Coincidences

phill106 · 01-07-2010 12:43PM

Dudess wrote: »

?

tuk-tuk is those little carriages you see in thailand/india etc. Some are motor driven, some pulled by people.

Run_to_da_hills · 01-07-2010 12:45PM

Bought a "diamond" RTG number eg: 087 123 **** and my mate got issued with the exact same number digit for digit on 086 two years later. I have prople looking for him and ringing me instead.

**Timbuk2** · 01-07-2010 12:47PM

I often take the phone out of my pocket to check the time just seconds before I get a text or call!

I often wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off!

phill106 · 01-07-2010 12:50PM

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

Don't believe in coincidence.

Abrasax wrote: »

I Don't believe in coincidence.

You both wrote that at nearly the exact same time!

What a........

Random Occurrence of probability.

Birneybau · 01-07-2010 12:53PM

tony1kenobi wrote: »

One day no matter where I went the Clash song Rock The Casbah was playing.....it seemed to be playing on every radio station.....then that night I heard Joe Strummer had died the night before.......spooky.

Wait...Hold on..

You heard "Rock the Casbah" all day the day after the great Joe Strummer died?

I never thought tributes were coincidental.

consultech · 01-07-2010 01:00PM

Some of the coincidences here are mad.

The maddest one I've heard would be a friend buying a new mobile and getting a (apparently) recycled number from vodafone. Every few weeks he would get the odd text/call looking for "Susan". He met an Irish girl in Oz n started going out with her, and they came home together. He hadn't used his Irish moby in about 6 months n had forgotten the whole Susan thing. It happened again a couple of months later except he passed the phone to his new GF presuming it was one of her friends looking for her. Turned out that was the self same "Susan" who used to own that number.

I used to have a thing where I'd randomly think of a load of Simpson's jokes, not knowing they were all from the one episode, then low and behold that episode would be on on Sky 1 that night. This happened a couple of times per week for months. I was very consciously aware of it n used to predict the episode that'd be on.

Digressively however: I find the human tendency to identify and be fascinated by "coincidence" fascinating in itself. We as a species seem to have an innate quality whereby we identify patterns and only focus on the results of a very limited sample in spite of everything else. Generally speaking, we seem to take huge solice in the hope there is a greater power orchestrating things for us; perhaps tieing in with religion being the "opiate of the masses" n all I suppose.

Perhaps not entirely, but suitably relevant is Derren Brown's interesting piece on something similar. It's the one with the marketing project where he drives various people to a location, subliminally planting various images and words along the route; then they all come up with the one picture for a pet cemetary advertising campaign.

There's something in it though I reckon. We subconsciously absorb info and then do backflips in excitement when the same patterns come up again. I have played a lot of poker over the years, and you have a tendency to ignore the statistically mundane and be fascinated by the re-occurance of certain cards etc. I used to shake my head in pity when I would overhear people talking about the roulette table in casinos, and "14" coming up again etc. "Ah it was up a bit last night too". It probably all boils back down to faith versus science at the end of the day.

Anyone else every get majorly stoned in work?

consultech · 01-07-2010 01:02PM

I also once saw a documentary about a group of passengers on a flight that crashed on this island, but every one of them was linked in some way in their lives before that.

Went on a bit though.

Abrasax · 01-07-2010 01:06PM

Abrasax wrote: »

I Don't believe in coincidence.

Actually I'm a great believer in them, more so synchronicities a la Jung.
Example, some guy pm'd me here cause he'd spotted a reference from a book by an author we both liked.
He asked me what I was reading at the minute and I replied 'The Eye in the Triangle' about Aleister Crowley.
'Oh', says he, 'I'm a member of the Thelemic Foundation', a group who practice and spread Crowleys teachings and would I be into checking out the organisation.
Well, I wouldn't have before but based purely on the coincidence....

r3nu4l · 01-07-2010 01:40PM

Dudess wrote: »

I've mentioned my celebrity-killing abilities here before:

- Few hours before Nina Simone died, I was talking to friends about her
- Night before Johnny Cash died, talking to my brother about him
- Night before Charlton Heston died, talking to my mum about him

I was only thinking about this last week actually because last year, hours before Michael Jackson died, I had a dream that I met him and had a dance-off with him

All the more strange because I can't dance and I've never been a fan of Michael Jackson. Then I wake up to discover that the had died!!

