
Cheating is one of the worst things a person can do to a loved one. Betraying the trust of someone we are supposed to be committed to on such a fundamental level is truly despicable and heartbreaking, and the users of Reddit blew off some steam by telling the tales of their very worst, no good cheating exes.
We Feel for You
This is so recent (a week ago). I went to the spot I first took her to on the ship we worked on to surprise her, and she was on top of another dude. They looked me in the face and laughed when they saw me.
Congrats, Buddy!
Found out via Facebook a few months after I had broken up with him that he cheated on me. I was still friends with his siblings and parents, and they were tagged in some photos of him. Holding his clearly to-term newborn son. Less than nine months after I broke up with him.
Something Not to Be Thankful For
I'm not on great terms with my family, so I suggested making a roast chicken for the two of us for Thanksgiving. She opted to go to her roommate's family's place—the roommate who I learned she was sleeping with shortly afterward.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
I was at a party with a group of friends. I was standing behind my best friend talking in a group when my friend all of the sudden gets a text. I look at his phone and it's my girlfriend's full name and her asking when he is going to be over. She was supposed to be out of town at her mom's house.
Did He Get an A+?
I caught my boyfriend of two years. He had asked me to proofread his paper on his Mac and the text messenger popped up in the right hand. He was sitting in his bed texting some girl "goodnight, I love you" while sitting right next to me in his bed. I deleted his entire paper, wrote "Who's Marissa?" saved it and told him it looks great and left.
She was his girlfriend of eight years who lived next to his parents two hours away.
A Sudden Change of Heart
I knew he was cheating when he suddenly became concerned about his looks but didn’t want me to look good. He went on a diet, started wearing contacts, and started shaving his pubic hair, which he wouldn’t do for me. Also became distant, had a lack of interest in sex, spent a lot of time on his phone, had weird mood swings that didn’t relate to our relationship fights/make ups, along with lots of other signs.
The Question You Don’t Want Answered
I was "roommate with benefits" before and somehow I was the other woman. I don't know how he thought he was going to be able to keep the two of us a secret from each other. It's been about five years and when I think about it the emotion that comes back isn't sadness or anger from the betrayal, but amazement that he thought he was going to get away with it.
The Question You Don’t Want Answered
Back when Myspace survey quizzes were popular, I was reading one that she posted. A question on the quiz read "Who was the last person you kissed/had sex with?" The answer was not my name...
Racking up the Minutes
Phone bill was three times bigger than it should have been. Over 400 minutes to one number. The kicker was that she also had a company cell phone with unlimited calls that I obviously never would have known about, and the guy was someone she worked with. She literally wanted to get caught because she was too weak to tell me to my face.
Fly Me to the Moon
Just got on a flight in London headed to Vegas. Sitting next to my GF, and she wants to show me something she has planned for the trip, so gets out her phone. It opens to the Messages and shows a chat with a guy (I know him) saying how much she is going to miss him and how she doesn't want to go away with me anyway. The doors close on the plane and that was a really fun 10-11hrs...
A Little Subtlety Can Go a Long Way
Right before my ex got caught cheating, I saw his phone laying on the couch like it fell out of his pocket. I picked it up just as he realized he'd dropped it. I swear, he leapt across the room to take it from my hand before I could even say a word. I had already begun suspecting, but that was pretty definitive that I was right.
Setting an Example for the Baby
When I got home from work, she would be going to work and I would be hanging out with our baby. Around the time he was one and a half, she started going to the bar with co-workers. I was fine with it because it wasn't often, maybe one night a week, and she came back home by 12. It quickly got up to coming home between 2:30 am and 4 am, plastered, four to six times a week.
She started mentioning this one co-worker a lot and how cool he was. My paranoia got the better of me and I checked her phone one alcohol-induced coma night and she had been trying to get said co-worker to meet with her at an abandoned gas station a few miles up the road while she was on her way out.
I approached her and asked what she planned to do when he showed up, "just hang out and shoot the s***!" to which I replied, "While you’re drunk, at 2 am, behind an abandoned gas station..." She never admitted to it, but that, a lot of not-even-subtle clues and people I knew seeing her out at the bar gave me all I needed to know.
The Roommate Disagreement
She was having an argument with a housemate and they shouted at her—with me in the room—“At least I'm not cheating on my fiancé!” She moved out less than a week later.
Happy...Birthday?
I went to her 18th birthday party. I wandered around mingling with all her friends, and then I realized I hadn't seen her anywhere in like 45 minutes. I thought nothing of it at first, but then I went downstairs to use the basement bathroom. It was locked. I knocked and I heard a very breathy female voice say, "Occupied! Go Away!" Since I really had to go, I decided to wait.
GF came stumbling out of the bathroom with some guy about ten minutes later, looking all flustered and stinking. Apparently, the guy bought himself a bathroom quickie with a few hits of a toke. She made some excuse about how they were "just talking" and he was an old friend. I shrugged, actually wanting to believe her.
But when I went in to finally go to the bathroom, the stupid girl had forgotten her panties on the bathroom floor. I handed them to her in front of all her friends upstairs and walked out. "Here. You forgot these in the bathroom downstairs." It was one of those classic zinger moments when you really burned someone, but at the time, I just felt sick and brokenhearted.
