Embarrassment is a part of human nature.
However, it still feels REALLY awful in the moment. Your heart beats faster, you turn bright red...all of the things converge on your brain and you wish you would just disappear.
Redditor u/hanphillips1 asked the community:
What is the most 'ground swallow me up' embarrassing moment that's ever happened to you?
Here were some of the face redding answers.
Misinterpreted
My wife once heard a girl's accent and asked if she was Australian.
She was deaf.
Wanna Know How I Got These Scars?
I used to wear glasses, hearing aids, braces, and had severe cystic acne. My doctor put me on Accutaine (for the acne) and it made my face insanely dry. One day a few weeks after starting the medication, my friend made me laugh hard in class -- it cracked the skin on my cheeks and my face bled in the shape of my smile like Heath Ledger's joker scar. I was an abomination.
You're Not Who I Thought You Were
I was in a line in the cafeteria and my female friend is leaning on the table holding her purse. Everytime she opens it, i close it. I did it twice then she suddenly faced me and it was a total stranger. I went back to our classroom and didnt eat lunch.
Uber Tales
Ordered an Uber with my new boss on a business trip yesterday. Began making small talk with the driver to show her how great I am at talking to people. Driver was talking with his girlfriend on a headset...
Iced Booty
I was 13, and my family and I were on a skiing holiday. My parents had decided to sign me up for lessons, so that my dad could get some good skiing in and my mum and sister could relax and drink hot chocolate (my sister had broken her wrist a few weeks prior to leaving and my mum isn't really a winter sports fan.)
I had been throwing myself down mountain slopes with about as much grace as a brick, with the tutor occasionally griping about said demeanour, and was exhausted. We had time for one more run, so we all waddled over to the T bar machine. This imaginatively named device is so called because a metal bar, shaped like an upside down T, hooks below your butt and drags you upwards so you're not constantly climbing for ten minutes and skiing back down in a few seconds.
Somehow, my jacket got caught on the bar, which knocked me to the ground. This is not the embarrassing part.
It then dragged me along the snow, past where I was supposed to ski off, and carried on along a very icy patch towards the mountain where it would turn back. Still not the embarrassing part.
The embarrassing part was when the rough ice dragging under me somehow managed to pull down my ski pants, thermals and underwear, exposing my bare a** to an entire slope of people and giving me a nasty ice/friction burn all down my thigh. Also, I was yelling my head off to get someone to stop the machine. A lot of people saw.
I was helped up and off the ice, and skied down to the bigger lift to take me back down to the hotel. I cried the entire way down.
The real kicker was getting back, telling my family this story (while still sobbing through wounded butt and wounded pride) and having my dad and sister howl with laughter while my mum desperately tried to comfort me.
The Worst Contest
That time I screamed at a woman over poo.
My little village has a small annual dog show. We normally enter our little dog who has won "friendliest dog," "waggiest tail" and "dog the judge would like to take home" in the past. This year she was unfortunately in season so we didn't enter to prevent any 'fuss' from the other dogs but took her along to watch.
Half way across the park she decided to poo and I suddenly realised I'd forgotten a bag. There were loads of other people with dogs around due to the show so I wandered away a little to to ask someone for a bag. I turned back and to my horror a lady was picking up my little dog's mess. Not wanting to feel like one of those a-holes that doesn't clean up, I ran towards her to advise here she didn't have to do that because I was going to get it.
Instead, in a sort of panic, I waved my arms and barked "NO, THAT'S MY POO!" Please note that I did not say, "that is MY DOG'S poo."
She physically jumped then turned a deep red. She sort of mumbled an apology, dropped the poo and marched off with her dog.
It was at that point that I looked to my left and saw my dog's poo sitting a few feet away from the lady's dog mess that she was attempting to pick up.
I think about this at night sometimes.
The Hug Heard Round The World
So i had a crush on a girl back in 10th grade. We pretty much flirted with eachother and she told me via MSN that she she would like a hug when she came back to school (she was sick for like 2 weeks straight)
So when the day came i hugged her.
It was super akward.
I hugged her for like a minute straight and she calmly asked if i would let go of her. That minute felt like an eternity and felt embarrassing as f-ck.
After like 11 years it still makes me cringe when i think about it.
Human Cruelty
I was 15. Went to a outdoor center with my classmates where we camped overnight and did some activities over 3 days.
Anyway, we had a fashion show where all the boys dressed as girls. So the girls dressed me up with a short skirt and whatnot/croptop...
