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Seeing The Same Stranger Everywhere

gattino

gattino

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
2,522
This has happened before , and a new one is currently going on.. I've encountered the same never before seen face 4 times in the last week in entirely unrelated locations.

In movies and private fantasies this would be the stuff of romance or conspiracy, but neither applies here. He's just a bloke.

Any such experiences up your end? Pardon the expression. And di you feel ..or conclude...tehre was any purpose or satisfying end point to it all?
 
This has happened to me a few times when I have recognized a stranger or the same car at different locations miles apart. Always though when I have been on holiday and I have put it down to people following the same tourist route. Does feel a touch strange tho' but.
 
Kind of related, I notice I've met so many people due to a wandering personal and professional life, it's inevitable I feel that some people start to look like other people.

I bumped into a chap I hadn't seen for almost a decade the other day and realised that I'd kind of 'merged' him with someone I worked with more recently, as they had some of the same general superficial characteristics. It took a real conscious effort to separate them out in my mind and sort out the differences,

It's not the first time that's happened to me, and I wonder if we can only recall and separate so many faces.
 
gattino said:
This has happened before , and a new one is currently going on.. I've encountered the same never before seen face 4 times in the last week in entirely unrelated locations.

In movies and private fantasies this would be the stuff of romance or conspiracy, but neither applies here. He's just a bloke.

Any such experiences up your end? Pardon the expression. And di you feel ..or conclude...tehre was any purpose or satisfying end point to it all?
Click to expand...

IMO, it depends if you want to look at it in terms of the sacred or the mundane.

Mundane explanation is that it's simply someone who's got a similar routine as you, or (somewhat more alarmingly) is following you. You know, unrequited love, police stakeout, that kind of thing. ;)

In sacred terms though, by which I mean the spiritual world, there are no coincidences. In that case, it's a sign, but of what, only you can say.

I've mentioned before my old friend R. Not a stranger, but whenever I'd bump into her unexpectedly, it always presaged some important life event. I used to think this had something to do with R. herself, but last summer I saw a woman who was not R., but looked uncannily like her. Turned out this also preceded an important event. So it was not R. herself who was an omen, but only my perception of her.

They say the British aren't big on small talk, but still, it can't hurt to say hello next time you see him, can it?
Hey, if he's a detective at least he'll know you're on to him. :D
 
He lives near you?

Or follows similar routines and lifestyle patterns as you?
 
Neither.

On Saturday he was in the queue at the airport for the flight to Cyprus we were on.

On Tuesday - bearing in mind this was an usual itinerary for a break away, Saturday to Tuesday- he was on the flight home too.

Last night my mum was admitted to hospital and, somehow despite it being dark and him being at a distance and seen from behind, I immediately recognised him several yards away heading towards the main entrance of the hospital.

Today his face turned up on a social media site.
 
gattino said:
Neither.

On Saturday he was in the queue at the airport for the flight to Cyprus we were on.

On Tuesday - bearing in mind this was an usual itinerary for a break away, Saturday to Tuesday- he was on the flight home too.

Last night my mum was admitted to hospital and, somehow despite it being dark and him being at a distance and seen from behind, I immediately recognised him several yards away heading towards the main entrance of the hospital.

Today his face turned up on a social media site.
Click to expand...
So then you know who he is?

Perhaps you're the star in The Gattino Show? The same persons appearing everywhere, due to too few extras.
 
If Gemma Craven shows up at your house, gattino, get concerned.
 
For a couple of years driving to work I would see the same bloke walking up the same bit of road no matter what time I reached that point. I called him Gerry.

I changed jobs and worked a hundred miles away. I just happened to be going shopping in the town I used to work in, it was about 1pm on a Sunday. Who was walking up that same bit of road but Gerry! It was all I could do not to beep and wave!
 
He likely feels just the same.
 
Fascinating thread. I've had a similar experience once but nothing as exciting as other posters. Basically it's been when we've been out somewhere for a trip out (I think was a country park) and we would keep crossing paths with the same woman - even though there were several different routes and 'ways around' that should have meant we didn't meet that often; especially cos it didn't happen with anyone else, just this one woman. We didn't know who she was, or anything. It did feel quite unnerving in a strange way though.



gattino said:
Neither.

On Saturday he was in the queue at the airport for the flight to Cyprus we were on.

On Tuesday - bearing in mind this was an usual itinerary for a break away, Saturday to Tuesday- he was on the flight home too.

Last night my mum was admitted to hospital and, somehow despite it being dark and him being at a distance and seen from behind, I immediately recognised him several yards away heading towards the main entrance of the hospital.

Today his face turned up on a social media site.
Click to expand...

That is quite strange indeed. I don't suppose you've ever seen him since?



Meechyemoo said:
For a couple of years driving to work I would see the same bloke walking up the same bit of road no matter what time I reached that point. I called him Gerry.

I changed jobs and worked a hundred miles away. I just happened to be going shopping in the town I used to work in, it was about 1pm on a Sunday. Who was walking up that same bit of road but Gerry! It was all I could do not to beep and wave!
Click to expand...

And also strange, for the randomness of seeing this chap just on a visit back.



Coal said:
Kind of related, I notice I've met so many people due to a wandering personal and professional life, it's inevitable I feel that some people start to look like other people.

I bumped into a chap I hadn't seen for almost a decade the other day and realised that I'd kind of 'merged' him with someone I worked with more recently, as they had some of the same general superficial characteristics. It took a real conscious effort to separate them out in my mind and sort out the differences,

It's not the first time that's happened to me, and I wonder if we can only recall and separate so many faces.
Click to expand...

Mr Zebra and I have had times in our life where, when we've moved to a different location and started new jobs, we'll see people who very much remind us of people at our old jobs; different names and appearances, but same mannerisms, and certain characteristics.

