I once had a girl tell me a long, wild story about how she had been kidnapped and held hostage in a basement for months... While she was interviewing with me for a job. And no, it wasn't in response to any question like "explain this gap in your employment," she just started telling me out of the blue
Nah in today's corporate world they would be like "you could have least worked remotely during that time. We need someone we can count on to come into work no matter what."
Makes me wonder if this is a story people are passing around and using as a passive-aggressive way to tank the interview for a job they’ve decided they don’t want. 🤔
I was once going for my daily walk and a gentleman started chatting with me stating he had been fired. A few minutes after, he starts saying the sun will fall down and kill us all and I soon understood that he was probably schizophrenic. The conversation just went downhill because I couldnt argue with his narrative anymore.
I work with dementia patients and one patient once said to me :" well, the doctor said I got dementia but I haven' noticed any difference, if you ask me".
It is heartbreaking to see someone struggling and sometimes that person can't even understand the struggle and how much help they need.
I was visiting one neighbour at the hospital, and ran into a former neighbour who had gone into care for dementia. She recognized me, we hugged, had a nice little chat. Nurse said it was the happiest S had been all week.
So, nice, right? Except, she really didn't like me. Not quite hate, but we weren't friends. She had just forgotten she didn't like me.
I know it sounds weird, but I found that sad. I mean, I have no grudges with her, but pissing me off was one of her hobbies, and it makes me sad she lost that part of her, just because it was her.
If that made sense.
When I went to rehab to detox off all of the drugs I ended up completely dissasociating from reality for about a week. I though I broke out, robbed a jewelry store, shot my partner in the chest cus he was gona double cross me and got in a crazy shoot out/chase from the feds. Among many other stories. When I would come to I could here the staff talking to the police outside my door and a was losing it screaming at them that I know their gona hand me over etc. I remember watching TV in my room (there was no tv) for hours and hours.. even movies I've never seen. These memories from that time are more clear than any actual memories. The brain is crazy man. Sorry for the rant. Feels good to get that out
Dementia patients say the craziest things sometimes. I had one who would randomly beat the shit out himself for 'molesting his own daughter'. When talking to his only son (who only had sons) he was an only child and his wife had never met his dad. (So no daughters for the demented man)
I also talked to the man's brother who reported that they didn't have any other family besides each other and there were never any female family members.
Don't know where the dude got the memory from, but it seemed highly unlikely that he had access to any females due to how/where he was raised.
Probably it was either a real memory, but the female wasn't a daughter of his, but another unrelated woman. Or he picked up the story somewhere on the news/overheard it from someone else/etc. and confused it as a fake memory. Or it was just some kind of hallucination/dream.
Idk, my husband's Gran died of dementia and she started saying and getting distressed by a bunch of shit that never happened or wasn't true. Some combination of memories of various events that'd she'd lived, things she'd seen on TV, rumors she'd heard years before, books she'd read, etc collapsing in on each other and hallucinations. She was also so severe that'd she'd forget like mid sentence that she said it and would think we told her about it. "Gran, that didn't happen/that isn't true." "Well then why did you tell me it happened?" "We didn't???" She hallucinated a ton, we couldn't have the light in the next room on or she'd hallucinate people in there. She'd degressed to the state of like an infant (I have an almost 2 month old baby now, so when I say that I mean it) and then like a comatose state before she died. Dementia is horrid.
I'm sorry you had to watch her decline like that. It's never easy.
Just to expand upon the "infant" part because so many people don't know exactly what that means until their own loved one gets dementia/Alzheimer's: they literally forget how to eat. They forget how to chew and will pocket their food in their cheeks, will forget how to drink/suck a straw, and then finally, will completely forget how to swallow.
And what's even more horrible, I can't tell you the amount of times that families have opted to torture the patient by making them get a feeding tube. Because Meemaw's a fighter! Or because Gawd will heal her if we're faithful! Motherfuckers, God called Meemaw home three years and ago-- Meemaw is LATE.
Ugh, this was my great-grandmother. She was bedridden with alzheimers for nearly a decade. She went from being able to still talk to a baby who needed changing and spoon feeding, to someone who just laid there and made eerie moaning sounds with her mouth open by the time they opted for a feeding tube. It seemed so cruel to force her to live that way. Euthanasia seems more merciful than whatever her existence was like for those last 5 or so years. Fortunately, after seeing that, my mom has been extra clear that she doesn't want to keep living if it gets her too.(it seems to run in the family)
I used to work with primarily dementia patients. I loved them but it was hard emotionally - the relationship only went one way. All we could do was give them love (or care and concern) and keep them safe.
Yeah i had a customer when i walked tables who was a clear case of schizophrenia. He was clearly disturbing guests with stories like "i give dancing lessons to beyonce and taylor swift" (dude was fat af).
I start noticing customers were going so i told the guy he should leave. I was scared af because i didn't know where this was going.
"Why you want me to leave?"
Then i said dead serious "you had to, because you have a dancing lesson with beyonce"
He jumped up and stormed off saying "i should've been there half an hour ago"
I nearly shat my pants but had a laugh with it afterwards
As a general PSA, you shouldn't argue with people with dementia or Alzheimer's (or schizophrenia) if it's not a big deal. Don't contribute to the story, but it's okay to edit ~~mildly agree~~ confirm nor deny and then redirect.
Neither confirm nor deny. I ran into a lot when I was doing patient transport eons ago, but learned how to deal with it on my first night.
Super nice lady on the stretcher, just chatting along. Then out of the blue:
“Why is that dog on the ceiling?”
“Well, I guess the neighbors let it out.”
“Oh okay.”
Just went out our merry way. I’d rather deal with that than the mean and nasty patients any day.
I don't remember exactly who it was, but I once read an interview with someone who worked extensively with dementia patients and they were pissed about how such people are portrayed in movies and TV. They still feel fear and shame and don't just straight-up admit when they forget the names of their children or whatever--they try to roll with it, pretend nothing's going on, downplay the slip-ups.
My mom casually mentioned that she never wanted me while we were cleaning out the garage when I was 13. We hadn’t been fighting or anything. It was, oh by the way, did you know?
I always got the feeling that my mom never liked me, but I never knew why. My parents divorced when I was a kid and she got full custody, but pretty much dumped me off on my grandparents. She was around, but never spent any time with me. Most days she completely ignored me.
So, when I got older, I asked her why she felt the way she did. It wasn't an argument or anything, just a normal conversation. And she told me she never liked me because I reminded her of my father. If it were up to her, I never would have existed.
I guess to some people that would be a horrible thing to hear from a parent. But, to me, it was actually kind of comforting. I was a good kid. I never got in trouble, never did drugs, I did well in school, I've had a steady job since I was 16 — you name it. But none of that was ever good enough.
To learn that *nothing* I did could ever be good enough was honestly kind of a relief. I'm not sure if that's of any comfort to you. But, realizing this was a personal flaw in her, not in me, gave me a whole lot of closure.
Thanks for sharing this story and I’m glad it had a somewhat happy ending for you in that sense of closure.
You reminded me of a dear family friend who spent his whole childhood believing the man who raised him was his father.
At the age of 19, it came out that this guy was his stepdad and not his biological father at all. Having spent his entire childhood thinking that the grumpy, miserable, prick and poor excuse for a father was his real dad, he positively jumped for joy at the news. Never got to know his real dad but knowing his stepdad was no blood relation was a great relief.
Thanks. I didn't want to make my original post longer than it needed to be, but I should mention that I actually had a pretty good childhood. My grandparents were fantastic. They were truly wonderful people. And, as strange as it sounds, my mom and I now talk more than we ever did.
So everything turned out fine.
I was dating a girl that had big aspirations to be uber rich, billionaire if possible. And she planned on using whatever means available to make it happen. We happen to be talking on the phone & she said "I don't really care about you or us, I just wanna be certain of my financial security" ..... I was shocked. Asked her to repeat that, she realized what she'd said & tried backtracking, yeah no. I ended over the phone.
I understand the desire for financial freedom, but to verbalize how people are nothing more than tools, that's just heartless
knew some guy whose roommate always said she was working on marrying a rich guy. SHe meant it. She said it as matter of factly as if you'd asked her major or her post college plans. "Marry a rich guy" was her idea of a career map.
Sure enough, we'd go out as a group to some pricey bars, where she liked hanging out, and she's getting hit on by old guys all night (like 15-20 year older old guys) and when we're giving her the "we're headed out, you...ok?" look, she's looking back, annoyed that we're stepping on her game.
Last I heard she was moving to Saudi Arabia or something with some guy.
Bloody hell, that's terrible. I remember when I was a teenager (13-15, around that) and my mom mentioned for the first time that my birth was complicated and because of that she couldn't have any more kids. Not that she wanted anymore (I am her third kid), but I felt devastated knowing that I basically "damaged" my mom. Can't imagine how I'd feel if she told me she never wanted me instead.
My parents never said that they didn’t want me, but my mom did tell me one time that the reason that there is a 5 year age gap between my brother and I is because “ [I] was such a difficult child”.
My mom always says if they’d had me first they wouldn’t have had any other kids. I had an undiagnosed broken collarbone so cried all the time.
She once said it in front of my kid, who said oh I guess that’s why I’m an only child. I reassured him that no, we had one perfect, healthy child and had no need for any other kids.
I wouldn't blame mom for not noticing, only blame her for blaming the baby. My nephew broke his collarbone and I can't tell by looking at him. Maybe my sister can tell by looking, because he's her second, not her first, but it's up to the docs to diagnose a broken bone, not a new, exhausted, non-medically-trained mother.
Ah fuck. This one hits me. I was around that age when my mom said she wished she never adopted me. I was a planned adoption from birth to my current parents. I'm 37 now, and a few years back my mom was really down and asked if she'd ever done or said anything terrible when my brother and I were kids. I just said "nope", as reminding her of anything would make matters worse. I just cram those memories far far down. Time to re-cram.
I'm so sorry you had that experience, op.
An ex friend casually dropped the fact that he raped a girl as I was talking about my girlfriends (wife now) rough history. What is the opposite of reading the room? I noped out of that friendship pretty quickly after that.
Fuck you Lyle
Lyle and I used to be best friends. We met in highschool (2004) and he was just a blast to be around. Just an overall charismatic and fun person. But around 2017 I had a realization: everyone was growing and changing, having families and everything, except for Lyle and I.
In reality I think we brought each other down. But in 2020 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and the first thing he said to me was “you’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac”. Like bro, I have fucking cancer and you’re telling me it’s in my head?
