Have you ever gone out on a date with someone and happened to have the same outfit on? Have you ever discovered that your spouse was long lost childhood friends with your college roommate? Did you ever come across evidence to suggest that you possibly slept with you own cousin?
Romance can be a very strange aspect of life, but, compared to these people, those who make that claim have no idea what they are talking. The following stories come from those who experienced some very perplexing coincidences that involved a significant other and shared the tale on Reddit. Some may warm your heart, others will blow your mind.
“We Spent Our Young Lives Narrowly Missing Each Other”
“I went to college and met a cute girl.
‘Where’d you go to high school?’ she asked.
‘You’ve never heard of it,’ I replied. I grew up in a town of 1200 people and graduated in a class of about 90.
‘Try me,’ she said.
That was the beginning of finding out that, not only had she heard of it, she had almost attended it because her family had lived in one of the neighboring towns very briefly when she was growing up. We shared dozens of mutual friends, and had apparently spent our young lives narrowly missing each other. Later, after we started dating, we learned that one of our mutual friends had been trying to set us up with each other for YEARS. She was overwhelmed with laughter when she saw that we were finally together, completely without her involvement.
I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We went out to dinner with our parents so they could finally meet. Her folks arrived at the restaurant and saw mine. Her mom said, ‘Oh hey, [my dad’s name]. So, this is your son, huh?’
They had been co-workers years ago. Of course.
We have been married for eleven years now. We got a good thing going. We intend to keep it.”
Home Is Where The Heart Is
“I had started dating this girl. We got to talking about where we live, etc. The reveal convo was like something out of a cheesy B-movie.
ME: ‘So, what area do you live in?’
HER: ‘SLU, on [So-And-So] Avenue.’
ME: ‘Oh cool! I used to live there! Which apt?’
She named my old building.
ME: ‘Wow, what a small world! Me too! I miss that place. I used to live on the sixth floor!’
HER: ‘Me too!’
ME: ‘Don’t tell me you live in apt 610.’
HER: ‘OMG. I do!’
Then, she proceeded to send me pics from my old balcony, one that I spent countless hours on. It blew my mind completely. It was so freaking bizarre walking into my old apartment that I never thought I would see again. What are the odds?”
Shopping In The Twilight Zone
“My husband and I were shopping around Walmart when we saw an older couple who happened to be shopping in almost all the same aisles as us. I made a joke to my husband that it was us 40 years in the future, because the wife was wearing Victoria’s Secret PINK sweatpants, like me, and carrying a purse the same brand as mine. We ended up passing each other in the dog food aisle, buying the same brand of dog food and treats as us.
Noticing the humor in the moment, we struck up a conversation with them. We ended up finding out that, like us, they have one daughter with a very rare four-syllable first name like our daughter. The have two dogs, one which is a German Shepherd/beagle mix… just like ours.
OK, this is getting weirder…
We live next to ‘xyz’ high school, they live next to ‘xyz’ elementary school a couple miles from us. We finished up our small talk, checked out, and went to our vehicle to load up the groceries. Next to our vehicle was an identical make, model, and year car as mine. The only difference was that this car was red, and mine is blue. I joked to my husband again, ‘Oh, maybe this car belongs to our future selves from in the store.’
Sure enough, who came out of the store and got in the car next to us? You guessed it. Their car even had body damage on the right side of it, like mine. It was an absolutely eerie experience, almost like we met ourselves in an alternate dimension or timeline.”
They May Have Been Closer Than They Assumed
“I was dating a girl who happened to be Jewish. The family liked to bite my chops about not being Jewish, so I mentioned an obscure Jewish sounding surname from my grandmother’s side. Her and her mother went pale.
I probably banged my cousin.”
A Love Story Fit For A Season Of “True Detective”
“When I was about 14, my boyfriend was murdered by a serial killer. His body was found by a Vietnam veteran out fishing. After the funeral, one of the guys dismantling the canopy looked at me funny and I just flipped out, screaming that he killed him, etc. My horrified friends were all watching the news a week or two later when it came out that the guy did indeed kill him.