Asphyxia · 01-07-2010 01:41PM

My father and one of his bestfriends would always say to eachother that whoever died first has to come back just to say goodbye before going to the after life! My father's friend died a few years ago and the day after he died we were all sitting out in the yard when suddenly a car slammed on the brakes and pulled in the gate.

It was a hearse!! It's tyre went flat and needed to pull in fast! The weird thing about it was it was my father's friend who was in the coffin in the hearse. My parents house isn't even in the town it's in the country far from wear he was meant to be. What a way to say goodbye eh?

Lando Griffin · 01-07-2010 01:43PM

massdebater wrote: »

Was shifting this ugly fella in a niteclub one nite for a bet. Once I realised that I won, I legged it to the toilet to hide, only reappearing when I was sure he was gone.

Seen this much better looking fella later on and took him to a dark corner. We put on another bet with my sister to see if she'd shift the ugliest fella in the place. Turns out she picked the same munter I shifted earlier and he happened to be brothers with my new "dark corner" guy!

What a coincindence! :pac:

What the.
Deloras?
Myself and Odnal ( my ex brother ) havent spoken since that night after the chipper.

r3nu4l · 01-07-2010 01:48PM

It didn't happen to me personally but I was watching 'Look East'* late last year and there was an article about the wife of a man who wanted to meet the people to whom her dead (obviously) husbands' organs had been donated.

She went to one of the families that agreed to meet with her and was having a chat with them about the recipients life before and after his transplant. He was showing her photos of him on his holiday's the year before, about six months before he knew he would need the transplant.

Turns out that the wife and (organ donor) husband had been in the same place at the same time and in one of the photographs the guy who donated his organs is standing directly behind the guy who received one of his organs! Freaky!!:eek:

*Local East Anglian News TV show on BBC.

Zigmund · 01-07-2010 01:49PM

Pocketfizz wrote: »

My father and one of his bestfriends would always say to eachother that whoever died first has to come back just to say goodbye before going to the after life! My father's friend died a few years ago and the day after he died we were all sitting out in the yard when suddenly a car slammed on the brakes and pulled in the gate.

It was a hearse!! It's tyre went flat and needed to pull in fast! The weird thing about it was it was my father's friend who was in the coffin in the hearse. My parents house isn't even in the town it's in the country far from wear he was meant to be. What a way to say goodbye eh?

Some best friend if he stays in your garden instead of going to the funeral.

Shanotheslayer · 01-07-2010 01:49PM

consultech wrote: »

I also once saw a documentary about a group of passengers on a flight that crashed on this island, but every one of them was linked in some way in their lives before that.

Went on a bit though.

So you watched Lost then yeah?:pac:

Shanotheslayer · 01-07-2010 01:52PM

Dudess wrote: »

I've mentioned my celebrity-killing abilities here before:

- Few hours before Nina Simone died, I was talking to friends about her
- Night before Johnny Cash died, talking to my brother about him
- Night before Charlton Heston died, talking to my mum about him

Don't ask me to talk about Bono, it doesn't work if you do it intentionally...

Can you talk about Justin Bieber?

Edit: Just seen the intentional thing:(

Asphyxia · 01-07-2010 01:53PM

Zigmund wrote: »

Some best friend if he stays in your garden instead of going to the funeral.

The funeral wasn't till the next day! The wake was on that night that's why we couldn't figure out why he ended up in our yard? My father went to both.

consultech · 01-07-2010 02:04PM

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

So you watched Lost then yeah?:pac:

Im so not appreciated in my time.

phill106 · 01-07-2010 02:21PM

consultech wrote: »

Im so not appreciated in my time.

Wouldn't hold out much hope for after your time either...

mick_jt · 01-07-2010 03:14PM

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Met a classy girl in a nghtclub once and straight away we started at it.
She went off to the toilet and after 15 minutes no sign.
I counted my losses, and went hunting and later while chating to another girl she turned around and said " My sister is shifting someone who just looks like you", and pointed into a dark corner. Sure enough when we went over there was your one that had gone to the toilet ages ago mauling the face of my brother.