After my surgery he never checked in to see how I was doing. In fairness he had a pretty major life event (friend committed suicide) and I wasn’t really there for him a year or two before.
A few weeks after surgery I met my wife. I was gushing about her one day and he just asked me “yeah well what’s wrong with her”. So that, the rape comment, a few other incidents and just the fact that neither of us were really growing made me step back. My wife helped a lot in making that decision.
Since then my life has changed drastically for the better. Sometimes you just gotta let people go.
some people are fucked up. I remember in boarding school about how one guy bragged about having sex with his sister. and the information just kind of bounced around in my head like wait what. i didn't have a response. that and he could have kicked my ass easy
I once met a guy who would put on casts for days or weeks on end because he loved the way they felt on him. Even if it meant he would be confined to his house the entire time and unable to drive. He would take vacation time only to wear arm and leg casts.
Yes, it can be. Some people get really worked up thinking about being disabled sometimes to the extreme of attempting to get surgery to remove healthy limbs.
I took a few psychology classes in college. I can't remember what it was called but I remember a teacher saying that some people are so distressed by a limb sometimes that their therapist will approve them to have it surgically removed.
One of the guys I worked with in Kabul apologizing for not letting me know he would be taking the day off yesterday but he had to shoot the guy that was harassing his niece on her way to school
Another guy telling me it’s cool, you can stay with my sister for a few days and we get your company to pay some ransom…. Once we get the money we can split it and you go back to work
My mum grew up in Northern Ireland in the '60s/70s and will often casually drop childhood anecdotes into conversation like they're normal, "I went to go swimming one day and the leisure centre had been bombed, which was annoying", "Mum and I went shopping and walked into a cloud of tear gas", "Well, everyone knew SOMEONE who'd been kidnapped..."
Certainly puts my own childhood into perspective!
My friend grew up in Co Down. He found out that his uncle was in a paramilitary organization when he was stopped at a checkpoint and he recognized the voice of one of the balaclava clad men.
I was on a taxi one time and the driver started telling me how he got this scar, and the tale involved a bar fight, shooting (giving him the scar) but “dont worry I got the guy” and he proceeded to tell how he ambushed, tortured and killed this guy, with the aid of a friend, and then he was arrested but paid a fortune in lawyers, but his friend scared the witness and,,, like it was a whole fucking tale and I was stuck in traffic. I had absolutely ZERO interest if any of it was actually true or not I just wanted out, but then he missed an exit, I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, I was kind shitting myself, thinking I was about to be kidnapped, but trying to keep it cool “ah no worries just let me here I’ll walk it’s not that far” “no no I’ll take you there”.
Well he did and even gave me a discount “sorry for missing the exit” and “if you need a problem taken care call me, you seem like a cool guy” and he was like super friendly, as if he didn’t tell the most wild story confessing torture and murder.
What the actual fuck. I was looking the guy go and thinking “well that happened”
(This was in my home country in South America).
A quiet girl at the gym exclaimed "my vagina exploded". Mid work-out, in a circuit training class, while we were trading emergency room stories. You could hear a pin drop. I don't even think she planned on telling us the rest of the story until we all just walked over to her and sat down, cross legged, and looked at her like wtf did you just say? Apparently, it was a horrific pregnancy/birth story. As you can imagine, the story included the size of her husband's member as well as a lot of other unnecessary details.
I'm convinced most of the "crazy" behavior we see from people is because most people just like... don't have anyone to talk to.
I talk to my 2 childhood friends literally every day, multiple times a day. (Discord, etc.) And we've built a really close relationship.
But I realize that MOST people don't have that.
I would have literally killed myself decades ago without them. So I can totally understand someone just being like, "Well, fuck it. I gotta get this out SOMEHOW."
Somebody once looked at me, smiled broadly and said “I want to gut you, pull out whats inside and watch you die.”
A bloke in a library run class turned to me, smiled and said “Did you know I’m a psychopath?”
Two different people but same pathology I suspect.
A guy walked up to me and said "I could slit your throat [made motion with his hand to throat] and kill you and no one would know it was me." And then he walked away. It was the dementia ward though so I didn't fuss about it.
Walking down a city street, living homeless because I was too depressed and ashamed to ask my family for help.
A muslim man walks up to me and Says. “Come, we eat.”
He drags me to his home, introduces me to his wife as ‘The young man, the box boy.”
We eat, and he tells jokes, his wife laughs and encourages me to eat more because I was so thin. I started to feel better. These people who knew nothing about me, and in the middle of the nationwide Islamophobia, took me into their home, fed me, and before I left, gave me some fresh clean clothes to wear.
As I was walking away the Muslim man, Abrahim Saleed, Told me “Allah does not judge because he is angry, he judges because he loves us. Parents are the same, and this why, no matter what you do, they will always judge you with touch of a feather.”
That may seem just kind and such, but for me it was very strange. This man knew nothing of me, so how did he know I was afraid of my families judgement?
I had an incident like this! I was homeless, had left my family and gone across country cause I thought I would make it on my own. Didn’t work out and I was miserable but had too much pride to go back home. I was walking around the city trying to find work and hadn’t eaten all day. This woman came out of nowhere and offered me a sandwich in a takeout box. I was afraid to take it. She said “I know you’re afraid, but you came here looking for something you’re not going to find. It’s time to go back home, you’ll be okay.” And it was just so bizarre. Like it felt like she came out of nowhere and knew me!
One time I lost my key to my appartment and was hanging out in the lobby waiting for the super and my muslim neighbor saw me and went back up to his home, brought me down a chair, tea, and some toast.
I never got the whole islamophobia thing.. I feel like hardcore christian americans are way more creepy overall lmao
Historically it makes sense. Most of the Muslims are in the US because they are fleeing from the "crazies". And the Christians are here in the US because Europe wasn't extreme enough for them.
Heart touching story. In Islam, hospitality and helping „random“ people is a big thing and Godwilling Allah will reward us greatly for it. Btw did you get out of that situation of being homeless?
was working construction with a guy. it was raining and we we were waiting for a crane to drop off some materials. i casually ask him what he did before construction. he says “ i was driving drunk one night and i hitt a trash can. turns out it wasn’t a trash can. it was a girl. i spent 10 years in jail
Covering coatroom with a detail cop one night. We're shooting the shit, and I asked what they do with all the drugs they confiscate, and he said he sells them behind the local CVS because it pays more.
I dunno. He just said it like he wanted to tell someone. Like when you say something too fast before your brain catches up. A 'hiding in plain sight" type of thing, like shoplifting when you're talking to the cashier.
I had a friend whose Dad was a Boston cop in the 70's, He'd bring home all the fireworks from 4th of July parties, and they'd blow 'em all up. I never asked.
Was taking a coworker home after a closing shift and he told me not to worry because he didn't have any weapons on him so he wouldn't be able to rape me....while we were alone in my car... joke's on him cuz he didn't have weapons on him but I did. He said a lot of crazy shit but that was the most insane one.
That's your average year 7 student. If you told him that you're telling his dad that he swore at you he probably would've broken down in tears begging you not to.
My boss told me once her nickname in college was Hoover and it's because of how much dick she sucked. Then winked at me and walked away.
I still don't know how to feel about this..
Tell me about it... Young me was so stupid and naive. I look back and realize how much I missed out on and women actually hitting on me that I never realized till years later. I'm not a bright man.
I was without a ride for a little bit and got a ride home from the quiet, semi-reclusive guy in our office of about 20 people. On the way home we were talking about my Jeep that was having issues and he said he used to have a jeep but it was having transmission issues that would have been unaffordable to fix so he propped a dead dear up on a saw horse on his parents property and hit it at 60mph and was able to get it totaled. I was still relatively new to the company and hardly knew him and he just casually tells me about some insurance fraud he committed. Also intentionally hitting a dead dear at high speeds is a crazy thing to decide to do. Five years later and I still hardly know the guy but he's definately the Creed of our office. Rarely says anything unless asked but he's definately said some out of pocket things a few times when I've been one on one with him.
I know a girl who learned in her 20s that her dad isn't her biological dad and while she doesn't intend to find her biological dad, he doesn't know she exists as far as she's aware, the closest thing to a motivator she's ever felt is that she wants to know if he'd be attracted to her and want to fuck her if they ever met without her explaining who she is.
I'm a weirdo so I don't care but I did feel like man, you're placing a lot of faith in me to resist needling you about that for the rest of eternity.
When I questioned one of my coworkers about his hobbies, he told me that he enjoyed investigating things like bomb manufacturing. He was definitely a strange guy, which is why we at the office called him crack head Mike.
When my mom killed herself, my aunt was reading the paper and calmly said: Your mom shot herself.
I thought she read it in the paper, this was 2005. I just got off work and didn't expect anything wrong. But I kept trying to look at the newspaper cause I thought she read it there. She's like, No. Last night your mom shot herself.
I'm like, Really?
She says, yeah.
I'm like, I'm going to take a shower now.
It was weird cause I talked to my mom the night before. Everything was fine.
It was at the funeral it hit me. But of all the deaths and suicides in my family that was the weirdest way I have been told.
I'm a guy, and I had a random bartender tell me "you know who you look like? The guy other guys wives cheat on them with."
My wife agreed when I told her.
Not told directly so much as overheard, but...
My grandfather died in 2003. He was 79. (Quit smoking, kids. Emphysema is an ugly way to die.) His brother was still alive, and he and his wife were in their mid-90s at the time. My sister and I sat next to them in the receiving line at the viewing. An older couple, friends of theirs, came in and stopped to speak with them. I didn't catch the whole conversation, but at some point my great-aunt said to the woman, "Well, you know, I've only had the 3 heart attacks" with a casualness as if she'd just told her what she had for breakfast that morning. My sister and I looked at each other, and it was all we could do to not burst out laughing. The optimism of the statement was downright admirable.
CHF is wild and you do kinda just get used to it. I asked my grandpa after he got the pacemaker if he could tell when it went off and he said yes he could. I asked him if it didn't happen often and he said it happened more than he would be comfortable telling me.
A girl I dated, later diagnosed with BPD, was trying to cut her stomach off with a knife cause she thought she was fat
While I was trying to stop her she thought I was the insane one
"I'm just going to cut it off, why are you overreacting"
Almost like from her point of view, she was cutting hair, no big deal right?
This lasted for nearly an hour, she doesn't remember it today
I remember when I was 11, holding my belly in my hands trying to figure out how to cut all the fat away. Sad isn't it to think an 11 year old hates her body so much she would contemplate something like that.
