Top Stories

People Explain Which Animals Many Believe Are Harmless But Are Actually Quite Dangerous

People Explain Which Animals Many Believe Are Harmless But Are Actually Quite Dangerous
Finn Mund/Unsplash

Chickens. Are. Terrifying.

If you think "chickens" and think of flighty, cowardly animals, it's clear you've never actually met them.

They're mean. They're bloodthirsty. They've killed people.

Nature made them small and delicious so we'd eat them and give ourselves a fighting chance against these New World Velociraptors.


Reddit user Click-bayt1025 assked:

"What’s an animal everyone thinks is harmless but in reality is very dangerous?"

... we should probably be very afraid.

Bye-Son

"Bison, every year someone gets hurt or killed in Yellowstone because they think the bison are slow and dumb and you can take selfies with them."

"Really they are quick and powerful, but have poor eyesight. As you approach a bison it may not see you until you are close, then it can panic and gore you."

- Riverrat423

"People really treat Yellowstone like a petting zoo. Seen many videos of people being flipped into the air like ragdolls."

"Also the kid who got his chin gored because the family had the windows down"

- chiefs_fan37


"I legit cannot fathom seeing an animal as massive as a bison and assuming it’s safe to approach."

- aliceroyal

"It seems like there’s more stories coming out from Yellowstone about people getting killed or critically injured by Buffalo because they’re getting to close to them."

- shrimpsauce91

"The stupidest sh*t I ever saw in my life was the tourist I saw in Yellowstone tiptoeing through a thermal area (where the earth/crust is really thin and barely covers deep pools of boiling hot acidic water) with his camera to get closer to a bison and its calf to take a photo."

"Dude must have had a death wish."

- g-a-r-n-e-t

Giphy

Cone Snail

"Cone snails."

"You see their shells decorating bathrooms all the time. But find a live one and make the mistake handling it and it will lance you with a venomous harpoon."

"For several species, such as the geography cone, this venom is sufficent to swiftly kill a human."

- Trips-Over-Tail

"Definitely snails. Certain fresh water snails carry parasitic worms that in turn carry a deadly disease known as schistosomiasis. When humans come into contact with water where these snails live they can become infected and die of organ failure."

"In sub-Saharan Africa, schistosomiasis is the second leading cause of death after malaria, with more than 200,000"

- elizletcher

"There's one species of cone snail nicknamed "cigarette snail" because the time their venom takes to kill you is about as much as it takes to smoke a cigarette."

- WeirdStray

"This is the answer I was looking for. I'll never forget reading about this as a kid and being surprised they can harpoon people and kill them while they collect shells."

- Rhodri_Suojelija

Giphy

Donkey

"Donkeys although they look innocent but they have nasty kicks and bites"

- musanifshah3010

"Anybody that thinks donkeys aren't terrifying should see what happens when they get a hold of a coyote."

- mgj6818

"They have wild donkeys near Lake Pleasant. I camped there one time and I just heard this mean ass beast in the bushes—we were scared. I got up some courage and went to go look and it was just a really mean donkey."

- xXSpaceturdXx

"And even if you somehow defeat one, you'll have to fight its pissed off dragon wife next"

- P1SSY3LL0W


"Used to work near wild Burros. A lot of those Burros had scars on their backs from when a mountain lions attempted to take them down."

"Attempted, being the key word there. Saw one with a bad eye, one ear, scarred up back, and no fear in its one good eye. Of me or my SUV."

- 2DamnBig

"Donkeys are smart tho, really just don’t get on their territory unless you live their or they allow it."

"We had few and they all had different jobs. Those that moved stuff from the farm to the sorting room knew the way around the farm. We load them up and they go drop it and come back and eat a treat."

"They knew when guests are coming and would guide our herd of sheep to the other side of the farm."

"Kept our sheep protected at night.""

"Just take care of them, feed them, shelter them, and clean them. That’s all they ask for and they are loyal."

"Also let them be them. They like to run around or just lay down and do nothing, they got amazing personalities."

- momo88852

Giphy

Big Big Birds

"Not everyone but I see a few people get dangerously close to big birds like hawks and eagles. I'm like, people, those birds almost got bigger claws than bears, leave them alone."

- TheShadowOfKaos

"I work with them quite often and yeah, if you don’t know what you are doing and how to properly handle them it can be very very dangerous."

