This refers to when two or more people encounter each other in completely coincidental fashion. You might notice your old classmate from three countries away is now your waiter in a place you had no reason to expect them in, and you might say “wow, what a small world”. You might notice two people who you know from completely different spheres miraculously know each other. You might recognize by chance that your penpal has made a cameo at a venue you’re at.
But what was your most profoundly coincidental encounter?
I have a common first name for my age. And common middle name. But my last name is pretty unusual. Based on previous research I’d be shocked if there are over 1000 people in America with the same last name.
My wife and I were traveling out of state to a very niche convention. There were maybe 200-300 people there. And we ran into trouble with the hotel because also attending the convention was another man with my exact same first middle and last name. And his wife has the same name as my wife.
We are similar ages and work in roughly similar fields. This convention had absolutely nothing to do any of those similarities, though.
Whoa! This really blows my mind. Did you keep in touch?
We both volunteered in future years of the convention until it fell apart. So we didn’t stay in touch, but we ran into each other maybe 3 or 4 times over about 8 years. We lived quite far apart so that was about it.
I do get emails from his bank, though, because I got first initial last name @ gmail.com.