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Terrified Folks Describe The Creepy People They Never Want To Meet Again

The world is a very scary place. This fact can be easy to forget when we’re going about our daily lives, but all it takes is one crazy incident to remind us of how true this really is. And for folks who have experienced eerie encounters with dangerous people or circumstances that could easily have caused them a lot of problems, this fact remains ever-present in their minds no matter where they go or what they do. Here are 50 unforgettable stories about encounters with people that most of us would probably prefer never to meet again.

Man’s Best Friend

black white and brown long coated dog on brown dirt road during daytimePhoto by Andy Lyell on Unsplash

My family has a Bernese mountain dog called Ava, who is very big. She’s a quiet and lazy dog, but she also seems to be alert at all times. One night, my parents went out for dinner and left me at home with Ava. I was downstairs watching TV and my lounge is right next to the front door. At around 8:00 PM, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to see a guy in fairly plain clothes standing there. He told me that he had a delivery for me. I was confused because he didn’t look like a delivery driver, and he had no parcel. Suddenly, I turn my head and see another guy around the side of my driveway which goes to our back door. This other man is clearly walking towards my back door.

I freak out and the guy at the door notices this. He barges through, shouting for the other guy. This is when Ava wakes up and begins to let out the loudest bark I’ve ever heard, making the guy stumble back. She rushed towards him and jumped up, grabbing his shoulder and literally throwing him out the door. His buddy came along, but saw Ava and started to run.

The other guy managed to slip out of Ava’s grip and run down the road. I somehow managed to get Ava to stay so I didn’t lose her, and they got away. I was so shaken up. I called my parents and then the authorities, and I gave them a statement. It’s safe to say that Ava got plenty of treats from then on, and I always keep her nearby when I am on my own.

reggie2006

Railroaded

I live in Tokyo and commute via those famously crazy crowded trains daily. There exists on them this kind of unspoken agreement that everyone works together to make this suck as little as possible. But that’s only when the trains are full. About two stops before mine, the train goes from sardine can to everyone on this train could lay on the seats and have room left over.

So, usually, I can sit down at this point. I'm also very obviously not a Japanese woman. But despite my appearance, I'm fluent in Japanese. One day, I sit down when the train empties out, ready to enjoy the 10 minutes of sitting that I get on my hour-long commute. I'm sitting with my legs crossed, as there are maybe ten people in the whole car and I'm not in anyone's way.

All of a sudden, a hand reaches out and grabs my bare knee. I jolt straight out of my skin, rip out my headphones, and look up at the hand's owner. It's some skinny old Japanese dude, at least in his 60s. He points at my legs and, in slightly broken English, says: "You must not cross legs on the train!" I'm totally bewildered by this.

I start to tell him in Japanese that the train isn't crowded right now, and that I'm not in anyone's way. But he doesn't like this answer. He starts to reach for my legs again. I scream as loud as I can, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Thankfully, this was enough to get him to stop that, as another thing you don't do on trains here is make a fuss.

Djtaffi

A Taste Of His Own Medicine

I was standing in line at the local pharmacy to get my prescriptions. This is a small town and I am a regular there, so they know me on sight. I was behind a couple of other people in line, and there were a couple of people behind me. I kept feeling a tickle in my hair in the back of my head, but every time I looked behind me, the guy there was a few steps back and looking at the floor.

This happened several times by the time I reached the front of the line. The pharmacist told me she wanted to talk to me about my medication in the consultation room. I thought this was weird, because we both knew I had been on this medication for years and would be for life. Nothing new. I get back to the room and close the door, and she comes in from the pharmacy.

She told me that the man behind me had been stepping forward, sticking his nose in my hair, and smelling it before stepping back and looking at the floor. This shook me pretty badly as this is such weird behavior, especially in my little town. The pharmacy staff insisted on having me wait there until the guy was distracted by another pharmacy employee.

They then had a security guard walk me to my car and watch me drive off, to make sure I was gone before Hair Sniffer came out and saw what car I was driving or what direction I was going in. I still use this pharmacy and some of the same people still work there. I will always be grateful that they took the initiative to make sure I was safe that day.

Cygnus875

Grin And Bare It

A few years ago, I was living alone in a little house. It had a heavy back door that would swell up after it rained. This always made it get really tough to open, and it would make a lot of noise. Late one night, I had passed out on my sofa in the living room on the opposite side of the house. But I suddenly woke up to a strange sound. Netflix was still blaring away on my laptop, but I guess I had felt a vibration or movement.

As I slowly squinted my eyes open, I realized the outline of someone was standing still in the hallway looking down at me. They were not very large or tall based on how much space they took up in the door frame. Being completely disoriented in my not-quite-awake-yet state, my mind assumed that it must be my girlfriend.

I was naked at the time, so I pulled back my blanket with my legs sprawled apart and called to her in my best deep voice "C'mere baby!" I guess once they realized I was a naked 200-pound man beckoning to them with my private parts, the person immediately turned on their heels and booked it for the back door. By the time I stumbled up to the door, all I could hear was them taking off into the darkness at a full sprint.

Arnold_Schrodinger

A Devoted Follower

I was 13 years old and on vacation with my parents in Turkey. We were at an all-inclusive hotel and enjoying the holiday. The hotel was full of tourists from different countries. There was this one guy, around 20 years old, who was staring at me for some time. I felt uncomfortable and asked him how he was doing. Wrong choice.

The next few days, everywhere I went, he also suddenly appeared. Not flirting, just lurking for hours and watching me. He had a really strange vibe around him and I felt I shouldn't be alone with him. Now, I was still young and my parents didn't want to leave me alone in a foreign country. So he couldn’t really bother me at any point.

But one night, there was entertainment in the hotel, which became boring to me after some time. I told my parents I wanted to go up to our hotel room and that I would see them in the morning. I left and walked to the elevator. I didn’t know it, but I was making a dire mistake. The guy who had been watching me for days saw me leaving, and he had followed me.

When I saw him also coming into the elevator, I was shaking with fear. He looked at me silently with a sinister smile. "This is it." I thought. Who knows what horrible plans he had for me. And just before the doors of the elevator were closing, someone stuck his boot between in order to prevent the doors from closing. I am not kidding, all I could see was a boot.

The doors opened and it was my dad. He saw that the creepy guy was leaving at the exact time I had left and didn't trust it. He looked the guy in the eye and said hello. My dad took me to my hotel room. To this day, I am so glad for the rescue because I don't want to know what would've happened if he didn't.

dees94

Home Sweet Home

man in gray crew neck shirt standing beside white curtainPhoto by Emmanuel Ikwuegbu on Unsplash

When I was 13 years old, my family moved from a village to a city. This city had a fairly high homelessness rate, so of course, there were always a lot of people looking for somewhere to stay. An old family friend of mine is a letting agent, so he often lets me use some of the unoccupied houses as a sort of recording studio for music that I create in my spare time.

He is totally fine with me using the houses for this purpose as long as I keep them clean and clear out for a while whenever there are viewings. This arrangement works fine for me. One night, after recording at one of the houses, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet there. So, I cycled back, got my wallet, and decided to check the rooms since the door hadn’t been locked properly.

I go upstairs and open the door to one of the bedrooms. Lo and behold, there was a man in his mid-30s lying on the bed like it was his own home. Both of us just looked at each other, completely startled. Neither of us said anything. I guess we came to some sort of non-verbal agreement, and I showed him out. Definitely a creepy experience…

Metal_Warrior_69

Power Struggle

When I was about 14 years old, my parents were out one night. They left me and my little sister home alone. It was about 10:00 PM when the lights suddenly went out. This used to happen sometimes in my country, since it’s a new country and really poor. But that time, I noticed something out of the ordinary. Only the lights in our house were out, and my neighbors’ lights were still on.

I had a bad feeling, so I quickly locked all the doors and closed the blinds. I told my little sister to hide behind the couch and not to go out no matter what happened. I hid somewhere else with a knife and tried to call my mom. She didn’t pick up, so I waited. After some time, I thought it was over, so I got out of my hiding place and headed to the kitchen to look out the window.

Before I could even get close, I heard a terrifying sound. It was the doorknob turning. It didn’t open, so the person tried it again, now violently. That’s when I panicked and I shouted: “WHO ARE YOU? GET AWAY FROM MY HOUSE. I JUST CALLED 9-1-1!” I heard footsteps and then nothing. I went to the other room and looked out the window. From there, I saw someone running out of my backyard.

My sister was crying so I comforted her while we still stayed hidden until my parents came home. We told them everything and my dad said that whoever it was, he had intentionally cut the house’s electricity to scare us. To this day, every time the electricity goes out, I get kinda scared and I’m glad we are all safe and well.

differentpersonas

Salt And Pepper

I was standing right outside my apartment when an unknown person snuck around a corner and sprayed me with pepper spray while I was looking at my phone. I could make out a tall, thin man with a backpack walking away with his hands in his pockets before I lost the ability to keep my eyes open. There were no other people on the sidewalk in either direction.

I didn't see his face. He didn't say anything or try to take anything from me. He didn't even stick around to watch me be all messed up. Just walked away. Like nothing happened. I'm very thankful that I was able to feel for my keys and get back into my building, but then I started to realize that I could have permanent damage if I didn't get to a sink.

I couldn't find the key to my apartment. I was starting to not be able to breathe. I pounded on every door I could feel until my neighbor, whom I had never met before this moment, opened up for me. She let me bust into her bathroom and toss water everywhere. I felt so terrible for just commandeering her bathroom and bringing in that smell to her place.

But I will be eternally grateful to this lady for helping me. The officers that showed up didn't find the guy, and now I'm wondering whether this was a random attack or if this dude had been waiting for me for some unknown reason. At this point, I have no reason to suspect that I’ll ever learn the real reason behind this bizarre incident.

PuzzledAlbatross

An Uninvited Guest

When I was nine years old, my sister and I were doing swimming classes together at our community pool. One evening, after my mom had picked us up from the pool, she told us to get ready to go to the grocery store. So, I went upstairs to shower and get the chlorinated water off me before we left home. My sister was changing in our room. While I was in the shower, I heard someone come into the bathroom and start rummaging through the drawers.

I asked what my sister was looking for because I couldn't see through the frosted glass and, at that point, I assumed it was her looking for something for her hair. It wasn’t. All of a sudden, this strange man jumped into the shower with me, pulled off his shirt, and draped it over my head. I screamed at the top of my lungs and crouched down into a ball to protect myself.

My incessant screaming and squirming scared the guy off after a few seconds. He jumped out and ran out the back door. Seconds later, my dad came bolting into the room to see if I was okay. I was scared out of my mind, but thankfully I was okay. Unbeknownst to us, earlier in the day, an employee of ours had left the front door open while doing some work outside and a man snuck into our home. This man had secretly been hiding inside our house all day long. I was too traumatized to go into the bathroom by myself for like a year and a half after that.

In_Omnia_Paratus26

Something Much Worse Than A Ghost

I was about seven years old. My brother was about 10. It was well past our bedtime when our mom woke up off the couch to put us to bed. Our dad worked construction out of town back then, so it was often just us three at the house for weeks at a time. Up the stairs and to the immediate right was our parents' bedroom. Going left put you in the middle of a hallway.

Taking another left down that hallway led to my brother's room. The opposite end was my room, which was also across the hall from our upstairs bathroom. At either end of the hallway are windowed doors that we always kept locked and rarely used. The door on my end led to a balcony overlooking our front yard, and the door on my brother's end opened to our back porch.

My brother and mom both had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I only knew this because I was always a light sleeper and they just couldn't help flushing with the door wide open. This night, however, my brother stopped on his way to his room and came back towards the bathroom. That’s when he made a comment that chilled me to the bone.

He told me: "I'm gonna try to pee before I go to bed tonight. The past few nights, I've been too afraid to walk to the bathroom. I keep seeing a man wearing stripes at the end of the hallway." I don't know if my mom wrote it off as my brother telling ghost stories to try to scare me, or if she was already half asleep and didn't catch it, but she didn't react at all to my brother's confession.

I, on the other hand, was terrified by it. The fear of seeing a ghost-like that at the end of the hallway or through the windows is the reason I started running from the stairs to my bedroom at night. Years later, when I was about 18, my mom and I were having a conversation in her car about a dog named Max that we’d had for a very short time when I was little.

We were sharing stories about Max's tendency towards destroying my shoes and other unruly behaviors, when my mom blurted out, "Do you remember that time I opened the front door for the cops and Max ran inside to the kitchen and started tearing open that big bag of dog food we had?" This really caught me by surprise.

In all the years I lived in that house, we never once called law enforcement as far as I was aware. I asked her what she was talking about and she looked equally surprised, as if she had just revealed something by accident. Then, she said: "Oh, that's right! I never told you about this because you were too young at the time…”

She continued: "One night, I woke up hearing noises outside my window and, when I looked outside, I saw a man staring into my bedroom." She went on to describe how turning on the lights caused him to take off running, and how she had grabbed my dad's pistol before calling the authorities. I started to ask some more questions about the experience until something clicked in my head.

My mom said she couldn’t remember all the details she gave them when they showed up, but she remembered describing the man as a tall white male, wearing a striped shirt and jeans, with short dark hair, or something like that. They said it matched the description of a man they were looking for in the area. It turns out he had just escaped from behind bars, where he’d been charged with murder.

Now, I know it sounds so obvious hearing those two stories back to back, but it wasn't until a few years ago, in my mid-20s, that I pieced together that my brother had unknowingly warned us about a murderer who had spent multiple nights staking out our home. Who knows what he had been planning to do…

florianizer

After Hours

park with lampposts turned onPhoto by Marco Chilese on Unsplash

When I was in high school, I spent the better portion of my junior year being grounded. I was always in trouble for something and fighting with my parents. During one of these timeouts, a friend wanted to hang out. Being a teen, I wanted to hang out with my friends. I explained that I was in trouble, and he suggested that we wait until my parents were asleep so I could sneak out.

There was a park right next to my apartment building and it seemed innocent enough, so I agreed. My parents fell asleep and I could hear my stepdad snoring, so I tiptoed out of my house and met up with my friend. It was late, about 1:00 AM. As planned, we went to the park to smoke and hang out. We were sitting on the jungle gym, just talking, when we spotted another person walking around.

After a few moments, the person sees us and approaches us. He started asking us a bunch of questions, like: “Are you guys together?”, “What are you doing?”, “Where do you live?”, “Why are you here right now?”, “How old are you?” The person was obviously on some kind of substance and we politely tried to answer him without revealing any information about ourselves.

After a few minutes, the guy asked us if we wanted to come and see his house. Despite it being the middle of the night, we quickly said we had somewhere to be and rushed back to the car. We just sat there for a minute, not sure of what we avoided. All I could think about was that this guy could have done something terrible to me, and my parents would not have known what happened because I had snuck out.

Needless to say, that was the first and last time I ever snuck out of my house.

alixfofalix

Changing Things Up

I'm a 14-year-old girl, but I’m often mistaken for 18 because of my shape. One time, I was at the YMCA with my sisters. We were swimming for a while and then I started to feel sick. My younger sister said, "You don't look good, maybe you should sit in the changing room for a while." I agreed. I went into the changing room for some peace and quiet, and luckily no one else was there.

I sat on one of the benches and closed my eyes. A few moments later, I heard someone come in. It was a guy who was tall, muscular, and genuinely good looking. I brushed it off thinking he was probably waiting on his girlfriend and came in to check on her or something. That is until he approached me and sat right next to me, so close our thighs were touching.

I was really surprised. I scooted over and gave him that “What do you think you're doing?” look. He smiled at me and said, "Don't worry girl, I'm not gonna hurt you." He proceeded to put his hand on my back. I stood up and slowly backed away. I was scared to run because he seemed athletic, so he probably could've caught me.

He asked me "How old are you baby?" in a sickeningly sweet tone. I say 14 and he nonchalantly says "Cool." So I asked how old he was, and he said "23." He then stood up and started walking over to me. I backed away from him. This was the turning point. That was the moment when I heard a bathroom stall open and there, standing in all her glory, was the lady who I'll call my hero.

She stepped out and I know she heard everything. That dude hightailed it outta there. The lady was nice and stayed with me for a while. Her name was Stacy. Thank you Stacy!

Permalink

I Spy With My Little Eye

In December 2018, my ex and I split up after seven years in a relationship. I was new to the dating game so I didn’t want to just jump into it. In February, I met a guy at the bar. The second time I met him, we exchanged numbers. By the end of March, I was feeling pretty comfortable with him and invited him to a party at my house.

He stayed after the party and one thing led to another. After it was all said and done, I had a weird vibe from him. He was too pushy and it made me uncomfortable. So I asked him to leave. I planned to never speak to him again, that is until he started to text me from random numbers. He would say things like “Hope you have fun fishing” when I didn’t post on any social media about going fishing.

“I hope the movie was good” when I hadn’t posted anything online indicating that I was at the movies. He would text me and ask how I liked the bar whenever I was at the bar where I had met him with my friends. I had never told anyone or posted where we were going. We had no mutual friends who he could be getting the information from, so he was obviously following me.

The final straw came when my friends took me to Washington, DC for my 25th birthday celebration. We barhopped all over the city. Around 2:30 in the morning, we came out of a bar and decided to get cookies across the street. As we were coming out of the cookie shop, guess who pops up. You guessed it! He does. And I am not amused...

He goes “I hope visiting the monuments was fun earlier! I wanted to say hi earlier but since you haven’t been replying to my messages I didn’t wanna freak you out.” I was TERRIFIED. Thankfully, my friend's husband stepped in and called him out. He threatened to report him to the authorities. I changed my number and moved. Thankfully, I haven’t heard from him since.

MindfullyMeghan

Phoning It In

When I was 17 years old, my older sister took me to the mall to get a cell phone. The guy who sold it to us showed us several options and let me choose from a selection of phone numbers. He then set us up with a plan and we left. Pretty standard stuff. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary…until I got a text later that evening.

"Hey, it's the guy who sold you your new phone." I don’t remember how I replied to that. What I do remember is that the guy kept texting me and calling me non-stop. He kept telling me how attractive I was and that we should be together. I told him that it wasn't a good time for me and that I was about to leave town for the entire summer.

He asked where I was going and offered to come along. He then offered to quit his job and leave the state with me on a whim. Again, he had only ever spoken to me in-person for around 15 minutes. I asked him to leave me alone, and to stop calling and texting me. He kept calling, I kept not answering. We eventually had to file a complaint and change my number.

SteenPeace

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

I'm a 30-year-old female who lives with my fiancé and our two dogs. My huskies are not guard dogs. They never bark or howl. These dogs just love people so much. My brother-in-law and friends have walked in unexpectedly on multiple occasions, and the dogs don't make a peep. But on this one occasion, it was 8:00 PM and dark out, and I was home alone.

I was in the bathroom with the door closed and I had the blow dryer going, so I couldn't really hear anything going on around me. But when I suddenly heard one of the dogs howling, my ears perked up. I stopped the blow dryer and listened out. Then, I heard a faint knock and the dogs started going insane. Barking, howling, jumping into the window so loudly that I thought they'd break it.