Well in Ireland it's pretty cold at night in October so there I am in my miniskirt freezing my ass off waiting for the fashion show to start and we go up on a table in front of all my classmates and my boxer shorts are loose and my small, cold, retreating penis is visible at close proximity to my whole class.
The 'cool guy' in my class shouts: 'It's like a penis, only smaller!'
and I died a little bit inside while people laughed and I heard a few audible 'Aw's and accompanying sympathetic female faces. The instructors quickly got me down off the table to their credit.
Anyway that moment stuck with me for a long time and I actually had a bit of trouble with my penis image for a while until I realised that actually I'm perfectly average.
How On Earth
My birthday party, about 15 yrs old. Kid knocks on door, I answered. Kid's front tooth is GREEN like from rot, it was a temporary cap or something. I just stared at him and he said hi, I said "tooth". Pretty sure we both were humiliated.
We did not retain friendship.
Nope
Short backstory: I have epilepsy. We discovered I have epilepsy after I had a full on, tonic-clonic seizure for the first time when I was standing in front of my locker in the sixth grade. It was the first one of my life, and my body didn't know what to do, so I ended up peeing my pants. It's the only time I've ever lost bladder control during a seizure.
Fast forward to the 10th grade, I was in class talking to a new kid, who I just so happened to have a crush on. I had told him my name, and a girl turned around, took one look at how we were sitting together and said,
"Aren't you the girl that peed herself in middle school?"
He never talked to me again.
Créme de la créme
I used to wait tables. During a busy Sunday post-church lunch rush, I had to make a Sundae for a table in the very back corner of the restaurant. I get to the table and the entire party starts laughing. I'm standing there holding the sundae, super confused. I look down and realize that I had somehow managed to get a large amount whipped cream directly over my crotch while preparing the sundae. It was nowhere else on me. Just my crotch.
All I could do was put the sundae down, say "oh my gosh" and speed walk back through the entire restaurant to clean myself up.
Cod Is A Euphemism
I was sitting cross legged on the sidewalk at my friends house and his mom said, "Your cod is hanging out". I looked down and one of my testicles was hanging out of my shorts. I got up and ran home embarrassed.
Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooops
My favorite one was an account of an event on the work forums. A manager was working through a transaction with a couple. Whenever the man was asked a question, his wife would answer. He asked "does she ever let you speak for yourself?". The wife responded with "No. Not since his stroke."
F-ck.
The Great Ripped Pants Caper
Went to dealership and test-drove cars
Went to sign for car
Reached into pocket
Hand went thru pocket to skin
6" rip in my favorite jeans
Thought nobody had noticed butt cheek hanging out and felt relieved
Returned to dealership for oil change 3 mo later
Salesman: "I see you got new pants!"
Less Information
In highschool, I was hanging out with my group of friends at lunch. One of our friends walked up wearing a suit and started talking to one of my other friends. A few moments later, he says, "Ok guys, I'm heading out now. I'll be back tomorrow." So I replied excitedly, "Alright man, have fun!!"
He gave me the weird scowl/look of betrayal I've ever seen. Somehow it slipped past my radar that his girlfriend had developed a super rare disease and died inside the time span of a week. All my friends were looking at me with the widest eyes as he walked away, and in a chorus everyone was like;
"DUUUUUUUUUDE"
Renaissance Panic
i've posted this nightmare before but here goes:
i was in high school and heavily involved in drama and acting. i was looking for things to audition for outside of school. my mother found an audition for a renaissance fair. she insisted i audition, as i was being super picky. i did not want to at all. i ended up agreeing.
flash forward... she tells me auditions are in costume so she bought me a really cheap costume from an iparty-esque website. the audition was at a really waspy country club. so i show up in costume. i immediately want to die. i enter the country club and i have no idea where the audition is. there's a ton of people in there and they are staring at me and laughing like i'm a joke. i am literally almost in tears. finally i ask a worker/server/i have no f-cking idea where the auditions are. he gives me directions that make no sense so i wander this place for what feels like forever until i find the room.
i enter, and the panel looks at me, repressing their laughter. i want to die at this point. they say i am "definitely looking the part/prepared for the audition." i was given an audition form and told to fill it out. i asked for a pen. they couldn't find one, so one guy takes this really expensive pen out and gives it to me TO BORROW. he says he needs it back, as it's really expensive. i leave the room, panic/weep, and flee the country club with this guy's super expensive pen.
