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Emergency Dispatchers Share The Scariest Calls They Have Ever Received

The stress and trauma that a dispatcher's job comes with are insurmountable and deserve a lot of respect.

Some of the calls they get can be life-changing, not just for the people involved, but also the dispatchers themselves.


Redditor King_bob992 asked:

"Emergency service dispatchers, what is the scariest call you have ever gotten?"

You're definitely in the right profession.

"One of the first calls I ever took. Woman calls up and asks about the process of filing a restraining order. She discusses how her boyfriend has been abusive and controlling. Mid conversation the doorbell rings, she puts me on hold opens the door and I hear yelling."

"Guy barges in and starts beating on her and I'm sitting there helpless listening, because I didn't have her address yet. Luckily, I did have her name and within a few minutes we got her address and got help to her. She was pretty badly injured but lived, and he is still in jail."

"That call made me doubt myself and if I was in the right profession, but I stuck with it and it has been a very rewarding (though sometimes sad) profession."

kikiyayah

Scary stuff.

"Not a dispatcher but a paramedic. But a man called, saying his mom had severe chest pains. So we head over to their address in a hurry. However, there was no mom, just the caller waiting for us and then robbing us at gun point saying be were going to kill us. He just wanted the drugs, but was quite shocking still."

"Always going through my mind when entering some shady neighbourhood."

frassen

Giphy

That's so heartbreaking.

"I work for a sheriff's office and a good friend of mine was a dispatcher. I stepped outside one day for a smoke and my buddy was standing there shaking and crying. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he had just dispatched a call for his best friend."

"His friend was a former army sniper and had only been out for a few months. He was a volunteer fire fighter and was responding to a house fire, rolled the truck, and had beed decapitated. Guy had 5 young daughters."

fryamtheeggguy

A miracle.

"Call came in and was flagged as a frequent caller on the a** end of a very rural county. The dude was just screaming. We couldn't make out anything he was saying but we had his address and sent every available unit we had. After a while the screaming started to die down and his breathing got very labored. He wouldn't talk to us but he just kept muttering. After a few minutes we realized he was praying."

"Few minutes later deputy arrived on scene. Heard him check in on scene and also heard him on the line. First noise I heard was him vomiting. Turned out the dude had been working on his car and the lift collapsed. The guy wasn't under the car but was between it and a tree when the car started rolling. He was impaled on a branch and pinned between the tree and car."

"Dude lived. He's a quadriplegic but he's alive. First legit 911 call he ever made and everyone took their sweet time getting there because it was usually nonsense."

hatchethates84

Ouch.

"I am a emergency helicopter dispatcher so I get calls from EMS in rural areas. First question I always ask is, 'what is the closest city to the scene?' I swear 80% of these people do not know how to pronounce it correctly and 50% of them do not know how to spell it."

"One time this guy cut his d**k off on bath salts. When he came too he realized what he did and called us directly."

bpkratz

Giphy

How tragic.

"I worked as a jailer for a while after getting out of the Marines. We had a dispatcher who had 2 kids. Both boys one a POS that was always in jail the other younger troubled and riding a dangerous line. She got the call one night that her younger son got shot twice in a drug deal gone wrong at a public park where he was playing ball."

"He was dead before the helicopter got in the air most likely. The dispatch center was connected to the jail where she had to work less than 50 yards from the man who shot her son. She was pretty tore up."

Patrocitus

Chilling.

"Not EMS, but work for a domestic violence shelter that offers sexual assault services. Will never forget talking to this one woman, and her husband came home during the call and she must have dropped the phone in the process but then I could just hear her screaming and him yelling. That will stay with me forever I'm sure. I really wish we had been able to get her help before that happened. That is the worst call I've had. But I find it so hard when children call, just always breaks my heart."

cshpolysci29

Good for them for not pushing themselves.

"When I was younger, I applied to be a 911 operator for the city I was living in northern California. I got through most of their tests and interviews, which there were numerous. The pool of applicants was over 200 for about 8 positions. I got down to the last dozen applicants then they played some recordings for us."

"The recording I listened to was a young girl calling 911 from inside a closet. She was crying and hysterical saying that her dad was in the house with a gun and was going to kill her mom. You could hear the mother screaming in the background and the operator was really calm and collected. She got the little girl to keep her voice down and whisper and tried to keep her on the line. You could hear the gunshots in the background."

"I couldn't listen to it anymore. I didn't want to find out what happened next, so I don't know the outcome. I knew I couldn't handle that then. I don't think I could take something like that now."

huexolotl

Giphy

Horrifying.

