Too Close To Be A Coincidence?

[dB-Paradox]

I'll try and be as brief, yet as detailed as possible. My family and I planned a trip for last weekend. We have a security system at home, and I made up a random 4 digit code for the in-laws to use in case they needed to get into the house. The temporary code I made up ON THE SPOT (emphasis for later) was 5512.

 

Okay, so while away for the weekend, I got a call on my cell phone. The number was 227-5512!!! "5512???", I thought to myself. This is weird! I didn't get to the call before the caller hung up. All day, I couldn't stop thinking about that number. It seemed familiar. Then it struck me...the phone number was an old caretaker friend I haven't talked to in a year or more, and that was at a store where we randomly bumped into each other. The last time I called him was even longer ago...like maybe 18 months or two years ago! How strange, I thought, that the temporary code that I just made up ON THE SPOT happened to be a phone number of someone I knew....but stranger yet, was the fact that he called me while I was away!!! He called because while I was away, someone had called him from my work place. He recognized the work number, but called me on my cell. There was no real reason other than that, for his call. But how bizzaro is THAT! Is that a strange coincidence or WHAT!

 

People who don't believe in coincidence say there's no such thing as a random occurrence. But the phone call served no purpose. So...it was a planned occurrence with no purpose? It's still one of those things that definitely makes you go, "Hmmmmmmmm".

[oddbird1963]

How come I never have cool coincidences? I usually see the one person I don't want to see in a particular situation at some random place where I would NEVER expect to see them.

 

Maybe my cool coincidences are waiting for me - stacking up for a long streak of cool coincidences.

[Shyone]

I love coincidences! They are the exceptions that prove the rule.

 

You wrote: Then it struck me...the phone number was an old caretaker friend I haven't talked to in a year or more, and that was at a store where we randomly bumped into each other.

 

You don't know why he called but hung up? The mind works in weird ways, and there could be something really profound working here, but I don't know enough to explain why you thought of his number or why he called you.

 

For one thing, when we are looking for a number to remember, it helps to have a number that we "know". This number may simply sound familiar to us or may consciously be a number we relate to often (e.g. wife's birthday). What if he did something, told someone something, an event, aniversary, that connects you two. Perhaps you drove past the store where you last saw him, or someone came from there, or the name sounded like something on the news.

 

Anyway, there is a connection there, and although not obvious I suspect that if you dig deeply enough you may find it out.

 

Or maybe not. Life is like that sometimes.

[Franciscan Monkey]

Statistically speaking, you are bound to bump into seemingly weird "coincidences" from time to time. Think of all the possible things that could happen to you each day but don't. We interact with our environment in countless ways that we don't even notice unless something sticks out for some reason. In your particulary example, there was a 1 in 10,000 chance that that telephone number would math the code you put in. But you probably also received other calls during that weekend, each with that same probability. Maybe you passed billboards with telephone numbers in the advertisements, numbers on license plates, purchase prices of items that could have been $55.12. Any one of these would probably have struck you as odd if they matched your code. Even knowing this, though, coincidences are still cool.

 

Respectfully,

Franciscan Monkey

[Franko47]

I kind of like trippy coincidences and occasional "weird shit".

 

 

Twenty years ago I adopted a kitten that was born on an Air Canada flight at (whatever feet passenger liners fly at) to a local politician whose middle name was Rodney(which is mine) and was born on the same week I was. Also on that flight was my favourite NHL hockey player at the time (Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs) and as it turned out the pilot of the flight was the father of a friend of mine from college.

 

No shit.

 

Oh, and the phone number arbitrarily given to me for my new cell phone has the last four digits that correspond to the address of the house where I grew up in for the most part. Oh, and my new nabes have a cat named "Murphy" which is what our cat's name was when I was a kid.

 

And Gene Roddenberry died on my birthday, and President Eisenhower was born on the day my great grandfather died. And I got hit on the head with a rock at school the day that JFK was assassinated. The kid who threw it was named Harvey, his brother's name was Lee.

 

I'll stop now, in case you think I'm embellishing. Actually, I'm holding back. Got some great coincidences that you wouldn't believe. I seem to attract this kind of thing, maybe it's because I enjoy these kinds of unlikely correlations.

 

Can't win the lottery, though.

[dB-Paradox]

Can't win the lottery, though.

I know! What's with THAT! Of all the number coincidences I seem to have, the lottery is one which never happens to me.

[OnceConvinced]

Some coincedences.

 

I have one friend who is in jail. I also have one relative who is in jail. Both of them are cellmates. They never knew each other before they were cellmates. Neither of them are Christians.

 

I sold a book to a second hand bookshop. Five years later I walked into a different secondhand book shop in a different town and found it on the shelf (it had my name and address inside the front cover) It wasn't a Christian book.

 

The real amazing coincedence:

 

I ran into an old work collegue on the street, one I hadn't seen for about 10 years. We got to talking about other people there. This is how it went:

 

Me: What was the name of that guy we used to have tea breaks with. He always used to talk about Star Trek.

Friend: Oh... who do you mean?

Me: You know, he used to work in another department. He was a real sci fi nut.

At that moment the guy I was talking about comes walking along the road towards us.

Me (without skipping a beat): That guy right there!

 

Sure enough it was him. The three of us chatted for a little then went our own seperate ways without even getting each others phone numbers or business cards.

 

Yep amazing coincedences happen. It's nice to be able to accept the fact that they are coincedences and not miracles or signs from God.

[Dhampir]

EVERYthing is coincidence. It is really only those coincidences that you accord significance to that even are described with the word coincidence.

[ShallowByThyGame]

If you understand the laws of probability, you will see that that coincidence is guaranteed to happen to thousands of people each year.

[Andy]

Statistically speaking, you are bound to bump into seemingly weird "coincidences" from time to time. Think of all the possible things that could happen to you each day but don't. We interact with our environment in countless ways that we don't even notice unless something sticks out for some reason. In your particulary example, there was a 1 in 10,000 chance that that telephone number would math the code you put in. But you probably also received other calls during that weekend, each with that same probability. Maybe you passed billboards with telephone numbers in the advertisements, numbers on license plates, purchase prices of items that could have been $55.12. Any one of these would probably have struck you as odd if they matched your code. Even knowing this, though, coincidences are still cool.

 

Respectfully,

Franciscan Monkey

This. People who are on the lookout for this kind of thing are going to see a lot more of it. Personally I never would have noticed such a coincidence, just because I'm not the kind of person who would look for it.