Coincidences are strange phenomena, aren't they? So strange at times they're head-shakingly unbelievable. On occasion, we're justified in having such stray thoughts as: perhaps it's no coincidence at all.

Take, for example, my recent experience with two of my online accounts. On Twitter a week or so back I had a 'follower' pop up that I simply ignored. I've never done what I assume most Twitter users do; go fishing for followers. Occasionally I recognize that I've got a few new followers, and I take the time for a cursory scrutiny of their account. If I understand their tweets are of a nature that I dislike, I simply ignore them and eventually most get the message.

There are those whose interests appear to align with mine, and those I generally 'follow'. On this occasion the masthead for this account was a photograph of a young man, chest bared, flaunting his musculature with a grin. He had a total of five tweets to his credit, the last one registered in 2014. First off, the photo was off-putting with all it implied; much less the tweets, so I just shrugged it off.

A few days later there was an outreach on LinkedIn, a site I registered with after years of resistance when some of those I know invited me to join, and in a moment of weak resolve, I did. And have never actually used it. I'd got a few requests for some unimaginable reason, and then there was this request, which I just automatically accepted, with the knowledge I'd never follow up since I'm completely disinterested in the site. All the more so that I kept getting invitations by LinkedIn itself to look into befriending a Montreal-based, university-linked engineer of foreign origin who had been arrested for terrorism. Soon after accepting, I had a message from the requester informing me he's a member of my extended family and would like to make contact. He was genuine, knowing things that no outsider could, and we had some interesting chats because he was invested in trying to track down as much information as he could find about his maternal great-grandmother who was my aunt.

Only a day later, it jogged my memory of the Twitter follower. Very same name. My relative operates a business in Northern Ontario, and the jock was resident at that time in Mississauga, Ontario, each location far, quite distant from the other. Connection? Don't know, will have to find the opportunity to enquire.

Last week my husband contacted our Internet carrier to complain about our most recent invoice which saw an increase of 28% from the one previous. He wanted to know what the justification was and why it was being levied. Mentioning that if he couldn't be given reasonable explanations he would be interested in looking elsewhere for competitive services and pricing. The carrier is a large corporation, said they'd look into it and get back to my husband.

A few hours later it wasn't the carrier responding, as they assured my husband they would, and who was awaiting a call back from them, but out of the blue, an unsolicited call from a competitor, offering their services. Kind of strange, isn't it? Coincidences, they give us ample food for thought, don't they?