<p>I bumped into a cousin and her family on a trail in Yellowstone. Neither of us had any idea that the other was planning a trip to the park. She came from the midwest, I from the west. </p>
<p>If a geyser that almost never erupts hadn’t erupted just then, I wouldn’t have stopped to watch it and would never have run into her.</p>
<p>Forgot about this until scrolling through fb. </p>
<p>When my mom was pregnant with me, they lived next door to a very young woman (16/17) who was pregnant and due around the same time. My mom gave birth two weeks before she did and when the other woman gave birth she never came back. She was moved elsewhere and my parents never even learned the name of the kid. </p>
<p>Fast forward to when I was in third grade. I had moved several times by then and was in a private school pretty far away. A girl transferred in and we became best friends. She was the baby next door. She transferred out in fifth grade and we lost touch. Fast forward to high school and I went to my best friend’s uncle’s wedding. Who was he marrying? The girl’s mom. This all didn’t happen in the same area but rather in two different states.</p>
<p>My grandmother and her twin sister died on the same day, of completely unrelated circumstances. Both died unexpectedly.</p>
<p>OMG you guys. Amazing.</p>
<p>More! More!</p>
<p>Not sure this fits, but has anyone else ever been watching a stranger’s travel video on YouTube and seen yourself? I was watching a stranger’s YouTube video of a trail in Yosemite. There was a woman sunning herself near the river who looked very familiar to me. It was me. I had no idea I was being filmed.</p>
<p>My DH and his brother are just a year apart in age but grew up separately due to a terrible divorce and custody fight. They were split up in elementary school. They married women with the same birthdate (different years), we had our first children on the same date (different year), my name is similar to that of my SIL and our first sons have very similar first names. </p>
<p>DH and brother went to similar schools, both ended up with MBAs, similar jobs and our houses are very similar much to the amazement of my sons. Both have same interests and they sound very much alike. Creepy. </p>
<p>Also my brother from CA came to visit and the other here in NY came for dinner, and the two of them were wearing the exact same Brooks Brother shirt last year. Good for laughs and we took pictures. They weren’t so amused this year when they showed up in the same frog green Uniqlo down jackets this year and we had to go out with them looking like twin frogs (yeah, I rubbed it in) and they were not willing to pose for pictures this time. The final straw was when it got so cold this weekend that my brother borrowed my son’s North Face ski jacket when he went into NYC to meet the other brother for the afternoon. Yup. That brother had on the same jacket. I tell them that they can’t escape heredity (and bad taste in clothes) heh, heh. </p>
<p>20 years ago, they each independently gave me cheap jaquard patterned knee socks each bought from opposite sides of the country from some vendor peddling them on the streets, for Christmas. I remember I thought it was some kind of a joke–it wasn’t . They were as surprised as I was, and all of the socks were defective with one longer or wider than its mate. Sheesh, couldn’t even get a decent pair of socks between the two of them.</p>
<p>There was a recent show on coincidences like these on This American Life. Some of the coincidences were amazing. There’s a old Chinese saying: “No coincidence, no story.”</p>
<p>[No</a> Coincidence, No Story! | This American Life](<a href=“http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/489/no-coincidence-no-story]No”>http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/489/no-coincidence-no-story)</p>
<p>My mother has two kids - the first is me (a daughter and the second a son. He was born on my dad’s birthday. My first kid is a daughter, my second a son. My son was born on my husband’s birthday! My D is very afraid that she can’t keep this tradition going :)</p>
<p>Thats wild, TatinG!</p>
<p>A few years ago, a friend from out of town told me that a friend of hers was now living in my area and that friend had a dau who was now working in this area as well. And my s had recently moved back at that time. The dau had apparently registered with a dating website, so I decided to go peek on the website and see if I could figure out who she was. My friend and I were trying to figure out a way to possibly fix up said friend’s dau with my s. While I was reading that website trying to find the friends dau, I happened to run across a girl who sounded like she and my s would have a lot in common. Was one of those momentary “hmm… she and XXX have a lot in common”… Then moved on. Never <em>ever</em> said a word. And my s never <em>ever</em> goes on that site. </p>
