was really scratching an itch and I decided to send a link to the livestream to a friend I hadn’t seen in ages or talked to in weeks. I was in Texas and he was going to graduate school in Ohio.

He called me 15 minutes later. He happened to be driving around and exploring Detroit — a midnight drive in light snow — and had just driven by the old Hitsville USA location, the birthplace of Motown.

Here’s another one: My birthday is on Halloween (not really, but a different holiday). When I met my future ex husband one October, he said his birthday was coming up – it was on Halloween. Fast forward umpteen years and we’re married and our son is entering kindergarten. He befriends a kid, Buddy. We of course met Buddy’s parents in due time and it comes out that both of their birthdays were coming up, also on Halloween.

Here’s another one: I had a necklace when I was 7, an initial pendant on a chain. I was playing in the sandbox, the chain broke, and I lost the pendant. I dug and dug, searching all around but didn’t find it. Two years later I was sitting in the sandbox just zoning out and thinking, when I had the urge to dig and look for the pendant. I found it quickly. I think I still have it.

Here’s another one: I used to count coins when I was a kid. I would dump out my plastic basset-hound coin bank and count and sort all of the coins, looking for the wheat pennies. 10-15 years later, when I was a young adult waiting tables, I had an apron pocket full of coins. I was playing with them, jingling them with my fingers in the pocket, running my fingers through them, when I thought, *I bet there’s a wheat penny,* and there was. 30 years later I was riding around San Francisco with the same friend from my first story, and he was sorting through his pocket change in the car when he says “Hey, look at that,” and he hands me a wheat penny.

#56

I found a iphone. I went to turn it into security and had no intention on trying to take it or open it, but I put in my passcode that I use for my phone and it opened.

#57

I went to a work event last fall. I work for an organization with thousands of employees – this event was a subset of about 40 or so employees. While there, I was chit-chatting with some people I had never met, and mentioned where I moved from. A woman piped up and said her family used to live in that area too before they moved away in the early 80s. That small town is about 800 miles from where I live/work now. Talking more, I found out her sister was not only born in the same town as I was, but in the in the same hospital, the same year, and the same month I was born – about 2 weeks earlier than me. Given how small the town/hospital was, they were likely even delivered by the same doc who delivered me. Up until then, I had met very few people who had even heard of my hometown.

Crazy coincidence!

#58

My husband and I met in our 20s – he went to uni with one of my co-workers. It was a completely random connection.

However… we later found out that we’ve been in the same room at least four times before we met.

Which is wild, considering we’ve both lived all over the country (my dad was in the military, his dad was an itinerant worker) and we just kept crossing paths until someone *finally* introduced us.

#59

A few weeks ago I was reading a book and the main character saw an owl and felt it was a good omen. At that same moment, an owl hooted outside my window! And this week I had the random urge to sing the Mr. Rogers theme song, only to watch an episode of The Pitt later that night that mentioned Mr. Rogers. Haven’t thought about that show in probably a decade.

#60

On a lads holiday to magaluf in 1998, I met my twin brother. I had absolutely no idea that he even existed. We saw eachother in a club and just stood, motionless in disbelief. We talked for hours. It was absolutely unbelievable. My mates eventually found me talking to a mirror and reminded me I’d dropped two tabs of LSD a couple of hours earlier.

Image credits: InterstellarSpaniel

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