Those Dog-Walkers Will Get You Every Time
Not so subtle, but my ex was being guarded with his phone, and every time I caught a glimpse of the screen while he was using it, it was the same girl. Asked who she is and it's his friend from "dog-walking club" Yeah right—they actually met on Tinder. He also went through my phone, and not very subtly either, because he accidentally sent random thumbs up to a lot of people on Facebook chat.
Then there was the random message from the above-mentioned girl, who had gone to the effort of looking me up and telling me to"back off her boyfriend." Hahahahahaha. There were a lot of things she didn't know either, apparently.
Thanks for the Reminder
I technically didn't catch him cheating, because he came clean about it when he broke up with me. I did, however, find out who he cheated with. He told me it was with his friend Natalie, who I had never heard of before, except for the time maybe days earlier when he told me about his "half black" friend Natalie. Ok, at the time I wasn't sure why he shared this detail.
This was ten years ago when we were all fresh out of high school, so I don't remember exactly how the conversation went. Days go by and a coworker asks me if we're still together, because she saw him kissing a girl, and she shares her description as "darker skinned." I tell her we broke up, and that's probably the girl he cheated on me with, it's ok.
Days go by and my good friend Nora's older brother invites me to hang out, totally out of the blue. I take him up on it and we go to a park near his parents' house. Lo, we spot Nora's car. We're walking through the park and there's Nora's parents' dog running around off leash. And there, on a gentle slope, is Nora and my recent ex making out on the grass.
Nora and her brother are Egyptian and could easily be described as "half black" or "darker skinned." My ex had made Natalie up.
Status: It’s Not That Complicated
Literally five hours after we broke up, he updated his Facebook relationship status to "engaged" to a girl who I thought he was just friends with. She uploaded a photo showing off the ring with the caption "he finally asked, and I said yes!"
Second in Command
Phone dinged, I checked it, (same phones no case both charging next to each other.) The text said, "I miss you too" and was from a girl he was dating when we were separated. Fast forward a few months to when he deploys. Check his email because at this point I know something is up. Find emails, so I contact the mistress.
She was very transparent with me and told me that basically, they were dating before he even met me, which means he courted me, asked me to marry him, married me then we had a child together all while he was still seeing her. We separate for a year, he dates her exclusively, we get back together, and he maintains a relationship with her. All of this without me knowing.
I found this all out while I was a month away from birthing his second child and he's getting shot at in Afghanistan. We decide to work through it, but I never could get over the fact that he cheated on me for four years and had no problem hiding it from me, and only came clean because I found out, as in, he had no intention of coming clean.
When he returned home he confessed to many other times with other people (thank GOD I never got an STD). After three subsequent years of him refusing to go to counseling so that we can ACTUALLY deal with it, he tells me he wants a divorce (a month before we are supposed to get a permanent change of station to Alaska). Moved back home with the kids, filed for divorce and life is amazingly better now. Screw that guy!
Raise the Roof
My cousin showed me a picture of her hooking up with the male stripper at her bachelorette party.
For My Ears Only
I caught my dad cheating on my stepmom because he said he wanted to listen to Adele on my headphones. The second he said that, I knew something was up. He would never take me and my sister out for any reason other than personal pleasure and why ask for my headphones. I come to find out after a little bit of snooping on his phone that he was sending Facebook audio messages to girls, so his wife couldn't read the messages. That really changed how I saw my dad.
Not That Kind of Emergency
She told me her little cousin (who is mentally handicapped) swallowed something (a battery I think) and was in the hospital in NC and was flying down there. Later, she went and took a nap. I was on the computer, clicked on the favorite place link to Gmail and saw a flight confirmation email to NY. I realized it was her account and not mine.
I sat at the edge of the bed calm as could be and as soon as she woke up I asked her what she was doing in NY. She tried to say she didn't know what I was talking about, but I told her I saw the email. She then said she was going to visit some friends, and I was like oh, is that why you made up this big lie about your cousin?
Dial 1 for Heartbreak
He was in the basement of the house we had JUST BOUGHT TOGETHER having phone sex with her, not realizing that the sound would travel through the vents. It sucked at the time but in hindsight, he did me a huge favor.
Wake up Call
My girlfriend started working with and talking about this girl and inviting the girl and her GF to go to dinner with us. We went on a double date with this couple a few times over the course of three weeks and I noticed every time we were all four out, my girlfriend would drink much more heavily than usual. It was weird.
We were having them over for dinner one Sunday, but had an adult sports game before (which usually involved light drinking) and she was acting super weird about making sure we were home on time and had dinner ready, etc. That night, after they left, she passed out on the couch next to me. Her Apple watch buzzed, and I glanced over and saw a selfie of this girl.
This was enough to get me to look at her phone (for the first time ever) where I find texts with sexting and details about their hookup. I took screenshots of all of it and sent it to my phone.I got dressed, texted a friend, packed a backpack, and woke her up by throwing her phone (with those messages open) at her and walking out the door.
She groggily sorted it all out and attempted to contact me all night and eventually texted the other girl's GF those screenshots, which I thought was pretty cruddy. Sort of an "if I'm going down, you're going down with me."
Fashion Statements
My first GF, that I had lost my virginity to, banged some dude from high school that allowed her to wear his letterman jacket home since it was cold. He came to her house to get it back and said it just felt right. All while I was at work. The worst part was she told me on AIM when I got home!
