How many people with one leg missing do you see in a year?
I had already tried to post this message on another subreddit, but my karma wasn’t high enough and my post wasn’t accepted. Since I don’t go on Reddit often, I only just noticed, so I’m trying to post it here instead.
The story is now 3 years old, but I still have a vivid memory of it.
It has happened to me before to notice patterns repeating strangely in real life, like sequences of objects, things, or people who looked alike, but this time it was much more striking and pronounced than the previous times. I can even say that the previous times weren’t strong enough for me to truly pay attention; I just put it down to coincidence.
But this time, in a single day, I counted no fewer than 24 people who were missing a leg, a foot, or wearing a prosthetic. You might think there was some special day or event, but I checked and there was not. Moreover, I came across them all on the journey back from my holiday in Sicily: first in Palermo, then at the airport, on the plane, when I arrived in Paris, in the metro, in my neighbourhood, and even in my building.
I told my partner, who is a psychologist, and she was very skeptical about these observations.
However, we went shopping that afternoon in central Paris, and this time she had to admit it: there was something strange, because we again counted several disabled people (all with leg-related conditions). She was even the one who ended up pointing it out to me! It wasn’t just that we saw them passing in the distance; one sat next to us in the metro, another we let go ahead of us at the checkout in a shop, another was looking for an elevator in the mall, families were pushing wheelchairs, etc.
The next day, everything was back to normal. My girlfriend and I still talk about that day, which still feels completely strange to us.
What do you think? Has anyone ever experienced something similar? Why legs in particular?