I’m wondering what the heck is making them go crazy like that, maybe a skunk or something. I look out my bedroom window and see two men in hoodies standing at the front door. They start knocking louder. This time, one of the dogs jumps from the side window to the front door and starts growling and ramming his body into the door at full force.

I'm watching this from my bedroom window. As the dog jumps into the door, one of the men jumps back startled. He looks at the other guy, and then they just walk away. I called my fiancé and told him to get home right away. I watched the men walk away down the road. They weren’t selling anything, as they didn't stop at any other houses. I have no idea who they were.

amanda-g

Fairy Tale

open casement window near plantsPhoto by Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov on Unsplash

When I was way younger, I had gone into my bedroom alone to change into pajamas. Apparently, I then came back and asked my mom why Peter Pan was at my window and if we could let him in. She, of course, ran to my bedroom. Sure enough, someone had pulled the screen off my window and had opened it slightly. Needless to say, we moved shortly after that.

I was oblivious as to what was wrong because, hey, I got to meet Peter Pan!

JordynDeLambo

Cookie Cutter

When I was 11 years old, I was staying home alone with my little brother who was seven. At that time, it was about 9:00 at night. It was dark and rainy outside, and we were reading in our room right next to the front door, with a big window and open blinds. That's when I heard the front doorbell ring, followed by repeated rounds of knocking.

I thought my parents had arrived home, but found it strange that they didn't use the garage or their keys. I looked outside to try and see their car. I saw nothing but rain. As I approached the door, I heard a man's voice that was not my father's yell through the storm: "Would you like some cookies? We're selling Girl Scout cookies!"

I was shocked at this, considering the weather and time of day. Saying nothing, I checked the peephole and peered through the side window only to see that it was not a father with his girl as I had expected. My heart dropped. Standing there was just a fully grown man, maybe in his late 50s, with no box of cookies in sight, soaking on my doorstep.

I can remember the gut-wrenching feeling of having to check the locks while he was right on the other side. He heard this for sure. The two locks were the only thing separating myself and my brother from a potential monster. He continued to knock on the door and mention his cookies, as I considered calling the authorities.

That's when I remembered that the blinds were open in my room where my brother was, with the light on. As I turn the corner into the doorway, I see the man carefully peering into our window, possibly eyeing my brother who was focused on his book. My heart was pounding now as I began to panic. Using all of my willpower, I quickly turned off the lights and shut the blinds, in full view of the man.

As fast as I could, I double-checked all the locks in the house, closed all the blinds, and told my brother to go hang out in one of the big closets in the interior of the house with no windows. I didn't tell him what was going on so that he wouldn't be frightened. For some reason, I never did call law enforcement or my parents. I just waited in the hallway until the man left.

Thinking about it still gives me shivers. So many things could have gone wrong that night. My worst fear to this day is strangers getting to an unlocked door before I do.

iloginonceaweek

Big Plans

When I was a student teacher, I was 21 and working with mostly seniors in high school, many of whom were 17 or 18 years old. One day, the mentor teacher I was working with pulled me aside from teaching my class to inform me that other teachers had overheard some students telling each other what they "wanted to do to me."

While disturbing, my friends and colleagues insisted that this was just a fact of being a young teacher working with high schoolers. The next day, a few girls in my class informed me that three specific boys were no longer just talking about what they WANTED to do, but were graphically describing what they were PLANNING on doing to me in the coming weeks in the parking lot after school.

I went to the administration immediately, and they handled it very quickly and professionally. I was very grateful for their support. I was never touched nor harmed by any of these students, thankfully. What scared the absolute wits out of me, however, was that less than a week later, one of those boys was pulled out of school by an officer.

I didn't find out immediately, but I eventually learned he was being held for the alleged assault of his younger sister. It still makes me sick just thinking about it. I genuinely hope to never meet him again. It's terrifying to think of what could have happened had I not had some wonderful staff and students looking out for me.

BRIanphrionsa

Bus-ted

One Sunday afternoon, I was waiting at the bus stop alone after an outing with a friend. I saw a driver get onto an empty bus, so I asked him if he was going to be stopping at my stop. He said that he was not, so I said okay and continued patiently waiting for the right bus. A few minutes later, he pulls up beside me and motions to me to come onto the bus.

I figure that he has changed his route or something and wanted to let me know that he would now be passing by my stop, but as soon as I approached him he started making a whole bunch of creepy comments about my body. He was also making really awkward eye contact with me the entire time he was speaking. I started to climb back off the bus to get of there, but he grabbed my hand.

I wiggled myself free and ran away as fast as I could. I immediately reported him to the authorities.

momowantsadonut613

It’s A Mall World After All

This happened about eight years ago in Germany. My daughters were four and two years old, respectively. It was a very nice morning, so I decided to take my girls to a little mall to walk around and do some shopping. My girls are and always were very well behaved and never ran away from me. Usually, we always held hands walking around in areas with many people.

On this day, the mall was almost empty. Still, the girls stayed on my hands. I noticed a man passing me. He looked at my daughters with a very stern look that gave me a bad vibe. I just brushed it off and kept walking. We wanted to go to a shoe store. This store had a very cute play area that the girls liked to go to.

As we entered the store, they asked if they could run ahead to the play area. I could see it from the entrance, so I told them yes and they took off. At that exact moment, that same strange man burst into the store and speed-walked past me towards my daughters. It didn’t even take me a second to realize that he was up to no good.

He was absolutely focused on getting to them, and fast. I instantly started yelling while running past him. I told my girls to come back right away. I am never very stern with them, so they knew that something was serious. He got thrown off by my yelling. I got to my daughters before he could, so he turned around and ran out of the store.

nightmind08

Drive My Car

person holding black iphone 5Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

I don't have a car, so Uber is my main mode of transportation to get to work. This morning, I requested an Uber a half hour before I had to be there and the pickup was supposed to take less than five minutes. But, for some reason, my Uber driver kept going around in circles. He ended up calling me asking for directions and I was telling him exactly where he needed to go.

But he just wasn’t listening. At that point, I was irritated and asked if there was a way he could cancel because I was going to be late. He said he couldn't, and ended up finding his way to my apartment at the time I was supposed to be at work. He kept apologizing and I would mumble, "It's fine, I just need to get there."

He ended up taking me to another store that was on the way and asked "This is it, right?" It took all of my patience not to just blow up at that point. I calmly gave him the directions to the actual store I work at and just told him to please listen to the GPS. We finally get to my job and I'm nearly 20 minutes late. I muttered, "Thanks," got out, and bolted to the office to clock in.

An hour or so into my shift, one of my managers came up to tell me that my Uber driver has been harassing the people in the front of the store, trying to get a hold of me or my manager to take fault and apologize for my being late. He tried four or five separate times to come inside. An hour later, a different manager lets me know that the driver is now blowing up the store's phone and begging to speak to me.

My manager suggested that I not leave alone that night, and that I be on the lookout in case he came back. I contacted Uber support multiple times to let them know. You wanna know what they did about it? They gave me a three-dollar credit! I made sure to give him a one-star rating so that I wouldn't get him as a driver again, but it's just scary to think that he knows where I work and live.

jellyfishgardens

Bathroom Break

About four years ago, I was living with an ex-boyfriend, his aunt, and her boyfriend Len. I woke up in the middle of the night and had to pee. My ex was asleep in bed when I got up. I walked across the house and his aunt’s door was open. She and Len were both passed out. I made my way sleepily to the bathroom and saw that the light was on.

Since I knew everyone was asleep, I innocently assumed the aunt had left the light on. So I opened the door. I was wrong. I saw multiple things in a few seconds. The first thing I remember is that it smelled horrible, like poop. I also immediately noticed that someone had just taken a shower based on the steam. Then, I spotted a pile of clothes folded up and organized on the ground.

There was a random man on the toilet. I, having manners, and very much still half asleep, jumped, apologized, and closed the door. I panicked, went to my room, and texted the aunt. I said: “Hey, there is a man in the bathroom!” She texted back, “I know, it’s okay. He’s a friend of mine.” This calmed me down and I went back to sleep.

The next day, I bring it up when everyone is around. I was still shaken…but this is where it got so much worse. The aunt says she never texted me, as she was completely passed out. We soon realized that this guy had taken her phone into the bathroom, and that he himself had sent me that text. What in the world?? I was so confused and freaked out by this whole thing. It was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had.

harley242424

Message Delivered

I was around 10 or 11 years old when this happened, and I was home alone. The doorbell rang while I was watching TV, so I hastily moved my bowl of cereal and got up to answer the door. It was the mailman, who said we had gotten a package. But it was so big that he needed help carrying it in. Something felt off about him, as he wasn’t wearing a uniform, but a dirty white shirt and jeans.

I asked him where his truck was, because I didn’t see it parked out front. He said it was around the corner, and that I should just follow him out to grab my parcel. He kept telling me to go with him, but I politely said I wasn’t feeling well and that we would just get our mail from the post office. He said that would be a big hassle, and that I should just go out and get it then and there.

I said I had to get my shoes on from upstairs and he waited outside. I locked the door and bolted upstairs, closing all the windows. I called my mom and asked her to come home, explaining everything. The man was still outside and he shouted at me, asking if I’d gotten my shoes. I replied that my mom was coming because she’s much stronger and could help carry the package.

Once I’d said that, he was quick to run away. And I never saw him again. They never caught him and I hope that he never lured any other kids or tricked them into going near that van.

gracerussellx_

On The Road

I was driving home when I realized a truck had been behind me for miles. Just to be precautious, I made an abrupt last second U-turn. He did too. It was then that I realized he was following me. While on the phone with an officer, I made sharp turns and ran red lights to try to lose him. He wouldn’t stop. He literally almost hit my car a couple of times as he sped up trying to catch up.

The operator instructed me to go to a local grocery store and wait for help to arrive. I parked right in front of the store’s entrance, in front of the surveillance cameras, and waited. He decided to park his car at a distance and waited for me to get out of my car. All of a sudden, I heard a hard knock at the window. I freaked out.

It turned out to be the grocery manager, letting me know that the officer had just notified him of the situation. He asked if I wanted to go inside the store and have him protect me until law enforcement arrived. I honestly feared the worst and told him no. I was shaking, but I thought: “This maniac might be dangerous. He could shoot me and everyone in there.”

The officers arrived and cornered him in the back of the parking structure. I was shaking as they came to my car. My hand was gripping the wheel very tightly. They took him away soon after and charged him with driving while under the influence. I didn’t know who he was. Apparently, he lived a couple of miles away from me.

inezzzz

I Want You Back

When I was seven years old, I went to a small school in our little town in Alberta. There was this guy named Daniel. Daniel had slept with my mom ages before I was even conceived, yet he somehow had in his brain that I was his child. Full-blown delusional. So, Daniel decided that the smart and rational thing to do was to stalk me.

He apparently plotted out a map to my school, he knew my name, he knew how old I was, and he knew what I looked like. I have no idea how he got this information. My mom never really used Facebook, and he lived in a different province. I had never met this man before. As if that wasn’t bad enough already, Daniel decided that one day he wanted to take it a step further.

He had been ranting to his wife about me. He kept telling her that I was his kid, and that he was going to drive from British Columbia all the way to Alberta to bring me back. He was convinced that I was conceived earlier than I was, and that my mom had made some kind of conspiracy to hide the fact I was his kid from the world.

He had a whole plan for how to kidnap me, right down to the date he was going to do it. His wife decided to call my mom and warn her. My mom put safety measures up, like making sure I was always in groups and that I was home by 4:00, etc. I was only told about all this when I was about 14, and still don’t know all the details. Obviously, Daniel never successfully went through with his plan.

Gurowho

An Offer You Can Refuse

man in black hat standing near storePhoto by Laurynas Mereckas on Unsplash

My son looks nothing like me and I have a babyface. So when people see us together, they typically see babysitter rather than a mother. One day, I'd just gotten off work at McDonald’s and my husband was waiting for me with our son, who was four months old at the time. We ordered something to go and my husband went to use the bathroom while my coworkers cooed over my baby at the counter.

I see this older man watching us, but I dismiss it because my son usually gets a lot of attention. Plus, this guy came to the McDonald's pretty regularly and never raised any red flags. He came up to us and smiled at my son. He then asked if he could hold him, which I politely declined. He pulls a twenty out of his wallet.

"Why don't you take this, get yourself a sandwich, and leave the baby with me," he said, while trying to hand me the money. "No, thank you," I replied. I tried to be polite. He came back with, "Aren't you hungry? It's so hard to work two jobs. I'm sure if anything happened, the parents wouldn't blame you." When he said that, I was about to go off on him.

Just then, my husband came out of the bathroom and placed himself between the man and me. "Oh, you must be the father." He offered my husband the money but didn't talk about taking our son.

We made our way out of the store and the man followed, offering us money the entire way. After a while, my husband abruptly stopped and stared the man down until he went back into the store.

A few weeks later, he came back to the store. He ranted about how he could have given that baby a better life than that young man could. I told him that I was the baby’s mother and that he could get his sausage biscuit somewhere else from now on, because he wasn't welcome here anymore. I’m glad I never have to see that guy again. What a creep!

forgetfulbuttbutt

Calling Card

When we were both really young, my parents once left me and my brother at home while they went out. The two of us were all the way down in our basement, playing video games. We had the home phone in between us, just in case one of our parents called. About an hour goes by, and the phone starts to ring. We look down and the caller ID shows it’s our uncle calling.

We decide to just let it ring. Now, this phone usually rang four times when someone called, but I noticed that it stopped in the middle of the third ring. I couldn’t understand why this would have happened, unless someone else in the house had picked up one of the other phones. But no one else was in the house with us, right?

I got really suspicious and my paranoia got the better of me. I took my brother upstairs. We see that the phone is still there, but there is still a phone on the third floor in my parents' room. So we walk towards the stairs. What we saw next chilled us to the bone. A man in his late 40s was standing by the door of our parents' room and staring back at us.

The second we saw him, we both screamed, ran out of the house, and went straight to our neighbors’ house. We tell them what happened and they proceed to call the authorities and then our parents. They come fast and I don’t know what was wrong with the man, but he never left the house. He just stood there and let the officers take him away. I later heard he was taken to a mental hospital.

I shudder to imagine what could have happened to my brother and me if my uncle hadn’t decided to call at that exact moment.

joedcorey

In Hot Water

When I was around six years old, I was with a bunch of people from my church having a barbecue at a river. All of the kids were swimming in the water. I didn't know how to swim yet, so I was just staying waist-deep in the shallow part. At some point, this girl came up to me and was playing with me. We were splashing each other and stuff.

The weird thing was that she was probably 13 or so and I didn't know who she was, even though I knew everyone else there. Apparently, no one was paying attention to us. She started pushing me out deeper and deeper, to where I couldn't touch the ground anymore. She just kept laughing the whole time. My head kept going underwater.

I tried grabbing onto her arms when she would push me, but she easily knocked my grip loose each time. The slight current slowly pulled me away from my friends and family while I struggled to tread water. I was panicking, but she wouldn't stop pushing me and laughing. I could not possibly have looked like I was having fun. I would try to yell, but was only ever above water long enough to take a breath.

Every time my feet touched the mud for a split second, she would just push me again. I couldn't believe she was laughing. I was sure I was going to drown. No one seemed to notice. Of all people to intervene, it would happen to be my childhood bully, Zachary. He had always been a jerk to me before. But I still feel like he saved my life this day.

He came up and told her to get away from me. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up to where I could stand again. Then, he ran off and continued to play with the other kids his age as if nothing happened. The girl was already far away by that time. I went on playing, and I don't think I ever told anyone until I was much older. Pretty sure I never saw that girl again.

SmirkyShrugs

Center Of Attention

This happened a week ago. My blood still runs cold when I think about it. My brother wanted to get a drink from a place we both love to go to. It was going to close soon and he had work to do, so I went by myself. It wasn't very late, but it was already dark and my parents had drummed into me since birth about the dangers of walking alone at night.

I went and got both drinks and, for some reason, didn't get a bag. As a result, I was walking along with both hands full. As I was walking towards the street where my house was, I suddenly became aware of two men near me. One was in front of me, wearing a maroon pullover, and the other was behind me, wearing a grey zipped up hoodie with the hood pulled up.

I only turned around for a flash of a second, so I couldn't describe his face to you. I was weirded out, because I was walking between them and I was beginning to feel uncomfortably like they were trying to herd me. And just as I was telling myself that I was clearly overreacting, I came across a garage that was down an alleyway and a black Subaru was coming out.

I had time, so I crossed before they reached me. The person inside clearly wasn't counting on me doing that, so they swung around and parallel parked next to me, at most two feet away. So now I was between three men and a wall. When I saw the car door open, that was it for me. I bolted and didn't stop running until I reached my house.

maxyagirl

Keep Your Friends Close And Your Dad’s Frenemies Closer

I have known my father's best friend and his wife since I was a baby. But they always unsettled me. The wife hated me, like she hated all kids, and the man would obsessively pay attention to me the entire time he was around. He would constantly watch me, even if I ignored him. By the time I was twelve, I knew things about him that I shouldn't.

The kind of stuff one would expect someone to tell their best friend in confidence, though usually not with their best friend’s daughter around. When I turned 16, there was a night where he was over and I was about to go to bed, saying goodnight to everyone in the house. My dad had gone to the bathroom and this guy's wife wasn’t there.

He got up from the table and went to give me a hug goodnight. This was really weird, since I never initiated any hugging and he would never have initiated one with me in the past. This hug lasted forever. My arms were at my sides, and his arms were trapping me against him. He finally released me from the hug, but placed his hands on my arms and looked at me.

This look still makes my skin crawl. He looked down at my chest and whispered, "Wow, you are getting so much bigger!" His thumbs were ghosting over my arms and closer to my chest. I was so startled and unnerved that I just froze. I couldn't think to move. This man, a man that helped my dad change my diapers, was lusting over the size of my 16-year-old chest.

Thankfully, before anything got worse, my father came out of the bathroom and this guy immediately backed away from me. I would never go around him again from that day forward. I haven’t seen him a single time since. Right after this incident took place, I told my dad that whenever he would be over, I was not going to stay there. Marvin, let's not meet again.

Eienharu

Keep Your Eye On The Ball

men's black pullover hoodiePhoto by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

I had just fallen asleep when I heard my dog outside losing his mind. I then received a notification on my phone, stating: "There is motion detected at your front door." I open my phone to the live view of what's happening outside, only to be greeted by an eyeball staring directly into the camera. The man standing there was mumbling to himself.

He proceeds to knock and ring the doorbell. Now, I live in a suburban, quiet town, with wholesome neighbors who are all good people. I had decided to actually lock my door that day, which wasn’t always the case. That was a lucky thing, because the man started trying the doorknob, and then attempted to climb in through the window.

I turned on the microphone of my security system and told the man that he would be behind bars within the hour if he didn’t leave immediately. He got all huffy and puffy, and started talking about how he was just looking for his dog "Fido." Uh-huh, by trying to enter my house and acting like a creep on video? I’m more careful to always lock my door nowadays.

permalink

A Helping Hand

My boss has four children. When they were younger, she was driving along when her van broke down on the side of a motorway. She pulled over onto the hard shoulder and put on her hazard lights. She got the kids out of the car and took them to stand behind the barrier. She called roadside assistance and her husband. All standard stuff.