Sleepover
He has a longtime friend of his (who happened to be female) who was staying the night. She was sleeping in the basement bedroom and we were upstairs. Well, he slipped out of bed in the middle of the night and woke me up. When he noticed, he told me he had to go to the bathroom. I guess I already had my suspicions, because I lay there and listened to him walk down the hall, then past the bathroom, and down the stairs.
So, I followed. And caught him in the basement getting ready to have sex with her. Oh. I was not a happy puppy. Was stupid and tried to salvage our engagement, but I wasn't "fun anymore" and he left.
While You Were Working
My ex worked a night shift and I worked day shift, so I'd wait for her to come home (so kids wouldn't be sleeping alone) and one night she just didn't show up...Pulled up Find my iPhone to find out she's at her ex’s house. She came home a little later after texting/calling her constantly with some extra news: he got her pregnant...What a wonderful day.
Good Luck Getting a Ride
I had let her borrow my car while I took the bus to work, my friend called me at work to say that my girl was making out with some guy in my car. So I got a taxi over there and yup, there she was. I knocked on the window guy jumped out. I was going to start beating his ass, but I told him to just leave, this might not be your fault.
She started making excuses, I just asked her to step out of the car. Got my keys and drove away a mess, she screwed me up for a long time. She made me lose trust in women and messed up my concept of relationships for a long time.
Say Cheese!
When I was at college we had this campus Twitter account that people would post pictures of random people caught making out at parties to. I blacked out one Saturday night and woke up to a few angry texts…
Band Camp Blues
When I was 14/15 years old and at band camp, my best friend (let's call her Emma) and I were dating two boys who were best friends. Typical, right? So, one day Emma and I get out of rehearsal and we go to meet up with our boyfriends, who are nowhere to be found. So we look harder, we're wandering around campus, and we hear low voices behind a ledge.
Lo and behold, our precious boyfriends were there...MAKING OUT WITH EACH OTHER. Emma immediately started crying, which caused the boys to pull apart with a suctiony schluuurp. I suppose I wasn't as in love with Boyfriend as I thought, because my reaction was to laugh hysterically. I had never seen two boys make out before. It wasn't bad.
Double Standards
She told me in gratuitous detail the name, body type and acts she performed with like ten different dudes—ranging from making out to intercourse with "only" two dudes. She thought I would forgive her and it’d bring us closer and like it’d be good, so we could talk about those experiences together. After this, she moved for an "open" relationship—which made it all okay because she'd get to retroactively apply our "open" status.
I was young, in love, and heartbroken so I said yes because I was desperate to hang on to her. Then she broke up with me when I hooked up with someone else after like four months of "open" status and her having like a primary friend-with-benefits because I "liked her too much."
Gridlock
Was dating a girl in college and didn't think she was cheating. Another guy she was dating thought she was. He found my info in her phone and texts me about it. He wants to confront her. We both meet up at her place while she isn't home. He's a nice guy and we honestly got along pretty well for the half hour we talked before she arrived.
She saw us both as she drove up and the look on her face was shock. By the time she got out of her car she was crying but didn't say a word to us. We went in her apartment and her roommate acted as the mediator but it didn't really get anywhere. Me and the other guy were pissed and wanted answers. We weren't getting any so we both gave her some choice words and rolled out.
It’s Either Me or Pop Tarts
A friend in college cheated on his girlfriend because she told him he had to stop eating pop tarts so he could lose weight, and he didn't know how to break up with her. When she found out, he straight up told her to her face that he couldn't give up pop tarts. I wish that was a lie, those things are pretty darn high in calories.
Neal, Neal, Neal
My GF was getting ready for work one day and I noticed she was wearing makeup which she hadn't done in a very long time. I sarcastically asked her, "Is Neal working tonight with you?" to which she said, “no, I just wanted to look nice today.” I dropped her off at work and who was there? Neal, that dirty rat. Like in other stories, sometimes it's the abrupt change in a subtle thing about a person that sets off the warning bells.
Well This One Is a Little Weird...
I've never been able to explain it, but I saw my ex cheating on me in a dream. I saw everything. I told her about it and she freaked out. (To be fair, I described the dude's bedspread, fish-tank, and his room. I have never been there).
Wouldn’t Wait
I was 17 and he was my first boyfriend. I wasn't going to sleep with him and told him as much, so he was having sex with a girl who I knew from church youth group in his car before he would come hang out with me. She wanted him all to herself, so she showed me the messages—I was dumb and didn't believe her because this wasn't the first time she had stirred up drama like this.
Sure enough, his car was outside the church in the back corner of the parking lot and he was waiting for her. Although, TBH, I was mostly just dating him because I hadn't been kissed yet and was tired of waiting for someone I could see myself falling in love with. I was angrier over the humiliation of being cheated on more than because I loved him.
Star-Crossed Lovers
My ex was very into astrology. She cheated on me, and blamed it on the timing of the great American eclipse of August 2017.
Delete From Contacts
Ex-girlfriend. Woke up one morning and it was plastered all over her Snapchat story of her making out with her ex at some Christmas party. This was the day after a very intense romantic evening with her...Was a tough day to get through for sure. She decided to completely drop contact with me after with no answers as to what happened, but thank goodness I'm out of that train wreck now though...One month on and I'm doing much better.
You Haven’t Evolved Enough to Come up With a Better Excuse Than That?