Unworking
A blind woman wanted to know where the front of the bank was and I pointed and said it's over there
The Stain
In middle school I used to have a bad habit of chewing on these pens that had sharp tips and came Im red, black and blue ink. Can't remember the brand but they had a gray body and a see thru little window to see the ink left. Anyway, what I didn't know is that the tube/body was slightly pressurized, and one day during class I bit too hard on the pen, making it burst into my mouth.
Lifehacks, if applied properly, can really change the course of a single household chore.
Chores can really be such a pain to take care of, and nobody wants to do it. But with a little life hack under your belt, you might be able to turn chore time into something a little fun.
u/rat-avec-london asked:
What is a lifehack that seems fake, but is a true lifesaver?
Here were some of those answers.
My Finger, The Glass
If your ring gets stuck on your finger windex will slide it right off. Worked at a jewelry store for five plus years.
You can also use any oil (cooking, automotive... anything).
You can also reduce the size of your hand (and finger) by holding it up in the air. Chilling your hand in cold water THEN holding it up in the air for a couple minutes whilst rubbing oil &/or dishwashing fluids in there... trifecta of ring removal.
Should work on anyone that just stole Sauron's prize - though biting it off also works, i suppose.
Multiple Uses
Use shaving cream as anti-fog. I used it on the inside of my motorcycle visor. Smear it on, let it dry, then rinse off and dry. It also works for bathroom mirrors. You can use it on a small spot so you can still see when you get out of the shower.
Shaving cream also removes the smell of urine. If you ever have to take care of someone who is old and/or sick and who wets the bed, a little shaving cream on a rag wiped over their buttocks after they are thoroughly cleaned up helps them really smell clean again.
It's a bit of a sad tip, I know, but you never know when you might end up caring for someone who needs help with things like this. Nobody wants to smell. A dab of shaving cream to restore a bit of dignity? Priceless.
Pretty Important For Stage Actors
Every male should know this. If you want to get rid of an awkward boner flex any muscle in your body maybe an arm. For a minute. The blood will rush to that muscle and away from your penis. Crisis averted.
These life hacks really don't seem real at all, but if you can swear by them, they can save your life.
Obligatory Poop Hack
I saw a comment on one of these kinda threads that recommended gently rocking back and forth while pooping. I've never had any problems in the bathroom, but I happened to be sitting on the toilet when I read the comment so I decided to give it a test drive. I was pleasantly surprised at how quick and effortless the whole experience was and I haven't gone back to my old stationary technique since. As a bonus, #1 and #2 now require the same amount of time in the bathroom!
It's The Alcohol
If you have funky armpits and need to fix them fast, use hand sanitiser. I figured this out years ago when I remembered that the smell comes from bacteria reactions - which antibacterial hand gel kills stone dead. Instant results and the medical smell lasts only a minute. Don't do this routinely though as it's delicate skin.
But Hopefully It's Just A Playing Puppy
True lifesaver: if you are ever attacked by a dog, push your forearm INTO the bite. This pries the jaws apart and prevents them from clamping down. If a dog is attacking you, the best thing you can do is offer your forearm, push as far back as possible, and then grab the dog by the scruff of its neck with your other hand to hold it. The dog is now functionally muzzled and you have control of its head. The sooner and harder you push into the bite, the less damage the bite will do.
Get It Off Anything
That rubbing alcohol removes chewing gum.
I'd go through a 20 layer deep marketing funnel to get to that tip because it really does work.
Also wow! Thank you for all of the awards nice Redditors. I completely forgot I left this comment and came back and my notifications had blown up.
And previously impossible situations will give way at long last.
Sayonara Capsaicin
Rubbing vegetable oil (or any cooking oil) on your hands after you cut up jalapeños or other hot peppers. It gets rid of the awfulness that would normally be left on your hands from the peppers. I rub my hands with oil and then wash it off with dish soap. I can totally remove my contacts after doing this. It's crazy how well this works.
Crying Crying
Put your onion in the freezer for 10 minutes before chopping it. It freezes the juices just enough to slow down the process of it turning in to a gas, giving you a few minutes to chop the onion without tears. I learnt this tip from a kid's science show years ago and I haven't had to deal with onion tears since. So many people don't believe me, and then are genuinely surprised when it works.
Just A Quick Little Base
The cheapest, most effective, and safest insecticide against roaches (especially those huge "water bug" roaches that we have in the South) is a spray bottle of mostly water with just a little liquid dish soap in it.
