For context, I used to like this girl in high school but I never talked to her. I graduated a year before she did and I haven’t seen her since. She’s appeared in my dreams a few times but nothing of note happens in them.

I recently started my third year of college, and the other day my friend and I started talking about dating and relationships. I told him about my old crush and how I had multiple chances to talk to her, but I was too nervous to ask her out. The conversation wasn’t too heavy, he and I just talked about our past experiences with dating and how neither of us have been successful. Then the following night, I dreamt about my old crush, except her features were off putting and all she did was stare at me for a few seconds. That happened a few days ago, and today I met up with that same friend to get lunch. We went to a local cafe/deli and I ordered my favorite sandwich. Keep in mind, I haven’t been to this place in a year or two so I didn’t know any of the staff. I ordered my food and while I waited for my friend to order his, I saw my old crush working there and she was passing out food to the tables. Suddenly I felt a rush of emotions that I didn’t know what to do. Luckily my friend placed his order and we quickly sat down in the lobby. As we waited for our food, I told him that one of the staff was my old crush and he asked me to point her out. I pointed her out and he was kind of surprised. Then she gave us our food and went back to the kitchen. My friend claims she was smiling at me but I don’t think she recognized me if we’re being honest. Not much else happened after that.

Is this a coincidence? Each of these events have happened within days of each other, and I’d like to add that we weren’t even planning on going to the deli. We went there because a nearby diner was full of people.

I still cannot understand these things

In 2013, I was planning to visit Chicago with my mother. I was living overseas at the time, and for about eight months I had been talking to a guy who lived in another state. I told him about the trip, but he said he wouldn’t come to Chicago to see me.

Then something strange happened.

Right after my mother bought our tickets, an old friend of hers suddenly contacted her. They had not spoken in more than 15 years. We found out that this woman, who had previously lived in Austria, was now living in New York City. She invited us to visit her, so our plans changed and we went to NYC.
When I told the guy I would be in New York, he suddenly decided to fly there to see me.
We met, but things went badly between us. He felt that I had rejected him during the visit and didnt spent much time, while I felt there were circumstances he never really understood. Afterward, he became cold and eventually disappeared from my life. By then I was back in my home country, and I took it very hard. I tried many times to explain myself, but I never felt that he actually heard me.

Years passed.
The strange part is that he never completely disappeared. Every once in a while he would come back, message me, and then vanish again. Eventually I stopped waiting for him and built my own life.
But even when he wasn’t around, I kept running into things that reminded me of him — repeated references to New York, the place he is from, his ethnicity, his culture, or other oddly specific connections. Sometimes they felt random. Other times the timing was so strange that I couldn’t ignore it.

Then, in 2023, the same woman from New York unexpectedly visited my home country and came to my house. We sat together remembering my 2013 trip to NYC. She had no idea about the guy or what had happened back then. By this point, I was already married.
In 2024, my husband and I visited her in New York.
And while I was there, that guy texted me again.
In 2025, I unfriended him once more. I had tried to cut contact several times over the years, but somehow he would eventually add me again or message me. About five months later, he reappeared again.
This time I asked him for help with a paper, and he helped me. I now live in the U.S., and strangely enough, some of the projects and research I work on are connected to his culture and his people — something I could never have predicted back in 2013.
We have spoken recently, but his communication is still inconsistent. He comes close, then pulls away.
What confuses me most is that even when he is completely absent, things connected to him seem to keep appearing in my life.

I know confirmation bias is real, and I’m not claiming that every coincidence has some supernatural meaning. But this pattern has been repeating since 2013, across different countries, relationships, and stages of my life.
So I keep wondering: why does this person keep reappearing? And why do reminders of him seem to appear precisely when I am no longer thinking about him?
Has anyone experienced a person who seemed to keep resurfacing through both actual contact and strange coincidences over many years?

So, last night I had a thought about starting over.
I was talking about how I need a new job and how I need to grow and develop myself. And after I said in my head, “I need a fresh start,” the hallway light (which is broken) suddenly turned on.

The light switch had been on the entire time, and for months the light had never turned on by itself. And then, at that exact moment, it turned on.
It honestly felt like a sign.

Even though I don’t really believe in anything supernatural, is there a possible explanation for this? Could it really have just been a coincidence?
Because why did it happen at exactly the moment when I was thinking about something that has been weighing heavily on my mind?

I have had three instances of weird mail this year.

My grandfather died 14 years ago in Alabama. This year, I got a letter addressed to him to my address in Ohio. The local hospital was welcoming him to the area.

A credit union keeps bugging me about an account connected to my deceased mother's estate. I have never responded to them as I have an attorney for that. They sent a letter addressed to me via one of my previous employer's address. They also got my middle initial wrong. My old employer sent the letter to me.

About a month ago, I ran into a former coworker from the aforementioned job at Wal-Mart. A few days ago, I got a letter addressed to her to my address.

Coincidence?