About 10 or 20 minutes later, a car pulls up behind her with a rather good looking chap in it. He says he lives just off the next exit and had seen her, so he decided to circle back to see if she needed any help. All the way through this interaction, my boss says he didn't throw up any red flags. He just seemed genuinely concerned about the kids being on the side of the road.

He offered to take her back to his place for a cup of tea while they waited. He even said she could call her husband to tell him where she was, just to be safe. Again, my boss is very sweet and kind and thinks the best of people, and there were still no red flags. Nevertheless, she turns him down only because she had four kids with her.

She said if she had been on her own, she probably would have taken him up on the offer since he seemed so genuinely kind. She turned him down because she didn't want to take the children back to a stranger's house, not because of mistrust. He sort of pushed it a little bit more but eventually shrugged and left the scene.

A couple of weeks later, she saw his photo in the paper. Apparently, he had stopped to help another woman whose car had also broken down, and he had attacked her and taken her life after offering her a lift. To this day, she maintains that she genuinely didn't see any red flags when she spoke to him. She insists that the only reason she's alive is because of her kids.

QueenChoco

The Sound Of Silence

When I was around 13 years old, I was granted the privilege of staying home alone. Every now and then when I was home alone, I’d hear sounds coming from upstairs, and so I would instinctively call my mom. She then told me a story of how she used to hear things in her old house all the time and how it’s just the house “settling.”

Fast forward to many instances of sounds later. I decided that the very next time I was going to be home alone, I was going to be completely silent and make as little noise as possible. Within the first half an hour, there was nothing. Not a peep out of the entire house. I eventually got bored and felt safe, so I went to grab the TV remote to watch something.

But a few seconds before I grabbed the remote, I heard a sound that I’ll never forget. There was a huge crash upstairs and running footsteps. I was more sure than ever that someone was inside the house. By now, there were plenty of consistent sounds coming from upstairs. I decided to hatch a quick plan. Being the skinny, non-threatening little girl that I was, I first grabbed a kitchen knife.

Then, I grabbed a shoe and propped open the front door. After a few moments of some deep breaths, I yelled out in the deepest voice I could, “I know you are upstairs! I am giving you a chance to leave now without me reporting you. I have propped the front door open and I will be in the bathroom. Be aware that I am armed and ready to take immediate action if you refuse to leave.”

Sure enough, I walk into the bathroom, absolutely terrified that someone is about to attack me. I wait and wait until I hear the one unforgettable sound. I heard the front door close and the shoe being moved. I quickly locked the door and turned on the alarm system. I hope to never see this person or even hear this person again.

itsmiichristine

Like A Moth To The Flame

I have always been a lanky and non-muscular man. Needless to say, when I came face to face with a big dude holding a knife in the middle of the night, I was pretty much screwed. I was walking home from my closing shift on a warm summer night last year when he stepped out of the shadows and demanded my wallet. I didn't immediately reach for it, as I guess I was in shock.

He stepped closer and yelled at me to empty my pockets. When the realization set in that this guy was ready to take my life over the meager $20 I had on me, a white moth fluttered between us. To my surprise, the mugger began screaming and swinging his knife at the bug, which only caused it to fly around more sporadically.

Those fierce eyes which had been looking at me just a few seconds ago were now shrouded in terror and not breaking their focus on the moth. I took karate lessons for a few years when I was a young boy, so I took advantage of the large man desperately flailing at a small insect and performed the number one move recommended by all reputable martial arts schools. I ran like a madman.

I ran all the way back to my house, occasionally glancing behind myself, but I never saw him following. He had other matters to attend to, I suppose. So, an important lesson for all you wannabe criminals out there. Before attempting to commit a mugging, go see a therapist first who can help you get over your dumb phobias.

fifthfire

Mountain Music

When I was a kid, I used to often go up to the Smoky Mountains and stay with my friend and her family for a few days to a week. One time, my friend's dad drove me and my friend down to Asheville, North Carolina, which was about an hour and a half away. My friend and I had put on a lot of makeup that day, because we were preteen girls who enjoyed having fun with makeup.

Even with the makeup, it was still very obvious that we were children. We went into a pizza shop to sit down and eat, when a man in his 30s or 40s started talking to my friend. The situation quickly turned sinister when it became apparent that the man thought my friend's dad was a pimp, and he was interested in my friend.

I'm pretty sure that my friend's dad threatened to disembowel the guy, and then we all promptly left and drove back to the mountain home. My friend's dad had to explain to us later what happened, and why we went home so abruptly. We were too young to understand it completely. It was definitely a very strange experience for both of us...

snail-overlord

Low Key

brown coated dog on couchPhoto by Nathalie SPEHNER on Unsplash

Someone just tried to break into my house while I was home alone for the weekend. I am the only one in my family who uses the spare key that was hidden in my garden, and no one but me would have known where to find it. Yet, I saw this attempted burglar walk right up to the hiding spot and pick it up, which makes me think he had been stalking me beforehand.

Thankfully, my dog scared him off before he could do any damage.

EuropeanAustralian

Hate Thy Neighbor

When I was about five years old, my mom and I lived in this duplex that was off the main road and in a wooded area. We lived on one side and on the other was a woman and her son. He was studying to be a teacher. My mother had me young, so she was about 25 and the guy in the other unit was in his early 20s. He would often come by to talk to my mom.

My mother said he would ask a lot of questions about me. He once even asked if he could take me for a walk in the woods. My mother declined. One night, while I was sleeping over at my grandma’s house, my mom came home from work late at night. When she got into her room, she made a chilling discovery. She a pair of feet wearing socks sticking out from the end of her bed.

She grabbed her bedside lamp and was about to hit the intruder with it when all of a sudden he identified himself as that guy from the other unit. He couldn’t explain why he was in our apartment, nor why he was naked and only wearing socks. But he begged my mother to not tell his mother about the incident. My mother, of course, called the authorities.

She ended up going to court and making a victim impact statement against this guy, because she was terrified that he would become a teacher and be around children. We ended up moving immediately, because my mom couldn’t stay another night in that house. She is very thankful that I was out of the house that night, because for all we know he could have been trying to target me.

Clumsybee

Window Shopping

This happened a few weeks ago and I’m still a bit shaken up by it. My husband and I like to take long drives in the desert with our dog. We live outside Las Vegas and are fortunate to live in a city with abundant beautiful areas to stargaze. My husband just got a new telescope for his birthday in October, so he was excited to try it out.

We drove our Kia up to a popular overlock, and he pulled out the telescope. He showed me a bunch of constellations and we saw a shooting star. Our pet dog sat in the car with two of the windows rolled down. At one point, my hubby had to pee. He told me to wait in the car for him. So, I got in and locked the door. After a few seconds, I hear gravel moving.

Thinking it’s my hubby, I remark “That was fast.” Suddenly, my dog goes berserk. She’s snarling and barking like crazy. So I turn around and see this dude standing there that’s not my husband. I then see that the dude had stuck his hand into my car window and that my dog had latched onto his arm as soon as he did so.

The guy was screaming in agony as my dog bit into his arm. I was screaming in terror. My husband is now yelling as he runs towards us with his pants half on. The dog finally lets the guy’s arm go and he takes off. I immediately call the authorities. My husband tries chasing after the guy, but he manages to get away. The doggo got a cup of Dairy Queen that night.

wifey4lifey78

Taking You For A Ride

This happened last year, at the peak of my partying stage. I was at a friend’s house drinking one night. At around 2:00 AM, I was pretty intoxicated and decided to call an Uber to take me home. The car pulled up, and I have this habit of sitting at the front with the driver. He was a young man in his 20s. I don’t remember too much about what we were talking about.

However, I do recall his compliments going from “You’re really pretty,” to “You’re really hot,” and he also kept saying that I reminded him of his mom. I found it really strange, especially considering that I was 19 years old, but I tried to laugh it off because I didn’t want to appear rude. I asked him to swing by the drive-thru at a burger spot because I was hungry.

We got the food and he was supposed to take me home, but I noticed he was driving in the complete opposite direction of where my house was. I looked at his map and it kept telling him to turn around. I asked him where we were going, and I remember him looking over at me and saying, “Oh, you don’t wanna come over to my house?”

I remember I completely sobered up in that instant and said “No. Please take me home.” I don’t recall if we continued talking after that, but luckily he took me home and I never heard from him again. I also reported him the next day. What really upsets me is that he clearly knew I was inebriated and yet he tried to take advantage of me.

It’s safe to say I won’t be Ubering alone at night anymore.

Misscuudi

Hall Pass

I was in Las Vegas on a business trip many years ago. If you’ve ever stayed on the strip in Vegas, you know that the hotels there are absolutely huge. The hallways are mazelike and extremely long. I am a small lady, and I was in my early 30s at the time. I had just left a meeting downstairs and was heading back up to my room.

I pushed the button for my floor when I got onto the elevator, and I got off when it reached my floor. There was a man walking towards me down one of the long halls. We passed each other. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see him turn around. I take a right. He takes a right. I go left. He goes left. I determine that he is definitely following me.

No one is with me on this trip and I’m staying alone in my room. But he doesn’t know that. I pick up my cell phone and make a fake call. Loudly, I spoke into the phone: “Hi babe. What are you doing? Oh, you’re back in our room? You finished your workout super early. Okay. I’m almost back at our room, so I’ll be right there. Love you.”

The creepy guy following me immediately turned around and headed in the direction we had just come from. Whew. I made sure he was extra gone, then got into my room as fast as humanly possible and bolted the door. I never had any more issues for the rest of the trip, and I was happy that I learned a new trick.

ExpensiveArm5

Tunnel Vision

road tunnel wallpaperPhoto by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I was leaving college and about to take a train to visit my family as I used to do every weekend. Usually, my best friend and her friends would join me at the exit of a pedestrian path which takes the shape of a tunnel. This day, they were late, so I walked through the tunnel on my own. As I was passing by an opening in the tunnel, a car suddenly approached me.

The car was black and its windows were tinted. Yet I could see who was inside because the driver had his windows opened. The car parked right in front of me, almost reaching my legs. I did not move. I was tired anyway. And I saw two guys inside of the car. The passenger opened the door and tried to reach for me.

That's when I got extremely lucky. At the precise moment when he tried to grab me, I saw my best friend and her friends emerging from the tunnel. I loudly screamed "Hello!" to her. The dude turned back and saw my group of friends approaching. He went back into the car and drove away quickly. My best friend looked at me and said: "Were you just about to be kidnapped?"

I said yes and we laughed it off very nervously.

Permalink

Living Happily Ever After

Me and my ex were together for two months. Within that time, he swiped money from me and blamed it on me when I asked him about it. We actually broke up after I asked for advice on Reddit. Now, everyone who knows me knows my daily routine. I go to college for most of the day, then go to my work, go home, and do homework. And repeat.

One day, I was at my job, doing my work. All of a sudden, I get an alert on my phone that there’s someone at my house. I figured that I would watch the cameras after I got home. But then, over the next two hours, I got three more alerts. As I was taking the bus back to my home, I watched the cameras. And I saw my crazy ex taking a hammer to my back door!

I kept on watching as he struggled against the deadbolt, and then I saw him enter my house. I called the authorities faster than I thought I could and told them there was a break-in at my address. I continued to watch the video after that. 15 minutes after he entered, he left with a duffle bag. I arrived back at my house and officers were already on the scene.

I identified myself as the homeowner and went inside to check the damage. The place was trashed and, along with my duffle bag, some jewelry was missing. I gave the officers the evidence that it was my ex. And I gave them the address of the place he was crashing at. I then arranged to get a restraining order against him.

Not long after the incident, they caught him at a nearby pawn shop trying to sell my jewelry. When questioned, he claimed that he was trying to “get back” at me for dumping him. I am now happy to announce that the restraining order is officially in place, and my ex is also behind bars for a year for breaking and entering.

Chipsarethebest

Toying With Your Heart

I used to work for Macy's in their beauty department. We had all kinds of weird customers that came in. Guys who would come rub lotion all over their legs, women who would take perfumes and spray them down their pants, all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t believe. I literally would never use a store tester under any circumstances. But one interaction was by far the strangest thing that happened to me.

I was standing at my counter and was approached by a guy who looked like he was in his late 30s. He asked if I had any kids and I told him I didn't. He said he was giving away free toys at the old Big Lots parking lot the following morning. I was like, that's cool but I don't have any kids. He asked me if any of the girls I worked with had little girls who would want free toys.

I told him that they didn't have any kids either. I was getting super creeped out and walked behind the counter. He was like, "Tell your friends if they have little girls to come tomorrow morning and get their free toy." I called my husband on my lunch break and told him about it. He agreed that it was super weird and that I should for sure not to tell any of our friends about the free toy event.

I also called our local security office and they were basically like, what are we supposed to do about it? Yesterday, one of my girlfriends shared a story about a local guy who is being investigated for human trafficking and a string of unsolved murders. I looked at the photograph and immediately recognized the suspect. It was the creepy toy guy!

shankliest

A Lesson You Won’t Soon Forget

When I was around six years old, my family and I were just leaving the supermarket. I was begging my mom for some candy. By the time we left, I didn't get any. So I threw a huge fit. I started stomping and crying at the exit and threatened my mom that I wouldn't leave without getting the candy. She said, "Fine, stay here then." She left me by myself at the exit to teach me a lesson.

This made me cry and scream even louder. As she was getting closer to the car, a man approached me. He just said these simple words: "Get in my van boy, we will catch her." I stopped crying immediately, as I knew what stranger danger was by then. I just looked at the guy and knew that something bad was going to happen.

My mom quickly rushes back, grabs my hand, and yanks me away. She didn't say a word to the man, but she gave him a dirty look. Needless to say, I was quiet the whole ride back home. I'm not sure what would have happened if my mom had decided to pack the groceries before she came back to get me from my little fit.

organic-dinosaur

Late Night Stroll

A few months back, after a night drinking, I hooked up with a much younger bloke. He was an average guy, nothing out of the ordinary. We messaged each other a few times afterward, but I just wasn’t keen on seeing him again. Tonight. Literally, an hour ago, he started to call me. I ignored it, as I was in bed. It’s the middle of the night.

But the calls continued. And to make things worse, I could hear someone walking outside my house. Then, someone started knocking on my windows. I have my six-year-old next to me. I kept ignoring the calls. I should have just said go away. But I lay frozen in fear, and this went on for 45 minutes. Next thing I know, I hear my door open and he enters my house.

I immediately shouted at the top of my lungs, “Get out of my house right now!!!” He said, “Are you sure?” Ummmmm, YES!! What’s wrong with this guy?? He will be immediately deleted and blocked on all of my social media channels. My heart is still racing from the experience. It made me realize how vulnerable I really am as a woman.

klmolk

No Place Like Home

woman's portraitPhoto by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

I suffer from schizophrenia. The other night, I had an extreme episode of psychosis. I don’t remember much about what happened. I was wearing sweatpants and high heels and was wandering around my apartment complex. I decided to go home. The main door in my apartment complex requires a key card like a hotel, but my roommates always leave the back door open.

So I walked into what I thought was my apartment and made myself comfy on the couch. I tried to go into my room, but it was locked, which confused me because I never lock my door. It took me a while to realize that I had walked into the wrong apartment. The people who lived there thought I was a friend of one of the other roommates, so it took them a minute to register what had happened.

When they did, they freaked out, understandably, and called the authorities on me. The officer thought I was drinking or on substances, but I showed him my medical emergency card that explains that I have schizophrenia. After he read the card, I was totally out of trouble and he just wanted to make sure I got home safely.

I don’t even remember the specific interactions that I had with the people who lived there when they saw me, as I wasn’t super lucid until the officer came. So yeah. Now these people just have a story about how a random schizophrenic woman in sweats and high heels walked into their house one night and made herself at home.

bklove1

Glass Ceiling

I live on the second floor of a three-level apartment building. We have a crawlspace that connects all the apartments. We aren't sure why it's there, but we all have stuff in it and none of us would ever even attempt to go inside of it. So it’s never posed any issue. The other night, the sun was setting but it wasn't pitch black out yet.

I'm walking through my living room when I see a short woman on my fire escape looking into my windows. This is extremely bizarre, considering it's still semi-light out and she had literally climbed onto our fire escape somehow. We have two windows that the fire escape reaches. She was looking in both but didn't see me.

I crawled onto the ground and my heart was racing as I watched her try to open the windows. I didn't know what to do because my phone was in the other room. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally left. I went into my room to get my phone to text my landlord and call the authorities. I came back into the living room and was looking out the windows to see if I could locate her.

All of a sudden, I hear a weird noise coming from the ceiling. We have one of those tile ceilings made out of separate slabs of cork. I look up to see one of the slabs lifted up and two eyes staring down at me. I have no clue how she got into the crawlspace so quickly, but I grabbed the nearest thing, which was a broom, and started hitting her with it through the ceiling.

She crawled away. An officer soon showed up and searched the place. They found her a few days later, when she was on someone else's fire escape. The officer said she was definitely on some illicit substances and that she had been violent towards them. I'm glad she's gone and that she won’t be coming through my ceiling again any time soon.

Permalink

Coming In Handy

This happened when I was around five years old, but I remember everything like it happened yesterday. We had gone to a funeral for my mom's cousin in another town a couple of hours out. We got to the house and my mom went to see her aunt. She gave her condolences and I followed, holding her hand. I guess during the hugging and crying, my mom let go of my hand.

I started looking for her hand but not really looking up, just keeping my hand out for her to grab it while calling her name. There were a lot of people and the house was small, so I could only see the people standing around me. A couple of minutes later, I found her. Or so I thought, because she took my hand and started walking towards the door to leave.

I thought to myself as I was putting on my shoes that it seemed weird to come such a long way just to be here for five minutes. That thought led me to look up at the lady holding my hand. I instantly realized it wasn’t my mom. I have no idea where the woman was planning on taking me. I jolted my hand away from her and ran towards the room I had lost my mom at.

Redifar

You’ve Got Company!

I was watching my daughter’s kids while she and her husband were out of town. They have a teenage daughter, who we can call Alyssa. In the middle of the night, I‘m woken up by a weird rustling sound. I look out the window and see movement. I see a boy emerge from the bushes on the side of the house. I then see a bike tossed on the lawn that definitely wasn’t ours.

My first thought was that it must be a burglar casing houses. But since he looked young and came through on a bike, I figured scaring him straight would be enough for him to decide to head home. So I went out on the porch, flipped the lights on, and politely said “Can I help you?” The guy looked surprised, but not nervous.

He was wearing a letterman style jacket, but once I got a clear view of him in the streetlights, he seemed much older than my granddaughter. He walked up closer to the house and said “Yeah, I’m looking for Alyssa.” I gave him a disapproving glare, hoping he’d realize that looking for a girl late at night and getting a grumpy old person meant it was time to split.

I figured Alyssa must have known that her parents were going out of town and, before she knew I’d be staying over, told a secret older boyfriend to come over. It was late and I was alone with several kids, so I didn’t want him coming any closer to the house. I also thought it was weird that he came so late and I wanted to be sure Alyssa actually wanted to talk to him.