Shake the bottle & get the water a little foamy, then spray the roaches. They will run, scrabble, and attempt escape, of course, but they will die. The soap film suffocates them faster than any chemicals will.
A friend told me about this, & I thought she was nuts, but I tried it & it works amazingly well. Plus it's very easy to clean up and safe around food (not that you want to spray soapy water ON your food).
Incorporating any of these lifehacks into your home may make a big difference. You'll never want to turn back.
Or you will, whatever. But they're worth a try!
Gamers Who Stream Live Share The Creepiest Thing They've Ever Heard Someone Say Into Their Mic While Playing
Image by Olya Adamovich from Pixabay |
I'm not much of a gamer, but I have quite a few friends who are. I never fail to be unnerved by some of the stories they share about toxic personalities who give the gamer community a bad name. Did you know for example that women often have to deal with misogyny and abuse while playing online? Blatant sexism can turn something as simple as enjoying a videogame into an emotional minefield for women.
After Redditor TerribleVanilla3768 asked the online community, "Gamers of Reddit, what's the creepiest or scariest thing you've ever heard someone say into their mic?" people shared their stories.
Content warning: Some sensitive material ahead.
"Someone walked into their apartment..."
Playing WoW years ago (12 or so years ago when this happened) with long-time guildies. The raid leader was talking and giving instruction and then cut out with:
"What the f*** was that? Hey, who are..."
And then the mic went silent. 40 of us just sat there wondering what happened. No one knew the Raid leader in person (or where they lived), so we tried contacting Customer Service to report it. I don't remember what they/Blizzard did (it was like twelve years ago), but the Raid kind of fell apart that night. I think the cops did get sent because they eventually made it to the Raid Leader's apartment.
The next day, Raid Leader was on and apologized. Someone walked into their apartment and went into their bedroom. Turns out a senior neighbor (I think it was an older lady, but, again, 12 years) got "lost" and thought they were on their floor. They walked into the apartment (RL forgot to lock the door) and got startled in "their" bedroom when he shouted out. The Senior were very confused as to who this loud person was in their apartment but ended up feeding Raid Leader cookies (his own as it turned out) until the police came and sorted it out.
No charges and Raid Leader thought it was funny, and had a nice conversation with the other person and then the police walked them back to their own room and did a wellness check. I guess the senior was living with an adult child, but wandered off and got lost.
So it ended up being a happy story, but hearing your friend/associate get cut off in mid-speech and then going AFK/timing out of the game while shouting "who are you?" was the creepiest thing I overheard. Half of us were sure they just got jumped by someone, the other half thought it was a bad joke. I also was just a year out from my own B&E incident where I was held up at gunpoint and robbed, so I was having a bit of a panic attack too.
This is thankfully a bit more lighthearted than other stories here.
Dementia is no joke.
"I was doing a Destiny 2 raid..."
I was doing a Destiny 2 raid and a guy started violently beating his kids. Like we could hear the sound of a belt in the background and the screams of the children. He then came back and was all chipper like "All right, sorry for the noise, let's get back to it!" And all of us were dead silent.
"A few weeks later..."
Was playing Destiny 2 on PS4 a year ago, when I met some people from a clan. I wanted to do some raids so I joined.
A few weeks later one of the clan leaders told me, in a cold and absent voice that he once killed two people in an accident. He then proceeded that he now works in a warehouse, driving a stapler all day and that he constantly speeds, because people should pay attention where they walk and it's not his fault if they get run over.
I didn't play with them from then on and soon left the clan. I don't want to know what's going on in his head.
"Mostly..."
Mostly people threatening to come to my house and attack me.
One time on Siege, I was in a party with some folks I just met. A new guy joins, and he knows the girl in the party, her address, and starts texting her stuff like which room she's in. We dealt with it quickly.
"The worst..."
Normal crap you hear being a chick on the internet. Lots sexual harassment, etc. I've gotten to the point where it doesn't even register in my head as anything but background noise.
The worst was probably when I was twelve, playing on my iPad. A guy on the text chat threatened to doxx me and followed me around the game world, right behind me, claiming we were "having sex". I just wanted to play a fun PvE zombie game, yo. Dipped pretty quick, couldn't sleep that night. Creeps online don't remember it in a week, but that f**** with me as a kid.
The fact that this is just the reality for so many women...
...is depressing.