"Also people letting their little tiny rabbit sized dogs walk off leash in areas where I know there are raptors drives me mad. There’s no way you’d be able to save your dog if one decided they looked like a good meal."

- chamomilehoneywhisk


"I once rescued an adult redtail hawk with a broken wing. Having to catch her up was very scary - she flopped on her back, talons up, ready to grab me."

"Luckily I was able to cover her head and grab her legs."

"Most people, if they have the sense to be afraid of raptors, fear being bitten. Nah, the beak isn't the primary weapon, those talons are!"

- sainsa

"I went on a falconry experience once, had a golden eagle on my arm which was super tame and chill, and it was still terrifying. When it jumped off my arm to take off the force sent my arm downwards about 45 degrees."

- godoflemmings

Giphy

Timon

"My uncle is a zoologist and the only animal he was ever attacked by was a meerkat."

- doej0

"I’m a zoo volunteer, got bitten by a meerkat a few months ago. It just darted up and bit my finger for no reason, little jerk. They are FAST."

- Sleeplesshelley

"Small animals like that come preprogrammed with the rage of 1,000 demons."

- kendrahf

"Meerkats also have the highest environmental risk factor of any potentially escaped animal. They'll breed and dig until theyve reached carrying capacity, destroying root systems and creating deserts wherever they go."

"If you wanna cripple a nation's food supply, just drop in a few horny meerkats."

- fuckasssss

"The only scar I got from working with animals was from a meerkat, didn’t give her her chicken fast enough 🥲"

- tribblemethis

Giphy

Beavers

"Beware of Beavers!"

"Beavers will stand their ground and confront a threat. If trapped, cornered, or ensnatched, a beaver will attack a human."

"The rodents' sharp teeth may cause serious injury as well as infection. Beavers carry tularemia, parasites, and rabies, which can transfer through bites, body fluids, or infected water."

"Before beavers attack humans or other animals, they send a warning by growling and hissing. On land, the animal rises to its hind legs to face a threat. In the water, a startled beaver slaps its tail against the surface to alert others in the colony before diving to safety."

- Back2Bach

"I've heard a beaver slap its tail in the water before. You'd think someone just fired a shotgun at you!"

- mikeybab123

"I had a beaver shadow me for about a half mile while I was wade fishing a small river. Whenever I stopped to fish, it swam within about 15 feet from me and slapped its tail against the water."

"So I would move farther downstream, but it would just repeat the process. It was probably protecting little ones, but finally I got so unnerved I decided that was enough fishing for one day."

- twisted_stepsister


"Nickelodeon was right. Those beavers are Angry Beavers."

- FM1091

"When I was in highschool, me and my buddies were walking along the river bank one night and I heard rustling in the tall grass up the bank. Being a very stupid teenager, I pulled the grass to the sides like a cartoon character and put my face right in there."

"I saw two large, shiny, black marbles and a yellow coffee mug. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I made out a toaster oven-sized beaver with MASSIVE yellow teeth."

"We started at each other, frozen in fear for what felt like a lifetime when I slowly closed the opening in the grass and backed out before strolling away. It was a total Scooby Doo moment."

"I didn't tell my friends until we were well away so they didn't go back and disturb it because I didn't how dangerous a beaver could be."

- Broosevelt

Giphy

All-around MVPredator

"dragon flies, but not to people. I went off the beaten path hiking around an old slate town and there was a lot of horse/deer flies buzzing around attacking me. I Came across the edge of a huge beaver pond that hasn't really been touched by humans in 100+ years."

"As soon as I get to the marshy beach all the sudden i see these little flashes of black zooming around my head and all of the flies are gone these fuckin dragon flies came in and took them all out in a matter of seconds mid god damn flight."

- Outnabout3535325

"Dragonflies are really good predators. They are the perfect flying machines"

- gandalfium225

"Dragonflies actually have the highest kill ratio of any animal"

"I don't remember the exact stat, but its over 90% of the time they hit their target."

- Gasp32


"Dragonflies are vicious, vicious predators. Something like 95% success rate at hunting, they can fly up to 30 mph, and are ridiculously agile, about to fly up, down, left, right, forwards and backwards, and can hover."

- Dorgamund

"Yeah, they will pick them right off your skin while in mid-bite. When I was working in a forest we used to go to bridge over a water way in the evening to get some relief from the bugs. The relief was an airforce of dragon flies feasting on those bastards."