I said: “You wait there.” He started to walk up and I felt a sick burning feeling in my gut. Instinct kicked in. I yelled: “NO. STOP. FREEZE.” I readjusted and said, “You stay right there. This is private property. Don't take a step closer. Wait. There.” So I go in and Alyssa is asleep just one room over from where the rustling first occurred.

I wake her up and say something to the effect of “I don’t know what the big idea was to have friends over this time of night, but you tell them to go home.” She has no clue what I’m talking about. I say “There’s a guy outside asking for you.” Confused, she gets up and goes to the window. She sees him and goes white as a sheet.

“He asked for me?” “Yeah.” “By name?” “Yes.” Her reply made my blood run cold. She told me: “I’ve never seen him before in my life!” I called the authorities immediately, but as I was on the phone with them, Alyssa started tugging at my arm. “He’s coming up!” I had younger kids in the house to think about, so I kept the door latched and pulled it just open enough to yell “None of us know an Alyssa. Leave my property immediately.”

He got angry and started yelling for her to come out. Thankfully, an officer came pretty quickly. When the guy heard the sirens, he grabbed the bike and ran off. I watched where he was running to and he jumped into the passenger side of a car without headlights or front plates and sped off. The officer followed in the same direction, but couldn’t find him.

ligamentary

Pet Owners Admit What It's Really Like Living With Their Furry Roommates

Reddit user LakotaGrl asked: 'Referring to your pet as only "My roommate", what's something your roommate does?'

cat and dog lying on grass
Andrew S on Unsplash

Pets can be wonderful companions. Many studies show the physical and psychological benefits of pet ownership.

But...

If you think about some of the things our pets routinely do, in the context of their role as someone sharing our living space, pets can be kind of jerks.

Reddit user LakotaGrl challenged people to consider just that conundrum when they asked:

"Referring to your pet as only 'My roommate', what's something your roommate does?"

Here are the hilarious results.

Bedtime yoga.

My roommate likes to sleep with only his butt on the bed, the rest of his body on the floor. He also likes it when you slap his butt repeatedly.

dog couch GIFGiphy

Too close for comfort.

I once woke up to my roommate slipping and falling off the head of my bed and landing on my face. The first thing I saw that day was his butthole. Close up.

This is how you get pink eye.

Cat Dancing GIF by TikTokGiphy

Can't hold his licker.

If I bend over (to pick up somethingoff the floor or whatever) and my trousers get slightly pulled down, my roommate will try to lick my butt. I have to tell him to stop it multiple times before he listens.

dog lick GIFGiphy

Feline recreation

My roommate attacks a stuffed toy filled with drugs, then runs around and attacks table legs. After he tires himself out, he licks his butthole and falls asleep in a cardboard box.

Cattoy GIF by catnipyGiphy

College roommate?

One time I was really impressed with my roommate because they managed to open the fridge all on their own.

dog fridge GIFGiphy

Not so sneaky.

My roommate crawls into bed with me and my girlfriend at night thinking we won't notice.

Saint Bernard GIFGiphy

Roomba of Doom!

My roommate is getting rather chubby because my husband has been traveling and she hasn't kept up the strict exercise program of running 20+ miles a week while he's gone. Instead, she's been stealing our kids' sandwiches and sleeping on his side of the bed.

Our roommate is scared of Roomba and tries to bite it. I have to be vigilant to make sure our roommate doesn't poop on the floor before Roomba runs.

Dog Roomba GIF by megan lockhartGiphy

Cock-a-doodle-who?

My roommate screams when the sun rises in the morning. He has also pooped on me before and hisses at vegetables.

My friend has a roommate like that. Has anger issues. Low key, but I think he's a pimp. He surrounds himself with multiple women and will fight you if you look at the girls.

rooster GIFGiphy

Just making sure he didn't miss anything good.

My roommate sniffs my mouth whenever he returns to the room just to check if I ate anything during his absence.

Cat Sniffing GIFGiphy

Porch Surfing

We found one of our roommates on our porch one day, he yelled at us until we fed him and he's been camping on our porch ever since. Sometimes he comes in the garage when it's really cold. We wanna bring him in, but the other two roommates don't want him in the house, so he stays on the porch.

porch cat GIFGiphy

Nobody wants to go in the cold.

My roommate wouldn't just go poo in the snow, instead she waited until it hit critical mass and went behind the curtains

Snow Dog GIFGiphy

Keeping an eye on you.

When I walk the dog, my roommate stalks us through the neighborhood, hiding behind trees and cars, then running ahead and jumping out at us.

cat jump dog GIFGiphy

Sometimes you need tough love...

Neither of my roommates will voluntarily bathe. When they really start to stink, I have to physically wrestle them into the bathtub. Both of my roommates will try to escape so it's pretty tricky.

dog bath GIFGiphy

...or a good bribe.

To convince my roommate baths are a good idea, I smear a small part of the tub with peanut butter and he licks it off while being bathed.

peanut butter dog GIF by Hallmark ChannelGiphy

High Maintenance Relationship

My roommates were homeless when we met. I offer to let them live with me, but now they expect me to clean up after them and feed them. They're always complaining about the food I buy. All they do is lay around all day. They aren't even paying any rent!

cat sleep GIFGiphy

Practicing for the hotdog eating contest

Once I stepped outside to check the mail, and in the minute or two it took me to leave and come back, my roommate had eaten an entire pack of hot dog buns.

Italian Love GIF by Forno GustoGiphy

A sudden wind.

My roommate wakes herself up with farts then acts super surprised

My roommate is just scared of her farts and stares at/sniffs her own butt every time it happens

fart GIFGiphy

That led to one heck of a hangover.

A former roommate of mine was wild as hell, he was his own man. One morning he left our house hastily, didn't mention where he was off to.

A few hours later he gets picked up from the drunk tank no worse for wear—we brought him home and put him to bed to sleep it off. Not more than an hour later he was vomiting chunks of dead bird and some sort of mammalian road kill.

dog GIF by Hallmark ChannelGiphy

Number one method of communication.

My roommate pees on my bed when he is mad at me.

One of my roommates has done this twice recently since he has been started on a diet. He wanted to show his feelings about the situation.

kitties make the bed GIFGiphy

Inappropriate decorum.

My roommate thinks it's cute to run around the house showing guests my underwear

run away come back GIF by 6IXTY8IGHTGiphy

So what does your furry, finned, feathered or scaly roommate do?

Let us know in the comments.

People Share The Weirdest Thing They've Done With Their Brains On Autopilot
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

Having a routine makes life easier, plain and simple. Things becomes second nature like grabbing a coffee from the same shop at the same time in the morning and reaching for the soap without looking in the shower. But when we rely on habits too much, things can get messy. From accidentally throwing your phone in the trash to blurting out incomplete thoughts, these face palm moments will have you rolling in laughter.

Missing in Action

silver key on black carPhoto by Ivan Shemereko on Unsplash

I was looking all over my house for my keys. Like, flipping over furniture, full-on panic hunting for these keys. Finally thought that I might have left them in the car. So I went outside, and realized that my car was locked. Purely out of habit, I automatically pulled my keys out of my pocket, unlocked the door, opened the door, and realized that I was a complete idiot.

Permalink

Got Me Bobbing

I washed an apple at the sink, dried it with a paper towel, turned, tossed the apple in the trash, and stood there holding the paper towel like a dummy.

optcynsejo

Rub a Duh, Duh

When I was six or seven years old, I was getting ready for a bath. My parents had already filled the tub with water and bubble bath mix, and all I had to do was take off my clothes and put them in the basket of dirty laundry. I took everything off and promptly threw it all in the soapy tub, instead of the hamper. I stood there and just stared at what I had done for a solid thirty seconds.

DeepBreathing4Me

Can’t Forget to Say Bye

I had to take a bus to work every day at about 4 AM. My wife usually drove me to the stop so that I didn't have to leave my car there for 14 hours. My wife's friend was staying with us while she looked for a job and house in the area. She was getting up early anyways, so she decided she’d take me and let my wife sleep.

When we got to the stop, I just instinctively leaned over and kissed her goodbye. Then I felt this jolt of panic as I realized what I had done. My poor wife's friend had a dumbfounded look on her face, and I instantly turned red as I apologized profusely and said "Sorry, it was a habit." My wife poked fun at me for days for putting the moves on her friend.

LegendOfBobbyTables

Just Grazing By

When my daughter was very young, she loved trains. So, I'd take her on short train rides whenever I could. She couldn't get enough. Part of the routine was that, when we were on the train, we'd look out the windows and I'd point out the animals to her. I got some weird British alarmed looks that time I pointed out of the window and loudly said, "Look! Moo cows!" when I was on the train by myself.

MogadonMandy

Going Off Script

red and yellow love neon light signagePhoto by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash

I used to work for Comcast in their call center. I worked 3 PM-12 AM, so the only thing that was open when I would finish work was McDonald's. During the holidays, there’s unlimited overtime. I, being 19 and having no obligations at the time, decided to work non-stop until I fell down at my desk. One year, I worked three days straight.

I took my mandatory breaks every couple of hours and napped in the lunch room here and there. Finally, I decided I'd had enough at around 2 AM one morning. I stopped at the McDonald's drive thru because I wanted something hot to eat. Up to this point, I had subsisted on mints and packs of crackers from a vending machine.

The conversation at the window went something like this, “go ahead and order when you're ready,” the lady told me. I went, “Thanks for calling Comcast, home of the triple play. My name is so-and-so, how can I assist you today?” Then there was a very long, awkward pause. I ended up sleeping in the parking lot of that McDonalds.

I spent about the next 12 hours in my car. The manager eventually knocked on my window and asked me if I was homeless and if I needed to come in and warm up.

Not My Stop

I’m an ex-bus driver, and many times on my way home from work, I would go to pull into a bus stop in my car...

Tink_650

Not Even Close

I was meeting my brother's in-laws for the first time. They asked me what my name was. I said, "Pete." My name is Tiffani.

tiffaniac

Not the Sharpest

I was working the backline at an Arby's WAY back in the day. We used to get our sub buns by the foot, but all the subs we sold were six inches. One day, when I was really tired, I literally reached into the bag, grabbed a sub roll, cut it in half, then put the knife back in the bag, and tried to cut another sandwich with the sub bun. The manager laughed.

boyvsfood2

Is This How You Do It

I was signing for a parcel on one of those electronic machine things that delivery drivers use. On this particular day, I wasn't paying any attention and ended up staring at the screen, zoning out for a full minute, then instead of signing my name, I just drew a straight line on the screen and handing it back. The mailman was very confused.

b14nn

What Comes Out Must Go In

I was woken up at 3:30 in the morning for a random substance test for baseball last semester. After I peed in the cup, I was so tired and on such intense autopilot that I did something disgusting. I mindlessly drank my own pee cup. I don't know why, but I did it. Luckily, I was so tired that I didn't register the taste, and there was still enough in the cup to test.

7-car-pileup

Need for Safety

I went to the cinema to watch the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. I was running a little late so I missed the previews and walked in to find that the movie had already begun. There was a furious car chase on screen when I arrived. After I found a seat and sat down, I instinctively tried to find my seatbelt so I could buckle up.

TocTheElder

Making It Fit

I poured milk into my baby's bottle then, since it was, like, four in the morning, I tried to hear the full milk carton in the microwave, instead of the bottle. The carton was way too big but instead of realizing I had the wrong thing, I just got angry that it wasn't fitting. I only stopped trying because my husband was there watching and he start laughing.

BananaVanillaLatte

All Good Things Come to an End

I woke up without an alarm, had breakfast, took a bath, and drove half hour to my work feeling great. I even thought to myself on the way, "Lucky me, the traffic is very nice today." Just when I arrived, the security greeted me with the worst words possible: "Good morning, sir, working even over the holiday?" I drove all the way home and had a nap.

kairosaevum

Catching Up

I’m always running to catch the subway after waiting at the crosswalk in front of the station. Once, I was casually walking with my friend in the same area and then started running when the cross sign lit up. He had no idea what was happening.

LosingLungs

I’m Home!

man sitting inside carPhoto by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

I drove home from Phoenix to Prescott. I got all the way to my old driveway before remembering that I had moved to Flagstaff about a month prior.

lunchladyshand

Everything Has Its Place

I tried to put the cat into the tool drawer and then almost put the poor thing into the fridge 30 seconds later.

psychgamer2014

Something’s Not Working

I stopped at a stop sign and waited at least a minute and a half for it to turn green.

Permalink

Just Gonna Take That

I went to the grocery store, packed everything in my backpack at the self check-out, and went home. As soon as I got home, I remembered that I never actually paid. When I made the realization that I hadn’t paid, I went back, swiped my card at the self check-out, and ended my transaction. Nobody had even noticed it happened.

YethFaru

Habits of an Old Man

I've worked as a caregiver for adults with mental and physical disabilities for over a decade. I do basic care helping adult men do daily activities like shaving, buttoning shirts, and so on. On a date, I was a bit buzzed, so I started to fix my date's shirt and told him he needed to look in the mirror to see if he wanted a shave.

parentaccount1143

I Know What That Means

dried leaves and stones on train tracksPhoto by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash

I work on a train. On the railroad, you can get verbal permission to pass a red signal or flag either from the dispatcher or the employee who’d put the red flag there. You cannot under any circumstances pass a blue light or flag because that protects employees working on/under/between rolling stock beyond the blue signal from any danger.

Driving home in the car late one night, I decided to take a shortcut through the local university. I went around a corner and saw a blue light marking a call station. My immediate conclusion was, “Shoot, can’t go that way.”

CatHerder237

Practicing Healthy Habits

I work with preschoolers, and we sing songs to help them wash their hands. I started singing the same song when I went out with some friends to a bar and needed to go to the bathroom. The other lady in the restroom gave me the weirdest look...

superpie5

Looks Right to Me

I was getting my car out of the parking lot and heading back home after a long day. Shortly after I started driving, I passed by a car that was identical to mine and thought, "Cool, I found my car." Nope. I was so wrong. I got out my car (which I had already found) and went to get into a stranger's car, thinking I'd discovered my own vehicle. Halfway through, I realized what I was doing and looked around hoping nobody saw.

xgonegiveit2ya

Day Droning

I was sitting in math class one day, and I was just humming to myself while the teacher was explaining something on the board. She went to turn off the projector, which was beside my desk. Then, still standing next to me, she gave me this strange look and asked me, "Is something wrong?" I had been very deep in thought.

So much so, that I had lost the tune but kept humming, so I was now just humming a long, low "hmm" without any change in pitch. So, yeah, that was embarrassing.

DeepBreathing4Me

Slack Jaws

Sometimes in the shower, I fill my mouth with water, and just let it pour out. One day, before work, I was brushing my teeth and standing in the bathroom fully dressed in my work clothes. But my brain thought I was in the shower, so I just let the toothpaste pour slowly out of my mouth and onto my outfit. Now my boyfriend warns me not to "drool toothpaste" all over myself.

Squeakies

Been Here, Done That

cooked foodPhoto by Eiliv Aceron on Unsplash

I lived in the same house for 16 years before I moved. Years later, I did a bit of summer work as a construction worker on the house where I used to live. When I came in the first day, it was like traveling back in time. I mindlessly did what I always did when I lived there. I waltzed into the kitchen during the family’s breakfast, opened the fridge, and looked for something to eat.

I came to myself and looked up. The family was staring at me with their jaws dropped. Like, the breakfast table forks were paused in mid-air at this unknown construction worker making himself right at home. I was so embarrassed. I backed out stammering the whole time and trying to have them understand, “I used to live here.” I was not allowed inside again.

supertucci

Worn Out

I went to the doctor's office, took off my sweater for a flu shot, and realized my t-shirt was on inside out. I got home, took off my t-shirt, and realized my bra was inside out.

Permalink

Which Is Which

I work with both a phone and radio at work and have answered my phone with, "base, go ahead," and my radio with, "Lincoln county Transit." I have also had my radio go off and picked up my to-go cup of coffee and used it to try and respond. I use a straw with my coffee, and in my half-awake mind, I thought it was the antenna.

welpreallynotsurenow

Losing the Scruff

I started to trim my beard and didn't see that the guard was off. A huge swath of beard was gone in one swipe. My two-year-old still refers to me during the beardless months as "Creepy Daddy." I am not allowed to shave it off again.

Polar_Ted

Excels in Observation

I have two kids and am in the habit of pointing out things I think they’ll like such as rainbows, the moon, nice dogs, and stuff like that. One day at work, I turned to a young male childless colleague and said, “Oh, look over there, a kitty cat!!” He gave me a weird look and stopped making small talk with me after that.

niapattenlooks

Two Strikes Against

five orange fruits and one black smartphone on waterPhoto by Khiet Tam on Unsplash

I put my phone under the faucet to fill up my water bottle. I recognized my mistake. And then I did it again.

Nobody_Likes_Shy_Guy

What Are You Yelling About?

I work as a housekeeper, and when we knock on doors, we yell, “Housekeeping,” and when we throw laundry down the chute, we yell, “Heads,” for those below to mind their heads. One day, I knocked on a door and loudly yelled, “Heads!” Later that day, the back of my mind remembered my mistake and made sure to “Correct it.” Unfortunately, I underestimated my own stupidity.

I over-corrected by stupidly yelling, “Housekeeping!" down the laundry chute.

Sadye_Lady

I Meant to Do That

Once, I ate pizza at a friend's house and, out of habit, threw the crust on the floor for the dog. Those friends didn't have a dog.

Catsrecliner1

Can’t Forget to Mention

"Here you go, if you need anything else, just let me know,” I said as I graciously put down the plate with food I cooked for the only person in the room. Me.

Permalink

Dude, Where’s My Car?

I got my license at age 25 after moving from the city to a tiny town. I was so used to walking everywhere that one day I drove somewhere, forgot I’d driven, and walked back to work. I finished work and thought, “Oh, my car’s not there, must have walked in today,” so I walked home. I got home, and the car was not there.

So, I thought, “Oh, must’ve left it at mom’s,” but it wasn’t there, nor was it at the shops or the pool. I was too embarrassed to ask anyone if they had seen it and had absolutely no idea where I’d left it, so I just kept walking everywhere for three or four days. Eventually, my housemate saw it and asked if I was ever picking it up.

indienial

Changing Behaviors

macro shot of yellow train hanging handlesPhoto by Jad Limcaco on Unsplash

I've been working with children for seven years. When I'm really distracted, I go into teacher mode. If I'm traveling with people, I'll count them on and off public transport, offer everyone water and snacks if I have them, and tell complete strangers to "use your walking feet/inside voice" if they're running or shouting.

Permalink

Why Did You Do That?

I was talking to my boyfriend while he was eating a sandwich. Mid-sentence, he ripped a piece off and threw it at my face. He looked stunned when I didn't open my mouth and catch it. We have a dog who begs for food at the table all the time. When we realized that my boyfriend had accidentally forgotten I was a human woman and not a dog, we both nearly peed laughing.

Bunnyjets

I Guess I’m Up Now

I woke up, automatically got out of bed, got dressed, brushed my teeth, packed up my backpack, headed out of my dorm, and happened to glance at the clock in the lounge. Then the other shoe dropped. It was 1:30 AM.