"It was 2008..."
It was 2008 and my Xbox 360 was brand new at the time and a birthday gift. I eagerly set everything up and the first game I decide to play was a pre-installed demo called Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions. For a demo, this allowed online team matches and headset usage. This was also the moment when my fellow players found out that I was a girl.
A guy with the username "KillaMan" messaged me almost immediately and pressed why a girl decided to play a game clearly made for guys. I forget exactly what I wrote, although I said as much as I'm there for the same reason everyone else was. Well, he kept on messaging me, only his messages turned into explicit ones about me "willing to do more than play a shooting game," among other things. I ignored them, then he went so far as to say that he could find out my home address no problem. Even if he was bluffing, I was still freaked out and decided to block and report him. His handle registered as non-existent when I went to look him up.
Weeks went by and I get a message from a gamer tag that sounded vaguely familiar. It was that guy again, but this time he was accusing me of reporting him and threatening me that I "needed to prove I was hot". I said no, then he came back and asked for naked pictures in return for an Xbox Live gold membership. I shouldn't have even entertained him, but I decided to play along. I replied to his message that if he was serious and the code was real, send it to me. If the code didn't work, he wasn't getting nudes.
Guy sends the code and it was legitimate. I thanked him and told him to stay by his email for his "surprise". Once again, I reported him to Xbox and blocked him for good measure. Never heard from him again.
"I was playing with my friend D..."
I was playing with my friend D. We were playing Minecraft with a couple of our other friends and D said something stupid and I told him to shut the hell up and he said, "Keep talking to me like that and I'll bring my Glock to school and take care of everybody who keeps bullying me starting with you."
We know he was joking but this happens a lot.
Does D know that this stuff is not funny?
Seriously.
"This one guy..."
This one guy told us about his "poop bucket" that he used when gaming for too long so he didn't have to go to the toilet.
And this wasn't in some random lobby, we were all part of the same gaming website and were pretty familiar with each other.
Still to this day I don't know if he was trolling or serious.
"Somebody tried talking to me..."
Somebody tried talking to me using my real name and city. To this day I have no idea how or why he doxxed me.
Sadly, there are some gamers out there...
...who seem intent on ruining things for the rest of the community. If you hear something, say something.
Have some of your own stories to share? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments section below!
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People Break Down Their Craziest 'I'm Gonna Die Here' Experience That They Actually Survived
Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay |
As horrifying as the Covid-19 pandemic has been, I can't help but marvel at the people who got through a bad bout of the virus and are still here with us today. The stories I have heard have unnerved me: Quite a few people I know honestly thought they were going to die before things got better. (That's the crazy thing about this virus––you could feel like hell for a while only to experience a major turn-around within 24 hours.)
After Redditor Rares asked the online community, "What is the worst 'I'm gonna die' situation you've been through? people shared their stories.
"In a particularly rough place of the river..."
I was canoeing with my dad when we were on holiday in France. In a particularly rough place of the river, another canoe bumped us and our boat went upside down. I got carried away by the current until a man pulled me out. To this day I am glad that the man was there, otherwise, I would not be here.
"That same year..."
I was kayaking with some friends down a familiar river but the water was much higher than usual. My boat got stuck sideways across a wave. I could move sideways across the wave but I didn't have the strength or skill to get out of either end. After two or three minutes I realised I had to capsize and swim. I was carried about 200m downstream before I could get out. Someone got my boat and paddle but I'd lost my shoes. I had to walk about a mile downstream barefoot to catch them up.
That same year I travelled to the French Alps to do some skiing. I had lessons and thought I was competent enough but on my last day, I found myself on a run that was too steep for me to handle. After falling multiple times I found the only way I could stop myself from going too fast was to fall again. It took me two hours to get down a slope that others were finishing in about five minutes. I kept having flashbacks to the kayaking incident. I kept thinking how stupid I was not to have learnt anything about keeping within my abilities.
"I got a viral infection..."
I got a viral infection that spread to my brain in 2019. By the time my sister got to me to get me to the hospital, I was blind and deaf and "feral" (bit my sister, she has a scar). Everyone at the hospital told her I would've died a few hours later, definitely wouldn't have made it through the night.
Now I'm a disabled amnesiac with chronic pain.
"Had to make an emergency roof repair..."
Had to make an emergency roof repair on my house during an ice storm. Slipped, slid towards the edge of what would have been a 30' fall onto concrete. Stopped with my feet off the edge.