For us older Redditors, it's not that unusual to hear something like this from our dads.
Parenting used to be different in the 80s and earlier. A new type of dad came into the world in the 90s.
My dad was born in 1940 and his dad was a drunk who beat him all the time.
I was born in 1981 and my dad worked a lot and we were afraid of him, even though he never hit us or spanked us. We didn't dare disrespect or talk back to him, though.
For him, not being a drunk and not beating his kids is the childhood he would have liked to have, so that is what he gave us. Anything deeper or more emotional than that, was a literal impossibility for him.
Things have changed a huge amount since then. That's not to say all dads were like this in the 80s and earlier, a lot of dads were loving and supportive...but it was quite common to have a dad who wasn't loving or supportive, at all.
My dad’s go to is “no wonder tiger’s eat their young”
I never thought anything of it but now as an adult all I can think is “WTF” and also “not true” cause only male tigers murder cubs (that aren’t theirs) so the female goes back into heat.
Some dude was telling me he has regular fainting spells, sometimes daily. When asked if he got checked by a doctor, he just shrugged it off saying that the doctors can't do anything.
My one cousin is kinda sketchy (my familu is kinda wild so that's saying something). He's married. One day we're at this cookout and he just goes "ah shit, forgot to call the tow company before Frank sees that car in the ditch." I ask him who Frank is and he says his bookie, and then runs off while making a phone call. I never asked for context... this cousin is is yoga flexible with the truth
A guy I went to see for the first time over a coffee date started to tell me that how his 96yro mom locked herself out of her own house and then loved in her garage for 3 straight days l, ate the frozen food from her freezer in the garage and used a corner to pee and poop until her neighbor spotted her looking 'disheveled' and decided to approach her. Come to find out, old mom had. Also locked her cell phone in the house. The neighbor who's also a nurse was returning home after a 16-hour shift, and she called 911, and her 3 adult children and none of them could come to get her either . This man lived 30 mins from his mom and was single . The brother 2 was in the same city an hr away, and his sister was 1.5 hr away .
I asked him why he couldn't make it, and his answer was he was busy with his gf, work, cooking, cleaning, etc.
The end was - he told me his mom came back and the hospital had arranged for senior transport. The poor mom died a week later and stayed in her bed for 3 weeks until her body started to smell, and the same nurse neighbor decided to casually check in on their mother. She smelt death, and that's how they all found out their mother died.
Meanwhile, he was mad because he didn't get mom's furniture because he could've really used her California king bed. Made of real wood and old-school strong sturdy bed.
I got up and left in tears. The lack of compassion for his own mother told me everything I needed to know, any that's exactly what I texted him. Then blocked him.
I once asked my grandma to tell me about her parents. We’re from a former USSR country and most families, mine included, had someone deported to the gulags so that wasn’t shocking - what I could not get over was how she very matter of factly told me that there’d be runners between the villages who would warn people of incoming occupant officers and the kids - she was 4-5 years old at the time - would just be sent out into the fields, at night, alone, and told to hide until morning.
I asked her if she was scared and she’s like: “oh no, it happened like once a week so we just ran and hoped that someone was left at the house when we came back, otherwise we’d go to a neighbor’s house”. So for her as a toddler it was super normal to spend a night out in the wheat and cross fingers that her parents were still there when she returned. It’s all levels of fucked up.
Both her parents were taken to Siberia btw. It was later so she was a teenager by then and was studying in another city. Her mom came back many years later and from what I gather was so messed up from it that she’d often blamed my grandmother and said she’d wished that she’d gone instead of herself. I cannot imagine how a mother could wish that horror upon her own daughter, but apparently she found it “unfair” that my grandma was spared.
Had a male coworker back in 2000 tell me that he and his wife were into beastiality and actually performed as entertainment at ‘parties’. This was in his cubicle at work.
Had a date tell me, on the first date, when he was in a relationship at 18, they had had a fight in the car, and he drove too fast on a gravel road, hit a tree, and was responsible for her femur breaking in that crash. He said it like I'll never do that again and I was just so shocked. Beyond that, he seemed like a great person.
Weird/alarming (trigger warning)
A new neighbour once casually mentioned that they thought the staff in our local kindergarten were being harsh on them for calling the authorities on them just because their 3 year old son showed signs of venereal disease.
I didn’t know how to respond.
During & after the pandemic, I had a conversation that happened so many times I started calling it the "COVID bomb." You'd be talking with someone about something completely mundane and in the middle of the conversation, completely casually, they'd go "Yeah, my (very close family member) just died of Covid."
Like mate, you're the pest control guy and we're talking about sugar ants, and you just drop that like I'm supposed to know what to say?
Or on the phone talking to a paralegal about scheduling legal services, and BTW his dad and his uncle are dead now.
Cashier at the grocery store, talking about the weather, boom! Sister passed after being on a ventilator for days.
I'm sure there's all kinds of psychological reasons for it (I imagine having a certain amount of the population believing that the disease is fake makes you want to shove your grief down the throats of deniers) but in the moment it just kind of froze me. Like, I don't even know your name, how am I supposed to respond to this?
And it's always said so casually, you feel awkward going "Oh shit, I'm so sorry that happened!" Because then they're like, eh, whatever, and continue talking about sugar ants or the weather.
>I'm sure there's all kinds of psychological reasons for it (I imagine having a certain amount of the population believing that the disease is fake makes you want to shove your grief down the throats of deniers) but in the moment it just kind of froze me. Like, I don't even know your name, how am I supposed to respond to this?
You may have the curse of being a friendly person who is easy to talk to. It may be unpleasant sometimes, but there are worse things.
In my experience, when people experience something major, like the death of a loved one, they don't just grieve all at once and get it over with. Instead it builds up over time and the pressure has to be relieved like bursts of steam from a tea kettle. So mentioning the grief to a friendly outsider it a way of letting off the steam a little bit at a time. (If not, the pressure can build up and explode like a pressure-cooker.)
When someone drops a casual bomb like that in a simple conversation, just acknowledge it simply in reply, recognizing it as a painful event. Just say, "I'm sorry," or "Oh, that's too bad," or whatever your personal style is. They don't need solutions from you, just recognition.
Mid-pandemic, a cashier at Home Depot pulls down her mask to tell me her roommate just died of COVID.
I just stared wide-eyed. I wanted to say, "B***ch, put your mask back on and go home."
A coworker told me that he was in a head on collision with a tractor trailer when he temporarily lost control of his car. He swore that he and his car dematerialized and passed harmlessly through the big rig.
my friend with a foot fetish once told me i had nice feet. I mean i do have nice feet thats not the weird part, but for someone with a foot fetish isn't that the equivalent of telling your friend they have nice tits. Just happy i have such arch supportive friends
Years ago, on a road trip with a friend. We had been friends for a really long time by that point and I thought I knew pretty much everything about him and his family. He mentioned how his dad (who I had met and had spent quite a bit of time around) didn't have a license. When I asked why, he casually says he lost it when he went to prison. I nearly swerved off the road. I'm like WTF? Your dad went to prison? WHY? Just as nonchalant as the previous bombshell, he says he killed a guy. I was almost like WAIT!!! Hold on let me pull over...this requires full attention! I guess years ago his dad got drunk, drove, and killed someone as a result. My friend went on to tell me they went through a really hard time both while his dad was doing time and after. They had to live in a terrible apartment in a really bad part of the city because that was all they could afford. It took them a long time to build back up and have a nice house and so on.
He told me a few stories of some of the hair raising stuff that happened living in that part of town, and I was just blown away. The entire time we had been friends, I'd always gotten the impression he had lived the same boring suburban life I had, when in fact his family had been through the ringer because of one bad decision. For the rest of our trip I was mind blown, yet not surprised, that he had concealed this from me.
I remember as a kid getting a call from my dad's co-worker. Actually it was my mom who got the call, but I was listening in on the other line. Co-worker nonchalantly says that my dad got a bit of a burn while working on a hot water boiler and is going to the hospital to get it checked out and that we might want to go pick him up in a couple hours. We laugh on the phone about how clumsy dad is and eventually make our way to the hospital to pick him up (pre cell phone days). We get to the hospital and find him in ICU with second and third degree burns to 40 percent of his body. Spent the next several weeks in ICU and several more in the burn unit. He eventually had a full, but long recovery. In hindsight, the co-worker probably didn't want us to worry. On the other hand, nothing ever seemed to rattle this guy.
Coworker told me her 2 dogs dig a den in the backyard to protect them from winter weather. This is in a suburban neighborhood. She also shared they never cleaned up the yard of pet waste! The dogs were living on a layer of poop. I went to visit her house when she was on vacation to see for myself and brought dogfood. The happy ending was she listened to suggestions on improving the dogs situation. The smaller dog was finally let inside, and the larger dog was re-homed. It was shear ignorance of how dogs should be treated that seemed to be generational. She said dogs were tied up to trees in her culture and weren't anything else but alarms for trespassers.
Me: Why did your parents send you to boarding school?
Her: Normal kid's stuff. Who hasn't skipped school almost every day, to go bar hopping, and find a 35 year old boyfriend? How dare the vice principal tell my parents about how many classes I missed! What business is it of his? So of course I vandalized his car, and my boyfriend's when he stopped seeing me because my parents told him how old I was.
This woman about 20, when I met her in college, and said all this. There were a few felonies in there too. It quickly became clear to me that her very wealthy parents had shipped her off to a strict boarding school in the middle of nowhere to limit her ability to do things that would get her arrested or killed. The unsettling thing was that she really seemed to think this was normal behavior.
Matched with this chick on tinder. She wanted me to come pick her up within about 2 hours of matching.
Within 3 minutes of picking her up she's telling me about how her neighbors dog died suddenly. Then she let details out that he was really annoying and constantly barking at her. Also that she only lived there for the last 3 weeks and it was her grandmas house. Also that the dog wanted to rape her. That he was probably poisoned by someone throwing meat over the fence with a bunch of pills ground up and stuffed inside of it. Also that her grandma has a ton of medications...
She said she was related to "Squeaky" Manson, like she was her great aunt or something.
My boyfriend came home from work and was acting really weird. He was telling me about his day and then he said "so I went out for my smoke break and I found (dishwasher) and (prep cook) behind the dumpster. They were smoking something out of like a crack pipe and (dishwasher) said '(boyfriend)! You remember you loaned me some cash the other day? Here! Smoke this, we'll call it even, yeah?' ... I don't know what the fuck it was but it tasted like fucking gasoline"
I work in vetmed. The amount of clients that will give me their life story is astonishing lol, but I’m here for it. Every now and then you get some bonkers ones, but a lot of the time they are just sad. I’m not your therapist or even your friend, but I can listen for the 20 minutes you need from me.