When my husband and his mistress got caught, they tried to invoke an evolution argument and convince me that "humans aren't meant to be monogamous." I'm like, "if you don't believe in monogamy, why did you even marry in the first place? You could have joined a free love hippie commune at any time if you wanted to. But that's not what you did."
Misplaced Pep Talk
I remember I was brushing my teeth and looking at myself in the mirror, and I thought to myself, "I finally feel like I can trust her! I don't think she has been unfaithful at all to me. That's a good feeling!" I went back to the computer where we had a Skype session going, and I told her my mirror thoughts. I was so proud of myself because I can have trust issues.
She immediately went silent and started biting her lip. I was like "ooooofff course.." She ended up telling me that things got rekindled with her ex, and they started hooking up again. It was just the worst because we were in a long distance stint of our relationship. We broke up, and she got back together with him, and then wanted me back, and then wanted him back. I'm not even sure where it all stands now, but we don't communicate.
Betrayed by Your Own Family
My dad told me. 5 years later. On the morning of my wedding to another woman. After I dumped the cheater for unrelated reasons. And my entire family pushed for me to get back together with her. AND THEY KNEW SHE WAS CHEATING.
Life is Too Short to Waste on Guys Like Sam
My best friend was in the hospital having emergency surgery, during which she almost died. Her family told her boyfriend, Sam, about her situation. He never responded or showed up to see or ask how she was doing. He then proceeded to cheat on her with some girl from high school, claiming, “She didn’t answer my texts for two whole days!!” Yeah, because she was nearly dead, you jerk!
Tripped up
I was gone for a week for work. Got back to my building after a flight home and had no ride. She forgot to come pick me up. I finally got a hold of her, came to pick me up half drunk, went back to our house, I was unpacking and turned around and she had her hair and makeup done and just said "I'm going out, see ya" and left. This was after I had been gone for a week.
The next day was Friday, she had got home after I went to bed and left for work before me. I got home, and she was already gone, and had texted me and said she was going to her friend's house to hang out for a house party for the weekend. I didn't hear from her again for two days despite calling and texting her. She got home late Sunday night and told me she "lost her phone in the couch.”
I told her this wasn't working, and she needed to leave. She packed a bag while I cracked a beer on the couch. A couple days later, my friend emailed me a boatload of pictures from the weekend she disappeared, all of her and the guy she was cheating on me with. He had posted them on his Myspace that Sunday evening. She actually continued to mess up things for me for quite a while after this, financially mostly, but eventually, I got free of that disaster and moved on happily.
Good Thing She Didn’t Call Your Bluff
She kept deleting all her texts... I got suspicious and told her I had a cool program on my PC that picks up all texts wirelessly. Confronted her saying I had seen them on my PC, she admitted it without me seeing a thing.
Get Thee to a Dentist
One morning, I went to brush my teeth and my toothbrush was wet. I found that odd, so I asked my girlfriend if she had used the blue toothbrush, and she said “yeah” all casual. I said that the pink toothbrush was hers, and she played it off like she didn’t know. I suddenly realized that we had been using the same toothbrush for a few weeks, and it kind of grossed me out. That started a very small argument. I went to work, as did she, but she didn’t come home that night. The next morning, I called her out and she admitted that she slept with another guy who "didn’t think she was gross."
Silence Does Not Equal Consent
My ex-girlfriend cheated on me when I fell asleep. She said since I wasn't responding when she asked if I would be okay with it, she assumed I was. Wack!
While You Were Healing
Oh man I have a winner. I had surgery on my testicles due to a possible tumor (it wound up being benign), so I'm recovering that evening in bed. My girlfriend (long-distance) visited me to take care of me. All is going great, except for my crotch hurting and my wearing of a diaper—but hey, I had just come back from Afghanistan, so life was still pretty sweet.
My girlfriend offers to make me some food. Sweet. So she asks me to look up a recipe on my phone. I can't find my phone—so she tosses me hers. Well, let me tell you, in the midst of me looking up a great Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe, a message from my friend Ryan flashes across the top of the screen. I can't make it out, but it looks an awful lot like sex.
I'm like, "Oh Ryan, what are you giving a hard time to my girlfriend about," So I click the message, if only to relay what I presumed was a joke to her. Well, let me tell you, the joke was on me. Those two had been going to Bonetown, USA, while I was deployed. They talked about me being gone as a sexcation. My girlfriend asks if I found anything good.
I'm like "Oh heck yeah." Now, I show her the texts. She denies anything happened. Which is, well dumb—so me being a man of dignity, kick her out of the apartment and send her on her way to Georgia. Wearing adult diapers, I kicked her out of my place. Honestly, I just wish I had found out after I had eaten some Cordon Bleu.
Love Is Not a Game
I'd finished doing the dailies on my WoW character, and I knew he wasn't going to be home for a while so like many times before (with his permission) I logged into his account to do dailies for him. Then the PM's started. Very explicit PM's. Not only was he cheating on me in a game (with loads of people, cybersex in WoW, eugh). But it got worse.
There was one girl who was talking about things outside the game too. I admit I played along for a while to see what was going on.After that, I told her who I was. It all ended rather badly, between her and I, him and I, and him and her.
Be Careful Who You Message
I was dating this dead beat guy for about 2 years. I lived on my parents' property and so did he, for free. One day while I was at work, I go on break and I get a FB message from a guy I barely know. It said "I don't know how you feel about this, but it bothers me." I click it and see a picture. At first I was thinking it was spam and almost deleted it before enlarging it (seemed like one of those click bait titles that hijacks your account).