This is terrifying.
To come so close to that and to be stopped in the nick of the time by some dumb luck!
"Remainder of their family..."
A person with a gun shoots and kills one neighbor. The remainder of their family runs to our house for protection. We all hunker down as the person with a gun tries to get into our house.
Also terrifying.
Hopefully the authorities arrived in time.
"Facing down my then wife..."
Facing down my then-wife who was armed with a 9mm handgun. She pulled the trigger and thankfully nothing happened. I took the gun away from her and she ran out of the place. Still don't know why the gun didn't fire. She ended up going to jail and I divorced her shortly thereafter.
Well, there's a happy ending to this one...
...I guess? Sorry you had to go through that.
"A woman was being assaulted..."
A woman was being assaulted outside of my apartment by what seemed to be a boyfriend or husband.
I went out to shout at the guy, and he turned his rage on me instead.
I was about 85% sure I was going to be shot or stabbed. Fortunately, he didn't, and he backed down when he noticed that a crow of concerned people had arrived, and everyone was on the phone with 911.
"When I was about 14..."
When I was about 14, my church went on a youth retreat to rebuild a church on the coast that had been devastated by a hurricane. On the Saturday night of the trip, we went to a bowling alley to finish the weekend on a high note.
I was with all my buddies, there were the "hot" girls in the youth group to be impressed. I had way too much soda and popcorn and was ready to light up the night. The church had rented a Chevy express 12-passenger van, the kind where the seatbelt for the middle row of seats crosses the doorway and you have to duck under it. Well, my idea was to get a running start and launch off of the step into the back seat of the van.
So I did it, and it went pretty well. I got a lot of momentum, and when I launched off the step of the van it was almost perfect. I had intended to go under the seatbelt of the van, but I missed. The seatbelt hit me on the chin, and my momentum forced it down, onto my neck. Feeling the pressure on my neck I panicked and slammed into the back of the second row. The impact flipped me over the seat, into the floorboard of the third row, and twisted the seatbelt behind my neck. I'm not a small kid so my arms were pinned and the more I tried to get them free the tighter the seatbelt got because it had locked due to the impact.
The elapsed time of what had happened was maybe 45 seconds, and the youth leader was still inside paying for the rest of what the group owed. It took about five minutes for a kid to realize that I was actually struggling, and run inside to get him. He ended up cutting the seatbelt with his pocket knife and I am convinced that he saved my life.
"I don't know why I never told her..."
When I was a kid, my mom was a single parent and had awful taste in men. This one, in particular, was a drunk, at all hours of the day.
One day, he was babysitting us while my mom was at work and took us to the local park/lake to swim. About 3 hours go by with my sister and me having fun in the lake but we were tired and hungry and wanted to go home.
The guy had been sitting under a tree the whole afternoon with one of those one-gallon igloo coolers that he said was water, and was "sleeping." When we got out to tell him we wanted to go home, he didn't wake up. It took probably half an hour to shake him out of his alcoholic coma, and then my sister and I (about 4 and 8) had to get him up a very steep hill to the parking lot. He wasn't exactly a large man, but we were little, and pushing a grown man up a hill who keeps stumbling back down was not easy.
Finally, we make it to the car. That was when I realized we were in trouble. He actually got into the car and drove us home, and I use that word lightly... We were on sidewalks and people's front yards more than on the road. I was terrified and kept begging him just to stop, but he ignored me. How we made it home without crashing or being seen by police is anyone's guess. The worst part was that to this day, my mom doesn't know about this event. I don't know why I never told her... Maybe I thought I'd be in trouble. But I was a much more timid child after that.
"My scariest situation..."
My scariest situation was when I was about six. My family and I were at a camping site in a forest. I decided to go a little further and I started getting chased by three stray dogs, but I managed to get back to my parents safely.
Everyone you meet has a story.
You really do not know what other people have been through unless you ask. The resilience of the people around you might surprise you.
Have some of your own stories to share? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments section below!
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Married People Describe The Exact Moment They Wanted To Propose To Their Significant Other
It isn't always the case, but for many couples who go on to become married partners, there was a moment when it became clear and obvious that the other was their soulmate.
Like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky, the realization strikes and the truth feels inarguable: that person is who you want to spend your life with.
And while the epiphany is common, the specific circumstances around it are as various as the many couples who experience it.
Some Redditors shared their versions of that story.