Could be the recollection thing, but perhaps some people are just repeated? Maybe there's only a finite number of different options.
 
I may have mentioned this elsewhere.

I see the same man walking toward town, away from town or even in town almost every time I go there.

He is a late-middle aged gent' very sprightly and walks quite quickly.

It doesn't seem to matter what time or day I go there. I am almost sure to see him.

I know him as 'The Walking Man'.
 
INT21 said:
I may have mentioned this elsewhere.

I see the same man walking toward town, away from town or even in town almost every time I go there.

He is a late-middle aged gent' very sprightly and walks quite quickly.

It doesn't seem to matter what time or day I go there. I am almost sure to see him.

I know him as 'The Walking Man'.
Click to expand...
If he's always to be seen, he's part of The Matrix. Like Agent Smith.
 
Can't be. He doesn't wear a black suite or shades.
 
INT21 said:
... I see the same man walking toward town, away from town or even in town almost every time I go there.
He is a late-middle aged gent' very sprightly and walks quite quickly.
It doesn't seem to matter what time or day I go there. I am almost sure to see him.
I know him as 'The Walking Man'.
Click to expand...

There were multiple such regularly-seen "Walking Men" in the small town where I grew up. We lived 2 - 3 miles outside the city limits during my childhood, and these guys were regularly seen traipsing back and forth to and from town.

In and around town we also had a couple of "Bicycle Men" - odd fellows who were invariably encountered cycling around on most days. Both were strange folks who were part of the local scenery, always dressed nicely but colorfully, were reputed to be of limited intellectual skills, and were alleged to serve as camp followers and gofers (errand boys) for certain local businessmen's "posses."
 
Tonight while travelling into town, I was sat opposite a girl on the tram. We both got off at the same station and changed platforms to the subway system. We stood on the same platform about 20 metres apart. I/We got on the train but in seperate carriages.

After travelling 3 stops, I looked out of the window just as we were slowing to arrive at the 4th stop. The girl I had seen earlier was standing on this platform waiting to get on the train. It is physically impossible yet there she was. I still don't know what happened. It wasn't just someone who looked like her, it was her (or an identical twin. Even down to the same dress, hairstyle and handbag).
 
Could be an apparition.

Seriously.
 
I thought of some sort of reflection, but i am dammed if i know how
 
INT21 said:
It doesn't seem to matter what time or day I go there. I am almost sure to see him
Click to expand...
There's a man that my daughter & I used to see, randomly yet consistently for years on end, striding the streets, who we independantly-yet-convergently named "The Trousers Guy" (I suspect we weren't the only ones to so do).

He was omnipresent, and permanently-jarring in every presense & context. The trousers could only ever be thought of as being 'wrong', in the sense that they were light khaki chino pants that were so chromatically-alien as to be off the scale. They might even have been a faded/soiled white, but they were a signature symbol of such singular strangeness.

It did not matter if he was walking in a semi-rural, urban, coastal or hilltop setting, he was sartorially and sociologically wronger than wrong.
 
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INT21 said:
Could be an apparition.

Seriously.
Click to expand...

She interacted with others on the tram and others were aware of her presence. The reason I noticed her on the tram (besides sitting opposite her) is that I was on the way to a book release party and she looked similar to one of the co-authors of the book. I had never met that author before (I'm friends with the other one) but I had studied a photo of her in order to be able to recognise her at the party. I didn't want to embarrass myself by asking the co-author who she was and why she was at the party. I vaguely wondered if she was the author before deciding that the author must already be at the bookstore in preparation for the party. But it gave me ample time to study her face (slightly rounded but with a nice jaw line), hair (wavy natural blone, shoulder length with a blue hair slide/grip on her left hand side), her sky blue dress, white clutch handbag and blue suede pumps etc.

Now, if we go back to the 1st stop, as I was waiting about 20 metres up the platform from her (let's call her blue dress), there was another woman in a white dress much further away, maybe 40-50 metres or so. White dress was almost where the back of the train would come in, blue in the middle and I was almost at the front. I had overtaken white dress on the stairs going down to the platform and noticed her due to her unusual body shape and her lack of height.

Now white dress must have been carriage hopping her way up the train (moving from one carriage to another at the stops) because as soon as we stopped at the 4th station, she quickly walked passed my window and got into the very front carriage. I was confused about seeing blue dress on the platform and was trying ot make sense of it when white dress walked passed. My mind made the assumption that White had carriage hopped and therefore Blue must have done the same. But then I realsed that I had seen Blue while we were still moving.

One of life's little mysteries I guess.
 
Ermintruder said:
There's a man that my daughter & I used to see, randomly yet consistently for years on end, striding the streets, who we independantly-yet-convergently named "The Trousers Guy" (I suspect we weren't the only ones to so do).

He was omnipresent, and permanently-jarring in every presense & context. The trousers could only ever be thought of as being 'wrong', in the sense that they were light khaki chino pants that were so chromatically-alien as to be off the scale. They might even have been a faded/soiled white, but they were a signature symbol of such singular strangeness.

It did not matter if he was walking in a semi-rural, urban, coastal or hilltop setting, he was sartorially and sociologically wronger than wrong.
Click to expand...
I've sometimes felt a bit sorry for the man that inspired film director Wes Craven's Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare On Elm Street ..

Wes's anecdote has it that, as a little kid, he looked out of his bedroom window one day to see a creepy looking man wearing a Fedora hat and a stripey sweater who then looked up at Wes's bedroom window. Wes was a bit freaked by this and hid, returned later and the same man was just standing there still looking up at his bedroom window ..

More than likely, rather than being 'the boogeyman', this drifter was probably just some drunk trying to remember something. That's how 'Freddy' was born and probably something similar happened at some stage in the life of the creepy pasta creator of slenderman.
 
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