Anonymous wrote:Mere coincidence or pure luck helped me avoid walking right into the height of my very serious, everyone knew the drama and it was so bad I didn’t talk to anyone for years after graduation, Highschool boyfriends rehearsal dinner party with everyone there. This was in another country at a very obscure location. I cannot imagine that there would have been any way to avoid it looking like I crashed. It still makes my stomach turn thinking what could have happened.

So you told about the coincidence that didn’t happen (walking into the event), but what was the coincidence that prevented you from doing so? And how did you then realize that’s what it was?

Walking down a random street in Dublin with a friend I ran into an old colleague who was there with I presume her partner. I hadn’t seen her in probably 8 years. We had a nice chat on the street and moved on. 3 days later my friends and I were on a train from Dublin to Cork, we had a business meeting to get to. Guess who was on the v same train, in the same carriage. Bizarre.

My grandfather had six children. Two were boys. All doctors. I am named after him and after one of his sons. The son whose name I shared is the older son, and a few years ago he shockingly died in his sleep without any warning, the oldest male in the extended family. That same night the first-born son of my son was born, in the same city (where very few family members live) at the same time as my uncle’s life was ending. My grandson was the first great-great grandson of my (dead) grandfather, so as the oldest male passed, the first male of a new generation was born. And born in the same hospital where my grandfather was chief of medicine and my uncle practiced. The sun also rises.

(This probably could have been explained in fewer words, but whatever…)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On a flight to a middle eastern country, I sat next to an Australian lady. After chatting we realized we had a mutual friend and had heard about each other.

This happens a lot in countries with a smaller population. I met some older women from my country at Giverny - Monet's house near Paris. Turns out they went to my high school and were in my aunt's class.

By contrast I seldom meet anyone I know shopping or walking around the DC area.

I agree. A lot of Australians know each other. Connections can be quite tight. Head to NZ and it is even more so

Anonymous wrote:I have two. One- my day was born in another country (not Ireland). His sister married an Irishman who had a brother. My aunt and uncle were visiting us and realized we lived down the street from his Irish brother.

The second one was that I had a fish in college named after a famous author. It died and the next day the author died.

All you’d have to do is name some fish . . . Who needs to go?

When my family was in Israel, my little brother took a picture with an Israeli soldier. My dad framed it and put it in his NYC office. A few years later, my dad was moving to another office. The Israeli mover saw the pic and told us it was his brother.

My mom was cooking a garlicky roast in an apartment building. An elderly man in the building knocked on the door, and said that the garlic smell was so strong that it could kill.someone. He died the following day.

When my mother was a post-doc in Oklahoma, she worked with a researcher whom I’ll call David — this was in the late1980s, when she was nearly 50 years old (she earned her degrees after she had kids). Fast forward to 2010… She was visiting me in Virginia after I had my youngest child, and while we were walking through the parking lot of the Wegman’s in Sterling, David called out to her. It had been more than 20 years since they worked together, and they were in a completely different environment. I couldn’t believe he even recognized her after all this years (she was much more gray, her hair was different, etc.)

When I was 10 years old and living near Boston, I was visiting my grandmother in South Carolina when the preacher at her church told me she was going to Boston at the end of summer and could I suggest some fun places? I said she had to go to Faneuil Hall. Later that summer, we ran into her at Faneuil Hall and laughed.

Anonymous wrote:On a flight to a middle eastern country, I sat next to an Australian lady. After chatting we realized we had a mutual friend and had heard about each other.

This happens a lot in countries with a smaller population. I met some older women from my country at Giverny - Monet's house near Paris. Turns out they went to my high school and were in my aunt's class.

By contrast I seldom meet anyone I know shopping or walking around the DC area.

Anonymous wrote:I was new to a large city, not DC, and had just finished a book about a notorious criminal from that city.Two delivery men dropped off furniture at my new house, and I happened to mention the book. They thought I was pulling some kind of prank. The book was about a close family member of theirs.

Atlanta? For some reason I'm getting a Bart Corbin vibe here.

Anonymous wrote:I was new to a large city, not DC, and had just finished a book about a notorious criminal from that city.Two delivery men dropped off furniture at my new house, and I happened to mention the book. They thought I was pulling some kind of prank. The book was about a close family member of theirs.

God. Last year I started talking about the WSU killings to some local kids who came over to move furniture for me. Turns out one of the victims was a good friend of the girl I was blabbing to. I felt awful.

Anonymous wrote:30 years ago, I was attending college in a different state than the one in which I live. By the end of freshman year, I had a crush on the fellow student I was going to marry, but we weren’t dating yet. I only knew a few details about his life.
That summer, I was reading the alumnae notes for my high school, and realized that a woman who had graduated in the 1920s had to be his grandmother (living with his family in a third state — I had no idea that he had a connection to my state). The brief details in the alumni note matched what I knew about his family.
This gave me the excuse I needed to write to him. I clipped out the alumnae note and mailed it to him, asking, “Is this your grandmother?” It was, and he and I have been married for 25 years now.

I'm not sure that's coincidence. That's more serendipitous.

I was new to a large city, not DC, and had just finished a book about a notorious criminal from that city.Two delivery men dropped off furniture at my new house, and I happened to mention the book. They thought I was pulling some kind of prank. The book was about a close family member of theirs.

Anonymous wrote:wow, it's a small world out there!

It's kind of crazy isn't it? Seven billion people on the planet and there are still stories like these.

wow, it's a small world out there!