Necochan asked, "Married people of Reddit, what was the moment that made you go, 'this is definitely the person I am going to spend the rest of my life with?' "
For some people, the moment came when they observed their partner demonstrate an act of service.
There was something about the way they couldn't help but act, that their whole essence seemed to become obvious--and something their partner never wanted to let go of.
A Gentle Soul
"We were out swimming at the lake, and there was a ladybug in the water. He carefully picked it up and let it sit on his shoulder until it was dry enough to fly away."
"I've never met anyone who was so gentle with animals - his dog, my parents' diabetic cat who needed shots, friends' cats and dogs."
Shameless
"We had fish at a restaurant for dinner. Didn't sit well with me and by the time we were back at his apartment my stomach and bowels were raging."
"I was so embarrassed that I was spending half the evening in his bathroom so he told me about the time he accidentally sh** himself at a 7-11. Keeper."
Supreme Kindness
"My then-boyfriend and I had taken my wheelchair bound brother to dinner and a movie. When we got home I went to use the bathroom before going through the routine of getting my brother changed, meds, and into bed."
"I came out of the bathroom to him getting my brother out of the chair and onto the bed to change, all the while hilarious 'messing up' to make my brother laugh hysterically. I came right in to help but boyfriend shooed me away to do it all himself."
"It took triple the time but they were both in stitches, turning a usually admittedly mundane routine into a ton of fun. We'll have been married eleven years on the 22nd of this month."
Just a Look
"I had appendicitis. I had just come round from surgery and my mum, dad and now husband were there. We had been friends for years and had just started seeing each other. Both still very worried in case it went wrong."
"Well I was still groggy from the anaesthetic, but it was a womens only ward so they couldn't stay. But I didn't want him to leave. I was so afraid. No idea why, maybe the drugs idk. The look on his face as they led him out broke my heart."
"That's when I knew that man would always be there for me. I mouthed 'I love you' for the first time as he walked away. Been together 7 years now and married for 4. I love that man."
-- Daylar17
Other people experienced the epiphany when an interpersonal interaction took on a whole new weight, and they realized this was the person they wanted to always be with.
Time Passing Invisibly
"When our first phone call lasted over 8 hours. We both had so much to share with one another."
"I flew out to see him within a month. I quit my job of 11 years and moved to his city the following month. We have been together almost 9 years now, and he's still my favorite person to talk to."
When Even the Bad is Good
"We were at a low moment. Lots of bickering and stupid fights. I was still making her lunch every morning before she went to grad school, but it was a rough time in our relationship."
"And then I realized I never wanted to be fighting with anyone else. I wanted to work through our problems and spend my life with her. So we did, we've got two kids, and life is really good."
"All relationships have crisis moments. Find someone worth getting through those moments."
-- LiverFox
Another Side of Her
"My wife is a 'strong independent woman who don't need no man' Which I personally love how she wants to do and think for herself. But this also means she has lots of walls and won't let anyone in and always has to be a badass at all times."
"But in private I can make her blush and smile at will. It's a side of her nobody knows about but me, and I love it."
The Only Place
"My then-girlfriend and I were sitting on the couch one evening just talking. I don't even remember what we were talking about, probably something stupid, but I was struck by the sudden realization that there was no place I'd rather be."
"Just being with her, talking about serious topics or nothing at all, is perfect, and there's no place I'd rather be than with her."
Others, however, pushed back on the prompt.
They explained that, for them, there was no single moment. Rather, there was a slow build until they knew they were with the perfect person.
Everything Enriched
"I realized I had found my person when I started noticing changes in myself. I was more confident, happy, relaxed, and so on." -- Mamacourtney
"My boyfriend has chronic health problems and thus has a lot of bad mood moments in relation. But other than that? He's constantly happy, smiling, confident, and it makes me happy knowing that I've given him an environment that keeps his constant emotion happiness, with his health sprinkling in the rain cloud moods." -- Tomoyo_in_Transwise
A Partner, In Every Sense of the Word
"I hear this question a lot, and I never have an answer. Because I think one day you just come to the realization that living any part of your life without them would be awful."
"I got married not because I was madly in love but because I wanted her to experience all of life's highs and lows with me. I wanted to watch her succeed and grow as a person. I don't believe in soul mates, but I do believe in making a relationship work because it brings you joy."
For all you single people hankering for this feeling, trust that one day it will come your way. And for all those who have such a moment in their own biography, maybe today's a good day to reminisce about it with your partner.
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