Permalink

Thrown to the Wolves

My dog's favorite part of the day is dinner time. I pull out her food and get a scoop of kibble; she starts wagging and doing the tippy-taps. One day, instead of going to her bowl, I dumped the full scoop into the trash can. She just looked at me with the saddest eyes. I felt so terrible, so she got extra food and pets.

ChaoticRift

Power Up

At the gym, there is an arm curl machine. Typically, I do a heavy amount, but that day I was tired and pretty brain fried. As I used the machine, I didn’t realize that there was no weight on it, and I tried curling it with effort as normal. I ended up slamming myself in the head with the bar. Everybody in the building saw.

Kiedgendary

No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service

people sitting on chair inside buildingPhoto by Phil Mosley on Unsplash

For this to make sense, you need to know that I always take my shirt off after my shoes when I get undressed. So, there I was at around 4:30 in the morning heading through security to fly across the country for a festival. I was nowhere close to awake and running on autopilot. I was throwing my stuff on the conveyor, taking my shoes off, and then automatically started to take my shirt off.

The very attractive TSA lady was like, "Slow down, sir, we just met." I didn't know they came with a sense of humor.

FragsturBait

Uncommon Phrases

I came into work at the front of house after several extended nights of profound insomnia. I was holding up ok until a gal walked in with a dog in her arms. I always chat with people about their dogs because people love to talk about their dogs and often tip a little more when they feel like they’ve connected with you. Looking back, this was a mistake.

I didn't have two neurons to rub together to break from the script of, "Hey, what can I get you,” “Here is your total,” and, “Would you like a receipt?" I leaned over the counter, locked my sleep-starved, unfocused, googly eyes on this poor woman, and blurted out, “Your dog. Who is he?" and then expectantly stared at her.

I stared like it was a normal and not at all insane thing that I just kind of word-vomited at her. She kind of stared at me and clutched her dog a little closer, and I think I probably went a little cross-eyed and tried to salvage the conversation by talking more. I don't remember what I said, but it was not an improvement.

SunOnTheInside

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water

I went to check the mail, grabbed my keys, and remembered, “Oh yeah! There’s garbage and recycling that needs to go out!” So I stopped at the mailbox, retrieved my mail, threw away the garbage, threw away the mail, and threw away my keys. A neighbor asked if I was going to need those. I kind of stopped, realized what I'd done, and mumbled, "Oh nooo."

SavageJeph

Getting Ready to Go

I started unbuttoning and unzipping my pants while I walked towards the toilet just like I do at home because I'm efficient like that. There was just one problem: I was not at home. I was at work. And I was walking through the shared office.

LadyGruntfuttock

Problems Saying Goodbye

This guy I had a HUGE crush on was leaving my apartment. He said something along the lines of, "All right, this was fun, I'll see you later on." I didn't feel capable of waving, so I did a weird circular motion with my arms, snapped both fingers into finger-pointers at him, and then winked. WHY?

comrade_julie

Did You Want Something?

group of person eating indoorsPhoto by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

As a teenager, I worked at McDonald's. My McDonald's was open 24 hours and, during the summer, I worked the overnight shift. My sleep schedule would get all messed up. My parents woke me up for dinner one evening. I zombie walked to the table and then sat there. My dad asked me to say grace. I bowed my head and tried my best.

I said, "Thank you for choosing McDonald's, may I take your order?"

arndta

Control Your Volume

I guess I listen to too many podcasts because I keep trying to pause work conference calls. I’ve also caught myself trying to increase my husband’s volume by pushing buttons on my phone while we’re in a room together having a conversation.

Janigiraffey

Are We Leaving Yet?

I had just finished getting my hair cut when I walked out of the salon to get into my car. I got into the back seat and sat there for a full minute before realizing that I drove myself there. Oh, but it gets worse. The salon had a glass storefront, and I was parked front and center. Everyone saw me have my epiphany moment and then humiliatingly get in the front seat to drive home.

jkotwa93

Official Protocol

I finally got a job as a consultant that I had been trying to get for years. It was just a position at our local grocery store, but the department was the best in town, so I was pumped. I was doing a great job and getting regulars at my tastings. One time, I hosted a tasting with a fairly expensive bottle of champagne.

I opened the bottle, and it started fizzing since it wasn't cooled enough yet, and my instant reaction was to start chugging it because that's what you do with soda. But this was not soda. It was much more expensive than soda, and I was chugging it in the middle of the sales floor while on the clock in a grocery store.

rshot

Here Come the Water Works

I had a deadline, and I was very sleep deprived. I drank a lot of coffee so I had to visit the washroom a lot. During one particular visit late at night, I went to wash my hands as usual but the tap wouldn't budge. I kept turning it, yet no water would come out. So, I did what other adults would do when that happens. I cried.

I called for someone to check it saying that I broke the tap in between gasps. My boyfriend walked to the sink and magically fixed the tap. I was turning it the wrong way.

ponyfart

Weddings Gone Wrong: These Bridezillas Ruined Lives
Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Planning a wedding is stressful, but planning a wedding with a bridezilla? Life-ruining. From tantrums over table settings to meltdowns over money, some brides take “It’s my special day” way, way too far. Need proof? Just keep reading these so-bad-they’re-irresistible bridezilla stories from Reddit.

Just Walk Away

woman standing near treePhoto by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

My brother's fiancé went off on my mom in front of my sister and me, all because he was 45 minutes late to the rehearsal due to his best man's car tire blowing out. "Where is your jerk of a son?!" she screamed. The dude should have never shown up for the wedding. Not only was she a bridezilla, but she was also a total utter sociopath. Soon enough, the disturbing truth came out.

She had completely fabricated her life. Her parents—who didn't show up for the wedding—called my mom to tell her the truth about it the day after the ceremony. She had a rap sheet a mile long. But my brother, who just wanted to believe that people can change, stuck it out for seven years. Don't ever, ever do that.

Gryen

Worth Every Penny

I married a bridezilla and she ruined my life. After the wedding and vacation were over, I told her we needed to pay the debt we just accumulated—she wanted a huge wedding and she got it. We had a budget for the wedding and we should have had no debt at the end, but in the last few weeks before the wedding, she suddenly had to spend a ton of money on wedding stuff I had never even heard of before.

And when I say she spent a ton of money, I actually mean that it all came out of my pocket. So yeah, I wanted to start paying it off. She said she didn't have much on her credit card and I could easily pay it off in a couple of months if I just picked up some of her bills. I agreed... but that ended up being the worst decision of my life.

Three months later, she had her credit card paid off and she told me she wanted a divorce. You’d think we could get an annulment, but no. Annulment is very uncommon where we live. We looked into it, but we didn’t meet the criteria for one. Instead, we had to go to a quickie divorce lawyer who just puts paperwork together, and then we had to do everything else.

Maybe the worst thing about all this in retrospect? She comes from an upper-middle-class family and has a trust fund.

fairfishofnewwater

Joke’s On You

I was a bridesmaid in this winter-themed wedding. We all wore blue silk dresses with white fake fur capelets and MUFFS. At one point, we were getting ready for the ceremony and the bride said to me, “Hey, let me see your muff." I batted my eyelashes and joked, "I've waited so long to hear those words from you!" That didn’t go down how I wanted at all.

The look she shot me could have felled a moose. She started going off on me about how I was not taking things seriously enough and suggested that I should go hang out with the groomsmen instead if I was going to make lewd jokes. Yeah. Maybe I should have.

kittenhiccups

Warning Signs

My cousin married a bridezilla. He comes from a very poor area but has become successful after moving out of his hometown. His wife, however, was already extremely wealthy; you even could say excessively. They married after a year of knowing each other, and boy was it a surprise to hear about their horrific wedding plans.

They spent $250K on the wedding, including catering by seven different restaurants. Their food was from different cultures and cooked in front of you, almost like a hibachi buffet style. They even had servers in tailed suits and white gloves serving Taco Bell after midnight. Basically, it was the most lavish wedding I’d ever been to, and she was OBSESSED with the details. Well… that ended up being a HUGE red flag.

Once they got married, she was spending more money than he could make. She was getting mad because he wasn’t making enough, while she wasn’t working at all. When they got divorced, she gave him a cruel ultimatum. He could either get his ring back or keep the dog. He kept the dog. Oh, and there was one more parting gift.

Her sister, a lawyer, helped her file a restraining order on him and they haven’t spoken since. Screw her, but man, did he dodge a bullet there. They finished the divorce papers exactly one year and one day after their wedding. Once a bridezilla, always a bridezilla.

Munsoon22

Age Is Just A Number

My uncle married a bridezilla. She had a huge spending problem. She still went clubbing in her 40s thinking she was 20 and ignored all her day-to-day priorities to party. She also acted like she was better than everyone else, which is probably why she had a hard time keeping friendships. The final straw was when she cheated on my uncle with a man ten years her junior. My uncle is now married to a different woman and he's the happiest he's ever been.

yuri_yk

Harsh, But Fair

white plate align on table during daytimePhoto by Stella de Smit on Unsplash

My sister was labeled a bridezilla by the staff at her venue—I heard them talking about her. The thing is, she was totally justified. The chair coverings were red when they were supposed to be brown. There was no mirror in the bridal suite. The photographer was late, and the make-up artist was very late, hence the issue with the mirror. And the issues didn't stop there.

Oh, plus the buffet was totally wrong—not a single dish she chose was there, and they charged $25 a person for what was supposed to be a four-tier chocolate fountain. It ended up being a small, plastic contraption that she saw the staff unbox from Walgreens on the day of. On top of it all, the wait staff was half the number stated in the contract, and the DJ refused to honor the playlist she selected.

So, yeah, she lost it at the venue.

florida_born

A Hair Don’t

As a hairstylist, I've seen a few bridezillas. This one affected me directly. So mid-week, a woman came in and asked about up-dos for a wedding for the upcoming weekend. She told my boss that she wanted something "funky" done with her hair. My boss then booked this witch with me. Saturday morning rolled around and she got in my chair so we could get started.

I was nearly finished when she started complaining that she wanted more of a classic Audrey Hepburn style. At this point, it was too late to change anything.... plus my next client had already arrived. She completely lost it. She said I wasn't listening to her and then called her mother to talk some sense into me. She was almost in tears wondering how she was going to explain her hair to her future in-laws.

Her mom showed up and basically told her that her hair looked beautiful. Then she paid me and dragged her out of the salon. A total what the hell experience for everyone.

Carsons_mom

Servant Of Honor

My best friend, who is normally very sweet and quiet, was super rude when she got married. First, she told me when I would be having her bridal shower. She set a date without consulting me in any way and decided on all the details—it would be at my house, I would be serving so-and-so types of foods, etc. I was in the middle of my honors year of my bachelor's degree in another city that was a 15-hour drive away.

Well, she set the date to be right in the middle of my exams. She also planned on making all sorts of DIY things for her wedding to save money, like an aisle runner, centerpieces, arch, veil, etc. I came into town the night before the wedding and she said to me, "I didn't have time to get anything made, so I need you to do it." I stayed up all night sewing and arranging flowers while she slept. But it gets worse.

It was in the middle of winter, and when we arrived at the hall, the floor hadn't been cleaned and it was covered with salt stains. There was nothing to clean it with but a bucket and a cloth. So after staying up working all night, I had to clean a floor on my hands and knees. I was exhausted, sore, and I hated every minute of her wedding. I didn't talk to her for months after that.

Ihadacow

Bride’s Day, Bride’s Way

I attended the wedding of a family friend's daughter, so I didn't really know her. It was a night-time reception, with the ceremony immediately preceding. When we went into the reception, we were expecting a buffet or something to be set up, but there was nothing. Later, we found out that there was no food for the 120 guests.

Instead, there was a cheese spread, a fruit platter, and vegetables with dip. After an hour, people were really hungry and some people started to leave because they were expecting to be fed and didn't want to stay. When the bride found out, she absolutely lost it. She ran across the room in her dress and blocked the doors, screaming about how everyone was ruining her wedding. She kept screaming, "Bride's day, bride's way!" It was such a scene that her father had to peel her off the door. I don't know where the husband was; probably cowering. After that, the people who didn't know her all left. I heard through the grapevine that she was inconsolable the entire night... She got trashed and threw up—hopefully on her dress, but I’m not sure.

Oh well, Bride's Day, bride's way!

Permalink

You Think You Know Someone

I had coordinated a bridezilla’s wedding. My cousin's six-month-old baby had passed a few days prior to the wedding. I called the bride and told her of my family situation, and I assured her that my assistant would be stepping in for me so that I could attend the funeral. Her reply made my blood run cold. She told me to send my assistant to the funeral and that I had better be at her wedding.

I told her I would be sending her a refund and that now no one at all would be coming to her wedding. The groom ended up leaving her after this whole thing went down. Suffice to say, he really dodged a bullet there.

human_9

Sister Act

woman in white long sleeve shirt with white flower headbandPhoto by Rikonavt on Unsplash

My sister was a bridezilla. She announced her two-year engagement and asked me to be the maid of honor. I then got the opportunity to move across the country to pursue my career. It was 18 months before her wedding, and her reaction was chilling. Instead of congratulating me, she said, "You're going to leave me here to plan my wedding all by myself?"

It was as if I had signed away my right to have a life for the “honor” of being in her wedding. Oh, but that was just the first salvo. She made us all spend hundreds of dollars on specialized dresses, and even the bachelorette party had a dress code and a steep price tag. For 10 years before her engagement, I had consistently had blue, green, and purple hair, but knowing that she is conservative, I let the color grow out.

I had natural color but a short bob with an undercut and even that just wasn’t good enough. She went on about it constantly. In the lead-up, we talked every few days to discuss her wedding—despite the problems, it was the closest we'd ever been. Then, as soon as she was married, I got radio silence. She even forgot my birthday.

Needless to say, we don't speak anymore.

VincentVanGoghst

Monster-in-Law

According to my mother-in-law, I was the bridezilla. We had a maximum limit of 36 people, including ourselves and my son. My mother-in-law gave me a guest list that included—you guessed it—36 names. She assured me that not everyone would come, but that they would be very appreciative of the invite. I felt totally grossed out.

Still, I left the decision up to my husband, since it was his family after all. Needless to say, they all got invites. Then, I had asked for RSVPs to be given a few months before the wedding. Since the mother-in-law had used up all of the room on the guest list, I had to reduce my side to four people, with some on hold until I knew the exact numbers. I was starting to come to terms with it, but then she did something that made me absolutely livid.

I finally lost it two weeks before the wedding when I still didn’t have RSVPs. She said she would work on it and get back to me. A week before the wedding, she outdid herself in the worst way possible. She said one family also needed to bring nine other people because they were going on a family trip and our town was on the way so they would all be here anyway.

I flat out said no and called her out. I cut off the guest list and said that I was inviting the rest of my guest list and whoever hadn’t RSVP’d wouldn’t get a chair or plate. Right up to the day of the wedding, they were making changes. We got married at a Chinese buffet so that it would be the simplest planning and everyone would have something that they liked to eat.

My dress was $40 off Amazon. My flowers were $20 from Costco. We had a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for the wedding cake. Yet she still makes it out that I was the bridezilla.

SelenaJnb

A Rollercoaster Of Emotions

My co-worker married a crazy bridezilla. Here’s just a taste of what happened leading up to, during, and after the wedding. The moment he proposed, she lost her desire to sleep with him. According to him, she also basically stopped acting like the woman he fell in love with and started acting like her real self.

A week after he proposed, she quit her job. According to her, her full-time job was now planning the wedding. The wedding was horrible, but I'm getting there. She then had a fight with his mother because she demanded that she pay for half the wedding while getting zero input on anything.

Like, the groom’s family wasn’t even allowed to contribute to the guest list, which ended up being 95% of the bride's friends and family. The bride, who was 30 years old, subsequently egged her future mother-in-law’s house. When the bride and groom had a spat about the egging, he went to work the next day. That's when he received a disturbing video.

The video was of her screaming and sobbing as she buzzed her hair off in the bathroom. I worked with him, so he showed me the video. I strongly urged him to have her assessed by a psychiatrist. In response, he made a stupid joke about how intimacy with a crazy girl is the best kind and I pitied him. There's no amount of patience in the world that would help me survive a relationship like that.

Now we get to the juicy part: the wedding. It was in a pool "clubhouse" in summer, and it was much too small for the 150+ people they invited. Someone forgot to turn the AC on until after the place was packed. A lifeguard showed up in a swimsuit to turn it on, but it did little given it was already sweltering.

Two rows of chairs in the clubhouse were ribboned off with “reserved” signs on them, so no one sat in them. They were later occupied by the six bridesmaids, leaving about a dozen chairs open once the wedding started. The one groomsman, who was the best man, stood by the groom and didn't sit, while elderly people were left standing as there was no way to get to the chairs once the ceremony started.

The bride showed up 90 minutes late. She was unhappy with her hair and makeup, so she took it all off and did it herself. All the guests were standing for 1.5 hours just waiting for her. The groom was literally standing at the altar sweating his butt off in a wool suit, and he was clearly not sure if she would show up.

He looked like he felt sick. When the bride did show up, it somehow got worse. She burst into the clubhouse, marched down the aisle, and snapped at the officiant to "hurry up and get started." During the prayer while the religious groom had his head bowed, she turned to wave at everyone (I don't pray so I was looking up), then she told her mother to go get her some water.

She drank a bottle of water during the prayer and kept grinning and waving at people in attendance, paying zero attention to her groom in front of her. When the ceremony was over, tables were crammed into the clubhouse…and apparently only family and immediate friends of the bride had seats at the tables. The rest of us were to stand outside during the reception. I didn't see a dance, a speech, the cake cut, nothing.

The food was served outside where there were bugs everywhere. The bride made the groom get her food over and over. He meekly stood in line with the other 150 people, until people insisted he go sit and let them get food. Nope, she told him to do it, so he said he had to be the one to get it for her.

She never left her table to greet any of her guests. And when it was over, it went nuclear. Apparently, they had a massive fight as they were leaving the following day for the honeymoon, with the bride laying all the failures of the wedding she planned at his and his mom's feet. She threw his luggage out of the car and tried to drive to the airport by herself.

However, he had their tickets and jumped on the hood to stop her from driving off in his car. He then got fired about a month after the wedding because he kept showing up late and leaving early to deal with her personal crises. One year after the wedding, I got a thank-you note for my wedding gift, and it revealed the whole story.

It was signed by just the bride with a note that said, "As you may have heard, Ryan and I have had a bumpy start in our first year as a married couple, and we're separated now. Thanks for the lovely gift." They divorced a couple of months later.

gambitgirl

Start The Way You Mean To Go On

This was a groomzilla. A friend of my father was remarrying, and it was both his and the bride’s second time around. They were both in their early 40s, and it was an arranged marriage. The guy was an utter mess. He demanded that every event be at top-notch hotels with obscenely expensive catering and hired string quartets and whatnot for the entertainment.

This was mostly paid out of the bride’s family’s pocket, I might add. The parties on the nights leading up to the main wedding event were opportunities for him to make a rather public jerk out of himself, talking at the top of his voice everywhere he went and showboating the entire time. But the kicker came the next day.