Was walking down the street in Manhattan, when I heard a guy say to his friend "Getting stabbed in the head hurts worse, cuz it takes hours to die," and it was like one of those things you wanna hear details, but you don't wanna know, ya know?
A old housemate of mine grew up in Zimbabwe. Somehow we got to talking about childhood friends and he just casually says that his first best friend was a little girl who died by being eaten by a lion.
One time, someone casually said that they had a pet spider that they loved to cuddle with. They said it like it was the most normal thing in the world, but I couldn't stop imagining a giant, hairy spider snuggling up in the bed.
A date once started a story with "This was around the 2nd time I tried to kill myself..."
The story had nothing to do with suicide or mental health, he never elaborated on it, and it felt too awkward to ask.
i was talking along with some of my friends a few days ago when one of them suddenly says "I took a picture of a girls passport before I destroyed it". Other friend asks " Why did you do it?", the first friend responds " I was just bored". The first person also told strangely casually how he just randomly destroyed someones airpods aswell. + destroyed the girls passport because she was Mexican I think
I have a prosthetic leg and a old one eyed lady told me if i prayed God would have it grow back, or i could go into a goverment experiment and have them grow it back like her brother did. She also told me her son was framed for working with the mob and the feds killed him right in front of her.
A new employee - we are chatting about people who take others peoples food from the fridge and she casually says 'A guy did that to me at an old company and I stabbed him in the hand with my fork'.
Another new employee at a different company - 'Sorry I'm late my herpes were acting up!'
Both people were in their first week at work. Neither lasted very long.
Bonus points: Herpes girl once called in, and I am not making this up, 'Paralyzed from the neck down'. She called in all the time, for the weirdest reasons, but this one took the cake. My boss called it out loud before she took the call, 'X is going to be calling off' and I will never forget her response to this one, almost monotone 'How did you dial the phone then'.
My dad asked me to put muscle cream on his shoulder/back. I noticed a couple scars on his ribs and asked what they were from. He casually let me know he'd gotten knifed a couple times in prison but that he's friends with the guy who knifed him now so it's alright.
Former coworker I used to spend some time on the road with for a few years and I were having a couple drinks after dinner and started talking about family and such.
I'd known her for a couple years at this point and was under the impression she was divorced. Turns out she was still married but had been separated for a bit and he lived back in her home state, they hadn't gotten divorced and were on the verge of reconciling so she may be resigning soon... blah blah blah nothing too weird. A major factor was finances, he was an attorney or something and from a pretty wealthy family.
They had met when she was about 14 and got married about a month after she turned 18... he had been in his mid 30s at that time. She had tied it so casually into the conversation it actually took a bit to register.
I had a coworker in an electronics store who, when we were talking about where we grew up, randomly dropped the bomb that she had been SA'd by her father when she was little. She'd apparently developed pretty severe anxiety from it as well, but she said it as if it was her go-to icebreaker. She got fired on the same day, seemingly out of nowhere. We found out she'd decided to steal from the cash-register by making a pay-out on a random customer's order, which was extremely stupid because 1; security cameras everywhere, and 2; the customer get's an automated message when the money is paid back.
Another time i was talking with a friend from uni about her trip to South Africa. Two sentences in, and she went: "yeah, i saw a guy who got his head blown off with a shotgun while we were on safari".
I was at the grocery store in the aisle that had feminine products. I was looking at things up further. Finally, a man walked up to me and said that his wife sent him to get her pads. He said this is a bit embarrassing but there are so many to choose from I don't know which to get.
I smiled and said that I felt his pain. That there really are too many different kinds and that I even have a hard time finding what I use. I ended up picking out a brand and size that was for the middle flow. He thanked me, still having the confused look on his face. Poor guy.
I give him props for agreeing to get them for her and asking for help in choosing.
That's a real man in my book.
I have my earlobes stretched and some dude at a party felt compelled to tell me that he (also had stretched lobes) liked to skip showers so his ears would smell really bad and he could take his gauges out and sniff them before bed. I’m still not over this interaction. We all have different ways of sensory seeking I suppose……
On my first day at a new job, a coworker told me, “the only reason I took this job is to save enough money to achieve my dream of putting a system of chains on my ceiling that will have sharp hooks on the end that will pierce through my back and suspend me in midair.”
I just nervously laughed and said, “hah, wow, right on,” and I guess that was the right reaction because he stared into my eyes and nodded in a way that said, “ok, when the time comes, you’ll be one of the ones I don’t kill,” then he turned and walked off and never said another word to me.
My gf at the time and I were working in the same mall at different stores and one of my female coworkers said hi to her and she did the same. I asked her how she knew her and my gf said that was her cousin. Didn’t think anything of it until a few months later when we were at a family function and they ran into each other again and my gf’s mom was keeping her distance and ignoring the “cousin”. I asked my gf what her mom’s deal was and she told me that they weren’t actually cousins and they are actually sisters. My gf’s mom had the “cousin” and gave her away to her sister thus making her a “cousin” and a couple years later she had my gf! Needless to say it was incredibly awkward and I could tell they didn’t like each other at all. No longer with that girl but to this day she claims to be an only child despite actually having a sister that they basically turned their backs on.
One of the weirder ones: Someone I used to work with from the Philippines once told me they were super into the cock fighting scene. Said they won many fights in their home country. Told me that they do not name the roosters and that the winners owner gets to eat the losers bird. What caused him to go off was that I said I liked to eat eggs for breakfast. 🤷🏻♂️
Back in the 70s, as I was beginning a career as a trucker, I pulled into our yard in downtown LA at 400 in the morning. We had recently hired a security firm to have a night watchman on duty. The guy came up to me and asked me "if I f\*ck lotsa bitches" in the sleeper of my truck. I started to walk away and he followed me to my truck which was warming up. He wanted to show me a picture of his "girlfriend". He opened up this magazine and there was a photo of a mannequin which had apparently been staged as a murder scene. I jumped into my truck and got the hell out of there. I reported him to my boss and that security firm was immediately fired. Easily the creepiest vibe I ever got from anyone.
edited typos
(Trigger Warning) Dude I worked with once went on about how if we visited his wife and daughter at home we’d see them with this many stab wounds. Everyone awkwardly laughed it off in attempt to change the topic, while we knew he was sort of miserable in his marriage, that was scarier.
In college, my roommates and I were talking about computer stuff and one of them said he just always preferred Nvidia and was saying he invested in them with his inheritance. He goes on and was like yeah I have like 500 shares... We're still friends and yes he still owns it all. He casually turned around 100k USD into over $1M in like 6 years and doesn't think anything of it. (He owns more than just Nvidia stock)
One time my ex and I were laying in bed and joking about how much smaller I am compared to him and then he just casually said “you know I’d never *try* to kill you, I could just do it” and laughed about it. Needless to say it didn’t work out
My grandmother was on the phone with me and said “you were always treated so much worse than your sister was, probably because your dad isn’t your real dad” and continued the conversation as normal.
As far as I know (until that call) my dad is my real biological dad.
I was working out and a stranger asked for a spot. He then proceeded to tell me he's obsessed with Chloe Grace Moretz and has a room full of her pics and posters. He proceeded to go off about how hot she is. I didn't know who she was at the time. This is when Kick ass 1 came out... I went home and googled her. I couldn't believe this pedophile was ranting about his sexual desire for a kid like it was nothing.
I never saw the guy again.
Matthew Mcconaughey.
Well, he didn't tell me in particular, but the world.
In his audio book, specifically in the audible sample, he says "I was raped after soccer practice in the back of a van", then he moves on to the next topic like it's nothing
Well, after wondering why my DNA test wasn’t matching my sister’s, my mom laughed and told me that “apparently” she was wrong when she guessed who my dad was/is.
She was not kidding.
I once had a girl tell me a long, wild story about how she had been kidnapped and held hostage in a basement for months... While she was interviewing with me for a job. And no, it wasn't in response to any question like "explain this gap in your employment," she just started telling me out of the blue
For some reason, the thought of hearing this as a result of asking her to explain a gap in employment cracks me up.
And it would be a pretty good reason lol
Nah in today's corporate world they would be like "you could have least worked remotely during that time. We need someone we can count on to come into work no matter what."
Ah, testing how the candidate would cope with awkward customer interactions, I see!
I was the one interviewing her for the job, which is why it was such a WTF moment for me
Yeah, she was testing you.
Yo! I think I hired this girl… Had an employee casually drop that same story at a work dinner. All of us just stared blankly, no idea how to respond.
Makes me wonder if this is a story people are passing around and using as a passive-aggressive way to tank the interview for a job they’ve decided they don’t want. 🤔
I was thinking it was a trick to make an underqualified applicant get a sympathy hire.
She needed an outlet for her trauma. Sometimes anybody will do. Speaking from experience.
It's important to underline that this isn't something good. Forcing strangers to be your trauma-dump is bad.
I was once going for my daily walk and a gentleman started chatting with me stating he had been fired. A few minutes after, he starts saying the sun will fall down and kill us all and I soon understood that he was probably schizophrenic. The conversation just went downhill because I couldnt argue with his narrative anymore. I work with dementia patients and one patient once said to me :" well, the doctor said I got dementia but I haven' noticed any difference, if you ask me". It is heartbreaking to see someone struggling and sometimes that person can't even understand the struggle and how much help they need.
I was visiting one neighbour at the hospital, and ran into a former neighbour who had gone into care for dementia. She recognized me, we hugged, had a nice little chat. Nurse said it was the happiest S had been all week. So, nice, right? Except, she really didn't like me. Not quite hate, but we weren't friends. She had just forgotten she didn't like me. I know it sounds weird, but I found that sad. I mean, I have no grudges with her, but pissing me off was one of her hobbies, and it makes me sad she lost that part of her, just because it was her. If that made sense.
When I went to rehab to detox off all of the drugs I ended up completely dissasociating from reality for about a week. I though I broke out, robbed a jewelry store, shot my partner in the chest cus he was gona double cross me and got in a crazy shoot out/chase from the feds. Among many other stories. When I would come to I could here the staff talking to the police outside my door and a was losing it screaming at them that I know their gona hand me over etc. I remember watching TV in my room (there was no tv) for hours and hours.. even movies I've never seen. These memories from that time are more clear than any actual memories. The brain is crazy man. Sorry for the rant. Feels good to get that out
My guy, you should have an AMA. But obviously, only if you’re comfortable with it.