When I was 18, my neighbors invited me to their apartment for Christmas dinner with them, the husband’s boss, boss’s wife, and boss’ 16-year-old son. I shook everyone’s hands, but declined dinner and visiting. I didn’t give any of them a second thought, and soon after, I left the state.
When I was 20, I moved back home and got a job at an alarm company. A couple of months, later they hired an 18-year-old guy. We started dating and I found out that his dad was my former neighbor’s former boss and he was that 16-year-old kid.
A year after we started dating, we were sitting around at his parent’s house talking and his dad started telling me about how a few years earlier, he was out fishing and found the body of a teenaged boy who had been murdered by a serial killer.”
Most Competitive Couple
“When I was 4, my mom entered me into a ‘Most Photogenic Baby’ contest at the mall. I came in runner up! I took my little trophy and went on my way, never really thinking about it again.
Seventeen years later, I found the trophy and showed it to my boyfriend, all proud of myself for coming in second place as a super cute baby.
‘That’s nice,’ he said, ‘but I WON a most photogenic baby contest.’ He joked about how he must have beat me.
The next day, he brought over his 3′ tall First Place trophy and a stack of photos of him onstage. As we were looking through the pictures, we noticed ME leaning on the stage in the background. We showed the pictures to my mom who confirmed it was me.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘I remember that a cute little blonde boy beat you in that contest.’
So, long story short, my boyfriend is more photogenic than me and we have the trophies to prove it.”
She Was Love-Wasted Over Him Before They Even Met
“When I was 18, I dated a girl who went to a private school. She told me they were having a dance so I thought, ‘OK, great. It will be a nice night.’ Then, she told me that only boys from a specific boys private school were allowed to come because of an incident once when they let everyone in. Some girl got really waste and puked on the headmaster’s shoes, so they limited it to one boys school after that.
Twelve years later, I was with my fiancé (a different girl) at a wedding shower. I overheard my wife say, ‘I was so embarrassed when I puked on the headmaster’s shoes.’
‘THAT WAS YOU?’ I yelled. ‘That’s awesome. I love you even more now that you’re famous.’
My wife blocked me out of a date 12 years before we met.”
“This Was THE Girl I Wanted”
“I had a crush on a girl in college with whom I had never spoke. I have the 4:00 a.m. wasted Facebook DM to prove it. She did…. not respond. This was in 2004-05. I saw her pretty much every weekend at the bars since we had so many friends in common. I graduated, never speaking to her, but still had that crush. It was not a mindless college crush in which you want to hook up just because you’re a 19-year-old dude in hormonal overdrive. This was THE girl I wanted.
Fast forward to 2011. I was in Vegas for a bachelor party and the first night there was quite rowdy. Long story short, I woke up in the back of a cab, alone, with no wallet, no phone, and wearing one shoe. The cabbie told me he was dropping me off at the Encore, which was the destination I gave him as I got in the cab. Obviously, I did not remember hailing the cab, or any other detail from that night. My ability to correctly name my hotel still impresses me to this day.
He dropped me off at the Encore, and I started walking around the pool, assuming the rest of my party would be lounging poolside, sipping some drinks. It was about 11:00 a.m. at this point. I made a few laps and could not find ANYONE. I was hungover, frustrated, hungry, tired, confused, everything. Then, someone came up to me and asked me if I needed help.
Take a wild guess who it was.
She was there for a bachelorette party. She bought me some water, and stayed with me until we eventually ran into someone from my party. Our daughter is about to turn eight months old. We have been happily married since 2015.”
“I Don’t Know How To Explain It, But I HAD To Go Talk To Him”
“You know how they say you won’t find someone until you stop looking?
On the way to the club with my cousin, I said, ‘I don’t want to look for a guy tonight. I just want to have fun.’ I had a bout of bad luck in that department.
We were dancing, hanging out. We went outside and I had a smoke. I remember I was talking to a guy friend. I was looking around and then I saw him. He was standing by a guy who I knew was friends with my cousin. I don’t know how to explain it, but I HAD to go talk to him. I never went and talked to guys because I was too shy and had a crap ton of insecurities. My friend was in mid-sentence when I left. I don’t think I even looked at him. I just told him something like, ‘Uh huh… I got to go.’