The bride was missing from her own wedding reception. Obviously, it was very odd and conspicuous, and the few relatives from her side made some non-committal excuses about her not feeling well, etc. Turns out, this idiot had divorced the poor woman right after he had his wedding night fun. He said that he “didn’t like her enough,” and that’s an almost literal quote.

The marriage was officially over before the festivities even ended.

pqrsthrowawayyyy

You Need More Than A Priest, People

As a minister, there’s only one ceremony I had to walk away from. I received a call from my sister-in-law that one of her friends was supposed to get married and the priest had passed the week before. They didn't want to change the date or move anything, so they asked if I knew anyone who could help out.

I said, "Sure, when is the wedding?" It was supposed to be in an hour. Okay, no problem—I was on my way home from work where I had finished up an important meeting, so I was already reasonably well-dressed. I called home to say I was going to be late. When I arrived, it went wrong almost immediately. The "happy couple" looked at me and asked if I had proper priest’s vestments.

Um, no, I didn't, and if I did, I probably wouldn't be carrying them in my car. This is, after all, was an emergency. Still, the bride asked if I was able to go buy some and come back. I told her that I didn't even know where to buy garments like that. The groom then told me that if I couldn't even try, then maybe I should leave. So I did. Oh, but it gets better.

My sister-in-law told me they later cornered a priest at the church and told him he had to marry them, or they would sue the church for a breach of contract and that it was the moral thing to do. They divorced nine months later when her "surprise" baby was of a different ethnicity than he was. It didn't help that he had a side-piece as well.

JuggleMonkey

Mother Knows Best

woman in white tank topPhoto by Fallon Michael on Unsplash

The store I worked at was a women’s formalwear store, so I have plenty of bridezilla family stories. More than once, we had mothers physically fighting over dresses for their daughters, including two moms who were sisters. These ladies came to blows because their respective daughters ended up wanting the same dress.

The worst moms weren’t actually the obviously rude moms, though. They were the 40-something yoga moms who’d spend the entire time body-shaming their daughters. There was even one yoga mom who, instead of approving of her daughter as she tried on dresses, spent the entire shopping day trying on dresses herself. No, really.

phoenixphaerie

Telling On Yourself

I have to confess, I was a bridezilla. It was a small wedding, like 50 people, and it was going to be a casual celebration in a park. Everything was handmade or from the dollar store. I only ended up with a dress from a David's because the first little bohemian dress I ordered was more of a shirt, and my mom refused to let me wear it.

At the bridal shop, my mom told the lady not to tell me any prices, but I told her I would only consider dresses under $200. I tried on one dress and cried because I loved it so much. My mom bought it, and I later looked it up and saw it was $3,000. That changed everything. No more wedding at a park. Instead, we booked a small venue. We served pizza and pies still, and the groomsmen were still wearing polos and shorts.

The bridesmaids were in some Rue21 dresses I bought for them. That’s when it all unraveled. I only became a bridezilla on the day of. None of my family showed up, so my husband's side was full and mine was empty. Even our friends sat on his side. I was already primed at that point, and then the wheels came off.

Our MC read the speech I wrote before we were even at the altar, and our camera lost battery so we didn't get the recording, I tripped going up to the altar, and I had herniated a disc a week before the wedding. I was miserable and in so much pain. I cried so hard afterward. It felt like it was terrible; like everything was ruined, and I took it out on everyone.

I did my best to hold it together as much as I could, but I was so relieved when it was over. If I could do it all over, I would change everything; especially how I acted. None of that excuses my snippy behavior or my crying constantly on the day. Being stressed and upset didn't give me the right to make others feel bad.

kiwiloden

All In The Family

My mom was a mother-of-the-bridezilla. She’s generally pleasant, with her annoying habits here and there—but man, she was a nightmare during the wedding planning. The woman cried because we refused to have a receiving line...when we got married in our backyard. The reception was on the other side of the yard. Why the heck would we have a receiving line?!

She was beside herself for the better part of an entire year worrying what we would do if it rained—we had a giant tent, and we ordered like 20 umbrellas. She also had a cow that the hem on her dress had gotten pulled loose by the ridiculous rhinestone stilettos she chose to wear (to a wedding in a yard...on grass). I told my maid of honor to get her some duct tape and my mother, again, cried her eyes out.

To this day, she complains about the fabric runner we used for the aisle because her heels dug into it, saying how silly of a choice that was. Everyone in the wedding party was aware of it and wore wedges or flats, but she snorted that that wasn’t elegant. She LOATHED that I wore ballet flats. She was also appalled that our rehearsal dinner, which was at our home, consisted of takeout from our favorite local pizza and sandwich place.

She decried it for being “borderline trashy.” Thankfully, following the ceremony, my brother gave her a talking to and all was well for the party thereafter.

februarytide-

My Way Or The Highway

My mother-in-law was a momzilla. My wife wanted a regular-sized wedding—nothing fancy, just a cozy celebration at a historic venue she loved. We had planned for about 100 guests at most, and we planned to do a lot of the work. Suddenly, my mother-in-law started to pressure us about having to invite tons of people, since she’s loaded and a social butterfly.

She also wanted us to change the venue, the photographer, etc. I didn’t care since I just wanted to make my wife happy. I did my best to adjust. Then, one day, about two months before the wedding, my wife had a breakdown crying because of all the changes from her mom. That's when I had enough. I told my wife I would handle her from now on.

I called her up and read her the riot act, telling her to cool it or we would just get a courtroom wedding and forget about the religious wedding, which was a huge deal to the family. She fought me for weeks. The whole family fought me. I told them all to pound sand. We had our original wedding; I was folding invitations and favors the night before until 3 am, but by heck we got it done.

Of course, my mother-in-law still changed the DJ and photographers without me knowing, so we had completely wrong music, and we have yet to see the pictures (16 years later). To this day, we have minimal contact with the family.

Gnomelover

All About Me

My brother married a bridezilla. She yelled at my mother on the day of the wedding for asking her where she wanted certain decorations put at the reception site. For what it’s worth, there wasn’t a written plan, so my mom had nothing to go off of. She never thanked my parents for financially contributing to the wedding, either.

She also accused a bridesmaid of trying to upstage her by getting a spray tan before the wedding. My brother wanted me to be part of the wedding party, but she told him to his face that I was too pretty to be a part of it, and that all of her bridesmaids had to be less attractive than her. Oh, but she was just getting started. She yanked my sister-in-law’s jacket right off her back at the reception because one of her bridesmaids was cold.

The list goes on. Well, they got divorced about a year later because apparently her demanding attitude carried over into the marriage. Needless to say, the rest of my family had a little party when we heard about the divorce.

rootsinheck

Sibling Rivalry

a woman holds her hands over her facePhoto by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

My sister was a bridezilla. She asked me to be her bridesmaid. The dresses were hundreds of dollars, and my mom ended up paying for them because she knew I couldn't afford them. 70 bucks in alterations later, the stupid dress finally fit. I lived in Edmonton at the time and my sister was in Abbotsford, BC, which is far away.

She demanded I fly down for her bachelorette party. Fine. 300-dollar for a flight there. I stayed with my mom until my sister kicked me out on the night before her wedding. Apparently, she wanted a "special night" with her TWO maids of honor and I was “just” a bridesmaid, so I couldn't be there. Whatever.

During the bachelorette party, I was told I needed to bring drinks for myself and the bride. Fine. I went to the store and she ran up 100 bucks on my card with what she wanted. Whatever, it's her wedding. She proceeded to drink none of it; then went to bed at the hotel early because she was angry for some reason. She then gave my bottles, all 100 bucks of it, to her husband for his bachelor party the next night.

But that's not all—she also got angry that my gift for them wasn't off her registry. I looked at the registry and there was nothing under 200 bucks. I mean, this witch even put a 900-dollar vacuum on there. When all was said and done, HER stupid wedding cost ME over a thousand dollars.

She then didn't speak to me for years after, and even when she did reach out, she only wanted to tell me that she didn't actually want me as a bridesmaid and that I ruined her wedding. She said she only asked me out of courtesy and that the spot was actually meant for her wedding planner, our cousin. At this point, we don't keep in touch. Her wedding ruined our relationship.

tashabear

Mr. Wrong

I married a groomzilla. I bent over backward to make the wedding as magical as he wanted, even though I would have been happy in someone's backyard with a potluck. In couple’s counseling seven years later, he made a disturbing confession. He admitted that he never really wanted to marry ME so much as he wanted a huge show and party.

Everyone liked and approved of me, so he wanted them all to see he was making a good choice and be envious of him. He wanted them to be proud of him. We used up most of the money I got from a car accident settlement on the wedding. It could have covered a down payment on a small house. After all that, he asked me for divorce in 2020.

PickanickBasket

Tux-e-Don’t

I spent four years of my life working in a formal menswear sales and rental chain, where the average wedding gown from the bridal shop started at $3k. My most memorable bridezilla was this woman who came in with her fiancé. Poor dude never said a word. She wanted a very specific color of shirt to match her "diamond white" gown.

She also wanted it in a mandarin collar, with a mid-range shawl collar and two-button jacket. 14 of them. Okay, pretty straightforward...but when you're renting shirts, particularly these shirts because they were newer so some were closer to white and some were VERY ivory, I can't guarantee that every shirt will even be the same color, let alone that exact shade of "diamond white."

I explained this. Twice. And she still signed off—but she emphasized the shirts WOULD all be the same color, and they WOULD be the right color. Okay, lady. I'll do my best. Cue six weeks later, the Thursday before the wedding. Bridezilla comes in with her poor fiancé. We pull out the tuxes. OF COURSE, the shirts are exactly as I warned her they would be.

There were several shades, and only one was her perfect color—and it wasn’t the groom's shirt. She lost her ever-loving mind. Crying, pounding on our glass countertop, WAILING at the top of her lungs. She got so agitated she shattered our front counter with her pounding.

We called the authorities and officers detained her. The groom took his and everyone else's tuxes and left. On Sunday, I happened to be accepting returns. The father of the groom came back with 14 unworn tuxes. He explained that the bride spent 24 hours behind bars after my spineless manager refused to press charges.

At the rehearsal dinner, the bride threw some insane temper tantrum, complete with throwing glassware, swearing, and finally punching the groom in the face. He decided not to proceed with the wedding. I will never forget that woman's crazy eyes or her insistence on the perfect colored shirts from a $90 rental. It was truly wild.

MomofanAvenger

Total Eclipse Of The Heart

I ended a friendship with a bridezilla who desperately wanted me to attend her wedding. She had it scheduled for the weekend of the eclipse in 2017, which was something I had planned for literally a decade. She asked me what my plan was, and I told her that I would be flying to the Missouri/Kentucky area. She wanted me to fly to Idaho instead, which was where she lived.

I would have, but all flights, hotels, and rental cars in Idaho were completely booked out. I couldn’t get there even if I wanted to. In response, she said I didn’t care about her or her wedding and that I didn’t want to see her on her big day. She claimed I put the eclipse—something I had planned on seeing for 10 ten years—before her “Lenny,” who I had known for six months.

So I ended things really fast after that. But from what I see, she still posts photos of her wedding to this day. Like, every day she posts different wedding photos. It’s almost like she stopped living after her wedding.

ReactivationCode-1

Big Little Lies

They had the expensive $75k wedding. Afterward, they split—and the astonishing truth came out. It turned out the bride never turned in the paperwork to make their marriage official. The groom didn't even know he wasn't married until he wanted to file for a divorce. The bride never returned the gifts either, even though they never got married.

She'd just lied to everyone about it...

Competitive_Fruit368

Happily Never After

woman with brown hair and black eyesPhoto by Raamin ka on Unsplash

I married a bridezilla. In the 18 months that we were married, she was such an unfit mother (too many instances to list here) that when the divorce was finalized, I got custody of our kid AND the kid she had prior to our marriage. Also, she was a blackout drinker and cheated on me with several different men. But the final straw was brutal.

I had to travel out of state to check on my grandmother. I came back a day early, saw used Marlboros in the ashtray—not her brand, and I don't smoke—and then I heard grunting and groaning in the bedroom. Yep, there she was. And there he was. And there HE was. Devil's Triangle. Contacted a divorce lawyer the next day, finalized it as fast as possible.

threedice

Toxic Waste

My ex-best friend was a bridezilla. She always had a short fuse, but I put up with that side of her because I cared about her dearly. I met someone who I was engaged to for three years, and even before that, we’d been friends for four years.

Before we got married, she used to stay over at our house all the time, and we all got along. Then she met a guy. After being together for about four months, they got engaged. That's when everything changed. She would talk to people in a really posh voice as though she was above everyone, and she even went out and bought a horse to appear like she had money.

She asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, and of course, I said yes. I really wish I hadn’t now. A couple of months after that, we met for coffee and I told her I was pregnant. I thought she’d be as happy as I was, as we’d been trying for a while. Nope! According, to her I got pregnant just to ruin her wedding and take the focus off of her.

Um... ok. Once we got pregnant, we planned to finally tie the knot before the baby arrived. We decided to do this on our anniversary. We envisioned a really small friends-and-family wedding. This was only three weeks after her wedding—not ideal, but we wanted it on our special day.

When her wedding day arrived, she had it in a church. She’s not religious at all and he was a very vocal atheist. Still, she had an expensive wedding dress and booked out the most expensive hotel in our local city. It was a huge affair. That’s fine, it was her special day. I was there for her through it all—I did everything a bridesmaid was meant to do even if I did have morning sickness.

I kept a smile on my face holding her ridiculously long veil up for most of the day. Then my wedding day arrived, which was a very small registry office affair that was perfect for us. She sat there looking like she was chewing a lemon and didn’t smile once. Afterward, she spoke with my mom who’d she’d known for years. My mom said, “You’re probably used to all this by now,” or something like that. She replied, “Yes, but mine was a lot grander.”

When she came to the reception, she accused my other best friend from childhood of playing footsie with her new husband under the table! My friend was not like that at all, and she’d only caught his foot while crossing her legs. I let that one slide...but later on, when I finally had my baby, she did something that made my blood run cold.

She visited for the first time in about six months and said, “Oh, it’s got red hair." She didn’t even refer to her by her name at all. That was all she had to say, so I cut her off at long last. It was the best thing I ever did. I hadn’t noticed how toxic she was until that moment. Now my husband and I live in the same little house we did before we got married. We did not have any debt at all from the wedding and we are still very happy six years after our wedding.

She, however, got into loads of debt from her wedding. Her husband also lost his job for gross misconduct, and she had to sell her horse. Now, six years later, I heard they’re living in her dad’s basement.

jowiejojo

Nothing Hurts Like Family

I worked at a popular bridal store and I dealt with a few bridezillas while I was there. The biggest issue we had was the plus-sized section. These women would come in convinced they looked awful in everything. They would find a dress they loved and we would talk them up, but it would unravel in an instant.

They would come out and their family would act so vicious. The disappointment and pain was palpable as their excitement melted away. They'd throw comments like, “Oh NO, you look ginormous in that,” or “You can’t wear that! Your arms show and you know how flabby they look!” You could kick out mom or talk the bride up in the dressing room, but you could tell they still were in pain.

Girls4super

And Your Little Dog Too

My sister decided to marry a guy she’d been with for less than four months. It was her second marriage and it was a spur-of-the-moment decision with less than one month’s notice. Flying across Canada is expensive...Anyway, I had just started a new job and it was imperative that I be there at work during her wedding.

Like, there wasn’t the slightest option for time off, or I would have been let go. She didn’t talk to me for over a year. Well, the marriage lasted less than the year, if that. She took him for everything—he lost his house and his car, and he drank himself out of his job. She took his dog and told him it had been run over. She’s a peach. Single, if anyone’s looking.

mommastang

Cold Feet, Cold Manners

I’m a wedding planner. The bride was in her late twenties, while the groom was in his mid-thirties. From what I understood, they had never been in relationships before; at least, not serious ones. On top of that, they were in a long-distance relationship and never actually lived together. Since the groom was living in another city, consultations and communication were done with the bride only.

She seemed a little awkward, although generally nice and easy to talk to. When I got to the ceremony, the groom was very stressed. I figured it was the normal pre-ceremony stress and he would warm up to me later, but nope! Once we got to the reception venue, I wanted to chat with him and check if everything was okay.

I can't remember what I said exactly, but it was something like, "Hey! I could tell you were very stressed before the ceremony! How are you feeling now?" For some reason, he took it the wrong way and refused to talk to me for the rest of the evening. He asked his mom (remember, he was in his mid-thirties) to tell me to leave the reception because he didn't like seeing me walking around, even though I was just doing my job.

After asking the bride if that's also what she wanted, she reluctantly agreed and asked me to come back later. I ended up sitting on a chair in the hallway for 30 minutes like a child until he gave me permission to come back and complete my job. He also refused to do the couple portraits after the ceremony. The bride managed to convince him at first, but after 10 minutes, he was done and refused to cooperate.

Needless to say, they ended up with very few good photos! Something tells me he grew up very sheltered and didn't know how to act with people, but who knows. To this day, I have no idea if they're still together, but one thing is sure: I will never work with them again.

FederalSelf6

You Can’t Choose Your Family

woman in white floral dress beside woman in black and white polka dot shirtPhoto by Marius Muresan on Unsplash

I had a momzilla; my mother-in-law. She had insisted that she was a "traditionalist, so since I was marrying her daughter, she said she would be paying for the whole deal. That was fine with my wife, so it was fine with me. My mother-in-law took no further role in the planning process.

Then, very late in the game—after 18 months of planning—my wife sent her the seating plan just to make sure it would be workable. After what sounded like a robust discussion over the phone, my wife came to me and told me that her mother wasn't happy with the seating plan. She was demanding that she sit at the bridal table, or she'd pull her money.

I called my mother-in-law back and asked her to explain the problem to me. She got very emotional, ranting about how it was the "tradition" she wanted to follow. She was threatening to withdraw her money if she didn't have her way. I took a second to consider my options and told her that it was fine—fortunately, a seat at the bridal table had just opened up. But then I continued with a slam dunk.

I said that spot was mine, and I wouldn't be needing it. I then hung up the phone and handed it back to my wife. On the day of the wedding, my mother-in-law sat where she was told.

drumondo

Better Off Alone

She told me she regretted marrying me a day after our wedding because it wasn't exactly how she wanted it to be. She also told me, on my birthday, that she was going to have an affair. When a few of my closest friends passed away in a short period of time, she told me to “get over it” because “life goes on.” She then filed for divorce because apparently I never loved or cared about her. She wants nothing to do with me.

gregorious13

Do Not Disturb

I married a groomzilla. I wanted to elope because I didn’t like the idea of being stared at by people. He demanded a wedding of 200+. He had my parents build a giant gazebo on our farm and said he’d help pay for building costs. My dad and I built it by hand with our neighbor, and he wasn’t anywhere in sight for what was a year-long project.

Shortly after the wedding, we retired to our hotel and he didn’t want to get intimate. I was like, okay; it was a long day, I get it. But later, three months into a dry marriage, I walked into an awful sight. He was getting it on with our 60-year-old male neighbor. I opened my bedroom door, saw him, and said I was sorry. I then shut the door, got my dog, and drove home to my mom and dad who lived a state away.

Why did I say I was sorry and not yell? I will never know.