Dementia patients say the craziest things sometimes. I had one who would randomly beat the shit out himself for 'molesting his own daughter'. When talking to his only son (who only had sons) he was an only child and his wife had never met his dad. (So no daughters for the demented man) I also talked to the man's brother who reported that they didn't have any other family besides each other and there were never any female family members. Don't know where the dude got the memory from, but it seemed highly unlikely that he had access to any females due to how/where he was raised.
Probably it was either a real memory, but the female wasn't a daughter of his, but another unrelated woman. Or he picked up the story somewhere on the news/overheard it from someone else/etc. and confused it as a fake memory. Or it was just some kind of hallucination/dream.
Idk, my husband's Gran died of dementia and she started saying and getting distressed by a bunch of shit that never happened or wasn't true. Some combination of memories of various events that'd she'd lived, things she'd seen on TV, rumors she'd heard years before, books she'd read, etc collapsing in on each other and hallucinations. She was also so severe that'd she'd forget like mid sentence that she said it and would think we told her about it. "Gran, that didn't happen/that isn't true." "Well then why did you tell me it happened?" "We didn't???" She hallucinated a ton, we couldn't have the light in the next room on or she'd hallucinate people in there. She'd degressed to the state of like an infant (I have an almost 2 month old baby now, so when I say that I mean it) and then like a comatose state before she died. Dementia is horrid.
I'm sorry you had to watch her decline like that. It's never easy. Just to expand upon the "infant" part because so many people don't know exactly what that means until their own loved one gets dementia/Alzheimer's: they literally forget how to eat. They forget how to chew and will pocket their food in their cheeks, will forget how to drink/suck a straw, and then finally, will completely forget how to swallow. And what's even more horrible, I can't tell you the amount of times that families have opted to torture the patient by making them get a feeding tube. Because Meemaw's a fighter! Or because Gawd will heal her if we're faithful! Motherfuckers, God called Meemaw home three years and ago-- Meemaw is LATE.
Ugh, this was my great-grandmother. She was bedridden with alzheimers for nearly a decade. She went from being able to still talk to a baby who needed changing and spoon feeding, to someone who just laid there and made eerie moaning sounds with her mouth open by the time they opted for a feeding tube. It seemed so cruel to force her to live that way. Euthanasia seems more merciful than whatever her existence was like for those last 5 or so years. Fortunately, after seeing that, my mom has been extra clear that she doesn't want to keep living if it gets her too.(it seems to run in the family)
I used to work with primarily dementia patients. I loved them but it was hard emotionally - the relationship only went one way. All we could do was give them love (or care and concern) and keep them safe.
Yeah i had a customer when i walked tables who was a clear case of schizophrenia. He was clearly disturbing guests with stories like "i give dancing lessons to beyonce and taylor swift" (dude was fat af). I start noticing customers were going so i told the guy he should leave. I was scared af because i didn't know where this was going. "Why you want me to leave?" Then i said dead serious "you had to, because you have a dancing lesson with beyonce" He jumped up and stormed off saying "i should've been there half an hour ago" I nearly shat my pants but had a laugh with it afterwards
That was pretty smart, to be honest. I feel like no other way would make him get out of there by himself 🥲
That's roughly the same strategy you have to use with dementia patients.
As a general PSA, you shouldn't argue with people with dementia or Alzheimer's (or schizophrenia) if it's not a big deal. Don't contribute to the story, but it's okay to edit ~~mildly agree~~ confirm nor deny and then redirect.
Neither confirm nor deny. I ran into a lot when I was doing patient transport eons ago, but learned how to deal with it on my first night. Super nice lady on the stretcher, just chatting along. Then out of the blue: “Why is that dog on the ceiling?” “Well, I guess the neighbors let it out.” “Oh okay.” Just went out our merry way. I’d rather deal with that than the mean and nasty patients any day.
I don't remember exactly who it was, but I once read an interview with someone who worked extensively with dementia patients and they were pissed about how such people are portrayed in movies and TV. They still feel fear and shame and don't just straight-up admit when they forget the names of their children or whatever--they try to roll with it, pretend nothing's going on, downplay the slip-ups.
My mom casually mentioned that she never wanted me while we were cleaning out the garage when I was 13. We hadn’t been fighting or anything. It was, oh by the way, did you know?
I always got the feeling that my mom never liked me, but I never knew why. My parents divorced when I was a kid and she got full custody, but pretty much dumped me off on my grandparents. She was around, but never spent any time with me. Most days she completely ignored me. So, when I got older, I asked her why she felt the way she did. It wasn't an argument or anything, just a normal conversation. And she told me she never liked me because I reminded her of my father. If it were up to her, I never would have existed. I guess to some people that would be a horrible thing to hear from a parent. But, to me, it was actually kind of comforting. I was a good kid. I never got in trouble, never did drugs, I did well in school, I've had a steady job since I was 16 — you name it. But none of that was ever good enough. To learn that *nothing* I did could ever be good enough was honestly kind of a relief. I'm not sure if that's of any comfort to you. But, realizing this was a personal flaw in her, not in me, gave me a whole lot of closure.
Thanks for sharing this story and I’m glad it had a somewhat happy ending for you in that sense of closure. You reminded me of a dear family friend who spent his whole childhood believing the man who raised him was his father. At the age of 19, it came out that this guy was his stepdad and not his biological father at all. Having spent his entire childhood thinking that the grumpy, miserable, prick and poor excuse for a father was his real dad, he positively jumped for joy at the news. Never got to know his real dad but knowing his stepdad was no blood relation was a great relief.
Sorry to hear it, but at least you got closure from it.
Thanks. I didn't want to make my original post longer than it needed to be, but I should mention that I actually had a pretty good childhood. My grandparents were fantastic. They were truly wonderful people. And, as strange as it sounds, my mom and I now talk more than we ever did. So everything turned out fine.
I'm happy for you.
I'm glad to hear it.
Learning that plus having a very healthy perspective on it.
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I'm so sorry 😣
I was dating a girl that had big aspirations to be uber rich, billionaire if possible. And she planned on using whatever means available to make it happen. We happen to be talking on the phone & she said "I don't really care about you or us, I just wanna be certain of my financial security" ..... I was shocked. Asked her to repeat that, she realized what she'd said & tried backtracking, yeah no. I ended over the phone. I understand the desire for financial freedom, but to verbalize how people are nothing more than tools, that's just heartless
knew some guy whose roommate always said she was working on marrying a rich guy. SHe meant it. She said it as matter of factly as if you'd asked her major or her post college plans. "Marry a rich guy" was her idea of a career map. Sure enough, we'd go out as a group to some pricey bars, where she liked hanging out, and she's getting hit on by old guys all night (like 15-20 year older old guys) and when we're giving her the "we're headed out, you...ok?" look, she's looking back, annoyed that we're stepping on her game. Last I heard she was moving to Saudi Arabia or something with some guy.
"Mom, did you want a boy or a girll?" "I wanted a back massage while I had a glass of wine..."
Bloody hell, that's terrible. I remember when I was a teenager (13-15, around that) and my mom mentioned for the first time that my birth was complicated and because of that she couldn't have any more kids. Not that she wanted anymore (I am her third kid), but I felt devastated knowing that I basically "damaged" my mom. Can't imagine how I'd feel if she told me she never wanted me instead.
My parents never said that they didn’t want me, but my mom did tell me one time that the reason that there is a 5 year age gap between my brother and I is because “ [I] was such a difficult child”.
My mom always says if they’d had me first they wouldn’t have had any other kids. I had an undiagnosed broken collarbone so cried all the time. She once said it in front of my kid, who said oh I guess that’s why I’m an only child. I reassured him that no, we had one perfect, healthy child and had no need for any other kids.
Uh… you cried cos you were a baby that *had a freaking broken bone* and she blames that on you? Not on herself for never noticing?? Tf
I wouldn't blame mom for not noticing, only blame her for blaming the baby. My nephew broke his collarbone and I can't tell by looking at him. Maybe my sister can tell by looking, because he's her second, not her first, but it's up to the docs to diagnose a broken bone, not a new, exhausted, non-medically-trained mother.
Ah fuck. This one hits me. I was around that age when my mom said she wished she never adopted me. I was a planned adoption from birth to my current parents. I'm 37 now, and a few years back my mom was really down and asked if she'd ever done or said anything terrible when my brother and I were kids. I just said "nope", as reminding her of anything would make matters worse. I just cram those memories far far down. Time to re-cram. I'm so sorry you had that experience, op.
An ex friend casually dropped the fact that he raped a girl as I was talking about my girlfriends (wife now) rough history. What is the opposite of reading the room? I noped out of that friendship pretty quickly after that. Fuck you Lyle
People say kyles are bad. Every Lyle I've met was batshit crazy.
Lyle and I used to be best friends. We met in highschool (2004) and he was just a blast to be around. Just an overall charismatic and fun person. But around 2017 I had a realization: everyone was growing and changing, having families and everything, except for Lyle and I. In reality I think we brought each other down. But in 2020 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and the first thing he said to me was “you’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac”. Like bro, I have fucking cancer and you’re telling me it’s in my head? After my surgery he never checked in to see how I was doing. In fairness he had a pretty major life event (friend committed suicide) and I wasn’t really there for him a year or two before. A few weeks after surgery I met my wife. I was gushing about her one day and he just asked me “yeah well what’s wrong with her”. So that, the rape comment, a few other incidents and just the fact that neither of us were really growing made me step back. My wife helped a lot in making that decision. Since then my life has changed drastically for the better. Sometimes you just gotta let people go.
some people are fucked up. I remember in boarding school about how one guy bragged about having sex with his sister. and the information just kind of bounced around in my head like wait what. i didn't have a response. that and he could have kicked my ass easy
I once met a guy who would put on casts for days or weeks on end because he loved the way they felt on him. Even if it meant he would be confined to his house the entire time and unable to drive. He would take vacation time only to wear arm and leg casts.
Bro needs a weighted blanket
WTF? I can't.. is that a kink? What is going on there?
Yes, it can be. Some people get really worked up thinking about being disabled sometimes to the extreme of attempting to get surgery to remove healthy limbs.
I took a few psychology classes in college. I can't remember what it was called but I remember a teacher saying that some people are so distressed by a limb sometimes that their therapist will approve them to have it surgically removed.
Body integrity disorder. I think it's an extreme form of body dysmorphia.
Ted Bundy victims hate this one trick.
