A coincidence somebody booked

There are coincidences we love to tell, and coincidences that quietly steer us.

The first kind is the story at dinner. Two friends from school, out of touch for twenty years, end up in neighbouring seats on a flight to Istanbul. Everyone at the table offers a reason. There is no reason. Things happen at random, and now and then the randomness looks like meaning.

The second kind is told far less, because we rarely notice it. It is the theme music of a television programme that was on in the background the evening a woman heard the job was hers. She catches it in a waiting room years later and feels lighter without knowing why. Or the smell of a cleaning product that filled a corridor during the worst week of someone's year. The product did nothing wrong. It was simply there.

Our minds join things that sat next to each other in time, whether or not one had anything to do with the other. And as our days fill with more sounds, screens and moments, there is more material for that joining than ever.

Which is why marketers care so much about when, not only what. The drink handed round after the match. The tune under the family scene at the table. The name on the banner at the graduation. None of it caused the good feeling. All of it was placed there, carefully, so that it would be remembered beside it.

That is not a coincidence in the first sense at all. It is a coincidence somebody booked in advance.