CrustyBaggins

Master Manipulator

I was married to a manipulative narcissist. She got a hold of me in college when my parents didn't deliver on their promise to provide financial support. Now, that would have been fine since I could have made plans and changed how I did my schooling or something, but no. They promised a certain amount of money per month but only gave half.

I had rent to pay, so I basically stopped eating. I had no furniture in my apartment—I slept on egg crate foam. She saw this and I guess she felt bad because she started feeding me. Eventually, we would end up sleeping together in her nice warm bed. Then, later on, I moved in with her because things were going well…Little did I know that was when things would hit the fan. I owed her now and I could not get away.

She convinced me that she "needed" me and that I had to be there to support her in her every endeavor. Every single one. I went to her classes with her, I went clothes shopping with her, and I didn't go out with my friends because she needed me to sleep. She made me feel so obligated to her that my life almost fell apart. I felt so indebted to her that I let her treat me like garbage.

But the worst thing she ever did was emotionally blackmail me into getting married. "If you actually loved me, you'd marry me." She knew I was a sensitive person who genuinely cared about other people, and she used that to say if I didn't marry her I was an evil person who didn't care. The marriage lasted two years. She kept us financially off-balance by moving us around a bunch.

At some point, I got a good job and finally managed to get my own car and everything. I started building a new life, but she still tried to pull her old shtick on me. I had been going to therapy and she dropped out of our joint sessions because she didn't like that therapist. Eventually, we got divorced, but what's messed up about that was that after we were separated, all she wanted was to get me back in the sack.

I noped the heck out. That would be all I needed, to get my estranged wife pregnant. She never knew I was sterile…heck, even I didn't know at that time. All she wanted was a baby and she probably would have left me had she known. She got a new boyfriend and, get this—she moved with him out of state. One day, she called me up and said, "I want to thank you for breaking up with me in person, like an adult. My current partner just took the Xbox and disappeared."

She's a monster and I regret ever meeting her.

panic-and-panic

Love All Of Me

She paid for a life-size portrait of herself in her wedding dress. It was very important at the time. The marriage lasted one year before she cheated. I hope her future suitors take that as a clue.

FrizzleFriedPup

Cutting It Close

woman wearing round eyeglassesPhoto by Alex Perez on Unsplash

I'm a bridesmaid in an upcoming wedding. So a few weeks before the actual ceremony, I decided to knuckle-cut off all of my hair because the heat was unbearable. When my friend, the bride, saw it, she was really upset with me because she envisioned all of the bridesmaids with up-dos, which I never knew about in the first place.

Still, if I had asked for her permission to cut my hair, I would have been denied.

KayFatal

The Wedding Planner

I think I was a reverse-bridezilla. I've been married twice—the first time around, I had a medium-sized, stressful church wedding. My parents probably spent $20k on the whole shindig, about 20 years ago. The marriage lasted less than five years. The next time I got engaged, I was like, yeah...been there, done that on the whole "big wedding" thing.

My parents had already been tapped enough and I still felt bad that they had to shell out for a wedding when the marriage was over so quickly. I said we should go to the court and maybe have a nice dinner at a restaurant afterward. However, my husband, who was a little younger, had never been married and his (huge) family was all excited over the idea of a big, white wedding for their only boy.

So he dug in his heels and told me that he really wanted a wedding. My compromise, which I did not expect him to take me up on, was that if he really wanted a wedding, he could plan and pay for it himself. This backfired on me so hard. He excitedly agreed. Well, folks...I'm here to tell you that he did as good as his word.

I was 100% checked-out of the entire wedding planning. Zero stress level. I was a few months pregnant and working, so this was very agreeable to me. I literally only showed up when he asked me to, like when he said I needed to pick out a dress at David's Bridal. I pointed to the first reasonably priced, reasonably attractive gown I saw, tried it on, and was out the door with it in 15 minutes.

Our wedding day arrived, and my husband-to-be had gone ALL OUT. His whole family had pitched in, and they had produced a band, a sit-down dinner, flowers, a cake, horse and carriage, photographer, everything. Considerably more fun than my first wedding, and less money spent overall. I never had so much fun in my whole entire life.

Everything was a surprise because I legitimately had no idea what he'd arranged. My parents were so thrilled that they didn't have to pay for a big wedding again that they sent us on a pretty nice honeymoon instead. So I guess I married a groomzilla? But it was pretty awesome all around, so I honestly have no complaints!

aceromester

Better Without You

My ex was a bridezilla and our wedding was probably in the $20k plus range. She is very much a person who wants to appear like everything is going great. She wants to hear about your gossip, but she doesn't ever open up about herself. One day, all her secrets came tumbling out. She cheated on me after less than three years of marriage.

She seemed repentant and appeared to try. We had a couple of kids (that look just like me, thank goodness), but then she cheated on me again. I divorced her, which she is still furious about. I'm now happily married again to a woman who loves me and treats me well. Honestly, I didn't know love could feel this good or that I was worth this much.

apocalypse31

If I Could Turn Back Time

My brother-in-law married a bridezilla. She made him spend something like $45k on the wedding, and within a month she was cheating on him. They managed to somehow stick it out to have two kids, but she left him for one of his high school buddies after three years. They're divorced now, but she's a giant piece of trash and ignores her kids most of the time.

Skadoosh_it

Money Talks

My first marriage was to a bridezilla. She 1) drank before the ceremony, 2) wouldn’t dance because she was “too anxious that people would make fun of her,” 3) tried bragging to my cousins during the dinner that our wedding was better than theirs, and 4) invited her “ex” boyfriend to the ceremony. I later found out she had been sleeping with him both before and after our wedding. But that wasn’t even the cherry on top.

She later took the money we had received as gifts—money we were planning on using for a house down payment—and spent it on random stuff. Actually, she had a ton of debt she kept from me. I left her a year after I found out and never looked back. Now, I’m happily married to a great woman. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but there were a lot of red flags I should have noticed.

andrew12276

Take The Money And Run

men's gray suit jacketPhoto by Scott Webb on Unsplash

My uncle married this lady who was an insane bridezilla. She put him into an enormous amount of debt because she wouldn't settle for anything less than her perfect dream wedding. Then, she had the marriage annulled after the fancy honeymoon, saying she didn't want to be his wife but she always wanted to have her dream wedding. Witch.

Lobi-Wan

A (Sad) Tale As Old As Time

My husband’s long-term, childhood friend married a bridezilla. She is Evangelical and religion is pretty much her life. Meanwhile, he was agnostic and a very big metal-head geek. They asked us to be part of their wedding entourage. My husband and I are both tattooed, and when we arrived at the wedding, we were his only friends present.

Everyone at that big wedding was from her church. The preacher kept saying to him that his old life was behind him now and his new life was just about to begin, yadda, yadda. But while he was giving his sermon, everyone kept looking at my husband and I like we were beasts. Worst day ever.

She is that kind of person who wants to be an influencer. EVERYTHING is on her Instagram. Their relationship seems perfect there, but he always seems so unhappy and so apathetic. When we actually talk to him, he always brings up how they are so different.

She made him stop talking to us. Eventually, he got out of every friend group we had, and he stopped answering my husband, who is very sad he lost his friend. Even worse, I believe she is the one replying in the few weird messages he does get.

madonna4ever94

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. My wife and I eloped a few months before our "wedding" and kept it mostly a secret. Then, on the day of, we just focused on having an awesome party for us and our friends. Well, our pastor canceled last minute and stood us up for the rehearsal. My wife checked into the hotel the morning of.

Lady at the hotel counter: "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Wife jokingly: "Yes, a pastor."

LAC: "...Our omelet chef is ordained..."

LAC: "Hey TONY! You busy tonight?"

Tony:…"NO"

Wife: “Ok!”

jon110334

Buyer’s Remorse

My first wife was a bridezilla, but I didn’t find out the true extent of her wrath until just after we were married. During the honeymoon, reality hit her like a truck. She realized she just wanted the big wedding, which she had, but not the marriage. The next two years were a nightmare until she finally tapped out. I was young and stupid, so the thought of divorce never crossed my mind.

I don't know why it didn't. I guess I just assumed I'd be miserable the rest of my life. When she told me she was leaving, it felt as if the weight of the world was off my shoulders. On a happy note, her parents were still paying off the wedding when we divorced. That's what happens when you give your daughter everything she wants…like two freaking wedding dresses.

hansie68

Get Out, Girl

I married a groomzilla. This guy had costume changes planned for the wedding and reception. He would yell at the wedding planner over menial things like serving fruit kabobs so that people would maybe get enough to eat. There was zero compromise—he made a lot of promises for things I had been wanting after the wedding and they never materialized, like a beach vacation and such.

Turns out, no compromise at the wedding meant no compromise anywhere else, so I left him after four years of marriage. Best decision ever!!!

Affectionate-Sea-20

Fool Me Once

man in black suit jacketPhoto by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

I married a groomzilla. He is a lovely, sweet, and thoughtful man; but boy did he lose it at the wedding. I would have been more than happy with a small wedding—literally, I would just three special people there. He needed 200+. As far as I was concerned, we could eat off paper plates and have a big bonfire to burn them afterward. But no, he needed personalized moist towelettes.

You get the point. He is a lovely person and I love him dearly, but I will never marry him again.

cfishlips

A Whole Lot Of Baggage

My sister was a self-centered jerk during the six months before her wedding, with her coup de gras being the wedding day itself. I know it was all nerves so I don't harbor any grudges, but ugh, I wouldn't relive that day for any money in the world. My strongest memory is her holding a bag of her stuff and SCREAMING on the church steps:

"Why am I holding something? WILL SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY I AM HOLDING SOMETHING ON MY FREAKING WEDDING DAY??? Someone better take this out of my hands immediately."

blue_lotion

Read The Room

I knew a woman who was a bridesmaid at a relative’s wedding. She was married and had been trying to get pregnant for a while. Finally, she and her husband got lucky and she conceived. The bridezilla got furious and kicked her out of the wedding because she would be pregnant in the pictures. But that's not even the most tragic part.

Three months later, sadly, the woman miscarried. The bride called her with a response along the lines of "Good riddance. Now you can be a part of the wedding again." Needless to say, she did not even attend it.

hulagirl4737

You Get What You Put In

My ex-fiancé was super normal…until we got engaged. She went from wanting a small, simple wedding with less than 100 guests to a grand hall and wanting to invite everyone she ever exchanged more than three words with. She even wanted to import flowers. But the final straw was when she scheduled an appointment with a real estate agent to SELL MY HOUSE to pay for the wedding.

Also, her family was loaded but they weren’t going to contribute anything. I broke it off, and she got engaged again one year later to an attorney…Unfortunately for her, she didn’t read the prenup before signing. They got married and divorced one month later. She got nothing and is still alone.

edwadokun

The Grandmother Of Tantrums

I had a friend who threw a temper tantrum complete with screaming and foot-stomping because her grandmother had the audacity to pass a few hours before her wedding. She said it would throw off the seating arrangements since there would be a big empty space. She is currently halfway through her second divorce.

kidtendomom

Parents play an important and unparalleled role in the lives of their kids. But even this special relationship has its limits. There are certain parts of many kids’ lives that, for one reason or another, they choose to keep completely separate from their relationships with their parents. These secrets can be anything from harmless little guilty pleasures to absolutely scandalous and horrifying behaviors. Don’t believe me? Here are 50 stories of secrets that will make any parent stop and wonder what their kids are really up to when they’re not around.

You’ve Got A Friend In Me

woman holding kid at the streetPhoto by Sai De Silva on Unsplash

My mother has always wondered why I didn't have too many friends back in high school. The real reason is a secret that I would never want her to know about. It is because, growing up, my family was always broke and I knew that she was struggling financially. So, in order to avoid anyone seeing how we lived, I always refused anytime people from school wanted to do things with me or have get-togethers at my house.

To make matters even worse, I decided during my senior year that I did not want to burden my mother by asking for money when I needed to buy things. As a result, I started working as much as I could outside of school. This gave me even less time to make friends. I would never want my mother to find out about this, and I would never want her to feel guilty or blame herself for my lack of social life as a child.

winenotbecauseofrum

Always Remember Where You Came From

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the truth about my location for the past 25 years. They have no idea where I have been living that entire time, and I want to keep it that way. It’s a long story, but I have now spent more than half of my life going out of my way to make sure that they never suspect the true location of my residence.

Metatron_Fallen

No More Pomp And Circumstance

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I knowingly recorded one of my favorite movies over the video tape of my sister's high school graduation. It was the only copy of that ceremony that we had, so we will never be able to look back on that memory again. Luckily, it's been about 18 years since I did this, and no one has noticed yet. Nevertheless, I still feel really bad about it.

sheldonowns

An Unwanted Gamble

If my mom ever found out, she’d never forgive herself. The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that my cousins used to repeatedly take physical advantage of me when I was a kid. Throughout my childhood, my mom would regularly leave me at their house for hours at a time so that she could go to the casino and play her favorite games. If she knew what had taken place while she was away on those casino trips, she’d be horrified.

Sad_Mars22

Handling Things On Your Own

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that I was falsely accused of violently attacking someone when I was 17 years old. I am legally considered an adult in Texas, so the authorities didn’t have to tell them. A detective actually confiscated my cell phone for an entire school day to verify the veracity of the text messages proving that the encounter was consensual.

The whole thing was a really scary experience and a really weird time in my life. I had to deal with the fallout at school, as well as the challenges of not telling my parents about it.

Permalink

Moving On

persons hand on white surfacePhoto by Ruthson Zimmerman on Unsplash

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I’m not straight. Me and opposite gender fiancé don’t consider it cheating as long as whatever I do is with someone of the same gender, and as long as we inform each other prior. I hate my parents and can’t wait to leave. I don’t trust them to take my feelings seriously if I come clean to them about this secret.

The only reason I’m getting mentally healthier nowadays is that my therapist and fiancé have worked hard to help me learn that some things can’t be fixed and need to be thrown away, in this case, my relationship with my parents. My doctor is very excited about me becoming mentally stable enough to care for myself so that I can pursue university in a place where they are not around.

There’s just one thing that makes me want to stay—and breaks my heart. My 11-year-old sister trusts me more than she trusts them, and one time she cried asking me not to leave because she didn’t want to be left there alone with our parents. She’s been showing very obvious symptoms of anxiety and depression due to being bullied at school for the past few months. I want to help her, but my mom keeps getting in the way.

When I say anything about the situation to her, she quickly shuts me by saying “She probably did something wrong and that’s why she’s scared". I can’t do anything because I’m not her legal guardian, so I’ve been trying to teach her grounding techniques. I tell her the things that work for me other than my meds.

rhemasu

Money Makes The World Go Round

The secret that I choose to keep hidden from my parents is that I make a lot more money than I let on. My parents have always been and always will be the "I took care of you all your life, time for you to pay it back" type of parents. Except as far as they’re concerned, there is no end to this "debt" that I allegedly owe them. So, I just hide money from them so that they can't take advantage of me.

Nagaisbae

Swiper, No Swiping!

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I once swiped some money from them in order to buy a bunch of illicit substances that they would never approve of me using. I regret it to this day. It was a horrible thing for me to do. My lazy self should have just listened to their good advice and gotten a job instead of getting myself into that kind of bad behavior.

Permalink

Blame Canada For This One!

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that, for my entire childhood, I used to frequently watch South Park on TV when they thought I was sleeping at night. Not only would they have been angry at me for staying up past my bedtime, but this was also a show that my parents considered inappropriate and would never have knowingly allowed me to watch.

I guess this explains why I was always tired as a kid!

Permalink

Thrown In The Slammer

My mother has no idea that I have been locked up twice—but that’s not the worst part. One of those times, I was in there with my father. He has been just as adamant as I have been in refusing to tell her about what happened. I don’t plan on ever letting her find out that we were there. I don’t think she would be too happy about it if she found out...

Permalink

An Untarnished Academic Record?

man in black jacket sitting on chairPhoto by christopher catbagan on Unsplash

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that I became extremely depressed during my first year of university and nearly failed out of school because I couldn't handle the pressure. In their eyes, I am a model student and the farthest thing possible from someone who would have ever come close to failing academically. Little do they know…

Sarcastic__

A Family Man

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I recently got someone pregnant and I'm pretty sure she kept the baby. She never told me officially, so I honestly don’t even know if I have a child. If my parents found out about this, they would be horrified. It would totally go against all of their deeply-held values, not to mention it would shatter their impression of me as a person.

LonelyPauper

Sister Act

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that my sister is a lesbian. She openly admits it to everyone she knows, except for our family. She eventually opened up to me about it, but both my parents and our older brother still know nothing about it. Since then, she and I have become a lot closer to one another than we were when we were growing up.

vkuma

Does Not Compute

When I was around 14 years old, I once overheard my parents arguing with one another. My mom was yelling at my dad about some inappropriate adult searches that she had found on their computer’s internet history. But I knew the dark truth It was really me that was going on the computer in their room without permission and watching adult videos. But I chose to keep that a secret and say nothing as they argued.

Needless to say, my silence meant that my mom blamed my dad for the searches. He kept adamantly denying it, and she kept calling him a liar. As a result of this whole ordeal, he had to sleep in the guest bedroom for an entire month after that fight. The secret truth was never revealed, and hopefully, it never will be…

postedUpOnTheBlock

Not Very Sweet Emotion

They knew I had a nervous breakdown during my freshman year of high school and they knew that I went through a very dark phase at the age of 15. However, they didn’t know the heartbreaking reason why. I was attacked and taken advantage of as a kid, and I wanted to take my own life for many years afterward as a result of the incident.

SageRiBardan

Nothing Of Substance

woman in blue denim jacketPhoto by Naomi Suzuki on Unsplash

My parents have no idea that I have ever used a single bad substance. In reality, the first time I ever got high, it was right under their noses. I was with one of my best friends. We were at my house and my parents were at home. I made sure we stayed mostly upstairs and we tried our best to be quiet. Things were going fine until I started seeing colors all around us.

I started to hallucinate and I thought the colors were fighting each other. At a certain point, I just started laying there on my bed because I was no longer enjoying the experience. I literally felt like I couldn’t move. Everything felt numb. She kept trying to do intimate stuff with me and I kept saying I wasn’t interested. I ended up not knowing whether it was real life or not anymore.

My parents would kill me if they ever found out that I had done that, especially in their own home. I hated having to act like everything was just okay and normal afterward while I was still feeling physically and emotionally confused. They spent years trying to instill in me that playing around with substances was a bad idea, and I went against their wishes. I feel awful about it and can never let them find out.

carmexkisses

Following Doctor’s Orders, In Private

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I always suspected that I suffered from some kind of mental health struggle, and I now know this to be the case thanks to a doctor I have secretly been seeing. As far as my parents know, there is nothing wrong with my mental or emotional health whatsoever.

bllaaushpibu

For The Love Of All That Is Holy!

My parents are very devout members of a strict religious sect, and they raised me to be the same way. Members of this sect believe that their church is the only true church on Earth, and so it is very important to members that all their loved ones remain believers. My secret from my parents is that I no longer believe that their religion is true. They think I still go to church and believe, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

TheCardgageCurse

Keeping Up Appearances

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that I spent several years living as a barely functioning and depressed alcoholic during my college days. My life was really out of control back then, but I always managed to keep it together just enough to still be capable of putting on a facade for my parents. They never suspected a thing.