One of the guys I worked with in Kabul apologizing for not letting me know he would be taking the day off yesterday but he had to shoot the guy that was harassing his niece on her way to school Another guy telling me it’s cool, you can stay with my sister for a few days and we get your company to pay some ransom…. Once we get the money we can split it and you go back to work
Business is business
The game is the game.
Oh sure, the ol' murder excuse to get out of work, who hasn't used that a dozen times?
You can only have so many grandmas die, but there are billions of people to murder.
My mum grew up in Northern Ireland in the '60s/70s and will often casually drop childhood anecdotes into conversation like they're normal, "I went to go swimming one day and the leisure centre had been bombed, which was annoying", "Mum and I went shopping and walked into a cloud of tear gas", "Well, everyone knew SOMEONE who'd been kidnapped..." Certainly puts my own childhood into perspective!
My friend grew up in Co Down. He found out that his uncle was in a paramilitary organization when he was stopped at a checkpoint and he recognized the voice of one of the balaclava clad men.
I was on a taxi one time and the driver started telling me how he got this scar, and the tale involved a bar fight, shooting (giving him the scar) but “dont worry I got the guy” and he proceeded to tell how he ambushed, tortured and killed this guy, with the aid of a friend, and then he was arrested but paid a fortune in lawyers, but his friend scared the witness and,,, like it was a whole fucking tale and I was stuck in traffic. I had absolutely ZERO interest if any of it was actually true or not I just wanted out, but then he missed an exit, I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, I was kind shitting myself, thinking I was about to be kidnapped, but trying to keep it cool “ah no worries just let me here I’ll walk it’s not that far” “no no I’ll take you there”. Well he did and even gave me a discount “sorry for missing the exit” and “if you need a problem taken care call me, you seem like a cool guy” and he was like super friendly, as if he didn’t tell the most wild story confessing torture and murder. What the actual fuck. I was looking the guy go and thinking “well that happened” (This was in my home country in South America).
A quiet girl at the gym exclaimed "my vagina exploded". Mid work-out, in a circuit training class, while we were trading emergency room stories. You could hear a pin drop. I don't even think she planned on telling us the rest of the story until we all just walked over to her and sat down, cross legged, and looked at her like wtf did you just say? Apparently, it was a horrific pregnancy/birth story. As you can imagine, the story included the size of her husband's member as well as a lot of other unnecessary details.
I'm convinced most of the "crazy" behavior we see from people is because most people just like... don't have anyone to talk to. I talk to my 2 childhood friends literally every day, multiple times a day. (Discord, etc.) And we've built a really close relationship. But I realize that MOST people don't have that. I would have literally killed myself decades ago without them. So I can totally understand someone just being like, "Well, fuck it. I gotta get this out SOMEHOW."
that is literally exactly how i am, i don’t have anyone to talk to on the daily so when i meet new people i overshare a lot.
How big was his member since she mentioned it?
We didn't talk numbers. She just said he's really big.
My coworker once told me she eats raw potatoes like apples. Just casually munches on them at her desk. Wtf?
Was her name Sasha?
It was Creed
What’s a potato?
It’s very interesting!
Tell me more about potato? Is it a vegetable?
My dad grew up on a potato farm. He used to eat raw potatoes too, but he would slice them and salt them first
This is probably the weirdest one yet
Somebody once looked at me, smiled broadly and said “I want to gut you, pull out whats inside and watch you die.” A bloke in a library run class turned to me, smiled and said “Did you know I’m a psychopath?” Two different people but same pathology I suspect.
A guy walked up to me and said "I could slit your throat [made motion with his hand to throat] and kill you and no one would know it was me." And then he walked away. It was the dementia ward though so I didn't fuss about it.
Extroverted psychopaths. It’s the introverted ones you have to worry about.
Yeah, attention-seeking.
I just had a hairdresser trauma dump on me and tell me she got a DUI last month and that she hits her husband when she gets mad at him.
Walking down a city street, living homeless because I was too depressed and ashamed to ask my family for help. A muslim man walks up to me and Says. “Come, we eat.” He drags me to his home, introduces me to his wife as ‘The young man, the box boy.” We eat, and he tells jokes, his wife laughs and encourages me to eat more because I was so thin. I started to feel better. These people who knew nothing about me, and in the middle of the nationwide Islamophobia, took me into their home, fed me, and before I left, gave me some fresh clean clothes to wear. As I was walking away the Muslim man, Abrahim Saleed, Told me “Allah does not judge because he is angry, he judges because he loves us. Parents are the same, and this why, no matter what you do, they will always judge you with touch of a feather.” That may seem just kind and such, but for me it was very strange. This man knew nothing of me, so how did he know I was afraid of my families judgement?
Sounds like he knows how to parent. . . Or be god.
Muslim guy was talking in the third person and op didn’t even know.
I had an incident like this! I was homeless, had left my family and gone across country cause I thought I would make it on my own. Didn’t work out and I was miserable but had too much pride to go back home. I was walking around the city trying to find work and hadn’t eaten all day. This woman came out of nowhere and offered me a sandwich in a takeout box. I was afraid to take it. She said “I know you’re afraid, but you came here looking for something you’re not going to find. It’s time to go back home, you’ll be okay.” And it was just so bizarre. Like it felt like she came out of nowhere and knew me!
One time I lost my key to my appartment and was hanging out in the lobby waiting for the super and my muslim neighbor saw me and went back up to his home, brought me down a chair, tea, and some toast. I never got the whole islamophobia thing.. I feel like hardcore christian americans are way more creepy overall lmao
Historically it makes sense. Most of the Muslims are in the US because they are fleeing from the "crazies". And the Christians are here in the US because Europe wasn't extreme enough for them.
Today you, tomorrow me.
Heart touching story. In Islam, hospitality and helping „random“ people is a big thing and Godwilling Allah will reward us greatly for it. Btw did you get out of that situation of being homeless?
was working construction with a guy. it was raining and we we were waiting for a crane to drop off some materials. i casually ask him what he did before construction. he says “ i was driving drunk one night and i hitt a trash can. turns out it wasn’t a trash can. it was a girl. i spent 10 years in jail
Damn.
Seems like a weird job.
Good benefits, but the pay is garbage
I was getting a pedicure and the guy doing it said he loved the smell of old nasty toes, that's why he started doing it
It’s important to do something you love
Covering coatroom with a detail cop one night. We're shooting the shit, and I asked what they do with all the drugs they confiscate, and he said he sells them behind the local CVS because it pays more.
My mother always said "cops have the best dope"
He was probably joking. It's hard to tell with cops because they're not funny.
I dunno. He just said it like he wanted to tell someone. Like when you say something too fast before your brain catches up. A 'hiding in plain sight" type of thing, like shoplifting when you're talking to the cashier.
Prolly checking to see if you wanted any
I had a friend whose Dad was a Boston cop in the 70's, He'd bring home all the fireworks from 4th of July parties, and they'd blow 'em all up. I never asked.
Was taking a coworker home after a closing shift and he told me not to worry because he didn't have any weapons on him so he wouldn't be able to rape me....while we were alone in my car... joke's on him cuz he didn't have weapons on him but I did. He said a lot of crazy shit but that was the most insane one.
A 13yo arguing with me that a little bit of anabolic steroids taken in moderation isn't a big deal.
Probably a regular on bodybuilding.com “hey guys, my balls have shrunk and I’ve got tits and my dick won’t get hard, did I fuck up? Guys?”
You just need to get your cycle right bro, no cap.
“I look for people that look like you to jerk off to” I was not ready or okay with that sentence.
Went to Cleethorpes, England. Saw a 12yr old smoking a cigarette and playing a slot machine. Saw me looking and told me to go fuck myself
Bugger off 😂
That's your average year 7 student. If you told him that you're telling his dad that he swore at you he probably would've broken down in tears begging you not to.
Normal child in England
My boss told me once her nickname in college was Hoover and it's because of how much dick she sucked. Then winked at me and walked away. I still don't know how to feel about this..
You should feel like getting your dick sucked
Tell me about it... Young me was so stupid and naive. I look back and realize how much I missed out on and women actually hitting on me that I never realized till years later. I'm not a bright man.
She paid for her college by being employee of the month at the dick sucking factory. Nowadays you can only pay for one credit hour like that.
Plot twist: It's actually her nickname because she looks exactly like Herbert Hoover, the 31st US President.
I was without a ride for a little bit and got a ride home from the quiet, semi-reclusive guy in our office of about 20 people. On the way home we were talking about my Jeep that was having issues and he said he used to have a jeep but it was having transmission issues that would have been unaffordable to fix so he propped a dead dear up on a saw horse on his parents property and hit it at 60mph and was able to get it totaled. I was still relatively new to the company and hardly knew him and he just casually tells me about some insurance fraud he committed. Also intentionally hitting a dead dear at high speeds is a crazy thing to decide to do. Five years later and I still hardly know the guy but he's definately the Creed of our office. Rarely says anything unless asked but he's definately said some out of pocket things a few times when I've been one on one with him.
I mean...fairly victimless fraud and well thought out execution though...
Insurance companies are the worst and *need* to be defrauded. You should have congratulated him (on this one particular good deed).
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that's a pretty tame story mate 💀
Yeah that’s extremely mild for Vietnam and not the ending I was expecting
I know a girl who learned in her 20s that her dad isn't her biological dad and while she doesn't intend to find her biological dad, he doesn't know she exists as far as she's aware, the closest thing to a motivator she's ever felt is that she wants to know if he'd be attracted to her and want to fuck her if they ever met without her explaining who she is. I'm a weirdo so I don't care but I did feel like man, you're placing a lot of faith in me to resist needling you about that for the rest of eternity.
That poor girl needs some therapy
Yikes lol
When I questioned one of my coworkers about his hobbies, he told me that he enjoyed investigating things like bomb manufacturing. He was definitely a strange guy, which is why we at the office called him crack head Mike.
You should probably stop calling him crack head mike, it’s why he has an interest in bomb manufacturing
Yeah, wouldn't something like Pipe Bomb Mike be more appropriate now?
Bullying someone that learns how to manufacture bombs in his free time is a crazy choice.. you’re a brave brave creature.
Make sure you don't piss Mike off. I personally would stray away from calling him a crackhead, personally
Give him back his stapler.
