It’s the first of January 2026. You wear your t-shirt with the VHS cover art for 1992’s ‘Passenger 57’ on it. You bump into an old friend you haven’t seen in 10 years, let’s call him Sebastian McGillicuddy. You chit chat, he compliments your objectively awesome t-shirt, then you part ways, expecting to never see him again.
It’s the third of February 2026. You decide that it’s time to break out the Passenger 57 shirt again, because you haven’t worn it since the first of January. You somehow bump into Sebastian McGillicuddy again. You now think “dammit, Sebastian McGillicuddy must think I have one fuckin’ shirt and that I wear it every day like a fuckin’ madman”.
What’s the word for that? How do you refer to it without having to type out paragraphs of text like I did above? “Oh yeah, bumped into Sebastian McGillicuddy the other day, had a moment of [word] with him lol, hate when that happens”.
P.S. FUCK Sebastian McGillicuddy.
I can make up a compound word in Swedish for you. Osannolikhetsförlägenhet. Osannolik means improbable. Förlägenhet here means an embarrassing situation. So the word would mean something along improbability-embarrassment-situation.
Jättemycketbra!
Zufallsbegegnung, chance encounter, is as close as we can get to it, I think. Germans don’t dress to impress. Look at us. I mean, look at us. Norm core to the max. If you are caught wearing the same shirt twice on different days, people tend to think you are merely handling limited resources responsibly.
I mean… Hugo Boss would take issue with not dressing to impress. But I guess even then it’s understated by fashion standards.
Who cares what that Nazi would have thought?
Exactly. Germans are stylish, generally. They don’t need a Nazi for that shit. It’s just that most Germans are also relatively environmentally conscious. Aber scheint nicht so beim Auto
I meant the brand more than the person.
That’s fair, though they’re trying to make a profit by convincing us that we have to buy new designer clothing instead of used clothing that is less fragile.
That sucks the first time.
But you get over it.I have 15 identical black t-shirts.
When somone asks, “Do you only have one shirt?”
I reply “Yah! It’s so comfortable I got 15 of them!”This is me too. All the same t-shirts, pants, shoes (four pairs go to the cobbler for repair while one remains in use), socks, underwear. Getting dressed in the morning is zero-thought and always comfortable. My daily kit always fits on my person and I never have to fumble for anything. Pants repairs are consistent since they all wear out exactly the same way. The cobbler loves my repairs because it’s the same patterns for four left and four right shoes (just one pattern flipped).
I felt I somehow stepped back in time reading this.
A cobbler though, eh? That’s pretty neat.
Does the word need to convey “Passenger 57” and “MacGillicuddy” too?
The word is “coincidence.”
Isn’t it plain self-consciousness?
Otherwise, the internet suggests this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/allodoxaphobia
Synchronicity
I don’t have a word for this, but:
DOOM, not to be confused with nobody
Especially, since the flows he used was so nutty
Never too woozy to go study
Crews got no clues like old cruddy Officer McGillicuddy
I didn’t find a word that on its own echos this exact situation. However if you leave out the details, you won’t need a lot of words either, e.g.:
Oh yeah, awkward coincidence the other day — I ran into Sebastian McGillicuddy wearing the same T-shirt as last time lol. Hate when that happens.
But it’s certainly a more interesting and vivid story with the details you gave us. Much like Michael McGillicuddy’s infamous ‘Genesis of McGillicutty’ promo :)
I hate that. So much so, that when I do get a chance to see my friends I haven’t seen in a while, I always try to remember what I wore last time and avoid it.
I’m afraid there’s no single German word to describe this feeling. The best I could come up with is “Scham über mögliche Fremdscham”. It could obviously be compounded into “Fremdschamesscham”, but the average German likely doesn’t understand that without additional context.
“Fremdscham” is what your old friend may be feeling. It’s a feeling of embarrassment on behalf of someone else. “Scham über mögliche Fremdscham” then translates to embarrassment at the potential feeling of your friend feeling embarrassed on your behalf.
Also not what you’re looking for, but it may scratch some of the itch: déjà vu
That is, (you think) you’re inducing a sense of déjà vu and disgust within Sebastian.