"There was an accident once on a somewhat busy state road here. An older couple in an suv pulled out onto the road without seeing a motorcyclist that was going well over 100 mph. He rear ended them, died instantly and plowed through the suv, landing halfway through the windshield. The suv flipped a couple times and landed on the passenger side, trapping the wife. Then it caught on fire."

"At my dispatch center we had 3 of us working at all times, and I don't even know how many 911 calls we instantly got when this happened. Dozens, I'm sure. After I sent the FD and they got on the way(this is a rural area and this intersection was probably a good ten minutes south of them), some bystanders managed to get the husband out of the suv but he died in the helicopter on the way to the hospital, I believe. The wife burned alive."

"Honestly the worst part was right after I dispatched the FD, one of the lieutenants on the biggest police department in my county happened to be driving through there with his family and he called 911. I'll never forget how panicked and frantic he was on that call. I had never heard any of our officers like that before, let alone one of the administrators. We were pretty friendly with all of them so it shook me up. After I hung up with him I just started sobbing."

nillah

The strength it must take to move past that...

"My sister works as a dispatcher. Her first week on the job, she had a man call in, saying he was going to kill himself. He told her that she couldn't do anything to change his mind; he was simply trying to let her know where he could be found. She heard the gunshot through the call."

"Second one, she had a little girl call in because her dad was unresponsive. She knew that CPR would likely save this man, but the daughter wasn't grown enough and didn't have the strength to perform it effectively. My sister had to tell her to leave the room, because the longer that girl stayed in there trying fruitlessly to save her father, the more scarred she would become by the experience of watching her father die."

m4cktheknife

Both are horrifying.

"Former 000 calltaker reporting in. Scariest one would have to be one of the very first calls I took while I was training. A young man rang up and it was evident from his voice that he was in shock. His exact words were 'I've just hit a motorbike rider who was coming around a blind bend on the wrong side of the road. I think I've killed him.'"

"From dealing with a few noise complaints to a car accident with a possible fatality was a massive switch, and this was only my second shift taking calls in training. The motorbike rider did not survive that accident."

Giphy

"Second scariest would be when someone was working down a well and was overcome by generator fumes. His wife tried to rescue him but she fell off the ladder, injured herself as a result and was unable to help her husband. So there's one possibly dead male in the well and his wife is in danger of dying as well. And all of this is in a remote location that I am completely unfamiliar with. We didn't save the male. We did, however, manage to save his wife."

dexbydesign89

That's terrible.

"My answer from a similar thread:"

"The one that always sticks with me was the time I had to tell a father how to cut his 15 year old son down after he had hung himself. He was actively reciting reasons why he may have been a bad parent while doing it. I'll remember that until the day I die."

FireAlarmOp

Holy s**t.

"Obligatory posting on behalf of my mom. She answered 000 police emergency calls (Australian 911). The top two: A woman phoned up. She had a restraining order on her ex-husband, had come home to furniture moved positions inside the house."

"Whilst checking rooms she noticed handprints on the wall leading up to the roof cavity access point. This was slightly ajar. Mom tells her to leave. Woman decides nope, she's Dora the explorer and gets a chair. She stands on it, starts to lift the cover and it gets slammed back down. Yep, hubby in the roof. He'd been there a while (days)."

"2nd: a call comes in from a remote outback community. Someone's using a machete to stab their way into a door while laughing maniacally. There are no street addresses or house numbers to ID the location and the caller cannot give a location. Nearest police are 2 hours away. Mom just heard screaming, then gurgling, then silence then whistling."

ottersrus

Super anxiety-inducing.

"I was working at a small agency during a storm. We would work 1 person in dispatch per shift, as it was pretty common to go an entire overnight shift without a single call. The local hospital called and said 'A tornado just hit the hospital.' Turns out, the tornado dropped directly on top of the hospital, moves across the street to the college dorms and destroyed at least one of them. There must have been multiple 'naders because all of our phone lines lit up and everyone was saying a tornado just hit their house."

Giphy

"The town close by had a couple fires, our paging system went down (meaning no paging out our volunteer fire guys, 3 officers in total for the entire f**king county, and all of our medics tied up at the hospital."

"The calls would go like this: 'Are you injured? Do you feel safe enough to drive yourself to the hospital?' If they said yes, I'd tell them to make their way to the staging area at the hospital, if no, I had to write it down and have one of the other agencies sending help to check on them."

"Luckily the college was on an extended weekend so hardly anyone was in the dorms. I still have anxiety issues when I'm at work when a storm hits."