- socialism-scientific

"As an avid outdoorsman, I regularly plan trips to certain areas based upon predictions and reports about whether dragonflies are out yet that year."

"They are true friends of the outdoors enthusiast."

"But they do, in fact, pack a nasty bite if they so choose to use it. Usually they don't, but I've been bitten by them before and it hurts like f*cking hell. I still love them."

- flargenhargen

"The real heroes."

- Dark_Vengence

Giphy

Flippin Flipper

"Dolphins. Those things can be little psychopaths."

- AgentAwesome2008

"Came here for this. The biggest rapists and druggies on the planet"

- LordChaos404

"Little meat torpedoes that can weigh over half a ton, bite like crocodiles and sometimes find humans sexually attractive."

- Nephilims_Dagger


"YES!! One bit me at Sea World, I thought it was an accident because it was a feeding tank but he turned around and BIT ME AGAIN."

"Tons of other kids were standing there, that bottle nosed bastard targeted me!"

"I don’t blame it though, poor guy living in captivity."

- Fishbate333

Giphy

Careful With The Fedora

"Platypus. The males have a big venom spike on their back legs, which is intensely painful."

"This sounds like a joke, but it’s absolutely true."

- IncredulousPulp

"Platypus is an animal that makes so little sense the first person to send one back to Europe was labeled a fraud."

"Like other monotremes, it senses prey through electrolocation. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals, as the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom, capable of causing severe pain to humans. The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, and the first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body (in 1799) judged it a fake, made of several animals sewn together.[5]" -Wikipedia"

- shwaga

"They are also surprisingly fast at chasing you on land, and it's looks hilarious until they catch you"

- Deadlybutterknife


"I also heard they make for a great secret agent…"

- Mecha106

"Their venom is so painful infact morphine can't even touch it. You have to pinch off the nerves thus fully numbing the area to find relief from the pain."

- The_Book-JDP

"HE’S A SEMI-AQUATIC EGG-LAYING MAMMAL OF ACTION!"

- FinniboiXD

"I saw a segment from a documentary series about stings and bites once. This guy grabbed a platypus by accident because he was trying to grab hold of a log. It spurred his hand and caused him excruciating pain. At the hospital, the doctors had to figure out how to stop the pain because they had given him so much morphine that anymore would have been dangerous, and it had little to no effect on the pain."

"They were able to figure something out, but it took several months for the guy to be able to fully use that hand again."

- CelticGaelic

"The platypus is nature's way of saying "I made this thing out of spare parts I found lying around the workshop and it can still f*cking cripple you."

- Hypersapien

"But the females can sweat milk"

- Easthwestnorth

Giphy

Pigs

"Pigs, people thinks they are harmless packs of bacon but in reality they can easily kill you if annoyed"

- clari_man

"There's a reason everyone on the farm in Wizard of Oz freaked out when Dorothy fell into the pigpen in the beginning."

- WineAndDogs2020

"And they are omnivorous. They will eat you, if they have the chance."

- Apotak

"My grandparents always kept animals and my grandmother grew up on a farm. She was always the most afraid of the pigs and always said as much. Pigs are dangerous and can be quiet a bit larger then people imagine."

- thiswilltakeamiracle

"My aunt tripped one day feeding her pig, he was on her in a second. She managed to drag herself partially upright while he tried to get a good grip on her legs and grab the ballpeen hammer hanging on the side of the barn. She ended up having to smash his skull in while he was trying to crush/eat her."

"I can't imagine how terrified she was and I'm so happy she was able to pull herself up enough to grab the hammer"

- MossyDwarf

Giphy

Are you feeling suddenly uncomfortable in the food chain?

Us too.

Person holding two vintage photographs of family portraits
Cheryl Winn-Boujnida/Unsplash

How well did you really know the people who are no longer with us?

Many of us present our best selves to our friends and relatives but do you share with them your deepest, darkest insecurities and secrets?

Maybe you do. But there are plenty of others who take their secrets to the grave.

But those closely guarded secrets or the truest identities can come to light posthumously in many forms, giving a glimpse of who they were to the people they've left behind.

Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor WhoAllIll asked:

"What secret was revealed when cleaning out the home of a deceased family member?"

