The Strange Coincidences Archive

I was 21, had just graduated from Washington State University with a BA in English and had landed my first job as an English teacher in Kobe, Japan. I have always been somewhat of a sensitive, neurotic person, very suggestable and eager to please. While living in Japan these feelings became more and more exaggerated. Being a white person in a strictly homogenous society of non-whites tends to make one, well, stand out. And when you’re a nervous wreck you don’t want to stand out, (understatement).
I really dreaded going to work, standing in front of those students who I perceived as watchful and perhaps even suspicious of my ability to teach them anything. (Japanese are highly educated people who hold educators in high regard and with loads of respect).
Well, to cut to the chase, my feelings of inadequacy and incompetence, unfounded to be sure, came right to the surface of every breath I took and in every conscious thought. In turn I became paralyzed with fear and panic- these feelings were not only profoundly emotional but physical as well. Still, I was a trooper and went to work everyday and put on my best face and made it through each day. Inside, however, I was falling apart; depressed, anxious, scared, bla, bla, double-bla…
One Sunday I awoke and said a prayer- “God please help me.” That’s all it was. “God please help me.” I didn’t elaborate, didn’t go into detail, just kept repeating, “God please help me.” Guess what? He helped me and helped me for good on that very day.
I awoke, showered and got onto a train to Osaka. I had no plan for the day, just wanted to get out in spite of my fears. I got to Osaka after having worked myself into a nervous tizzy while on the train. “I’m so far from Kobe, what if something happens?” I wandered aimlessly around the city streets feeling sharp smotes of unreality, fear, nervousness, etc. The streets were their typical endless streams of Japanese businessmen, school kids and shopping wives.
“Where are you God? Don’t you see what hell I’m in? Does my life have to become a catastrophe for me to grow? Yea, that’s it- nothing worked, I was petrified and on the verge of a collapse.
Without any thought I ducked into a little bookstore, it was air-conditioned and a relief from the tropical heat.
I was greeted by the book seller, “konichi wa,” I in turn replied.
I walked to a shelf with paper back books and noticed they were all in English. (This is amazing as there simply are not very many English book stores around every corner in any city of Japan).
I began scanning the books, pretending to be looking for something and grabbed at one.
It was an account by a woman who had suffered brain cancer and survived. (This isn’t funny God, I don’t have a brain tumor, I’m just a nervous wreck).
Well, no kidding, I put that book down and randomly reached for another. “Hope and Help For Your Nerves” by Dr. Claire Weekes. I opened to the table of contents and read them. They were listed as though someone had observed my own thoughts and recorded what they saw.
I was stunned, couldn’t believe what I was reading. I found a comfortable chair and began to read. And read. And read.
I was startled at how reassuring and comforting these words were that were right before me. Everything I read described my emotional state to perfection. I wasn’t nuts, I wasn’t losing it. I was a nervous disaster with no idea how to “get better.”
Well, needless to say I bought the book and ordered several others by Dr. Weekes on the subject and since then have never, I mean never felt the way I did prior to finding and reading that one little book, in that one little bookstore, (that just happened to be English), in that enormously populated city, in that enormously populated country.
Coincidence? Divine intervention?
I went back to school with a smile on my face and with a nice little paperback in the top drawer of my desk.
It’s been 13 years and all’s well. “God please help me.” His reply was an emphatic, “Yes, I will help you and I will help you today.”

I was hanging out with one of my friend’s once in his house, we were both 16 and obviously loved trouble. So we decided to sneak out and go mess with cars that drove by. While we were messing with cars (standing by the side of the road in our boxers, being stupid) My friend’s Grandfather drove by at 2:30 in the morning. He saw us and stopped and for some reason seemed much more in awe than upset, He said that 19 years earlier he had caught my friend’s dad and my dad doing the EXACT same thing @ 2:30 in the morning. This was truly creepy to all three of us, I never mess outside by the road at night anymore- that was a sign.

I was in Montreal at the time on a ski trip that was supposed to be enjoyable, had it been with people I actually know!.. The people I were with could be labelled, “casual acquaintances”, in other words, I see them perhaps twice a year! Our personalities seemed like night and day. Why I went with them, was probably to escape the confines of our house in the winter time. So I agreed to go on this ski trip. By the second evening I was feeling quite bored with them, as they weren’t my usual crowd I hung out with. So I had this brilliant idea that I would make up a story about my mother, who at the time was recovering from her gallstone removal surgery, and had a 10 inch scar that was supposedly healing. I told the group that I needed to head home ASAP as my mothers incision had burst open and was infected. My good friend Joseph drove me to the bus terminal that evening, and I headed back to Toronto. It took six, long hours of driving through a winter storm to finally reach T.O. I waited for my father to pick me up, and when he finally picked me up, he told me, “your mom’s incision had just burst open and was infected!”, I nearly freaked out at this weird coincidence!! Coincidence, or what???

in 1980 i moved into a furnished basement apartment of a house in denver, colorado. the owners an older couple lived upstairs. i lived there for 3 months. about 5 years later i was attending a training class about 20 people attended and there were people from other companies. i worked for mountain bell. during the course of converstion one of the other girls was relaying a story about her landlords when i realized she was refering to the same older couple and the same house. she too had also rented the basement from these same people.

Some time around 1994, I was watching the UK version of ‘Wheel of Fortune’. As you probably all know, the first person to complete the correct answer to the clue wins the round, done by gradually revealing the letters of the answer.
On this one occasion, the clue was ‘Classic TV’, and instantly (with no letters having been revealed whatsoever), I correctly guessed ‘The Krypton Factor’. Anyone in the UK will tell that this was hardly the most obvious of ‘classic TV’ shows.