At the start i thought it was going to end like "the next day I was at a family reunion and it turns out I was shifting my long lost half-sister WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!!:D:D"

But luckily the thread stayed legal and away from incest!!

Dudess · 01-07-2010 06:44PM

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

Can you talk about Justin Bieber?

Edit: Just seen the intentional thing:(

It's pretty devastating that this gift of mine is wasted on people who don't deserve it...

(Heston might be an ambiguous one, granted...)

Really hoping I chat to someone about Jedward without thinking about it...

plein de force · 01-07-2010 07:13PM

Dudess wrote: »

I've mentioned my celebrity-killing abilities here before:

- Few hours before Nina Simone died, I was talking to friends about her
- Night before Johnny Cash died, talking to my brother about him
- Night before Charlton Heston died, talking to my mum about him

Don't ask me to talk about Bono, it doesn't work if you do it intentionally...

i honestly did not know nina simone was dead until now

Abrasax · 01-07-2010 07:15PM

plein de force wrote: »

i honestly did not know nina simone was dead until now

Fraid so.
She ain't got no life.

irish_goat · 01-07-2010 11:14PM

Only today I was reading McCarthy's Bar, a book about a man going round Ireland and he mentions Croagh Patrick and the fact that there's a chapel at the top. So I think "Jeez, must google that to see how they managed to get a chapel on top of a mountain". So I go online and facebook is opened and what should only be top of my news feed but a friend's photo of his hike up Croagh Patrick with photos of the chapel.

Smeggy · 01-07-2010 11:23PM

Totally bored one day so my friend picks up a pack of cards and while she's shuffling them she says 'what card am I going to pick' I said 'four of clubs' just off the top of my head.. So she finished shuffling them and picked up the top card and it was the four of clubs!! We both fell about laughing for the next half hour...

*As I say we were quite bored!

01-07-2010 11:28PM

Got on a Luas at the Red Cow a few weeks ago, there was a young blonde girl there reading notes. She sat in front of me. I got off at Jervis while she got off further on (probably Abbey Street). I walked down to O'Connell Street to get a 16, she got on... we both got off at the same stop! Ended up having a bit of a laugh about it at the end.

Also, my brother's girlfriend got a new phone number, only two digits were different between her new number and mine.

tbh · 01-07-2010 11:43PM

I was lost one time and I knocked on this house and a girl answered and told me where I needed to go. The next day, remembering she was quite cute, I knocked on the same door and an old woman answered. I asked where the girl was and she said "don't you realise? That was me and it was fifty years ago"

Now that was a mad coincidence!

tbh · 01-07-2010 11:44PM

Hang on, I've just read the thread and am confusedabout the meaning of the word "coincidence"

Columbia · 01-07-2010 11:48PM

Last February I was tired of my research at university, so I went to Estonia for a couple of weeks break. I told my supervisor that I was going "away" but didn't say where. Last day of the trip, I'm walking around the streets of Tallinn and I bump into him and his wife, off on a romantic weekend, and we were on the same flight home.

consultech wrote: »

I used to have a thing where I'd randomly think of a load of Simpson's jokes, not knowing they were all from the one episode, then low and behold that episode would be on on Sky 1 that night. This happened a couple of times per week for months. I was very consciously aware of it n used to predict the episode that'd be on.

That's very strange, I had an almost identical experience, also with The Simpsons. Except for me I would wake up and repeat dialogue in my head all morning and afternoon, just with it sort of stuck in my head, like a song. Happened probably 60-70 times when I was 12-14.

Daemos · 01-07-2010 11:50PM

tbh wrote: »

Hang on, I've just read the thread and am confusedabout the meaning of the word "coincidence"

You read the whole thread in a minute? Good job

Eh, you do know what a 'coincidence' is, right?

Pittens · 01-07-2010 11:51PM

I have a cat called Pittens, same as my username.

Scarey.

Coincidences

Comments