Many people believe that every person’s life was planned before they were even born. There is no escape from fate, so to speak. Whether this is true or not, we are unlikely to know for sure. But one thing is certain: sometimes really strange coincidences happen in our life. In this article, we put together stories that could become the basis for thrilling movies.
1.
My grandpa, my dad, and I were in line waiting to get into a baseball game (big throng funneling through the ticket check gate). As we get to the front of the line, the person ahead of us is having trouble with their ticket. The scanner guy was saying how this guy’s ticket was fake, it had already been scanned. My dad was like, “Hey, we have an extra ticket, Charlie!” Charlie was like, “Oh great, thanks.”
Charlie, the guy who was having trouble with his ticket, is one of my dad’s oldest friends. Who happened to be in the same city as the 3 of us. Who happened to be going to the same baseball game. Who happened to be in line right in front of us. Who happened to have been scalped a bad ticket.
For a moment, it felt like the universe had quietly arranged the whole scene just to bring us together without warning.
So, the four of us start walking towards our seats, and nobody is acknowledging how crazy all this was. I kept being like, “Guys, this is crazy!” And everyone was like, “Yeah. So anyone want some peanuts?”
2.
I lived in the countryside and commuted to the city to study. One day I was returning home and noticed a key on the ground. It was on the side of the road. An ordinary, unremarkable key, similar to mine. I almost ignored it, but something about it made me pick it up anyway.
Guess whose key it was?
The moment I realized, it didn’t feel like chance anymore—it felt like the world briefly misplaced something just so I would notice it.
3.
I had some money on one of my bank cards, saved for a rainy day. At some point, I realized I forgot its pin number. I went to the ATM, dialed 2 wrong pins taken from the depths of consciousness, didn’t try a third time and put the useless plastic on the shelf. There was no commission for card maintenance, while reissuing the card was very expensive.
For months, that forgotten number just sat in the back of my mind like a locked door with no key.
And then, about 6 months later, I went to visit my friends. I approach the entrance, call them, they tell me the code from the intercom and at this moment I remembered the pin of that card, because it matched the first digits of the intercom code. It hit me so suddenly that I almost froze mid-step.
Since then, I have never bothered remembering the pin code again, because I can always call my friends.
4.
My birth parents had me extremely young, split before I was born and moved apart. They met again 15 years or so later and got back together. While they were apart, my birth father had a son with another woman.
One day I am taking the train to the city with my girlfriend (now wife) and buddy (still buddy) to hit a museum and see a concert. We get off the train and a woman comes up to me asking questions about my birthday and other identifying pieces of information and when I confirm I was adopted, she kind of freaks and asks me to stay there while she goes to get who she believes is my father.
Something about her urgency made the moment feel heavier than it should have been, like a thread was about to be pulled loose.
Guy comes over and is basically me in 20 years. All details check out, I call my parents to verify some things and it was all legit. Turns out they were in seats facing us on the train, and I look very much like the son my birth father had, to the point that she had to ask me. Wildest day of my life.
5.
My mother makes jewelry. Sometimes she has to ship a piece to another city. My mom usually sends everything by post.
Once, a customer said that her acquaintance would be passing through our city and could pick up the jewelry. And at the moment of a call with the said acquaintance, it turns out that it is…my mother’s mother (my grandmother). They hadn’t communicated for the last 7 years. The silence between them ended in the most impossible way imaginable, through a simple delivery arrangement.
I thought this could only happen in TV shows.
6.
I’m watching a show online. There’s a sketch where a dude’s watching a sports game live, and all of a sudden, his mom calls him on Skype. And then, seriously, my mom calls me on Skype. The timing was so exact it felt staged, like the world was syncing itself with the screen.
And this is despite the fact that she calls me very rarely, once every 2 months, probably.
7.
It so happened that my girlfriend cheated on me. We broke up peacefully. Coincidentally, I tattooed her name a week before the breakup. So…I’ve met 5 Diane already.
Each time, I explained that I had a dream about a girl with this name. And now I’ve found you! It’s a cheap scam, but it works. It’s a shame to cover up a tattoo like this.
Sometimes it feels like the name itself refuses to leave my life, no matter how much everything else already did.
8.
I got laid off from a corporate job. That day I called a friend 250 miles away asking if he knew of any work that was totally different from what I was doing.
He tells me that he just got off the phone with his neighbor, who was asking him if he knew anyone that would want to buy his business. My friend tells his neighbor, “I know one guy, but he’s not going to want to leave his corporate job, (he was talking about me).” I’ve owned the business for 7 years now.
Looking back, it still feels like a door opened the moment another one slammed shut.
9.
Once on the Fourth of July, our dog Svejk escaped the yard and ran for it during the fireworks. He was missing for a couple of days, during which we plastered signs all over town with his photo.
A family called, thinking they had our dog.
We drove over there (about 3 miles away, across a busy highway and on the other side of a major commercial district), and sure enough, it was him. They said they almost considered keeping him, as he was so sweet, and they had lost their dog Norman on the same night.
The next day, an old woman 2 doors down the street from us called, having seen our flyer and thinking she may have seen our dog in her yard (also a black lab). We told her we already had Svejk back, but she called again and insisted we come over (she was a little senile).
We walked over, and on a whim, called “Norman?” He immediately came running droolingly over and followed us home. We drove him the 3 miles back across town, and sure enough, it was him. We’ve always wondered if the 2 dogs met each other during their respective epic journeys—or if fate just briefly swapped their paths.
10.
When I was in the early stages of dating my spouse, I brought her to my hometown to meet my parents. While looking at an old family photo album, she pointed to a picture and said, “How do you know this man?” I answered, “That’s my uncle,” and she said, “No, he’s my uncle!”
For a moment, neither of us laughed. It genuinely felt like we had stepped into a story neither family knew was shared.
Turns out her mother’s sister married my mother’s brother.
11.
About 5 or 6 years ago, I was in Hawaii with my family. The weather can change quickly there, so although the sun was shining, it soon began to rain. We got some mixed rain and sunshine.
My dad commented on it, “Wow, sunny rain!” A nearby lady turned around and said, “What?” We were all confused, and she asked, “Do I know you?” We were like, “No…”
I mean, why would we know this random person in Hawaii? We’re just on vacation. She said, “You called my name.” What, no, we totally didn’t. Her name was Sunny Rain.
For a few seconds, even reality felt like it had misheard itself.
12.
About 25 years ago, my friend Alan came over unexpectedly. As it turns out, it was his birthday, and I had forgotten it. As a joke, I went over to my bookshelf and grabbed the first book I saw. I had gotten this book at a yard sale a few years before.
I handed it to my friend and said, “Happy Birthday!” My friend opened the book and on the first page was a handwritten note to some unknown person. It said, “Happy Birthday John (made up name). February 7, 1992.” February 7th is my friend’s birthday…
Neither of us said anything for a moment. We just stared at the page, as if trying to decide whether it was coincidence—or something quietly arranged long before that day ever happened.