My family thought I had seen it before but I swear that this was an outrageous coincidence!

One beautiful afternoon, a long time friend of mine and I were fishing. As we sat on the tailgate of his truck, I happened to sing the Beatles song “She came in through the bathroom window”. It was not on the radio, nor was it a favorite of mine. Later that evening we were havivg dinner in a restaraunt. In the room opposite of us was a musician entertaining other diners with a guitar. From where we sat we could not see him. He stared to play “She came in through the bathroom window”. I said to my friend, “How bout that!” Well, I had been trying to get this certain job at the time for a long while. It was at this job the next morning that I met a man who introduced himself (as my co-worker). Within five minutes, he just happened to mention that the bar in which he was playing last night had asked him to turn down his gutar during “She came in through the bathroom window”.

I’m an Freshman at Fremd High School in Palatine IL, and 2 years ago, we had just gone back to school (for me 7th grade) snd about the third day of school we went to the library and got book that we wanted. Well I had found this book called the Terrorist, i forget the author. I thought it seemed interesting so I brought it to the check out counter and the librarian told me to put a date due card in it and I so i did. The date that it was due back Sept.11 2001. Of course at the time that date semeed of no significance till me until that awful day. That freaked me out so much, but I didin’t tell anyone because who would believe a little 7th grader.

One strange coincidence was an old Johnny Cash record. I just wanted to see what songs were on it, because it was old. It was in with some old records that had been in my family awhile. But, I hadn’t been sitting around listening to ANY of these old family records. The song by June Carter Cash was on the album, “Darling Companion.” All of a sudden, I loved it. I listened to it over and over and over. Even DANCED!!! Imagine my surprise when the next morning, I heard on the radio June Carter Cash had passed away. And, I beieve it was around the same time I was listening to the old song!!! As we all know, Johnny has since passed away as well. I love the song!!!!!! I bet they are happy to be together again on the other side.

This coincidence needs a lot of history to understand it—so here goes. I was extremely close to my in-laws. They truly were like second parents to me and they loved me very much. Unfortunately, due to bad behavior on their sons’ part, we divorced. My in-laws were devastated by it as well as I. My father in law was a genuinely wonderfully kind gentle giant. He was a huge man with a huge heart and the way he lived his life was exemplary. He dearly loved his wife. One day, my mother in law told me a story of how when they were young and dating, she used to babysit her much younger cousin who had a crush on Bill (my father in law). She would tell my mother in law that she was going to marry a Bill. My mother in law thought that it was funny that she did grow up to marry a Bill. When I was going through the divorce, my mother in law and I were talking about how men today were different than in her day. She felt bad what her son had done. I told her that I nee ded to find someone as wonderful as Bill. She tearfully told me “Lainey, you need to find your Bill”. Shortly after the divorce, Bill died and a year later my mother in law died.

This second piece of history is necessary in order to understand… My father was a “bully” when my siblings and I were growing up. Because of that, when we grew up, we had a lot of hard feelings towards him once we were out from under his thumb. When he saw that he had alienated his children, he tried to change. I was the youngest and experienced the least of his “bullying”. I felt a little sorry for him at times when one of us would hurt him. It didn’t take much to hurt him because he was emotionally immature and that was why he was such a poor father when we were young. When my eldest sister had a daughter she named her after my mother. When she had a son, she named him Jake after a friend of hers. My father was named Alton after his father and he had named my brother Alton. My sisters son was the only grandson. One day shortly after Jake was born I saw my father lifting him in the air and smiling at him and calling him “Alton”. I knew he realized that my sister did not wa
nt to name her son after him even though she wanted to name her daughter after my mom. I thought “If I ever have a child I’m going to name him Alton after my dad” So—several years later, after my divorce and right after my in laws had died, I decided that if I ever got married again and if I ever had a son, I would name him William Alton after my father and my father in law. I knew that it would be hard to do because who would let me name our son such un-cool names?
a couple of years later, I moved across the country. I started dating a man named Bill. When he first asked me out, I thought “I wonder if this is my Bill?” but not really seriously because I really didn’t know if I really liked him. One night we decided to stay in and rent a movie. During the movie, I suddenly asked him what his middle name was. He wouldn’t tell me. I kept pressing him and he finally said “You better not laugh. It’s Alton.” I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I kept saying “Really?” and he kept saying “yeah!” Then he said “And if I ever have a son I have to name him William Alton because I’m a Junior. My dad would be upset if I didn’t.” He even got a little upset because he thought I was shocked because it was a goofy name. I didn’t tell him why I was so shocked.

Post script- We broke up and I moved away. I never did understand the meaning of this coincidence because we never really hit it off. We do still keep in touch from time to time as friends.Please do not use my email address.

Ok, weird coincidences have been happening to me for the last 9 months. All of these relating to a boy who I like but apparently is not interested in me at all. I wanted to learn about coincidences and why they happen so I looked up coincidences on the internet and found this site. I will tell you about one of my more recent coincidences. I am a missionary living in Vancouver, BC and last Friday I took a trip down to Washington for a conference. There were about 70 people in attendance. At the end I made friends with three missionary kids. We talked about many different topics, toys, countries, movies, siblings etc… Then after asking how old they were I asked the one boy when his birthday was and he told me about a big party they were going to have for his birthday which was on October 18th. He was the only one in the whole building I asked when his birthday was and October 18th is the same birthday as the boy that I told you about at the beginn ing which many many coincidences have already occurred concerning him in my life. Ok, not only that but I was reading your site just now and the one submitted by Daniel H. is the only one talking about birthdays being the same, guess what birthday he talks about? October 18th. Just thought that was kind of weird.