Lets hear your coincidences

I have a new business partner. He grew up and still lives in Kyoto Japan with his wife of 38 years. I have known him for about three years.

Way over in British Columbia, his wifes name came up in a conversation between my wife and a good friend. Turns out the friend knows her, and has been to her house. How does that happen in a world of seven billion people?

I'm from Saskatoon, and I once pulled into a parking spot at Bandimere Speedway in Denver, and found myself parked nose to nose with a guy I autocrossed with weekly.

We were in Jamaica for a friends wedding and were enjoying drinks in the pool. When all of a sudden I hear another group in the pool talking about something local to me. I strike up a converstation and it turns out there was another group from Wisco there and we all lived 15 minutes or less each other (Fox Valley).

I was in Nashville for meeetings last year and one of those meetings ended up being with a girl I dated in 7th grade in IOWA. Didn't recognize her now married name but I thought that was interesting. I also walked into a Taco Bell in Dayton last night on my way home and my college roommate (Chicago) was there with his wife, they live in Louisville and I haven't seen him since 2003. What a co-inky-dink.

From 1989 to 1992 I worked at a small parts house as a driver and then a counterman. One of my coworkers - Matt A. - was about a year or two older than me and did the same thing. He left in about 1990.

I went from a counterman to managing a comic book store to working as an electrical designer for an engineering firm. Fast forward to 2001. I'm starting a new job at a different engineering firm, during my orientation, they mention they'll have one of the IT guys come up from the main office to set up my computer. His name is Matt A. I joke I knew a Matt A. in a previous life. My next orientation was at the main office and I go find Matt A.

Same Matt A. If found it amusing that 10 years after working at the same company selling car parts, we take totally different employment routes and end up at the same company again.

My father worked with a guy for 25 years; they were friends and hung out together on weekends sometimes. Then one day chatting in the lunch room they discovered they were cousins.

The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010. I decided to go downtown for the rally. I miss the first train at 7:00, so I go to the other station for the 8:00 train.

There's this super tall dude waiting for the same train, and we start talking. BS on the train all the way down.

Side story: I have a buddy from Springfield that I'd only get to hang with once a year at a car show we'd volunteer at. I all knew him as was by his nickname, "Bad Karma."

Matt, the tall dude, turns to me and says, " Hey...do you know Cris Stroud?"

HOLY E36 M3, THAT'S BAD KARMA!"

Turns out that they were in the same platoon in the Marine Corps.

What are the odds that I'd meet a guy in the same unit as another guy that I only see ounce a year, all because I missed a train?

I was living on Hong Kong for a year, walking down the street one night with my USC hat on. The expat community is tight-knit out there, so some businessmen are having drinks, see my hat and they wave me inside to drink with them. Turns out most of them are USC alums as well, makes sense. I get to chatting with the guy who waved me in, and after about 30 mins, discover he's the father of my best friend at university, we just happened to meet up 7200 miles away.

my wife realized i had a car in the garage for 2 weeks before she knew about it. i didn't get sex for a month afterward. what a coincidence!

I've become good friends with a girl at work. Her birthday is the same as my eldest son. Her youngest daughter was born the same day as my youngest son. The same year. In the same hospital. On the same floor. Her Dad's best friend and business partner was a close family friend, and business partner of my Dad. My girlfriend when I was 17 was one of her two best friends. The other one grew up in the same town I did when we were little kids, went to the same school, and we have mutual friends.

Was at lspr one year to watch rally, ran into a friend of mine from the mn mazda club at Parc expose, 700 miles from home.

It's a small world, after all.

In reply to Appleseed:

"What are the odds?" Of predicting this particular thing would happen to you, zero. That's why it's a coincidence. This sort of thing is happening to lots of people, everywhere, all the time.

When I lived in California, I met and worked with a bunch of guys from Pryor lake, mn. I started gaming with some members from here who while don't currently live there, all lived there at one point in time.

I'm from a very small town in Southern Indiana, relocated to FL 15 years ago. A few years back, a friend from Indiana was visiting Florida to take his children to Disney for the first time. We took his kids to Clearwater to see Winter the Dolphin and parked in the lot right next to a car from our small town in Indiana. It had the name of the Toyota dealer I used to work for and everything.

patgizz wrote: my wife realized i had a car in the garage for 2 weeks before she knew about it. i didn't get sex for a month afterward. what a coincidence!

I've been wondering how long it take my wife to figure out the car under the tarp in the driveway had morphed from a Spitfire into a TR6.

A few weeks ago I get an email from a guy in a town of 3000 people in Pa. He wants a set of TR7 carbs. 3 days later I get an email from a different guy from the same town looking for advice on putting together a TR8 race car. Figure one guy gave the other guy my email. Nope. One lives on North Main, one on South Main only a few blocks apart. Neither knew the other existed, and both swore they had the only wedge shaped Triumph in town.

In reply to tr8todd:

Wasn't kane pa, was it?

I used to live in downtown L.A. in a very distinctive loft about 12 years ago. Last year in Costa Rica I met a gal on the beach who was living in MY OLD LOFT. What are the chances?

I graduated high school and joined the army. Went through training and eventually shipped over to Desert Shield. One day I'm loading ambulatory patients for evacuation to Germany and realize that one of the troops was a kid that went to my high school.

In 2007 I was walking through Peter Pans island at Disney in Florida and bumped into my next door neighbor. (From a small Kentucky town)

In 2010 I was vacationing in Pensacola Florida and looking at exhibits in the Naval Air Museum when I paused in front of the Bob Hope display and the guy next to me was a co-worker.

While on vacation in 2009 I decided to test this theory and while at dinner (on Jeckel Island Georgia at a hidden away restaurant) I struck up a conversation with the next table just to find that yes, they were indeed from Georgetown KY (where I lived) and that we had a mutual friend.

Spring break Daytona '71 or '72, thousands of partying young people, I turned a corner on the sidewalk and literally bumped into a guy from high school (in RI) who I hadn't seen since '66.

Paris, 2015, we just got settled into our hotel after the overnight flight, Annie and I decided to go out to the local sidewalk cafe for a glass or two of Bordeaux. Ran into people at the cafe we knew from home but hadn't seen for years. They were five minutes from leaving the cafe, and were going home the next day, but our paths miraculously crossed. (It would've been great to say it was the same guy I bumped into in Daytona, but it wasn't. Coincidental nevertheless).

Its a huge world with millions and millions of people, but it's uncanny that these occurrences happen.

My brother stuck up a conversation with a guy at caffine and octane in Atlanta Georgia, 4 months later runs into the same guy in Flint Michigan