Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Finally, after being fed up with dating I met someone online. INSTANTLY, I felt extremely comfortable in his presence. That was rare for me — extremely rare. Chemistry was insane and we fell for each other very quickly. Two weeks in we discovered our link. When I was a child, my family went through this extremely messy affair/divorce with my aunt and uncle. She cheated on him and I had been used toward it, babysitting my cousins while she snuck off. My parents/grandparents strongly believe it all had been influenced by my aunt’s best friend in the neighborhood, who was also divorced and thriving in the single/divorced life. This woman had become a household/cursed name. I only knew the first name, not the last name. I heard awful things about her. Nothing ever ever good. I had met her once when I was babysitting and remembered her Polish accent. As for my aunt, it was a messy divorce. My aunt is now estranged from the family. I haven’t seen her, my uncle, or my cousins in over a decade. Two weeks in, this young man I was dating tells me that he had lived in this specific neighborhood. I told him the last name of my family members and he INSTANTLY knew who I was. “You’re her niece?” He had been able to see my cousins grow up because when I hadn’t been allowed to babysit anymore because of the family cutting off my aunt, the young man took over as the babysitter. That wasn’t all — when I was 17 I had participated in music at his old high school as a guest artist and ended up befriending people that he had dated, not knowing he had dated them til after we had broken up. During my time at the high school awful rumors were going around about him but I never knew the name, only knew the face from Facebook of the girls he dated and all the stories about him and his family. He wasn’t involved in the music project at the high school, but he must had passed me during those times when he picked up his then girlfriend (whom I was friends with and went to lunch with, she must have talked about him at lunch). He and I never spoke. Not until 6 years later. I walked on eggshells around my family trying to not tell them who he really was. Because my family HATES his family and I believe his family feels the same way. He and I didn’t feel that way about each other though. It truly was a Romeo and Juliet romance. He was the worst person I could possibly date. What makes it worse is that he was my first love at age 22. We knew of each other’s existence at ages 12/13 and collided a decade later at ages 22/23. Eventually, I caved and my mother confessed she had already figured it out because of knowing where he lived and the fact that he was Polish. Thankfully, she wasn’t upset but secretly did not like that we were dating. When my grandma found out she swore...she never swears. Before the breakup, things seemed fine. I ended up meeting his mothers several times. It’s no surprise though that he was the one who ended things. My whole adolescent life had revolved around his presence so it only made sense that our connection was instant. His family name will always be a part of the story my family tells with all the estranged drama that occurred, and sadly for me, that curse of his family name shall continue because he was my first love. Now he’s gone — just like his family had done to mine time and time again. I can’t seem to let go either, even though he proved to me time and time again that he is a terrible person. I’m trauma bonded in a way. You’d think that out of a decade of awful family things, this was the one thing that could make it all worth it. I feel like it’s not over. If we circled each other for a full decade who’s to say it’s not the end? Time will only tell. What a small small world.

We just watched the film - Fishermen's Friends on DVD, a film about Cornish fishermen. It finished and the TV switched from the DVD player to live TV and the programme that is currently on is a documentary about Cornish fishermen! - 'Cornwall: This fishing life'

My brother, who lives in a different city than me, had two tickets to the Buffalo Bills football game and he asked me if I wanted to go as I lived close to Buffalo at the time. I said yes, and we agreed to meet outside will call and then we would go in together. Well, I waited until kickoff and he hadn't shown up so I waited some more. He was nowhere to be seen so I thought I'd buy a ticket from a scalper and just go in and watch the game. I found a reasonable ticket and bought it and headed into the the game but right before I went in he came running up winded and said he was stuck in traffic. So my brother gave me his ticket and I proceeded to sell my other ticket cheaply to someone looking to get in. I asked the guy I sold my ticket to if he was a Bills fan and he said, hell yeah, and we laughed. My brother and I found our seats and sat down. Then I noticed someone sitting down right next to me and it was the guy I sold my scalped ticket to! He had the ticket right next to mine! The game was nearly sold out so everyone had to sit in the seat the ticket said. It seemed a very weird coincidence.

Summer 2018. I was travelling through Croatia with a friend, and we had arranged to meet my flatmate at the time, Seamus (I was living in London) and his friend in Split. We arrive in Split, meet Seamus and his friend and all go check in at a hostel. After a few days, my flatmate and his friend decide to leave Split to go to some music festival in a nearby town. My friend and I stay in Split and we meet this American girl, Grace, who had just checked in at the hostel. She’s really nice and we spend the evening with her. My friend and I were supposed to leave Split the next day to continue our trip, so we say bye to Grace and exchange each other’s numbers. Fast forward 2 weeks, I’m spending the rest of summer in France, where I’m from. One night, I get a text from Grace, saying she’s in my house in London!! Turns out, a few days after I left Split, Seamus and his friend came back from their music festival, checked in at the same hostel again, met Grace. Then, 2 weeks later, she was flying back from Croatia to New York, with a connection in London, but she missed her flight in London. So she texted my flatmate to ask if she could crash at his house (not knowing it was also my house). They got talking that night, and Seamus mentioned he had a french flatmate called Laurentine (me). She was like “wait, I met a french girl called Laurentine in Split!” ! During all this time, I had no idea my flatmate had met Grace, and now she was staying in my house in London !!!