Something made me decide to click it anyway. When I click it, I see a screenshot of a FB convo between my bf and his gf. He was hitting on her, telling her how much of POS her bf was and how he would treat her so much better than that. He told her not to tell anyone about the convo. Well, sucks for him because the girl immediately showed her bf, who showed me.
Ha! Judging by the time stamps, this conversation took place the previous night at MY house on MY laptop (it was the only way he could have this conversation). Needless to say, I left work early, went home, kicked him out of my place, and made him homeless. Oh well.
Less Than Immaculate Conception
I know this is cliche and I've definitely complained about it before, but coming home from a 12-month deployment to a black baby when we're both white were strike one and two. Strike three was her telling me she had black relatives (whom I've never met) so that could be what happened, sure. Doesn't matter what excuse you have, though, there isn't a magical 12 month gestation period. Makes me very angry.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
I was married for six years and caught my husband cheating. His response was to just shrug and say, "I got nothing." That was it.
The Weirdest Animal Facts People Know
Reddit user FunChemical3182 asked: 'What is the weirdest animal fact you know?'
People accumulate facts throughout life on a wide variety of subjects.
Some are mundane while others are weird, wild or wonderful.
One subject a lot of people focus on is animals. Most people have a favorite animal that fascinates them that they want to know all about.
Reddit user FunChemical3182 asked:
"What is the weirdest animal fact you know?"
Like Perry
"Platypus glow blueish green under ultraviolet light."
"They also don’t have nipples, they just exude milk from glands under the skin and the baby’s lap it up."
~ WakingOwl1
"They have electrolocation in their bills that lets them detect their food under water."
~ DrPlatypus1
"And they lay eggs."
"The more I find out about them the more I understand why people first thought they were fake."
~ Reidroshdy
"After seeing all these platypus facts I am convinced these things are aliens that have been abandoned on Earth."
~ SeattleOne206
Kapow!
"Mantis Shrimp have 16 different sets of cones. Rods and cones are in your eyes. Cones see color, rods see light and motion."
"Dogs have 2 sets of cones—green and blue. Humans have 3 sets of cones—green, blue and red."
"Mantis Shrimp are seeing colors we can't comprehend and explains why they're very colorful."
"That’s not even the strangest thing about them."
"They can also punch as fast as a .22 bullet which cause a cavitation bubble which boils the water around them at temperatures of several thousand Kelvins."
~ RigzDigz
Terrible Twos
"Cats have the mental capacity of a 2-year-old which makes a lot of sense."
~ Alive_Ad823
Like Tinder
"When a female sloth wants a mate she'll hang onto a tree branch and just scream."
~ Remarkable_Sink2542
Good Thing They're So Small
"Dragonflies are the most successful predators on Earth."
"When lions choose prey they have like a 10% chance of catching it."
"African painted dogs—who hunt in packs—have the highest kill rate of any mammal, successfully catching 51% of their prey."
"When a dragonfly locks onto a target, it has a 99.9% success rate!"
~ PurpleInevitable2103
On A Swivel
"Owls have really long necks, but it's hard to notice that because their feathers are so fluffy."
~ ergonaut
What About Cousin It?
"Sea otters are the most densely furred animal with 600,000 to 1,000,000 hair follicles per square inch."
"Dogs have about 15,000 per square inch, humans on average are between 800 to 1,290 hairs per square inch."
~ atom1129
Sucker Punchers
"Octopus punch other fish for no reason—so, for fun."
~ Samanthalynn8915
"There's a direct correlation between species' intelligence and dickish behavior."
~ TheDesktopNinja
Looks Are Deceiving
"Polar bear fur isn't white—it's translucent (for most frequencies of light). And they have black skin underneath."
"So polar bear fur lets all the light through to their black skin to warm them—except for a few visible frequencies to keep them camouflaged as white."
~ seedanrun
Who's Going To Attack One‽‽
"Honey badgers can turn their a**holes inside out and use the smell to deter attackers."
"Not sure what exactly has the guts to attack a honey badger, but if they have the courage to do so, the badger sure as hell isn’t gonna make it easy."
~ nonexistantauthor
Big Momma
"The Blanket Octopus exhibits the highest degree of sexual dimorphism known."
"Females: About 6 feet across."
"Males: About one inch."
~ Fabulous-Pause4154
High Times
"Dolphins will intentionally use puffer fish to get high."
~ altkaldra
"They upset blowfish so they inflate, and therefore emit poison. It gets the dolphins high. Then they pass it around, literally."
~ smack4u
"Not just the dolphins. I recently saw a video about 10 animals that like to get high. Very interesting."
~ s137leo__
"Lemurs do that with giant centipedes/millipedes too."
~ chubbyknuckles420
Fabrizio Frigeni on Unsplash
Better Than Bike Helmets
"Woodpeckers' tongues wrap around their brains to cushion them from the vibrations of slamming their face into trees all day."
~ we_made_yewww
"Their tongues also have barbs to grab bugs out of the holes."
"Their brains have additional cushioning because, you know, they spend their days smashing their face as hard as possible into trees."
~ RhynoD
Detachable Organs
"Argonauts [paper nautili] are small octopuses that are too lazy to have intercourse."
"They detach their penises and toss them into the open sea to mate with female argonauts."