I went over there and said, ‘Hi, you look bored.’ At first he gave me a Who is this? kind of look, like I was being annoying or something. It was just a glance my way. He did a double take and the biggest smile lit up his face.
The weird part was that, apparently, he had seen me first. His friend thought he knew me. He did, but not in the way he thought. The whole reason he was outside was to get introduced to me. It was so very surprising when I came up to him first. We got together two weeks later and have been together ever since.”
“She Took One Look And Turned White”
“A guy, let’s call him ‘Anthony,’ messaged me on a dating site. We exchanged messages and phone numbers, but had not yet met in person. One morning, he messaged me with a funny joke.
A few dates later, my brother and sister-in-law were visiting. I don’t see them often, maybe once every year or two. My sister-in-law asked how dating was going. I had been chatting with a few guys and decided to mention Anthony because of his joke. She asked if she could see his profile, obviously to give her opinion on him.
I pulled out his profile. She took one look and turned white. It turned out that Anthony was in a long distance relationship with one of her good friends. He was totally cheating on her, or playing the field.
She told her friend and they broke up that same day. I never contacted him again, that girl went on to marry a great guy, and they now have three kids. Crazy!”
Blast From The Past
“When I started hanging out with my girlfriend, she invited me over to her house. It was the first house I ever lived in. Her grandmother, who lived down the street, was friends with my parents. She worked for a doctor, who delivered me.
Fast forward a little bit: we were sitting around, looking at some of her old family pictures and there was this one of a 4th of July parade in my neighborhood. There was a little boy in the picture whom they didn’t really know who it was, but it looked an awful lot like me. I asked my dad and he remembered that day where he took us to our old street to watch the parade.
When I was a toddler I had wandered into my future girlfriend’s family picture.”
It Was A Double Date For One Of Them
“I made plans with my best friend to go to the mall. She planned on bringing a date, so I asked a guy I was talking to if he wanted to come for a double date. My friend and I shared the same name and, surprisingly, the two guys we invited also shared names. That’s a coincidence in itself.
Anyway, my friend and I were waiting for the boys to arrive. Neither one of them were answering their phones and we were getting annoyed. So, a few minutes later, one of the boys showed up. I recognized him immediately as the guy I asked out. It turned out that he was the same guy who was also asked out by my friend.”
Special Delivery
“Years ago, I was working as a trainer at a call center when we hired a new person to teach customer service. She and I were assigned to a project together and we hit it off very well. We started dating and started taking about our parents. I mentioned that my father worked in the US Postal Service… and hers did too!
We didn’t think too much of it, until nearly a year later, it came up again and we found out that, in the 1960s, both of our fathers worked at the Postal Central station. It was still a big place, but we had to ask.
Yes, our fathers not only knew each other, but we’re actually good friends who worked side by side for years. Fifty years later their kids met in a completely different city! It was awesome getting them back together, and even more awesome to see them together at our wedding.”
The Second Floor
“My husband and I honeymooned in Malta last year where his father was born and had never gone back. We had been given one of his Maltese cousins contacts to connect with while we were there. We booked our Airbnb in February and contacted them in April to let them know we were coming. We met up with them and they took us around different parts of the country. We booked two places, one on the island of Gozo and another in Valletta.
Back story: when we checked into the Valletta place the instructions said ‘second floor.’ In Canada, the first floor is usually the ground level floor and so on upwards from there. We tried our key in the apartment in the ‘second’ floor. It didn’t work. We saw a Filipino woman go into the apartment, so we knew we had the wrong place as we weren’t meeting anyone to check in. We walked up to the next floor and, sure enough, the ‘second floor’ was what we would have understood in Canada to be the third floor.
One day, the cousin said they would like to take us around the city of Valletta since we were already there and show us the building where my father-in-law’s last living aunt was living in and perhaps even meet her. She was well into her 90s. When we gave them our Airbnb address for them to come meet us, they were blown away because it just so happened that our Airbnb was not only the same building, but our rental was the apartment DIRECTLY ABOVE my husband’s great Aunt. This meant that when we tried the ‘second floor’ apartment, it was my husband’s great aunt’s place, and the Filipino lady we saw was her live in care taker.