Not everyone had pure morals or ethics.

Shady Business

"Elderly aunt had a hidden room with staircase to basement area no one knew about. She and her son had a meth lab. This was in the 90’s in Philly. Blew us all away."

– pekepeeps

Here's The Story

"We all knew this one uncle had a second family. We expected drama at the funeral."

"No one was expecting his third family to show up. Wife. Three kids. This new family knew the rest of the family by name from pictures. How we are all related, names, hobbies. That was a wildly bizarre experience."

– z-adventure

Late Discovery

"My dad passed away in 1994 (I was 28). While going through his safe I found some adoption papers. While reading through them I got excited at the prospect I might have a brother out there somewhere (I was raised as an only child) but couldn't understand why my parents never told me that they'd adopted a child but never told me. After rereading them, I realized that they papers were about me. After confronting my family about this turns out everyone - family, close friends, I mean everyone, knew I was adopted. Except me. That was a fun day."

– rolandblais

You never know about a person.

Once Upon A Cash-tress

"Many years ago I went with my dad and aunt to clean out my great uncle’s apartment after he passed away. He was never married, no kids, and lived (we thought) very poor. Tiny apartment with a twin bed, table and chair, a couple of pots and pans, a couple pants& shirts, and that’s basically it."

"As we stripped the bed and moved the mattress, we were shocked. He had hundreds of stacks of 10 dollar bills, wrapped in rubber bands, under his mattress. They were all 10 dollar bills. He lived during the Depression and didn’t trust banks, apparently, but we had no idea he had so much cash. He never spent it on anything. Just bundled it and saved it under his mattress. Some of the bills were so old and yellowed. It equaled thousands of dollars. We had no idea."

– Sostupid246

The Neat Hoarder

"My grandfather, who spoke English as a third language, was a bit of a hoarder. Lots of old sh*t stockpiled in his basement, but well organized. Imagine a generic episode of Hoarders, but with a prepper OCD vibe."

"Everything was sanitized, stacked/nested, and grouped logically. It was like the stock room for a store that wasn't yet sure what products it was selling and wanted to be ready."

"So we find a cylindrical container that was kinda heavy for its size, and it had the label 'OLD PENIS'. It was one of those black plastic film containers."

"Hesitant, but curious, we removed the lid."

"It contained a collection of one-cent pieces which had been minted in the first half of the 20th century."

"Part of me was disappointed, part of me was relieved."

"Edit: I'm glad so many people got a chuckle from the mystery of my grandfather's old penis. It was an innocent typo, but he was a jovial man and would have enjoyed knowing it made so many people laugh."

– funkme1ster

Unpublished

"We knew my originally British, naturalized Canadian great-grandmother had been an enthusiastic amateur historian, who had been fascinated by Britain’s war with Napoleon - not for the least reason because she was herself tangentially related to the Duke of Wellington’s family, via a cousin’s marriage to his son’s nephew, or some connection equally obscure and tenuous."

"What we didn’t know is that, likely in preparation for a book she never wrote, as a young woman she had actually interviewed several dozen elderly English, French and Spanish veterans about their experiences during that war - including three actual survivors of Waterloo (two English, one French), and an aide-de-camp to Spanish General Francisco Javier Castaños, at the time he handed the Napoleonic army its very first defeat in the field, and captured nearly 20,000 French troops at the Battle of Bailen (1808)."

"But there it was, stored in a wooden egg crate under her iron-framed bed, among old calendars, untested recipe clippings and copies of Family Circle magazine: a manuscript with nearly three hundred pages of transcribed military memoirs - all laid out in three languages (in which she was fluent) in her elegant, Spencerian hand."

"My parents donated her manuscript to the Imperial War Museum, where no doubt it will never have human eyes laid on it again."

– theartfulcodger

These Redditors share heartwarming discoveries.

Preparing For The Onward Journey

"My dad was in hospice at home for a couple months before he died of lung cancer, and when I went to clean out his house I found that he had already sorted and packed away most of his personal treasures in couple storage bins. It was heartbreaking all over again thinking of him sitting there packing up his own life knowing it was coming to an end."

– F0regn_Lawns

Messages From Beyond

"When my husband died a few years ago i found several notes/letters he had scattered in various places around our home, written to me in advance (he had terminal cancer & knew he was dying). some were marked 'open when you can't stop crying' 'open when the holidays are too rough' 'open when you have to put one of the cats to sleep'."

