View Single Post
Old Mar 22, 2005, 03:28 pm   #1 (permalink) (top)
orgaelin
Igneous Magma
 
orgaelin's Avatar
 
Location: Midlands UK
Posts: 720
Why do things like this happen?

A very unlikely coincidence occured today.

I waited at the bus-stop this morning, and while I waited I chatted to an old college friend who catches the same bus as me. I casually asked her if she had been in touch with any of the people we used to know back in college, 10 years ago.

She gave a few names, most of which I knew, but then she mentioned "Michelle". I explained that I was good with faces but not names, and couldn't remember who she was talking about. It had been 10 years after all.

So any way, later on today I was shopping with my wife when I was suddenly caused to remember who Michelle was, because she was there in the supermarket!! So here was this woman who I hadn't seen in 10 years and on the exact day that I discuss her for the first time in those ten years, she appears right there!

I was more than a little blown away. Why is that coincidences as hugely unlikely as this one seem to be so common? I mean, they don't happen every day, but the fact is that they seem to occur more often than chance would allow.

My own belief is that chance events like this happen for a reason. I'm not saying that the sisters of fate are colluding to control our every interaction, or that some other devine overseer is secretly running everything from behind the scenes. But something external to our awareness seems to have a hand in the way things play out.

Another idea I have about it is that the coincidence could have been triggered by a chaos-like chain of events passed on through the unconscious minds of the persons involved.

Any other ideas? I'd like to hear from someone who feels there is nothing unusual about this, and hear how you explain it away.

~ Org.


"Only two things are infinite,
the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein
orgaelin is offline   Reply With Quote