"The detachable 'd*ck' is a tiny tentacle, complete with suckers and sperm, that develops in a cavity under the eye of a male argonaut [paper nautilus]."
"When it's time to mate, the tentacle explodes out of the cavity, instantly killing the male argonaut. The tentacle then swims towards a female argonaut to insert itself."
"Sexy, huh?"
~ Schwarzes__Loch
What's your favorite weird animal fact?
People Share Their Wildest 'I Can Fix Them' Dating Experiences
Content Warning: Mental Health, Suicide, Domestic Violence
We all know that we technically can't make anyone else do anything, and we certainly can't "fix" other people. Other people will only change or do something if they choose to; the only person we can really control is ourselves.
But some people really love to try, often to hilarious and terrible results.
Already cringing, Redditor Dapper_Algae6280 asked:
"People who entered a relationship thinking 'I can fix them,' how did that go?"
Time for an Upgrade
"There is a weird thing that happens when you 'fix' someone. They tend to think if you liked them broken, then they deserve better than you now that they are better than they were."
- TheRealLifePotato
"As horrible as it sounds, to have a happy, emotionally healthy relationship you need two happy, emotionally healthy people. If you want to be in that sort of relationship, you need to fix yourself first."
- inactiveuser247
"This right here. After three sh*tty relationships in a row, I realized this is a me problem. I took a few years off from dating to reflect and really learn to see red flags and understand myself so I wouldn't make that mistake again."
- MikoSkyns
No More Spark
"My now ex had PTSD, depression, and a variety of other issues she claimed. After two and a half years of dating (being my first and only relationship), she became more social, less suicidal, and overall happier as a person."
"She decided to cheat on me with someone else due to 'lack of communication' and us 'no longer having a spark". The irony."
"For context, we were 17 at the time, in high school, and I worked full-time hours with initiatives to hang out, which were refused. Red flags everywhere."
- elteragxo
"Your situation is eerily similar to mine, what the f**k?"
"I met a girl with mental and emotional issues and decided to fix them through a healthy relationship. She recovered and found someone else because 'the spark was gone.'"
- Aimlessdrifter8778
Misery Loves Company
"Now we are both broken."
- Brave-Butterscotch76
"The same thing happened to my sister-in-law. She married a very negative and miserable guy while saying 'he will get better' or 'we’re working on it,' and now she’s a very negative and miserable person."
- Moreofyoulessofme
Getting to Watch a Partner Grow
"At first we were only f**king. I don't know if I ever thought I could fix her, but I did fall in love with this beautiful lady with severe anxiety, depression, and trust issues after being in a domestically violent relationship."
"We were f**k buddies for about six months and I got a glimpse of her issues but I still went ahead and asked her to be my girlfriend The heart wants what it wants."
"We dated for a year and a half (two years since meeting), and I actually got to see her at her worst a few times, but I was finally able to get her therapy with a great psychiatrist and treatment, this is when I asked her to move in with me. We've been living together for six years."
"Four years ago, she had the worst breakdown I've seen. She went full-on paranoid, wall-scratching nervous, she was even doubting me and my motives to be there. It was a very difficult week, and she left the house and went to her mom's house in the middle of the night."
"Eventually, her therapist was able to get a hold of her and get her back to her senses. Her doctor then suggested that I also should go to a counselor or at the very least we should do couples therapy so we had strong bases for our relationship and we did."
"I now look back and won't change her for anything in the world, she has grown so much, and she glows right now. I now see her smile and it's glorious. She's achieved a great position too and it's amazing just to see how much happier she looks."
- Spiritual-Narwhal666
Not a Match
"I fixed what I wanted to fix, but that still didn't make us right for each other. In the end, I think she's in a much happier place than she could have been, so I think it was worth the time invested."
"We were wrong for each other, but at least we both came out better positioned to receive the happiness that would come to us later."
- MrWeb20
In Their Nature
"A couple of months into the relationship, I fixed him."
"After some irritation, he stopped peeing on the carpet. Now, my cat still brings mice, but I guess, that's just his nature."
- mobileJay77
The Importance of Boundaries
"I don't know if I would say that I 'fixed' her (and I wasn’t trying to), but I definitely taught my last ex the importance of being able to set boundaries and to stop going out of her way to please people who consistently hurt her."
"Eventually this would lead to us breaking up, but I have no regrets. I have issues of my own that were wearing her down and she did what she had to. Same rules apply. We’re both better off because of it."
- TylerTexas10
Happily Ever After
"She fixed herself and I fixed myself with each other's support, and we are living happily ever after, it seems, with ongoing work on ourselves and our relationship."
- DonPronote
An Uncommon Ending
"I didn’t fix them. But I tried my hardest to be patient and supportive while they fixed themself. Sometimes I was better at support than other times. Sometimes they were better at fixing than other times."
"It ended up being worth the patience. Things have been great with us for years now. I know this isn’t the normal outcome though, and I feel incredibly lucky."
- I_Invented_Frysauce
A Little Help from Our Friends
"Usually I'm the one people try to fix.. I think the repeated attempts definitely helped me. Now my current partner gets to enjoy the previous hard work."
"...I think I just got tired of hurting the people who love me and fixed myself, though."
- addrien
All Their Idea
"You can't fix anyone. You can only fix yourself, but if you really want to try and fix someone, you have to make it seem like it's their idea."
