- I joined a Facebook group in 2009 for fans of "The Wheel of Time" fantasy series.
- In the group, I met Tyla, a woman from South Africa with whom I had a lot in common.
- Over the years, we chatted online, learning we had a strange amount in common, so we married.
This January, I stared outside, and there was still a part of me that didn't quite understand that I was seeing lush green grass instead of snowdrifts up to my chest. If, a few years ago, you had told me that I would be married and living in a wholly different hemisphere from where I grew up, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have believed you even less if you told me that it happened almost entirely by chance.
It all started by reading a book series, "The Wheel of Time," a fantasy opus where remarkable coincidences follow the three main characters for the series' 14-book run. I was a massive fan, and back in 2009, I joined a Facebook fan group dedicated to the series. In the late 2000s, Facebook groups also had discussion forums, and that's where I first met Tayla.
At one point, we were the only two people keeping one of these discussion threads alive, so I figured, why not add her as a friend? It would certainly be easier than continuing to take up space on a public forum. I hadn't added anyone else from the group as a friend, but she seemed cool.
Surprisingly, she became so much more than an online friend.
Tyla and I learned we had a lot in common
She was South African, and I was Canadian, living worlds apart, with these books being the only thing we seemingly had in common.
But our first coincidence came shortly after we began talking online. We had both been recently dumped, both by our first respective relationships. OK, fair enough. We were both teenagers, so no biggie, right?
But then it started getting weird. At the time, I lived in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Strangely enough, Tayla actually had some family living in Ottawa. Unbeknownst to me, when I was driving across town to get to work, half of her extended family was on the route.
Of all the places in the world where her family could move to, where South Africans are likely to end up, I figured Ottawa was very low on the list. I had never even met a South African before, and now I knew one whose uncle and grandmother were a five-minute drive away.
That's where the coincidences started, but they certainly didn't end there. For the next few years, we chatted most weekends, but one weekend in 2011, we both appeared on the other end of Skype with our cheeks puffy and our eyes lidded. Turns out, we had both had our wisdom teeth removed on the same day and hadn't mentioned it to the other.
Over our years of online friendship, the coincidences started piling up, so much so that we didn't even get surprised anymore. We figured out quite quickly that we had finally met our match for "Lord of the Rings" trivia. One time, our respective aunts both had surgeries within a week of each other. Another time, I discovered that her best friend, the one who convinced her to read "The Wheel of Time," was born on the same day as me.
Our mutual love of travel, musicals, and animals eventually all signaled something larger.
It felt like we belonged together
Admittedly, for someone who had read "The Wheel of Time" saga and knew the significance of coincidence in the series that started our friendship, it took me a long time to realize that these coincidences pointed to one thing: We were perfect for each other.
We might have been born 8,000 miles and a hemisphere apart, but fate was pointing us toward each other.
We got married in 2017 in South Africa, where we live now, and we quoted "The Wheel of Time" in our wedding ceremony.
But the odd twists of fate and synchronicities haven't stopped in the years we've now been together. A couple of years ago, we visited Scotland, realizing on the trip that both of our grandfathers had roots in Scottish towns just two hours from each other. One of those towns also happened to be the hometown of The Proclaimers, whose song, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," Tayla walked down the aisle to on our wedding day years before.
Every couple of years, I re-read "The Wheel of Time," and I'm again struck by the sheer luck of it all. The random chance that I would find my future wife through a series of totally unrelated coincidences never fails to stagger me when I think about it. A few coincidences led me to trust my instincts, leave Canada, move 8,000 miles away, and find the love of my life.