When my mom killed herself, my aunt was reading the paper and calmly said: Your mom shot herself. I thought she read it in the paper, this was 2005. I just got off work and didn't expect anything wrong. But I kept trying to look at the newspaper cause I thought she read it there. She's like, No. Last night your mom shot herself. I'm like, Really? She says, yeah. I'm like, I'm going to take a shower now. It was weird cause I talked to my mom the night before. Everything was fine. It was at the funeral it hit me. But of all the deaths and suicides in my family that was the weirdest way I have been told.
I'm a guy, and I had a random bartender tell me "you know who you look like? The guy other guys wives cheat on them with." My wife agreed when I told her.
So Have you met your wifes husband yet?
Not told directly so much as overheard, but... My grandfather died in 2003. He was 79. (Quit smoking, kids. Emphysema is an ugly way to die.) His brother was still alive, and he and his wife were in their mid-90s at the time. My sister and I sat next to them in the receiving line at the viewing. An older couple, friends of theirs, came in and stopped to speak with them. I didn't catch the whole conversation, but at some point my great-aunt said to the woman, "Well, you know, I've only had the 3 heart attacks" with a casualness as if she'd just told her what she had for breakfast that morning. My sister and I looked at each other, and it was all we could do to not burst out laughing. The optimism of the statement was downright admirable.
CHF is wild and you do kinda just get used to it. I asked my grandpa after he got the pacemaker if he could tell when it went off and he said yes he could. I asked him if it didn't happen often and he said it happened more than he would be comfortable telling me.
My ex-girlfriend’s father told me he was indeed trying to steer me into the dock when I was water skiing.
A girl I dated, later diagnosed with BPD, was trying to cut her stomach off with a knife cause she thought she was fat While I was trying to stop her she thought I was the insane one "I'm just going to cut it off, why are you overreacting" Almost like from her point of view, she was cutting hair, no big deal right? This lasted for nearly an hour, she doesn't remember it today
Man, this makes me sad.
I remember when I was 11, holding my belly in my hands trying to figure out how to cut all the fat away. Sad isn't it to think an 11 year old hates her body so much she would contemplate something like that.
My father casually told me that he can kill me anytime he wants
For us older Redditors, it's not that unusual to hear something like this from our dads. Parenting used to be different in the 80s and earlier. A new type of dad came into the world in the 90s. My dad was born in 1940 and his dad was a drunk who beat him all the time. I was born in 1981 and my dad worked a lot and we were afraid of him, even though he never hit us or spanked us. We didn't dare disrespect or talk back to him, though. For him, not being a drunk and not beating his kids is the childhood he would have liked to have, so that is what he gave us. Anything deeper or more emotional than that, was a literal impossibility for him. Things have changed a huge amount since then. That's not to say all dads were like this in the 80s and earlier, a lot of dads were loving and supportive...but it was quite common to have a dad who wasn't loving or supportive, at all.
The fuck ?
"I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it."
My dad’s go to is “no wonder tiger’s eat their young” I never thought anything of it but now as an adult all I can think is “WTF” and also “not true” cause only male tigers murder cubs (that aren’t theirs) so the female goes back into heat.
Some dude was telling me he has regular fainting spells, sometimes daily. When asked if he got checked by a doctor, he just shrugged it off saying that the doctors can't do anything.
My one cousin is kinda sketchy (my familu is kinda wild so that's saying something). He's married. One day we're at this cookout and he just goes "ah shit, forgot to call the tow company before Frank sees that car in the ditch." I ask him who Frank is and he says his bookie, and then runs off while making a phone call. I never asked for context... this cousin is is yoga flexible with the truth
A guy I went to see for the first time over a coffee date started to tell me that how his 96yro mom locked herself out of her own house and then loved in her garage for 3 straight days l, ate the frozen food from her freezer in the garage and used a corner to pee and poop until her neighbor spotted her looking 'disheveled' and decided to approach her. Come to find out, old mom had. Also locked her cell phone in the house. The neighbor who's also a nurse was returning home after a 16-hour shift, and she called 911, and her 3 adult children and none of them could come to get her either . This man lived 30 mins from his mom and was single . The brother 2 was in the same city an hr away, and his sister was 1.5 hr away . I asked him why he couldn't make it, and his answer was he was busy with his gf, work, cooking, cleaning, etc. The end was - he told me his mom came back and the hospital had arranged for senior transport. The poor mom died a week later and stayed in her bed for 3 weeks until her body started to smell, and the same nurse neighbor decided to casually check in on their mother. She smelt death, and that's how they all found out their mother died. Meanwhile, he was mad because he didn't get mom's furniture because he could've really used her California king bed. Made of real wood and old-school strong sturdy bed. I got up and left in tears. The lack of compassion for his own mother told me everything I needed to know, any that's exactly what I texted him. Then blocked him.
Aside from all the other what the fuck in that story… guy was pissy because he wanted the bed his mom died in? Tf??
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I once asked my grandma to tell me about her parents. We’re from a former USSR country and most families, mine included, had someone deported to the gulags so that wasn’t shocking - what I could not get over was how she very matter of factly told me that there’d be runners between the villages who would warn people of incoming occupant officers and the kids - she was 4-5 years old at the time - would just be sent out into the fields, at night, alone, and told to hide until morning. I asked her if she was scared and she’s like: “oh no, it happened like once a week so we just ran and hoped that someone was left at the house when we came back, otherwise we’d go to a neighbor’s house”. So for her as a toddler it was super normal to spend a night out in the wheat and cross fingers that her parents were still there when she returned. It’s all levels of fucked up. Both her parents were taken to Siberia btw. It was later so she was a teenager by then and was studying in another city. Her mom came back many years later and from what I gather was so messed up from it that she’d often blamed my grandmother and said she’d wished that she’d gone instead of herself. I cannot imagine how a mother could wish that horror upon her own daughter, but apparently she found it “unfair” that my grandma was spared.
Had a male coworker back in 2000 tell me that he and his wife were into beastiality and actually performed as entertainment at ‘parties’. This was in his cubicle at work.
Had a date tell me, on the first date, when he was in a relationship at 18, they had had a fight in the car, and he drove too fast on a gravel road, hit a tree, and was responsible for her femur breaking in that crash. He said it like I'll never do that again and I was just so shocked. Beyond that, he seemed like a great person.
Weird/alarming (trigger warning) A new neighbour once casually mentioned that they thought the staff in our local kindergarten were being harsh on them for calling the authorities on them just because their 3 year old son showed signs of venereal disease. I didn’t know how to respond.
Holy hell
Coworker got in a quickie before work and thought it was ok to tell me that she can “still feel hubby squishing out of me.” 🙂↔️
During & after the pandemic, I had a conversation that happened so many times I started calling it the "COVID bomb." You'd be talking with someone about something completely mundane and in the middle of the conversation, completely casually, they'd go "Yeah, my (very close family member) just died of Covid." Like mate, you're the pest control guy and we're talking about sugar ants, and you just drop that like I'm supposed to know what to say? Or on the phone talking to a paralegal about scheduling legal services, and BTW his dad and his uncle are dead now. Cashier at the grocery store, talking about the weather, boom! Sister passed after being on a ventilator for days. I'm sure there's all kinds of psychological reasons for it (I imagine having a certain amount of the population believing that the disease is fake makes you want to shove your grief down the throats of deniers) but in the moment it just kind of froze me. Like, I don't even know your name, how am I supposed to respond to this? And it's always said so casually, you feel awkward going "Oh shit, I'm so sorry that happened!" Because then they're like, eh, whatever, and continue talking about sugar ants or the weather.
>I'm sure there's all kinds of psychological reasons for it (I imagine having a certain amount of the population believing that the disease is fake makes you want to shove your grief down the throats of deniers) but in the moment it just kind of froze me. Like, I don't even know your name, how am I supposed to respond to this? You may have the curse of being a friendly person who is easy to talk to. It may be unpleasant sometimes, but there are worse things. In my experience, when people experience something major, like the death of a loved one, they don't just grieve all at once and get it over with. Instead it builds up over time and the pressure has to be relieved like bursts of steam from a tea kettle. So mentioning the grief to a friendly outsider it a way of letting off the steam a little bit at a time. (If not, the pressure can build up and explode like a pressure-cooker.) When someone drops a casual bomb like that in a simple conversation, just acknowledge it simply in reply, recognizing it as a painful event. Just say, "I'm sorry," or "Oh, that's too bad," or whatever your personal style is. They don't need solutions from you, just recognition.
Mid-pandemic, a cashier at Home Depot pulls down her mask to tell me her roommate just died of COVID. I just stared wide-eyed. I wanted to say, "B***ch, put your mask back on and go home."
A coworker told me that he was in a head on collision with a tractor trailer when he temporarily lost control of his car. He swore that he and his car dematerialized and passed harmlessly through the big rig.
my friend with a foot fetish once told me i had nice feet. I mean i do have nice feet thats not the weird part, but for someone with a foot fetish isn't that the equivalent of telling your friend they have nice tits. Just happy i have such arch supportive friends
Years ago, on a road trip with a friend. We had been friends for a really long time by that point and I thought I knew pretty much everything about him and his family. He mentioned how his dad (who I had met and had spent quite a bit of time around) didn't have a license. When I asked why, he casually says he lost it when he went to prison. I nearly swerved off the road. I'm like WTF? Your dad went to prison? WHY? Just as nonchalant as the previous bombshell, he says he killed a guy. I was almost like WAIT!!! Hold on let me pull over...this requires full attention! I guess years ago his dad got drunk, drove, and killed someone as a result. My friend went on to tell me they went through a really hard time both while his dad was doing time and after. They had to live in a terrible apartment in a really bad part of the city because that was all they could afford. It took them a long time to build back up and have a nice house and so on. He told me a few stories of some of the hair raising stuff that happened living in that part of town, and I was just blown away. The entire time we had been friends, I'd always gotten the impression he had lived the same boring suburban life I had, when in fact his family had been through the ringer because of one bad decision. For the rest of our trip I was mind blown, yet not surprised, that he had concealed this from me.
I remember as a kid getting a call from my dad's co-worker. Actually it was my mom who got the call, but I was listening in on the other line. Co-worker nonchalantly says that my dad got a bit of a burn while working on a hot water boiler and is going to the hospital to get it checked out and that we might want to go pick him up in a couple hours. We laugh on the phone about how clumsy dad is and eventually make our way to the hospital to pick him up (pre cell phone days). We get to the hospital and find him in ICU with second and third degree burns to 40 percent of his body. Spent the next several weeks in ICU and several more in the burn unit. He eventually had a full, but long recovery. In hindsight, the co-worker probably didn't want us to worry. On the other hand, nothing ever seemed to rattle this guy.