- BuhrZap
A Helping Hand
"I don't think you can fix anyone. You can only help them fix themselves, which is very different."
"If someone is actively trying to fix themselves, and you can actually be the person to support them through it, then it can work, but it could also not work."
"I do think there should be a distinction between the two. I mean, trying to fix someone is a bad idea, but if you like someone and are willing to support them in their journey to fix themselves, it's probably not the worst idea in the world."
- brooksie1131
Lesson Learned
"It went so well that they managed to cure me of the desire to 'fix' anybody."
"I’ll toss you a life preserver if you’re trying to save yourself. But I’m not jumping in the water with anyone so they can drown me on their way out."
"People who need to hit rock bottom in order to better themselves will use you to soften their landing if you let them."
- GlobalPermit5428
Best Friends Forever
"It went well but it didn’t work out."
"So we kind of fixed each other we were both at very weird points in our lives and we only dated for about one and a half years. We didn’t need a romantic partner but we did need a friend in each other."
"We’re both in better places now and the best of friends. We both want each other to be part of our lives just not as lovers."
"All and all, I say we got the best outcomes in our lives."
- CODMAN627
So Worth the Investment
"He was an Uber driver with only a high school diploma."
"I married him anyways and bankrolled his education because he was fun as f**k to be around, was the smartest person I’ve ever met, and loves me like I’m the only woman on Earth."
"Now, he’s a computer engineer and we are landlords together and have bought investment properties. We are very happy together."
"Partners work together to create success. I think selfish people ask, 'what’s in it for me?' Marriage is about selflessness."
"I’m glad I sacrificed for his education. His mind would be wasted otherwise and he’s a genius."
- BabyElephantWalks
In most of these cases, the situation went poorly after a Redditor tried to change someone, and for good reason. If that person isn't ready or doesn't want to be fixed, it's only going to damage the relationship.
There's also something to be said about unconditional love. If you don't want to date the person exactly as who they are right now, why are you even trying to date them?
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/Tough guys put on a facade that indicates to others that they always know what's going on.
But their confidence doesn't always match their intellect, which is probably why they cover their insecurities by walking around and trying to show everyone who's really the boss.
If that's the case, they should keep their mouths shut because not everything that comes out of their mouth needs to be heard.
Yet, it can be amusing to everyone else.
Curious to hear examples of these, Redditor PrototypeShadowBlitz asked:
"Reddit, what is the stupidest thing you've heard from the 'alpha male' community?"
You might find these guys at a bar.
The Dude Must Be Hungry
"Had a run in once with a group of young lads about something in a bar and one of them said we are top of the food chain bro and you will be the prey."
– insertitherenow
"'Whatever, mall ninja" -proper response."
– TheEighthLord
If The Shoe Fits
"That they were an alpha male."
– I_Have_A_Name37654
"The use of 'Alpha Male,' unironically is every indication that you're dealing with a child's understanding of manhood."
– 88Dubs
Brat Pack
"Me and my bros are all alpha males."
– SonOfDadOfSam
"I was skiing one time and rode the lift with a guy that said, 'I don't feel no pain. I live with 5 roommates and none of us feel any pain.' Okay, bud. That's a really interesting coincidence."
– NicPizzaLatte
They sure thrive on making sexist comments.
Contagious Femininity
"A coworker said, 'I don't spend too much time with my girlfriend because I'll become too feminine.'"
– Lazy_Natural6154
"FELLAS IS IT GAY?!"
– aliebabadegrote
Sexist Categorization
"I have been called a beta for saying that my wife makes more money than I do. She works in a more lucrative field and is more educated than I am, so it makes perfect sense that she makes more than I do."
"So I came back, and this post has really blown up. There's just a few things I want to clarify."
"1- I have only ever been called a beta online."
"2- I work full-time in project management. I have a master's degree. I have a 6 figure salary."
"3- My wife has a PhD and works in finance. She also has a 6 figure salary, it's just a higher salary than my own."
"4- I'm sorry to anyone who might feel as though my original post misled them."
– ExaminationDouble240
It's Teamwork
"A real man would be proud of his wife for achieving success, and not fall for that sort of insecure bullsh*t."
"It's not a contest, that's the real joke here. Good on you for seeing the big picture."
– Mrbeardoesthethings
Do these roles about parenting sound familiar?
Childish Things Are Too Girly
"Real men don't take their kids trick or treating is one that I heard recently."
– constructionguy89
"Related. Guys who brag about not changing diapers, not playing 'girly' games, etc. Essentially guys who brag that their only contribution to fatherhood is money and masculine things like fishing or football. Even then some of them brag about not paying a lot of child support to prove they didn't let the system take advantage of them."
"I can't imagine a life so empty my only accomplishment worth bragging about was being a terrible parent."
– Green7000
This Woman's Work
"I was told that taking care of my kids is woman's work. Apparently it's concerning that I try to spend so much of my free time with them. Oddly enough the meatheads at my grappling club think it's sweet I occasionally have my daughters' hair clips on and nails painted."
– MrFunktasticc
People discussed rules in the bedroom.
Never Submissive
"That a man is turned off when their wife/girlfriend seduces them, because if she wants sex and shows it she is a sl*t, also making the man the submissive one…"
– kamalaophelia
Stifling Emotions
"Not the whole community, but was cuddling with a guy once and could tell he was trying not to get emotional over something that was bothering him. He said, quite literally, 'it's not alpha male behaviour.' I told him that I liked that he showed emotions sometimes, and he looked disgusted by the fact that I pointed it out."