"They didn't contain any secrets, but they are heartbreakingly beautiful."

– miss_trixie

Sweet Keepsake

"My dad kept a handwritten note in his wallet containing my mom’s old address, phone number, and directions to her house from when they first started dating in the 70s. He had moved it from wallet to wallet over the years. ❤️ He just died this past March and that was one of the first things we found."

– Jinx5326

Scavenger Hunt

"That my dad hid money all over the house, not huge amounts mind you, but $60 here, $120 there. Felt like a bit of a scavenger hunt when we were cleaning out his stuff. He was always a bit of a sneakily generous guy, always gave me and my brothers a secret handshake with money tucked in his palm when we’d go back to school after a weekend home, etc, so wouldn’t be surprised if he’d done it intentionally. Made us smile every time we found some, iirc I think the final total was somewhere around $800."

– Mzunguman

Photographs are treasures.

When my family cleaned out the house of my father's aunt who lived in America, we found stacks of vintage photographs well before the advent of digital photography.

There were photos of my great aunt in Japan from when she was a teenager to photos of her and her husband at a Japanese internment camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

There were no secrets uncovered but it was so profound poring through images capturing decades of her life captured on film.

Post it note saying "I quit" on a keyboard
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

At one point in our lives, we've all worked jobs that we didn't love, or even hated.

Most of the time, we'll persevere till the allotted time on our contract is complete, just to have money in the bank.

Other times, we give it our best shot, but find the job, boss, or work environment so toxic that we hand in our notice in a matter of months, weeks, or even days.

Then there are the very rare occasions where we follow our gut instinct, and make our first day on the job our last.

Redditor KJ-The-Wise was curious to hear stories of why people felt compelled to quit certain jobs on the first day working them, leading them to ask:

"People who quit a job on the first day, what happened?"

Not By The Book

"I was hired as a cook at a Huddle House."

"On my first day I learned that they lied about which shifts I'd have in the interview, I'd be expected to basically run the restaurant alone on graveyard shift after only a week of training, and this place was violating health codes left and right."- kylegilliscomedy

Closing Time Waiting GIF by Still Not A HippieGiphy

Witholding WATER?!?!

"2nd day:"

"Sweating my a** off in the kitchen on a hot summer day."

"Asked for a glass of water and the owner made me pay for it."

"Finished my shift and never went back."- bigfatgeekboy

Family First

"I worked at Home Bargains and did my first shift on a Saturday, I was off on the Sunday originally, and they waited until 11pm on the Saturday to call me and not ask me but tell me to cover a Sunday but the conversation went as followed.'

“'Hey we’ve changed the rota and you’re working tomorrow 8am-5pm'.”

'I was busy on the Sunday as I had family commitments since I assumed I was free being my day off."

“'Oh I can’t work tomorrow I have plans'.”

“'Well that will go down as an unauthorized absence if you don’t turn up'.”

"'Alright then I quit'.”

“'WHAT?!'”

"I then hung up and never went back."- Lochan2468

Bye Bye Goodbye GIF by Pudgy PenguinsGiphy

Lead By Example...

"I took a phone sales job once."

"It was cold calling people to sell tickets to a country western show to supposedly benefit the local police department."

"The foreman had me sit next to someone named Joe and said 'now you watch Joe for a bit, and see how he turns the no’s into yes’s'."

"First call Joe starts his speech and then slams down the phone and shouts 'F*CK!'

"Second call is pretty much the same and he instead shouts 'F*CKING B*TCH!' while slamming down the phone."

"This goes on for about 3 more calls and then the manager comes over and says 'Ok, so you see how it’s done?'"

"Let’s get you started'.”

"I made about 4 calls and then asked if I could take a smoke break (even though I didn’t smoke), and left and never returned."- dma1965

Want To Get Paid? That'll Cost You...

"When I was around 14 I worked for Dickie Dee Icecream (Think Canadian Good Humor) for ONE DAY riding a bicycle/cooler."

"You were paid a commission based on what you sold, but you had to pay for your dry ice."

"Long story short, you had to ride that thing all day in blazing heat to make virtually no money."

"This was the in the mid 80s, I hope this is illegal now."- Robbie-R

Technically, There Wasn't Even A Job To Quit...