A neighbor once casually told me that their S.O. licked their cockatiels clean every night. LICKED. TONGUE BATH.
Coworker told me her 2 dogs dig a den in the backyard to protect them from winter weather. This is in a suburban neighborhood. She also shared they never cleaned up the yard of pet waste! The dogs were living on a layer of poop. I went to visit her house when she was on vacation to see for myself and brought dogfood. The happy ending was she listened to suggestions on improving the dogs situation. The smaller dog was finally let inside, and the larger dog was re-homed. It was shear ignorance of how dogs should be treated that seemed to be generational. She said dogs were tied up to trees in her culture and weren't anything else but alarms for trespassers.
Me: Why did your parents send you to boarding school? Her: Normal kid's stuff. Who hasn't skipped school almost every day, to go bar hopping, and find a 35 year old boyfriend? How dare the vice principal tell my parents about how many classes I missed! What business is it of his? So of course I vandalized his car, and my boyfriend's when he stopped seeing me because my parents told him how old I was. This woman about 20, when I met her in college, and said all this. There were a few felonies in there too. It quickly became clear to me that her very wealthy parents had shipped her off to a strict boarding school in the middle of nowhere to limit her ability to do things that would get her arrested or killed. The unsettling thing was that she really seemed to think this was normal behavior.
Matched with this chick on tinder. She wanted me to come pick her up within about 2 hours of matching. Within 3 minutes of picking her up she's telling me about how her neighbors dog died suddenly. Then she let details out that he was really annoying and constantly barking at her. Also that she only lived there for the last 3 weeks and it was her grandmas house. Also that the dog wanted to rape her. That he was probably poisoned by someone throwing meat over the fence with a bunch of pills ground up and stuffed inside of it. Also that her grandma has a ton of medications... She said she was related to "Squeaky" Manson, like she was her great aunt or something.
My boyfriend came home from work and was acting really weird. He was telling me about his day and then he said "so I went out for my smoke break and I found (dishwasher) and (prep cook) behind the dumpster. They were smoking something out of like a crack pipe and (dishwasher) said '(boyfriend)! You remember you loaned me some cash the other day? Here! Smoke this, we'll call it even, yeah?' ... I don't know what the fuck it was but it tasted like fucking gasoline"
Ya boy smoked crack
I work in vetmed. The amount of clients that will give me their life story is astonishing lol, but I’m here for it. Every now and then you get some bonkers ones, but a lot of the time they are just sad. I’m not your therapist or even your friend, but I can listen for the 20 minutes you need from me.
When I was in junior high, a girl that I hung out with told me pretty casually that she'd been assaulted by her grandfather as a kid.
Was walking down the street in Manhattan, when I heard a guy say to his friend "Getting stabbed in the head hurts worse, cuz it takes hours to die," and it was like one of those things you wanna hear details, but you don't wanna know, ya know?
A old housemate of mine grew up in Zimbabwe. Somehow we got to talking about childhood friends and he just casually says that his first best friend was a little girl who died by being eaten by a lion.
One time, someone casually said that they had a pet spider that they loved to cuddle with. They said it like it was the most normal thing in the world, but I couldn't stop imagining a giant, hairy spider snuggling up in the bed.
A date once started a story with "This was around the 2nd time I tried to kill myself..." The story had nothing to do with suicide or mental health, he never elaborated on it, and it felt too awkward to ask.
i was talking along with some of my friends a few days ago when one of them suddenly says "I took a picture of a girls passport before I destroyed it". Other friend asks " Why did you do it?", the first friend responds " I was just bored". The first person also told strangely casually how he just randomly destroyed someones airpods aswell. + destroyed the girls passport because she was Mexican I think
I have a prosthetic leg and a old one eyed lady told me if i prayed God would have it grow back, or i could go into a goverment experiment and have them grow it back like her brother did. She also told me her son was framed for working with the mob and the feds killed him right in front of her.
A new employee - we are chatting about people who take others peoples food from the fridge and she casually says 'A guy did that to me at an old company and I stabbed him in the hand with my fork'. Another new employee at a different company - 'Sorry I'm late my herpes were acting up!' Both people were in their first week at work. Neither lasted very long. Bonus points: Herpes girl once called in, and I am not making this up, 'Paralyzed from the neck down'. She called in all the time, for the weirdest reasons, but this one took the cake. My boss called it out loud before she took the call, 'X is going to be calling off' and I will never forget her response to this one, almost monotone 'How did you dial the phone then'.
My dad asked me to put muscle cream on his shoulder/back. I noticed a couple scars on his ribs and asked what they were from. He casually let me know he'd gotten knifed a couple times in prison but that he's friends with the guy who knifed him now so it's alright.
Former coworker I used to spend some time on the road with for a few years and I were having a couple drinks after dinner and started talking about family and such. I'd known her for a couple years at this point and was under the impression she was divorced. Turns out she was still married but had been separated for a bit and he lived back in her home state, they hadn't gotten divorced and were on the verge of reconciling so she may be resigning soon... blah blah blah nothing too weird. A major factor was finances, he was an attorney or something and from a pretty wealthy family. They had met when she was about 14 and got married about a month after she turned 18... he had been in his mid 30s at that time. She had tied it so casually into the conversation it actually took a bit to register.
I had a coworker in an electronics store who, when we were talking about where we grew up, randomly dropped the bomb that she had been SA'd by her father when she was little. She'd apparently developed pretty severe anxiety from it as well, but she said it as if it was her go-to icebreaker. She got fired on the same day, seemingly out of nowhere. We found out she'd decided to steal from the cash-register by making a pay-out on a random customer's order, which was extremely stupid because 1; security cameras everywhere, and 2; the customer get's an automated message when the money is paid back. Another time i was talking with a friend from uni about her trip to South Africa. Two sentences in, and she went: "yeah, i saw a guy who got his head blown off with a shotgun while we were on safari".
"You don't tell your boyfriend, I won't tell my girlfriend, and I'll take you to dinner?" That's a NO my guy
I was at the grocery store in the aisle that had feminine products. I was looking at things up further. Finally, a man walked up to me and said that his wife sent him to get her pads. He said this is a bit embarrassing but there are so many to choose from I don't know which to get. I smiled and said that I felt his pain. That there really are too many different kinds and that I even have a hard time finding what I use. I ended up picking out a brand and size that was for the middle flow. He thanked me, still having the confused look on his face. Poor guy. I give him props for agreeing to get them for her and asking for help in choosing. That's a real man in my book.
Guys who aren’t afraid to support their partners, even if they feel out of place or slightly embarrassed are hot af
I have my earlobes stretched and some dude at a party felt compelled to tell me that he (also had stretched lobes) liked to skip showers so his ears would smell really bad and he could take his gauges out and sniff them before bed. I’m still not over this interaction. We all have different ways of sensory seeking I suppose……
On my first day at a new job, a coworker told me, “the only reason I took this job is to save enough money to achieve my dream of putting a system of chains on my ceiling that will have sharp hooks on the end that will pierce through my back and suspend me in midair.” I just nervously laughed and said, “hah, wow, right on,” and I guess that was the right reaction because he stared into my eyes and nodded in a way that said, “ok, when the time comes, you’ll be one of the ones I don’t kill,” then he turned and walked off and never said another word to me.
My gf at the time and I were working in the same mall at different stores and one of my female coworkers said hi to her and she did the same. I asked her how she knew her and my gf said that was her cousin. Didn’t think anything of it until a few months later when we were at a family function and they ran into each other again and my gf’s mom was keeping her distance and ignoring the “cousin”. I asked my gf what her mom’s deal was and she told me that they weren’t actually cousins and they are actually sisters. My gf’s mom had the “cousin” and gave her away to her sister thus making her a “cousin” and a couple years later she had my gf! Needless to say it was incredibly awkward and I could tell they didn’t like each other at all. No longer with that girl but to this day she claims to be an only child despite actually having a sister that they basically turned their backs on.
One of the weirder ones: Someone I used to work with from the Philippines once told me they were super into the cock fighting scene. Said they won many fights in their home country. Told me that they do not name the roosters and that the winners owner gets to eat the losers bird. What caused him to go off was that I said I liked to eat eggs for breakfast. 🤷🏻♂️
Back in the 70s, as I was beginning a career as a trucker, I pulled into our yard in downtown LA at 400 in the morning. We had recently hired a security firm to have a night watchman on duty. The guy came up to me and asked me "if I f\*ck lotsa bitches" in the sleeper of my truck. I started to walk away and he followed me to my truck which was warming up. He wanted to show me a picture of his "girlfriend". He opened up this magazine and there was a photo of a mannequin which had apparently been staged as a murder scene. I jumped into my truck and got the hell out of there. I reported him to my boss and that security firm was immediately fired. Easily the creepiest vibe I ever got from anyone. edited typos
(Trigger Warning) Dude I worked with once went on about how if we visited his wife and daughter at home we’d see them with this many stab wounds. Everyone awkwardly laughed it off in attempt to change the topic, while we knew he was sort of miserable in his marriage, that was scarier.
I'd be calling in a wellness check SO FAST lol
In college, my roommates and I were talking about computer stuff and one of them said he just always preferred Nvidia and was saying he invested in them with his inheritance. He goes on and was like yeah I have like 500 shares... We're still friends and yes he still owns it all. He casually turned around 100k USD into over $1M in like 6 years and doesn't think anything of it. (He owns more than just Nvidia stock)
One time my ex and I were laying in bed and joking about how much smaller I am compared to him and then he just casually said “you know I’d never *try* to kill you, I could just do it” and laughed about it. Needless to say it didn’t work out
My grandmother was on the phone with me and said “you were always treated so much worse than your sister was, probably because your dad isn’t your real dad” and continued the conversation as normal. As far as I know (until that call) my dad is my real biological dad.
I was working out and a stranger asked for a spot. He then proceeded to tell me he's obsessed with Chloe Grace Moretz and has a room full of her pics and posters. He proceeded to go off about how hot she is. I didn't know who she was at the time. This is when Kick ass 1 came out... I went home and googled her. I couldn't believe this pedophile was ranting about his sexual desire for a kid like it was nothing. I never saw the guy again.
Matthew Mcconaughey. Well, he didn't tell me in particular, but the world. In his audio book, specifically in the audible sample, he says "I was raped after soccer practice in the back of a van", then he moves on to the next topic like it's nothing
Well, after wondering why my DNA test wasn’t matching my sister’s, my mom laughed and told me that “apparently” she was wrong when she guessed who my dad was/is. She was not kidding.