Loopyprawn

Don't do drugs.

"My dad's friend got a call from a man who claimed there was an alien in his stomach. When they got to him they discovered he cut his own stomach open and took his insides outside. The knife was lying in his flesh next to the body. The man was high on some drugs."

lubie_chlebek

Too Sad

"A 3 year old was at a campground with her family and they let her out of their sight for 20 seconds and she wandered down to a creek and drowned. Her mom found her and her father called in. While I was getting details from the understandable distraught father, a random guy camping there was doing CPR managed to resuscitate her. I can't imagine how her parents felt, but it was like physical weight being lifted off of me."

crathis

Pain in the moment...

"Was a 911 operator for 10 years. Scariest is probably different than worst. My scariest was an active shooter in a high rise. Just sitting on the line trying to give the best directions so every one makes it out okay."

"When I first started out, I worked for a rural county and some areas were very far from help. One night I got a call from a group of people who were in a3m accident and their car caught fire. The girl I was speaking with was stuck in her seatbelt and as the fire spread she was in terrible amounts of pain."

"She kept begging me to send help and I was but it was far away. I stayed with her until the phone dropped (assumingly the phone and it melted or malfunctioned). The other was a hanging."

"The father called me for a welfare check and I was putting in the call when he got to the house. He said the door was unlocked, so I stayed landline while he went inside and he found his son. The pain in the moment he walked out and told his wife was so horrible and raw."

allaboutthatpuc

Terror

"I think the most genuine terror comes from child callers. I had this 5 year old call in that her dad was growling and wouldn't wake up. Ok agonal breathing, probably a heart attack scrambling to get a confirmed address for ems, pd dispatched to unconfirmed address."

"Finally confirm the address and start giving directions on CPR. Nope she will not touch him because she is scared then bursts into tears. Luckily pd arrived just after she refused and they were able to do CPR until EMS arrived."

oneofthesesigns

CPR instructions and he kept screaming...

"911 dispatcher here for a large city. I get a little bit of everything and mostly it's BS. But one that stuck with me was something recently. A man called in frantic and it was really hard to get him to calm down. He told me his 35 year old girlfriend was unresponsive and not breathing."

Season 5 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy

"I immediately started giving this guy CPR instructions and he kept screaming 'I'm sorry I'm sorry my love.' Tough morning for the guy no doubt. It hit me that he could have been responsible or the last thing he ever said to her was not pleasant. Never followed up on the call. In this line of work, it's on to the next one."

"Too busy to think about it. I have millions of people depending on me not to let the last call effect the next one. I don't know what happened other than she was a DOA. Didn't hit me until the next day. My God, that scream was deafening. All i know is there was more to the story, I could hear it in his voice."

"P.S. I've heard people shot in real time, parents trying to revive their dead kids first thing in the morning, but this for some reason hit me."

.DNastythenasty

On the Roof

"There's a guy up here on the roof. He was wandering around in a daze and not responding to me. He's got his shirt off and he's sitting on top of the parking garage with his legs over the edge and he's rocking back and forth. He's covered in blood."

"Vehicle pursuits aren't fun either."

Dr_Frasier_Bane

On the Porch

"Heard this story from a cop I knew. Guy calmly calls 911 to report a man standing on his front porch with a shotgun. Police arrive at the address provided to find a man in his 50s standing on the porch as described in the call. They take cover and prepare to shoot if man decides to open fire. Man points gun to his own face, cops realize what was going on, but it happened too quickly for them to intervene. That man on the porch was the one who called."

the_one_with_no_face

scared famous smile GIF by VH1Giphy

Dispatchers seriously aren't paid enough.

Do you have any experiences to add? Let us know in the comments below.

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The All-Time Biggest First Date Red Flags

Reddit user APT3993 asked: 'What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?'

When you're on a first date, one of three things will happen. Either you'll like the person and want to go out again, you like the person fine, but not romantically, and won't want to go out again, or the person will display a behavior that is so off-putting (or make you genuinely fearful), that you won't even want to see the person ever again.

My best friend and I are basically the same person, so when she met a guy who he had a lot in common with, she figured I'd like him too and set us up (I had previously told her I was okay with being set up).

Well, it turns out the guy actually hadn't read any of the books, watched any of the shows, or heard of any of the bands he talked about with my friend. I didn't understand why he would lie about all these things until I left the table.