Needless to say, we were able to meet her. She was so shocked to meet her sister’s grandson and it was an incredibly special part of our honeymoon. His dad (who was 72 at the time) was able to see photos of us with his aunt who he had not seen since he was about 7 years old when his family left Malta to go to the States. Both my father-in-law and his aunt passed away very recently and my husband and I cherish this coincidental experience so very much.”
The One Who Got Away
“I once met the most beautiful girl at a nightclub in Sydney. I was only in town for our work Christmas party. We danced and spoke for hours. She was everything I had ever dreamed of. I went to the toilet and came back to where I had left her and she was gone.
A year later, I flew into Sydney for the work Christmas party again. I wasn’t feeling it, so I decided to head back to the hotel early that evening. On my way back, I stopped into a convenience store and that same girl was standing in line. We saw each other. She grabbed my hand and asked why I left her that night. We realized we had just lost each other.
We started reconnecting and then her boyfriend came over to see what the heck was up. Years later, I’m now married with kids, but I often wonder what she’s doing these days.”
“Don’t Worry, We’re About The Leave Soon”
“I went on a couple dates with this girl. I met her parents one night and took her out to a very nice restaurant. We went to the steakhouse and we literally got seated five feet away from her ex’s family. This place was massive and we get placed right next to them.
It was so awkward. Thank God her ex wasn’t there. But, his brother did sneak a photo of us, which I almost sarcastically responded to by saying, ‘Did the photo turn out alright?’
She introduced me to them and, a couple minutes later, the mom says, loudly, ‘Don’t worry, we’re about to leave soon.'”
Love Yourself, Just Not That Much
“I met my doppelgänger who lived one street from me. We are not related. He came from a family with Scottish origins and I from a French Canadian family. In his room, there was a symbol on a few drawings, which was the same symbol on the leather keyring my sister gave me a few weeks before. He grew up in a city neighboring mine and experienced the same mental health issues.
Apparently ‘being too alike’ is not desirable for a relationship.
I’m still not sure what the purpose of meeting him was. That’s the part that is hard to understand. I’m still trying to forget about it. It was painful to be rejected by someone when you feel like the stars aligned for you to meet that someone. I try to look at this from different angles, but my brain just fizzles. It makes dating difficult because I doubt I could make such a meaningful encounter a second time.”
He Spoke Too Soon
“My boyfriend and I were driving down the highway one day and, out of nowhere, I asked him, ‘Have you ever hit a bird while you were driving?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘never.’
Literally an hour later, we were still driving and a giant hawk came out of nowhere and smacked into our windshield.”
The Most Terrifying Bus Ride Since “Speed”
“Some time ago, I got on a public bus and noticed my ex was on it. She didn’t look up from her phone so I didn’t say anything or acknowledge her in any way. A few stops later, another girl I used to date got on the bus and sat down next to her. Neither of them noticed me, neither of them acknowledged each other, and, based on what their social circles were like in high school, I doubt they would have recognized each other if they had looked up.
It was just so crazy to me that these two total strangers, who share one very specific thing in common, came so close to each other, and if I hadn’t been on the bus at that very moment, nobody would’ve ever known it happened. It made me wonder if I have ever been one of the strangers in that situation.”
“My Real Life Angel”
“I started dating this girl in our early 20s. Being an immature stupid guy, I did not regularly wear my seatbelt. I guess I could not be bothered with such an inconvenience. My girlfriend did not usually say anything until one time.
‘Aren’t you going to put your seatbelt on?’ she asked me.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I said.
I put it on. About 10 seconds later, we got hit head on by an inebriated driver, going about 50 mph each. I would not be here today if it was not for her. I ended up marrying my real life angel.”
Convention Connection
“I was at a convention. There were only a few people in the room. My friend and I wanted an autograph from a voice actor. He started singing in his character voice. There were two random guys next to me. One pulled out a video camera to record it.
Years later, my husband and I were talking with friends and the convention came up. The guy with the video camera was my husband. I also took a picture later that day of the crowds, and he is in that picture. I stood next to my husband years before I met him.”