'Turned out the ‘company’ was not registered business and has no license to operate."

"They also threatened us we’d have to pay them an amount if we quit during the 60-day training period."

"Few months later, they were shut down."- Low-Whereas8182

In Fashion, One Day You're In, The Next Day You're Out...

"I was working at Zara."

"They didn't do advertising at the time and instead are very particular about how they set up the store."

"My last hour was being screamed at by the woman in charge of the store's appearance for not folding clothes fast enough."

"She was screaming at all of us."

"Imagine an hour of a woman standing on the top floor alternating between 'Let's go, people!' And shouted insults."

"We finished 15 minutes early."

"Which means we got paid less for doing what the screaming lady wanted."

"Then we were asked to clock out for a 'team meeting'."

"We did and the woman screamed at us so much she drove herself to tears."

"The woman who hired me apologized on my way out and I told her I wouldn't be back."

"I didn't even pick up my check."

"Nor have I ever, ever, ever bought anything from Zara ever again."

"Even secondhand, I won't do it."

"I have like a PTSD reaction to that store."- BaseTensMachine

Talk To The Manager... If You Can Find Them...

"I got hired for the local Taco Bell."

"On my first day it was a busy Thursday night and everyone was stressed and yelling at each other."

"I was asked to come in at 3 but never told when I was supposed to leave so I asked, because if I was going to be there for a long time I also wanted a break."

"The person in charge wasn’t even a manager and they told me they didn’t know what to tell me because they don’t have a manager right now to make schedules."

"She mentioned they were open until 3 am and asked me how long I would stay."

"I got really sketched out so my next question was about how they were counting for my labor since I was new and wasn’t in the computer yet, and there was no manager on site to input my labor manually."

"She had no idea what I was talking about. I never walked out of somewhere so fast in my life."- No_Significance6785

"You may think that I am exaggerating but Venezuela is the land where everything is possible and not exactly for good things."

"A few years ago, I was hired to help run the account of a store that sold online through Mercado Libre (basically the same as Ebay)."

"I was excited because it was in a mall so it would be a nice store I figured, silly me, I had to go through the basement to get to a sort of warehouse that had been converted into something like a store."

'If you are claustrophobic you couldn't work there."

"The owner wanted us to work non-stop, just a few minutes for lunch and we had to do it in the same store and there was no water to drink, we had to respond to the customer in less than 2 minutes after the message arrived."

"I wanted to leave that same day but I needed the money because things are really difficult here."

"When I was about to leave, the owner told me not to forget to bring my own toilet paper because everyone uses their own and he was not going to buy it."- ExiledEverywhere

What's Surprising Is That They Ever Opened

"I worked at a daycare for one day."

"They put me in the 3 year old room with two other staff members."

"The staff members were so mean to the kids."

"They yelled at one child for 'being late', as if she had any control over that."

"They made another child cry by telling her she was going to be sent to the directors office for asking to use the bathroom during outside time."

Maggie Simpson Episode 20 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy

"They also bragged to me multiple times about how the daycare didn’t have cameras and 'never will'."

"Then they both fell asleep at nap time."

"I never went back and told my sister in law to pull her baby from that place."

"For everyone concerned- this daycare closed a few years ago."- nannerbananers

There's no denying that everyone needs money to live.

But your self-esteem and peace of mind should always take priority over a paycheck.

And if your health, safety and well-being feel threatened on the first day, always go with your instincts, rather than "give it a few weeks".


A young woman hugs a young man on a nature trail, as an older couple walks away
Photo by Radu Florin

"I can fix them."

That is one of life's most dangerous sentences.

Love is going to turn out how it turns out.

We can help a significant other.

We can support them.

We can even guide them through the journey.

But fixing someone is not an option.

You can only fix oneself.

Plus, why would you want to fix someone?

Shouldn't we be interested in one another as we are?

Fixing someone implies that they're broken in a way you don't approve of.

That's not a great way to nurture love.

Redditor rest_in_war wanted to hear from the ladies out there about the guys they tried to change, so they asked:

"Women who said 'I can fix him,' what happened?"

If they need fixing, send them to a mechanic. (Therapist)

But don't wait around for the bill.

​Moving On

Seth Meyers Lol GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphy

"With his newfound self-esteem, he left me for someone better."