When I came back, he was on the phone with someone and he was telling them he only told her he liked all those things because he liked my friend. When he found out she was in a relationship, he decided he'd let her set us up in the hopes that he could date me until my friend and her boyfriend broke up, and then he could swoop in.

I just walked out and when he finally texted me asking what was up, I told him I overheard him, then proceeded to block him. My friend was mortified to hear about the date, and I decided never to be set up again.

I'm not the only one who has gone on a date and discovered a huge red flag. Redditors have experienced this too, and are eager to share their stories.

It all started when Redditor APT3993 asked:

"What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?"

Dates Of Relationships Past

"They won't shut up about their ex."

– SiriusGD

"Had this happen to me on a 2nd date."

"Asked if she could use my computer, I said OK. Then she pulls up her ex's FB profile to browse through it, and she spent the next 10 minutes comparing me to him, saying he she thinks that I will turn out to be controlling and manipulative like him because we both grew up on a farm and we both like cars."

"Ummm, wut?"

– alwaysmyfault

"He angrily told me I would “love” his ex wife. Proceeded to cry while talking about her. They’d been divorced for 5 years. I genuinely hope he is doing better."

– TX_Mothman

"She constantly compared me to her ex, and sat on her phone for most of the night, then expected me to pay for her two bottles of wine, plus really expensive meal and desert."

"She asked me out btw, not the other way around."

– Stuspawton

I Know What I Want

"The guy who tried to change my order with the waitress because he didn’t think the drink I’d asked for was sufficiently feminine."

"I ordered beer. I don’t remember exactly what he thought I should have, maybe white wine? It was a long time ago."

"The waitress was looking at me like ‘You heard that sh*t too right?’ and I told her actually I wouldn’t have anything, thanks, and I left."

– MaggieLuisa

"He changed it FROM A BEER TO SOMETHING ELSE!!?! That’s amazing to me. Like it’s bad enough if you ordered an IPA and he said, “I dunno, sweetie, your delicate female taste buds probably can’t handle the hoppiness. Hey, honey, why don’t we get the lady a Coors.”"

– AdaptiveVariance

The Position Of Boyfriend

"We met for drinks after work (since we both work in the same industry) and she showed up with a list of interview questions. She literally had a checklist on her phone for me to fill out. I thought she was joking at first, but the questions were extremely personal, like how many sexual partners you've had, the oldest, the youngest; How much money you made the previous year; If you owned a house, a car, a boat, a plane; Did you have a criminal history; Where do you parents live; Are they alive; Who did you vote for in the last election; All kinds of stuff like that."

"I even proposed that we could just use that as a conversation starter and we could work through them like that as a fun way to get to know each other. I was really trying. She tells me that she's not answering any of them because I'm trying to date her, not the other way around!"

"I laughed out loud thinking she was kidding, then realized she was absolutely serious. I wished her all the best in the dating world, chugged my beer, overtipped the waitress, and left."

– OkFrostina

"Yeah, I would really push that to the limit without getting law enforcement involved. Start with all the times I have ended up in rehabilitation, my abductions by UFO, the wild, kinky sex partners I have had, the millions I have lost before living under a bridge, etc."

– passporttohell

Scary As Hell

"Had a guy who insisted on buying the most expensive pizza at the restaurant despite my protests then kissed my head when he walked past me to use the restroom. After dinner we walked along the waterfront, he kissed me and then immediately tried to choke me "to be sexy". First date, last date."

– Twours1944

"What the sh*t?? Who taught this idiot that choking in public on the first date all without consent is a great get-to-know-you move??"

– villainsimper

Stranger Danger

"This was literally the day of a first date. But I had matched with an older man when I was still on dating apps. We planned to go on a hike on a very beautiful day by the water. On the day of the date, he wanted me to leave my car at his place, while he drove us through the backwoods so we can beat traffic. I said I’ll be happy to drive myself, and he laughed and canceled. His reasoning was he’s been stood up so many times and he didn’t want to waste his time and me not show up. I said “okay!I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you find what you are looking for. “and blocked him."

"The red flag was when he genuinely got upset that I didn’t want to ride in a car with a stranger through the backwoods for our first date."

– Jesusdoescrack

"You should have said “you fear being stood up, I fear being murdered.”"

– The_She_Ghost

Truly Gross

"He pointed to another woman at the bar and said she was his ex. But she happened to be my lesbian roommate."

"Yes, I told him I knew he was full of it cuz she was my roommate, and I pointed out her girlfriend who was there with her. I don’t remember what he said exactly but he had no choice but to admit he was lying. I wish I had asked why he said it. I assume to make me jealous? Like that’s a good way to start a relationship? Obviously, that was the only date."