TimDuncanCanDunk

This Is Pretty Dark...

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I don't actually love them. I care about them in the same way that I care for a hurt stranger, but I won't be crying when they pass except for over the stress of handling the funeral arrangements and finding a place for their kid and animals to live in their absence. I know this sounds harsh, but that’s the way I truly feel.

Some explanation is probably needed. Let’s start with the fact that my parents have done some pretty heartless things towards me over the years. They ran up a whole bunch of debts in my name and never helped me out with trying to pay them all off. That is just one example of their reckless and inconsiderate behavior towards me over the years.

Another example is that I was homeless twice in my mid-20s, but they absolutely refused to let me stay with them. At the age of 18, I still didn't have a driver’s license because I was never allowed to borrow their car. Eventually, I saved up and paid for my own lessons. Not that I could afford a car anyway until a few years later.

At the age of 20, I had a job interview at a well-paying company. I asked my parents if they could drive me for an hour to get there or let me drive. They agreed, but then the day of the interview, they never showed up. They also completely wrecked my confidence and self-esteem when I lived with them from the ages of 16 to 22, when they went off on outings almost every weekend while leaving me behind to watch their other kid and their animals.

There is also a lot more to the story that I would prefer not to talk about publicly. Of course, their other kid is technically related to me and would be considered my sibling by most people, but we do not have a good relationship or really much of any relationship to be completely honest. I know that it’s not his fault, but for my own mental health, I can’t bear to associate with anyone who reminds me of my awful parents.

Phenoix512

How Much Is That Secret In The Window?

a bathroom with a window and a yellow towelPhoto by Shaylyn on Unsplash

The secret that I have kept hidden from my parents for a very long time is that I used to frequently sneak out of the house from our second story bathroom window to go nightclubbing with my friends after the two of them had both gone to bed at night. This little secret of mine made some of my greatest high school memories possible.

Vyzantinist

The Suspension Of His Disbelief

My dad doesn't know that I was suspended from school for an entire semester back in college due to my low grades. He always thought of me as a terrific student and not at all as someone who would spend a lot of time partying and neglecting my studies. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this happened to me, but it really did.

_ohhello

No Tech Support Needed

The secret that I have kept hidden from my parents is that I actually did know why my laptop wasn't working when I told them that it had suddenly broken and that I needed a new one. I had spilled a fair bit of Jack Daniel's on it during a night of partying, and it has not been working properly ever since. But as far as my parents know, it just failed to turn on one day and there is no logical explanation as to why.

dramaticeffect_

A Lot To Deal With

The secret that I hide from my parents is that I've been struggling with depression, crippling loneliness, abandonment issues, and social pressure ever since I was six years old. I've come dangerously close to nearly ending my life on many occasions. I've been managing my life better as of late, but I have kept all of this hidden from my parents regardless. I don’t want them to ever know.

Z_Silver

Passing The Bar

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I’m not going to finish my degree and I’ve already paid off all my student loan debts. My degree was pointless and I don’t do well in school anyway due to my ADHD. My dad constantly asks me when I’m going to finish and stop bartending. I just keep saying I’ll be finishing soon.

I hate disappointing my parents because my father always gets very proud of my sister and me with all of our accomplishments. But truth be told, I’m quite content with the $60k a year that I make bartending right now. My degree would only have pulled in about $35k as a starting salary. I really like my current job and don’t feel that I’m missing out on anything, even though it’s so different than the vision that my parents always had for me.

I’m planning on keeping my true intentions a secret from them for as long as I possibly can.

absurdapple

Playing With A Full Deck

arranged blue grocery cartsPhoto by Fabio Bracht on Unsplash

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that when I was at Walmart with my mom one time, I swiped two of those big cartons full of Pokémon Cards. I took the cards and stuffed them all into my back pocket. I planned the whole operation more than a week before. It was completely premeditated. I was the best and craftiest thief in the world at the age of nine.

But my parents had no idea, and they still don’t to this day…

j-benz

Brothers In Arms

I kept the truth of how I got the giant, noticeable scar on my forearm a secret from my parents and others for close to 15 years. In order to understand the real story, you first need to know that I had an old metal bed frame and one of the posts had snapped off, leaving a pretty good sharp point that was dangerous but also pretty avoidable.

When I was about 16, I got very intoxicated with my older brother one time and we got into a huge fight. He tried to hit me, and in the process of the fight, he accidentally slashed my arm with a sharp blade while I was trying to avoid a punch. We both started freaking out when we saw the damage and the huge bloody gash that we had left on my arm. We rushed to the hospital and I was given 21 stitches for it.

When we got home, we realized that we would both get into huge trouble if our parents found out that we had been drinking. But we had to be able to give some kind of explanation for the giant scar on my arm that had never been there before. So, in the end, we told my mom, grandma, and pretty much all other concerned parties that I had merely fallen next to the bed and accidentally sliced my arm across the open part of the metal post.

And none of them ever doubted that story for a minute!

soiledsanchez

This Is The Worst Trip I’ve Ever Been On

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that I had actually planned on ending my life during a school trip overseas back in the day. I was really having a bad time on the trip and it made me feel incredibly depressed. My head became filled with such bad thoughts, and I wanted nothing but for them to go away.

I didn’t go through with what I was planning, as you can tell. But I seriously considered it, and that fact alone still shakes me to my core to think about. In the end, the only thing that stopped me was that I didn’t want to ruin the trip for everyone else. That’s how close I came. I couldn’t imagine ever telling my parents that this happened.

FrontRow22

I Know What You’ve Been Up To...

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I once found my dad’s stash of illicit substances hidden in his room. I feel like I don't even know him anymore. I never want him or my mother to know that I found this. I’m still a minor and I still live with them. I just don’t want them to think that I violated their privacy or found out about something that I wasn’t meant to see.

rhinoceroblue

Such A Sad Situation

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I was taken advantage of in our home for years when I was a child by the person that they know I hate the most. If they knew about this, they might finally understand why I hate this person so much. This is also the person that they would probably least suspect of ever doing a thing like that.

I doubt my parents would even believe me if I ever told them about what happened. In fact, my mom once actually walked into the room during one of the times that this was actively happening to me but she did not pick up on what was going on. She held a full, nonchalant conversation with us while it was going on right under her nose.

I was horrified because I was very obviously in danger and yet she was totally oblivious. I didn’t know what to do about it, and I’ve never brought it up to her ever since.

JessaRoo2

To Tell, Or Not To Tell?

grayscale photo of woman doing silent hand signPhoto by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I fully know that my mother is cheating on my father. He doesn’t know that it’s happening, at least not to my knowledge, and she doesn’t have any idea that I know what she’s up to. I honestly have no idea what I should do with this information, but for the time being, I cannot bring myself to let either of them know that I know about it.

throwaway28386472828

The Green, Green Grass Of Home

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I sold weed in high school. This may seem like nothing compared to some of the other stories that people have shared here, but it is still something that would cause a whole lot of shock and disappointment with my family if they ever found out about it. Thankfully, it’s all in the past now, so hopefully, I will never have to say anything.

PlantExact

Stepping On The Wrong Toes

The secret that I keep from my parents is that, as a teen, I used to constantly fantasize about ending the life of my verbally and physically abusive stepfather and then ending my own life right after. He treated my mom like garbage and one day he actually punched me in the face for not washing my dirty dishes. This blow left a permanent gash above my eyebrow.

I was really depressed and wanted to end my life anyway, so I thought that I might as well take that jerk with me if I was going to have to go. I always tried to talk myself into finding some way to do it, but I could never actually bring myself to go through with it. The closest that I ever came to doing something was when he was asleep on the couch and my mom was off at work.

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and just stood over him for a few minutes, contemplating whether I should do it or not. Of course, I never did. Thankfully, he and my mom separated less than a year after that incident. He is now out of our lives completely. My depression has been minimized tremendously since that. And no one ever needs to know how bad things were in my head before.

Seriously though, screw that guy!

dailydonuts16

Big Plans For The Future

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have a secret plan to take my own life many years from now. I've crafted the plan carefully, and it is specifically designed so that I can focus one year on spending time with each of the people that I love. I'm scared to tell them about it because I don't want them to get stressed out about it. But at the same time, I just can't mentally take life anymore and I can't cope with living like this for 20 or so more years.

Permalink

Living On The Edge

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I lived with my girlfriend for more than a year and a half prior to us being married. We lived in a house less than 45 minutes away from where my parents lived, yet they had no idea that we were there. My parents are very conservative both socially and religiously, and they would have likely not attended our wedding had they known about this.

atlienk

Getting The Job Done

computer cablesPhoto by Randall Bruder on Unsplash

My parents have no idea that I left my job with the cable company to sell cars and write up oil changes for almost a year. I was emotionally burnt out from all the nonsense of the corporate world and I just couldn't take it anymore. So, without telling my parents, I tried switching careers. It didn't really pan out as I had hoped, but it did get me away from that trash heap of a company and allowed me to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life and where to go from there.

Lyn1987

A Strong, Independent Woman

It may seem weird to some people, but I prefer to keep it secret. My parents don’t know that I work out regularly. Pretty hard and heavy, too. My mom thinks that muscles on girls are gross, and for the years that she knew I worked out she treated me like I was gross too. It was heartbreaking for me. So now I pretend that I lost all interest in lifting weights and that I'm much happier this way.

The true fact is that I gave it up for about two months and couldn't stand life without it. It's sad that I can't keep my own mother in the loop about my most loved passion, but I've accepted it as just the way things are. In the grand scheme of things, this is far from the worst secret I could have had from my parents!

Retinator99

Food For Thought

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have a pretty serious eating disorder. I’ve had it since I was just 11 years old, and I even went to the hospital for it. I am keeping it under control more now than I used to thanks to the help of the doctors at the hospital. But my parents still have no idea that anything is wrong with me.

Vale_M10

A Work Of Art

When I was in my early teens, we didn't yet have a computer or the internet at my house, but we did have Cinemax and my friend Doug introduced me to the late-night movies that were shown on the weekends. The secret that I hid from my parents was that, as a teenager who read comics and was not fully aware of the female anatomy, I would try to draw pictures of my favorite characters from those movies without their clothes on. Well, my mom found out…but it didn’t really go how I thought it would.

I used to hide the drawings either inside my comic books or in between my mattress and my box spring. I never considered the possibility that my mom would one day change my sheets. When she did, she discovered my secret. She told me that she was disappointed with me for drawing the pictures, but she was also impressed with the artwork.

So, she put the drawings into her special “hope chest” with all of my other stuff that she was proud of. I was embarrassed then, but now in my 30s, it's just nice to know that my mom cared that much about me and the things that I did. I bet not everyone could say that about their parents. Especially not after they discovered your secrets!

Permalink

Three Square Meals A Day

My secret from my parents is that I sometimes grab lunch or dinner on the way home from class, and I don't tell them about it. If I did tell them, I would probably just get yelled at for "wasting money when we have perfectly good food at home". My mom's cooking is great, but sometimes I just want to grab some pizza! Is that such a horrible thing to want? I enjoy variety from time to time!

Recently, this whole situation has gotten even more intense since my mom has gotten into some kind of obscure health diet plan that she's forcing everyone to take part in. It’s a bit ridiculous, but I don’t mind humoring her.

Kent_Knifen

Little Brother Is Watching You

person looking in the middle of two beige cushionsPhoto by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

I know an awful lot of things that my parents don’t realize I know. That is thanks to the fact that I overhear all of their private conversations every single night. I have horrible sleeping patterns, and people always assume that I’m asleep when I’m not. This is because when I lay down for too long, my mouth opens and, when I close my eyes, it looks like I’m sleeping.

Because of this, I know that my dad is cheating on my mom. I’ve been hearing him calling another woman every single night while he thought I was asleep and unable to hear. I also happen to know that my mom steals money from my dad on the regular, as well as from me and my brother. She also badmouths my dad a lot of the time and complains about the fact that I'm not good at dealing with conflict.

She also thinks I'm too sensitive. Many nights, I can hear them arguing behind closed doors, and then, in the morning, they just act like everything is great and like nothing ever happened. But I know that that’s not true. I’ve also secretly heard them badmouth me and my brothers, and talk about wanting a divorce. And it still gets so much worse...

I’ve heard them express the fact that they both don’t want me or my brother. They also both don’t want our pet cats. They openly admit that they hate each other, and they love pointing out sensitive things that will anger each other. They also hit one another from time to time. Night after night, I learn more and more secrets about how awful they really are. And I never let on that I know any of it.

It all started messing with my head a lot for the past couple of years. Slowly, it affected my personality and had even changed my reputation in school a lot. My friends told me that I wasn’t the same anymore. Apparently, I used to be totally carefree, let them borrow all my things whenever they asked, followed them around, wanted to be near them all the time, and would hug them a lot.

After my personality change, they told me they noticed that I was no longer hugging them at all. They said it felt like I was distancing myself from them. My grades got horrible and I always asked them to leave me alone whenever they tried to spend time with me. I’ve lost a lot of friends and teachers who used to talk to me and care about me.

I would open up to them, but in my community, we have a policy of not bringing our problems at home into school. It upsets me a lot and the only thing that I ever have to distract me from all of this is when I get to spend time with my older brother. We usually watch a little bit of football together, which I consider to be my favorite sport.

My older brother loves football and rabbles all the latest news to me whenever we hang out. I love it. I feel like I can trust him with my secrets, more than I could ever trust my best friend, mom, dad, or teachers. We share a lot in common. But even he doesn’t know about the mom and dad situation. I don’t have the heart to tell him about it.

But at the same time, he’s the only one who listens to me. Whether I’m angry, sad, upset, disappointed, happy, or any other emotion, he will always be happy to listen. Any topic goes, from video games, to sports, to movies, to books, to some new fact I heard about some obscure topics of science, to some random fun fact I learned about history. Anything you can imagine.

Needless to say, you can add the true state of my emotions to the long list of secrets that I now have from my parents, thanks to my late night accidental spying habit.

JohnWickMonDaddi

We Hope They Get Well Soon

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I really want to become a dental surgeon. This might not sound like anything controversial, but to my parents, it would be the end of the world. That is because they really want me to go into some crackpot, unscientific, antivax "holistic" naturopathic medicine business that fits with what they believe in.

Don’t ask me why, but they are convinced that modern medicine and science are a hoax and, as a result, they don’t trust regular doctors at all. I'm completely afraid that if I tell them about my true career intentions, they will refuse to pay for my college and dental school expenses. If my worst fears come true, they might even disown me over this.

CrimeLordOfSesameST

A Tragic Experience

From the age of ten until I was 14, I was “best friends” with a man who had said he was also 14. In reality, he had been saying that for three years on the internet. It was very far from true. He emotionally manipulated me to stay at home, talk to him online all day, and to falsely tell my parents that I was writing. I actually do write in my free time, so my parents never doubted the excuse.

My parents completely drank up the lies and I was never free from this person’s manipulation. When holidays came around, I wouldn’t go out with my friends. I would stay at home and talk to him all day. Eventually, he began to pressure me to send him naughty pictures of myself. I finally broke down and gave in when he threatened to find me and beat me up.

He knew where I went to school and where I lived. After that, he stopped talking to me for a few months because I was “too fat and needed to lose some weight". I was a tubby child, but I felt disgusting and started to hate myself after he said that. I fell into an eating disorder and almost lost my life. I was sent into therapy a year or so later to help recover from the disorder.

I’m recovered from anorexia now, but my therapist was trying to figure out the root cause for it back in May. My mum was in the room with me, and I finally broke down and told them everything. I had kept it a secret from her for my entire adult life, but I couldn’t hold back anymore. We immediately went to the authorities, but I’ve never heard from the guy since and we were unable to track him down.

It still scares me to think about him. Even all these years later, it still feels like a fresh wound every time I think about it. Thankfully, though, I can honestly say that I’m doing better than ever now. I can balance my writing with my social life and everything is going great for me! I regret having kept this secret from my parents for so long. They probably could have saved me a lot of pain if they had known what I was dealing with.

teaholic_

Story Time

I would never be able to live it down if they knew. The secret that I keep from my parents is that I’ve been writing explicit fan fiction since I was 16 years old. I have no idea what they think I have been giggling about for the last 10 years whenever I’m on my laptop, but I’m glad they don’t know the truth. Some of it is pretty darn explicit and embarrassing.

something-sensible

She’s A Real Pain In The Teeth

I have a secret that I keep from my parents. My mom has no idea that she is the reason why my dental health is terrible. My teeth are a disaster due to stress-induced teeth grinding. She knows nothing about this, and cannot do anything about it either. She is also a major part of the reason as to why I have notable social anxiety and other psychological problems.

She's bound to find out sooner or later I am sure. I do not live with her anymore for these reasons, among others.

Darthd101

Pen Pals

person holding smart phoneperson holding black android smartphonePhoto by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

When I was 12 years old, I secretly saw some emails on my mom's iPod touch. The emails were very suggestive and were between my mother and another man. I never told my dad that I saw those emails. I wish I did, because it turned out that she was cheating on him. This is the first time I've ever mentioned it to anyone. It feels good to get it off my chest.

stitchessnitches

Wanted On The Telephone

The secret that I kept from my parents is that I was working as an operator for an adult phone line back in university. I told everyone I know that I was working the phones for our local department store. One day, my dad innocently asked me whether they were hiring, as he thought he might want to give my alleged job a try. Nope. We were not...

Bornthisweigh

Mind Over Matter

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I was heavily addicted to painkillers and other mind-altering substances for the entire time that I was away at university. I think that this information would devastate them if they ever found out, and I can’t imagine ever telling them about it. As far as they know, my time away from home was nothing more than a perfect, storybook college experience.

Alvadar65

Video Games

Back when I was in the seventh grade, I started to get into watching adult videos and my favorite kind, for some reason, was guy-on-guy stuff even though I’m a girl. Anyways, I didn’t know how anything but YouTube worked back then, so I ended up downloading and saving something like three explicit gay videos on my phone.

Needless to say, I did not tell my mom about this secret interest of mine. But I had an Android phone so when I deleted the videos, the titles were still in my phone and could be viewed in my download history. For some reason, my mom took my phone from me one day and went through it. She then sat me down and asked me about the video titles she had found on it.

Now, I’m not necessarily proud of what happened next. I’m a very good liar. But in this particular situation, I didn’t have to do much lying. That was because as soon as I started crying and saying that I didn’t do it, she immediately believed me and blamed the whole thing on my stepdad. She said that she’d had a suspicion that he was gay throughout their whole relationship and all that.

After that, she never confronted him and just continued to stay with him even though she thought he was gay. Unintended side effect? That was when I realized that my mom was a golddigger. But regardless, my secret remained intact.

gluntie

I’m Not Who You Think I Am

Sneaking out, bad grades…my secret is a bit different. I routinely pay random escorts to show up to family events as my “girlfriend” so that my parents will stop telling their friends to try and hook me up with their daughters. Every time we have a gathering, a paid date shows up with me to meet everyone, and then they always claim to have to leave early. I pay by the hour. It gets the job done, and my parents have no idea that I’m happily single all the while.

joblagz2