CertainProgram8782

Over & Over

"Well, I failed at fixing him but learned a lot about myself in the process. I have no hate for him- if anything I hope every day he does the work to fix himself because I saw the potential and I did care for him once. I hate to think that he’ll just continue life repeating the same patterns over and over."

"I can say for myself, yes there was some damage done for sure! But I’ve never been the type to linger in my hurt. So, I learned a lot about myself, good and bad, and I’ve chosen to let the hurt go that he caused me and work on me. It’s been rocky here and there if I’m being honest- but if I could put that much effort and time into trying to fix someone else, why would I not do the same for myself?!?"

oreosaregarbage

Worse by the Day

"I didn't and he got crazier. No idea what has happened to him now and I don't care."

Comfortable-Ear-9186

Utterly Broken

"Well, my grandma said 'I can fix him,' ended up pregnant and alone. My mother never had a relationship with her biological dad (luckily my grandma met my grandad who then raised my mom). My mom said 'I can fix him,' and ended up alone with a baby. Was a single mom for 15 years. Luckily she's now married to my stepdad who's a great man."

"I said 'I can fix him' and tried my best and wasted 4 years of my youth. LUCKILY I didn't have kids with him, but he wanted to. I came out the other side utterly broken and it took quite a few years to repair myself. My self-confidence is still nonexistent, even though I've been married to a great man for 15 years."

"So, one word of advice; don't."

NamillaDK

Poison Spreads

"Ended up broken too."

ramonapap1

"Reminds me of that tweet that goes something like, 'I convinced my therapist to confront her husband about not liking her tweets. She may not be able to fix me, but at least I can make us both worse.'"

RilohKeen

A plan like this can only lead to self-harm.

We deserve more.

For the Better

Valentines Day Love GIF by Boomerang OfficialGiphy

"I was the one who was fixed. My husband helped me work through my trauma and got me into therapy after we got married. I learned to take accountability for my actions and became much more honest with him. when we got together, I was absolutely aimless, but now I have a genuine plan for my future and I'm so excited to work hard with him in creating a comfortable and happy life together.

"I have always wanted to change for the better and wanted more for my life but he was certainly the push I needed to get there. He's been such a fantastic influence on me and I can never thank him enough for being my rock; I can only hope to repay him for everything he's done for me."

jwannnnn

Clean it Up

"I actually did 'fix him' while we were together- cleaned up (haircuts and regular shaving, clothes that actually fit, etc) and got him a job. The week after I helped him get his own apartment he cheated on me. He almost immediately reverted to how he was before, last I saw he was back to baggy pants and homeless man hair/facial hair. Lost his job and apartment and the girl left him... lol."

Interesting_Worth570

Closed Off

"Well, I am completely emotionally unavailable, and I no longer wish to give people my heart like that again."

NocturnalNess

"I know how you feel because I’ve been in that boat before. Please, when the right person comes along, do not be afraid to open up again. Those scars will ruin future relationships if you don’t let them heal. And all that’s obviously to say is let yourself be ready and don’t rush it. It gets better."

Merkaba_987

Back to my country...

"I was the one who was fixed."

"I met an exchange student when I was 19, and dropped out of college (was failing anyway) to follow her to her country. After about a year there, I was so head over heels in love I was sure I’d marry her. There was no way I was going to be a good husband with no job prospects, not knowing her language, etc."

"I went back to my country to get a menial job in a factory, get myself back into school, study her language, make something of myself. Whereas I was failing out of college when I left, I ended up getting a 4.0 when I went back."

"She flew to see me a few times and the last time broke up with me. I was devastated. But the fire had already been lit and I feel I’ve been quite successful in life over the last 25 years, and I am so thankful for her influence."

ThicccNhatHanh

Getting Wild

Lets Go Reaction GIF by Mason RamseyGiphy

"He left me because the grass was greener. I built him up so much that he was sure he could do better and go out to 'sow his wild oats.' 10 years later and he's close to 40 still living at home and hasn't had a girlfriend since."

happyele

What have we learned?

We can only fix ourselves.

And it's ok that love doesn't always conquer all.

woman writing on notes on window
Magnet.me on Unsplash

Growing up, kids talk about the jobs they want as adults.

Once they become adults, they select career paths or cycle through a variety of jobs.

Most people find mainstream jobs, but some luck into really unique professions.

Keep reading...Show less