Coincidences

There are people who think that there is no such thing like coincidences and that everything is destiny and some plan of the universe and then we have the people thinking that think it’s just a coincidence. I belong to the latter group of people. This doesn’t mean that small coincidences don’t have the power to change your life along the way, but I don’t think of them being more than just a coincidence. Here are some fun coincidences out of my life so far:

The haircut

I had four days free from the army and decided to drive to Romania. While there, I was walking through the center of Timisoara, my birth town. Was already a month or two in the army, hair grew a bit so why not go for a haircut. On my way, I met a friend from my Grandmothers village. The chances of this happening, right? Met with him and some of his friends later, some new friendships started, one led to me starting a company in Romania with one of these new friends and a few great friendships started that day.

The Blog comment

I don’t recall when exactly I wrote a blog post, some time before 2009. A blog post about ISTQB Certified testers and the training my former employee was sending us to. It was a rant about how I pretty much found it a waste of time. Back then I was using Wordpress, having comments enabled on my blog and here comes Ovidiu and writes a comment that he very much thinks ISTQB is actually something very useful. Little did any one of us know what domino effect this short comment would start. At that time Ovidiu was just a random stranger on the internet to me, same for him, I was a random stranger to him. I honestly have no idea what Ovidiu was searching to land on that blog post, but that comment got us connected. The company I was working for back then was hiring people and Ovidiu was a great fit. Long story short, he came for an interview, got hired, relocated to Austria and this was the beginning of a great friendship and Ovidiu became my best friend. A weird internet search, a random blog post, a little comment …

The Travel Channel

Back in the day when I used to have cable TV, there was this travel channel, more like home shopping for holidays. I hated that channel, always skipped it, except for this one time. Something caught my eye or I have no idea why I stopped. It was about the Spanish region of Andalusia, more specifically, Malaga. Malaga become one of my favorite cities, traveled to Malaga multiple times in my life and know that it was not the last time. I love the whole region and especially Malaga where I’ve been over 10 times and even my kids know and love the city. Besides my love for this city and region, it also created further connections like with one person I met at a conference. The fact that he lives in Malaga of course led to meeting the next time I was there.

The bigots

Looking to meet new people, I joined a meetup group in Vienna that ocasionaly met for drinks and other events. Lot’s of international people and fun talks most of the time. This one time, two guys decided to throw in some racist comments so I turned around to start talking to other people. Next to me was Ranil. A nice and funny guy from Sri Lanka which turned out to be the organizer of a different social group - Vienna Social Group (a group for expats in vienna - I know I’m not an expat, this is a different story). Usually they would host their own events, but for some reason (coincidence?) Ranil decided to also join this event. Met many great people, new friendships started, and again just the right place at the right time. While this might seem like some very low key point and nothing really worth mentioning, it’s the base for something bigger that followed a few years later in my life.

The Facebook comment

This time, the coincidence didn’t happen to me, but why should I be the only one? Again, another comment. This time on the evil Facebook. Someone was looking for a cat sitter and someone was looking to meet international people to improve their english. A comment and a meeting later, a match was made, cat sitter and english student. Out of this comment, a friendship started which after two years ended with Bahar moving from Istanbul to Vienna.

But the story isn’t over yet, another comment later, Bahar joined our Vienna Social Group and came to a weekend event where a few of us met for some drinks. Are you connecting the dots now?

This was the evening that we met, Bahar and me. Interesting conversations started and after a while we started dating. Fast forward to December 2025, and we got married. It started with a comment on facebook, pieces started to fall in place and this led to us meeting, falling in love, getting married to this wonderful woman - which I still think is crazy for getting married with me.

Putting it all together

It started from small things, a comment here, an event there, being in the right place at the right time, searching for the right thing on the internet, zapping through TV channels, some idiots saying the wrong thing, some one sitting at the right place. The chances of all these things to happen that led to our paths crossing are so minuscule and unbelievable, but they happened, and will continue to happen. For me, for others, for everyone. I don’t believe in destiny, but I love thinking about how this all came together, and also asking the question what would have happened if … What if I wouldn’t have done one of these things or would have not been on that exact place at that exact time? What if? I have no idea, but I am sure happy that things went the way they went and that I was there at that time for that thing to happen.

source: duncan.co, @waitbutwhy on twitter

Friendships, Love, Marriage and many other wonderful things started, just out of coincidence. Or was it not a coincidence after all?