– LambLifts
In high school, a classmate who was on the football team said I was a "sissy" for listening to classical music.
The other classmates laughed at me, which was hardly surprising since all of the guys on our unbeatable football team were considered stars on campus.
This kind of mockery was a typical day for me.
I can laugh at their idiotic comments now but back then, I don't know why I ever let them get under my skin.
We've all done things, or in some cases, regularly do things that others might consider weird.
Even so, we often feel no shame or embarrassment and embrace how unusual these habits are, and take our friends teasing or laughing at us for doing so in stride.
Sometimes, however, we might not like to advertise some of our unusual habits or actions and make every effort to keep them a well-guarded secret.
As raised eyebrows are much easier to take than blatant judgment from friends and peers.
Redditor Key_Nectarine_1969 was curious to hear all the weird things people have done which they still keep under lock and key, leading them to ask:
"What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done that you could only tell people anonymously?"
The Devil [Dogs] Is In The Detail...
"All throughout middle school, there was someone who tucked unwrapped Hostess Devil Dogs into the toilet paper dispensers in the bathrooms, so that when you pulled some toilet paper out, the devil dog would fall out into your hand."
"We had to have an assembly about it."
"That person... Was me."- bejeweled_sky
Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time
"Was drunk at an escape room with coworkers."
"It was an extreme one where you are handcuffed the entire time."
"I decided in my drunken state that it would be bada** to dislocated my thumb and slip off the cuffs like the movies."
"It wasn't."
"We got kicked out, my coworkers were weirded out and I had to go to the hospital."
"I quit a few weeks later."
"White collar wasn't for me."- Grotesque-penguin
The Bread Of Heaven
"Stole over 1,000 wafers from church because I really liked the communion wafers & didn’t know where else to get them."
"I felt really blessed & cursed for a long time."- hALLIEcinate
Retracing Steps...
"Once I got off the subway in NYC and I was super early for an appointment."
"So I picked a random guy and just followed him on foot for like 30 minutes, pretending I was like a private detective or something."
"Always kept about a half block behind."
"He turned this way and that, and eventually went into a building I had lived in 9 years earlier."
"It was weird, and so was I."- OKsurewhynotyep
Hygeine Be Damned...
"I found a dead rat in a field when i was younger and kissed it bc I wanted to say goodbye."- qeleia
Bad Decisions Have A Way Of Getting Back To You...
"We got super drunk and ate a ton of spicy food in New Orleans."
"Back at the B&B, the food started to come out the back side."
"I was sitting on the toilet sh*tting bricks of fire."
"At that moment, the booze decided to hang a u-turn."
"The trash can was out of reach and I couldn't risk standing up from the toilet for even 5 seconds."
"The closest receptacle was the bathtub."
"I managed to turn in such a way that I could keep shi*ting in the toilet while projectile vomiting into the tub."
"Both ended up clogged, and there was no plunger."
"I had to call the owner to explain that I had destroyed both their toilet and their tub simultaneously."- HoopOnPoop
Things Best Left To Professionals...
"My partner is weirdly prone to cysts."
"I had to drain a 3 inch cyst on her back (thankfully she had a dr's appt the next week), then multiple other little cysts on her legs and chest."
"I never told her to her face but that first giant cyst literally haunted me, the amount of pus and blood I saw....good heavens."- SleepyBiologist
At Least A Lesson Was Learned...
"When I was walking to school one morning, I saw a kid (7-8 yo?) kicking a dog."
"I ran over & kicked the kid and asked him how it felt."
"He ran off and no one saw."
"Still not sorry."- sneezyailurophile
All Creatures Deserve Love
"I was extremely socially isolated as a child and tried to make friends with the coyotes who lived in the woods by our home."
'I caught one in a snare and fed and kept her."
"I wanted a friend."- letthetreeburn
That's What Friends Are For...
"My wife and her best friend pick me up from a frat party black out drunk."
"Then they helped me take a sh*t on the toilet, wiped my a** and then gave me a shower and put me to bed naked."
"Don’t remember any of it."- nc3100
Not The Right Kind Of Manure...
"One time I went outside at like 2AM and put the garden hose nozzle into my butthole and sprayed some water into it, then farted it out onto the lawn."
"Basically gave myself an enema with a garden hose."
"I did this because I was bored."
"My neighbour saw me and told my dad (lived at home at the time)."- WaspsInMyGoatse
A Little Fantasy Now And Then...
"When I was younger I joined an international dating site that I figured was a scam."
"Put a black square as my picture and gave myself a fake name, and then looked through their users."
"And after about 10 minutes I had like a 100 messages."
"Most of them were messages telling me how handsome I was or how these women fell in love with me at first site."
"Now I knew it was a scam but when ever I felt down or got rejected for a while I would pop back on the site and read a few messages."
'Yeah it’s kinda cringy and probably pathetic but it made me feel better."
"I would just turn off that logical part of my brain that knew it was a scam for awhile and just pretend I was this popular and desirable guy."
"And it honestly got me through the day sometimes."- Demonking3343
If anyone says they've never done anything they're ashamed, or at the very least less-than-proud of, in all likelihood, they are lying.
Or, more likely, they understandably want to pretend that it never happened.
Which might be a little easier than harboring a secret.