– Grapegoop

​Those Who Came Before

"He told me he had been divorced 5 times. I'm taking the advice of 5 women I don't know."

– 13liz

"The way you phrased this killed me 😂"

– CumulativeHazard

Got Her Feeling Emotions

"Does bursting into tears after I told them I didn't like a TV show count?"

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"I'm curious as to what TV show it was?"

– ladydamnation

"Grey's Anatomy."

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"bursts into tears"

– akennelley

Um...What?!

"He took me to his house (he lived with his mom) just so HE could eat dinner with his mom while I sat in the living room. I listened to them eat and talk about my looks like I couldn't hear them. Apparently, I was pretty but "needed to be taken down a peg or two." I said my period had started so I had to go home. A future abuser and his enabler mommy."

– BigMcLargeHuge77

Ew...Just Ew

"We went to a movie. He spent the first half with his hand inside one of his socks, then pulling it out and smelling it, putting it back in, repeat, repeat."

"Then he spent the second half trying to hold my hand. With his sock hand."

– Deleted User

Bad From The Start

"She asked if I could order for her because she was uncomfortable talking to the brown waitress.

"Added: Same girl would not stop talking about Kardashian gossip even though I told her I know nothing about them and didn’t care to know."

– CanaDoug420

Stop, Theif!

"He showed up drunk with a bouquet of flowers he admitted he stole from his mother's flower shop."

– LookAcrossTheWater

​Cringe-Worthy

"Went to a charity coffee shop for a date. It was “free” coffee where they just ask for donations which went toward their org’s efforts to feed and house people. They explained this to him and asked if he wanted to make a donation for our drinks."

"He said no."

– Shredded_Wheaties

Oh, yikes! I would be so embarrassed!

In fact, I'm kind of losing faith in dating as a concept.

people sitting inside plane
Hanson Lu on Unsplash

Commercial aviation began in the late 1920s, spurred on by early aeronautical companies and several record breaking solo flights.

Since then, there are few places on Earth that can't be seen or accessed by plane. Only icing limits humans from low altitude flights over certain areas like the polar regions, while a lack of landing locations keeps some areas accessible to only the smallest pontoon planes.

From January through December 2022, United States airlines carried 853 million passengers. Globally, air travel reached a high of over 4.7 billion passengers before the pandemic limited flights.

Since then, global air travel has rebounded to over 3.7 billion passengers.

With almost 100 years and over a trillion passengers, the people who crew these flights are bound to have seen everything happen that possibly could at airports and on a flight.

Keep reading...Show less
A skeptical man
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

We've all heard our fair share of conspiracy theories, from thoughts about the White House to aliens and beyond.

But some conspiracy theories have become truly strange and nuanced, and it's hard to stop listening to the person explaining their beliefs, because as weird as some of these theories sound, they could almost by some stretch of the imagination make sense.

Intrigued, Redditor Accomplished-Leg-991 asked:

"What's the weirdest or craziest theory you have heard of?"

Seems Plausible.

"Traffic barrels are left up for so long because the Department of Transportation bought too many and has no place to store them."

- dailysunshineKO

The Grass Is Always Greener

"The truck driver that delivered my flooring gave me this gem: The push for green lawns in the US is by Big Pharma."

"The cliff notes version is that to get green grass, you need pesticides, pesticides cause cancer, and cancer is good business for drug companies. It was like a 20-minute long rant to get to that conclusion and it was an adventure."

- StillBald

"I need to drink with him for one night. That cannot possibly be the only banger he's got."

- karenalphas

The Ice Wall

"Recently TikTok kept giving bizarre suggestions where people trying to prove Ice Wall in Antarctica that Earth is bigger and something is hiding behind ice wall in Antarctica… What the h**l."

- XenophanesJunior

"It's a weird subset of flat earthers, who believe in an 'infinite plane' that lies beyond the ice wall (guarded by NASA, of all people), and the reason? The infinite plane has endless amounts of gold mines and gems they can mine for infinite money."

- bag2d

Tinkering with the Algorithm

"That Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen, and they made the movie 'Frozen' so that when people googled 'Walt Disney Frozen,' the movie would come up first."

- LizardPossum

"They updated this theory, but now it is with Taylor Swift. It basically says that she went to that Kansas City Chiefs vs NY Jets game so that when people search 'Taylor Swift Jets,' it will only show news about the game, and not about her going everywhere with her private jets."

- abirll

"It's so wild now these rely on people being completely unable to go to page two of a Google search."

