re: My own theory
I've gotten a pretty good feel over the years over the proper sky and time conditions for seeing satellites. On thinking about it, I think it's likely that I notice the sky color and time, and it occurs to me to go and check then. Most of the time there are no passes. But when there are, I nail the pass time pretty close, so some near-misses are inevitable. And of course, like most coincidences, those are more memorable.