<p>Fast forward a few months. My s mentions something about his girlfriend… oh yes, by the way he has a girlfriend. Three guesses who it is. The one I spotted and thought had a lot in common with him!! They do, and they are an adorable couple.</p>
<p>There was a weird coincidence in DS’s preschool class. 11 out of 12 kids were born in the same month within a 2 week window. Then we did the math. 9 months earlier there was a major holiday period.</p>
<p>Three of my maternal grandmother’s nine grandkids were born on June 11th.</p>
<p>My oldest child came two weeks early, much to my surprise. I went into labor the day before my birthday. He was born 10 minutes after midnight on my 30th birthday. (I always have to be careful to remember whether to write “1962” or “1992” for birthdates.) I wrote a note to tell my childhood piano teacher about it, and she said that her daughter was born on HER 30th birthday!</p>
<p>We took a jeep tour at the bottom of the Canyon de Chelly, in a very remote part of Arizona. There was only one other couple on the tour. They were from Santa Fe. We got to talking and figured out that their daughter was married to the son of my husband’s first boss in Maine! It is a small world.</p>
<p>Am about to go on a ski trip with an old friend from HS. Her sister is a physican, and in the summer worked at a sleepaway camp in their area, that happens to be run by my husband’s cousin.</p>
<p>The couple who purchased my dad’s house (the house I grew up in) have the same first/last initials as my brother and me. Too bad we never carved our initials in a tree or something.</p>
<p>jym, my husband has a very common name. A few years ago, we were trying to sell our house, and a prospective buyer had the same name as my husband. We decided that would be a confusing nightmare, so he didn’t buy it.</p>
<p>That’s funny, ML.</p>
<p>When my younger s was in kgn, he had a good friend whose mother, it turns out (I had no idea) was from a small town that some relatives of mine lived in. Turns out they lived next door to them, grew up with them, and my relatives were like second parents to them. We never knew this, as she did not know my maiden name. Its not a common name, so if she’d heard it she would have immediately asked if we were related.</p>
<p>The neighbors who live next to the house I grew up in (the house we just sold as mentioned above) met some people at a wedding many years ago who were moving down to this area from Canada. Turns out they bought a house down the street from us (same street) and the husband was coming down here to work for the same company as my H.</p>
<p>Here’s another. Turns out that a good friend of mine’s brother is now head of admissions at the college my older s attended. Too bad he wasnt working there at the time my s attended. Well, I guess it didnt matter :)</p>
<p>When my family moved to Oklahoma, my youngest sister became fast friends with this one girl, soon our families became friends and we realized that my dad’s older sister was best friends with the grandma of the other family (she actually babysat my dad!), and my grandfather went k-12 with their great-grandmother!</p>
<p>Also, after my family moved to canada, we talked to some old friends who used to live in Canada (the literally live on the other side of the world), and it turns out we lived on the same street we did in the same (very large town). We also met other people on the same street while vacationing cross country!</p>
<p>While going through sorority rush in college, I met a young woman who had the same last name as my mother’s ex fianc</p>
<p>The number 5 and number 6 ranked chess players in Netherlands, both grandmasters, were born in 1985 on the same day in the same hospital [and no, they are not related].</p>
<p>My grandmother had my mother on her 24th birthday, and also has two other daughters born the same day, either one or two years apart. </p>
<p>My sister’s best friend is the daughter of my mother’s best friend from when she was in high school. My mother and this friend haven’t really spoken in at least a decade, and my sister befriended her daughter with no knowledge of the connection. </p>
<p>My favorite small world story is my dad’s. When he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the navy. They docked in Toulon, France, and while he was walking down the street someone began calling his name. It turned out it was someone he had graduated high school with, and neither had known the other was enlisting. They were both stationed on different ships, docked at the same time in the same port in France. </p>
<p>(Another funny story about my dad, but he gets recognized all of the time by people he hasn’t seen in decades. Why? Apparently he has a distinctive walk.)</p>