- LizardPossum

The All-Important Celebrity Weddings

"I had a coworker that fully believes the government controls the weather so celebrities can have nice weddings."

- pinballgizard

"Out of all the reasons to control the weather, celebrity weddings are a top priority for the government."

- Suspicious-Craft4980

The Truth of Social Security Numbers

"Your social security number indicates which bank you were sold to at birth."

- compuwiza1

"Ah, sovereign citizens..."

- CaptainMikul

Dinosaur Bones, Huh?

"Dinosaur bones were placed on earth by Satan to trick people into 'abandoning' God."

- River_7890

"There's a big American Church whose members believe that dinosaur bones exist because God made the Earth with leftovers from a previous planet."

"Mental gymnastics to justify their belief that the Earth is only 10'000 years old and C14 dates dinosaur bones as being millions of years old..."

- mrsrosieparker

"I'm absolutely not shocked. The person who told me jumps through so many mental hoops to try to disprove science. She thinks that the government is secretly working for Satan to convert people, too."

"Oh and of course Disney. She's crazy overall. Not just with religious stuff. I could tell so many stories of her crossing lines and saying off-the-wall things. I try to not associate with her as much as possible."

- River_7890

The Worst Kind of Waiting Room

"The USS Philadelphia Experiment and the US army soldier who claimed he was in an interdimensional waiting room as a greeter for eternity until he was suddenly transported back onto the ship."

"People claimed it was a cloaking device gone wrong and left men's bodies trapped within the steel of the boat upon reentry."

"I never looked into it but read about it in a book that had a statement like, 'Nothing in this book is true but it's exactly the way things are,' or something similar. Always thought it was the wildest conspiracy theory ever when I was a stoned teenager reading it."

- Hereforthecake

Phantom Time Conspiracy Theory

"There’s a whole podcast with hundreds of episodes dedicated to this subject. Worth a listen. One of the wildest ones is that Charlemagne’s grandson moved the calendar forward ~300 years and thus the Dark Ages never happened."

- seandowling73

Gives the Shortcut a Whole New Meaning

"Met a dude at the gym who believed that the CIA had built tunnels throughout the Earth's core, connecting all the major cities. Was some kind of global takeover scheme."

- Latham74

Infathomly Large Trees

"Mountains are all the stumps of ancient fossilized enormous trees."

"I'm absolutely obsessed with this theory. It's connected to flat earth, but flat earth isn't a requirement for this theory nor do most flat earthers believe it."

- inkstainedgoblin

Under Control

"We're all infected by parasites that feed on our stress hormones released by negative emotions like guilt, sadness, anger, fear, and so on. They control our minds and, thereby, us to an extent. The only way to combat them is by being aware and questioning if your thoughts and actions are truly your own thoughts and actions."

- 42clickslater

Enough Said

"The one about JFK Jr. coming back to help Trump win the 2020 election is still tops in my book."

- pinkyknee

Big Pharma Chickens

"That owning chickens is the gateway drug to believing conspiracy theories."

- sarcasawm

"As someone who has owned chickens, the only thing they're a gateway drug to is getting more farm animals."

- CelticArche

"That’s what Big Goat wants you to believe."

- MissRockNerd

"Big Farm-A."

- cannedcream

As wild as some of these conspiracy theories were, there's no denying that they're fascinating, some for the simple fact that they're almost plausible.

They at least get you thinking in a new way, and perhaps that isn't such a bad thing every now and then.

Two guys hi-fiving each other
Tyler Nix/Unsplash

A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.

The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.

Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.

Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:

"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"

These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.

Recurring Favor

"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."

– Queasy-Location-9303

"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."

– StiffAssedBrit

The Errand Girl

"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."

"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."

"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"

"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."

"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."

"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."

– ChamomileBrownies

Testing The Friendship

"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."

– plzdontgetmad

"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."

"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."

– NoMrBond3

People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.

The Chaperon

"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."

"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."

"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."

"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."

"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."

– Duffarum

Unwilling Companion

"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."

"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"

"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."

– Auldale

There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.

I Can Do It Better

"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."

– Complex-Half8338

"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"

– Hot-Coffee-8465

Never Steal The Spotlight

"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."

– Jasssin23

"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."

– thefifthtrilogy

All About Me

"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."

– PokemomOnTheGo

People can just be so rude.

"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."

– Tofflus1

"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."

– CatGoNoTail

Not Missing High School

"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."

"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."

"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."

– Symnestra

These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.

Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.

We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.

Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.