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People Reveal The Times They've Realized Others Were Telling Their Story

People Reveal The Times They've Realized Others Were Telling Their Story

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We all have embarrassing moments. If we're "lucky", some of those moments end up entering into legend. Like the time I fell down a ramp at school and took out no less than a dozen people with me - because I couldn't walk in heels. Some friends are teachers at that same school now, and I was just informed that YUP - people still talk about it. Apparently, the importance of "proper footwear" - particularly on the ramp - is a topic of discussion now on Freshman orientation day.

**It was two decades ago. **

One reddit user asked:

Has anyone ever told you a story like "this thing happened to this guy" and you realized the story was about you, what's the story?

Bedtime Rules

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Everyone in my 6th grade class had to go to a outdoor nature center for a 3 day camp. They have been doing it for 20+ years. The goal was to learn about the environment, team building etc.

Well on my last night at camp, 12 year old me rolled off the top bunk in my sleep and cracked my head against the concrete floor. A concussion, skull fracture, and brain bleed later I woke up in the ICU. Long story short, after a duration in the hospital I made a full recovery.

Flash forward to high school and they are asking for counselor volunteers for 6th grade camp. Wanting to prove to myself that I could make it through a camp meant for 12 year olds, I signed up. During the orientation/training they started talking about bedtime rules... Sure enough, they start telling a story about a kid who fell off the top bunk and was badly injured.

Only I knew it was me.

Still Pregnant

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I spent 3 months in the hospital before giving birth due to my water breaking at 21.3 weeks. On Valentine's Day of all days! It was just like the movies, except there was multiple puddles of fluid on the floor.

So I go for a scan with the same lady about 2 months later (I had lots of scans between then, just with different techs). They wanted to check fluid levels and the babies growth. The tech asks why I was there and I told her my water broke early and I was in the hospital or something like that.

She then tells me "well at least it's not as bad as this girl whose water broke on Valentines Day. I came in the room and they had thrown down bed pads on the floor to soak up the fluid. I almost stepped in a puddle". I looked at her and said "yeah that was me". She goes "you're STILL pregnant"? Uh yeah. I laughed though

Ruining It For The Children

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When I was a kid, I used to impersonate the Rock a lot because he was my favorite. This led the school to ban wrestling themed stuff.

Now, almost twenty years later, my friends kid goes to the same school and can't wear a John Cena shirt to school. Because they still have the rule.

Crazy man.

That Pants Pisser

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Someone once told me about a friend of a friend who got mugged downtown and pissed her pants from fright. That pants pisser was me.

Spoil My Legacy

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When I was very new in police service, my helmet got stolen when I piled into a fight on a busy Night Time Economy patrol in the city. It came off when I ran in and someone picked it up and cycled off with it. One of the older officers told me that I needed to record a crime for the theft and inform the Inspector personally. Of course, that was rubbish, and I didn't need to inform anyone aside of recording the incident.

Years later, I was listening to two officers talk about "that rookie who got his helmet nicked in a fight" only the story had been so embellished that I supposedly hand-wrote the crime report and delivered it personally to the Chief Constable.

I didn't want to spoil my legacy, so I didn't say anything :)

Flappy Bird

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Roommate in collegebhad an unhealthy obsession with flappy bird, this was shortly before the game was taken off the market. He was top 1% in the world, had an insane high score. He talked about hearing people behind him in a lecture hall about how their friend knew a guy that was in the top 1% of flappy bird. To him it was his 15 minutes of fame.

My Website

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I came up with a website, we had a launch, received some decent praise locally. Real jobs got in the way so I let the project die. A couple of years down the road I mention to a co-worker about creating a site. He responds "Don't bother, there is already a site that does it." and he mentions the site I had created.

Mr. Steal Yo' Girl

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Kind of - when I was younger I had a part time job in a DIY store. There was this guy who I worked with, roughly the same age as me but crazy and could beat me up quite easily but we got on well.

He starts telling me that some guy has been seeing his girlfriend and one of his friends seen them making out at a local club. I don't think too much of it and simply say that you should find the him and beat him.

Fast forward two week - I'm out with my friends and I bump into my work colleague. He's with his girlfriend and well, you've guessed it. His girl is a chick I was kissing in this club a few weeks ago. She doesn't acknowledge me as I think she's too shocked that I know her man. I sure as hell don't let on that I know her to my colleague as I like my body intact. We do the usual "Hey, where you going" etc and I get away from them.

For the next few weeks at work I was crapping myself thinking the next time my colleague and his girl have and argument, she'll spill the beans and I'll get murdered.

Perm

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In 2013 I went to a cosmetology school and they supplied us with all kind of cool gadgets. One of which was a very small texturing iron. I loved it and would give myself very curly hair kind of borderline Shirley Temple but imagine tighter smaller curls. So anyway, I loved the look so so much that I decided I wanted a perm. We had been learning the process and I volunteered to be a model for the class...I asked my teacher to use the second smallest rollers in my hair. I had a bob cut. Everyone asked me if I was "sure I wanted to do this."

That should have been a clue. It was not.

So I'm sitting there, with a giant smile on my face, all excited for the results. They wash my hair. Pat it dry. Jheri Curl. No big deal, I'll style it at home it'll be fine..hah, right guys? I go home, it's terrible. I looked like Krusty the Clown. I ask myself in the mirror why I did this, cry and do exactly what I'm not supposed to do - wash my hair. I made it worse. But I'm stubborn and I still didn't learn.

It's the weekend and I can "fix" this, so I go to Sally's buy myself a perm kit and brush perm through my hair the next day. I processed the f*** out of my hair and ended up getting a pixie cut and growing it out.

My instructor was not happy. Everyone laughed. I died inside.

Years later, I meet someone that is attending the same cosmetology school I went to, and happens to have the same instructor I did.... and apparently she tells the story every year as a way to encourage the students to actually listen to the instructors.

Weird Cubicle Rocks

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So when I got a new job, I was in a little cubicle. In my desk were some tiny decorative rocks, apparently from a previous employee's broken fountain. So I lined up all the rocks between me and the girl in the cubicle next to me. She didn't mind, she didn't really care.

I got promoted a few months later, moved to a bigger desk. Took my rocks with me, its a bit of a bigger cubicle. I had sat the rocks on a pile on my desk not knowing what to do with them. Another coworker who wasn't in my department asked me where I got the rocks, I told her how they were someone else's abandoned rocks I just took them. She then proceeded to tell me a story of this weird girl who lined up the rocks on the side of the cubicle...she said it was so weird.

I didn't even tell her it was me. I just nodded in agreement.

Arm Snapped Off

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When I was in Year 8 I broke my arm very badly in PE playing bench ball. Like snapped in half requiring two surgeries and over a year of physiotherapy bad.

Fast forward to PE in Year 11 and walking back in to the same gym, a girl that I hadn't really started talking to until about a year earlier mentioned "Did you know I heard a girls arm snapped off in here!?" When I questioned her about it she recited all the details of how it happened (apart from my arm falling off, but I'll leave that to the effect of whispers changing the story a little) all the while not knowing she was talking about me.

The ER Trip

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I was super accident prone as a child. This lead to a interesting trip to the ER.

My sister was chasing me around the backyard with a little plastic shovel and I was fleeing for my life. I fled to the side yard and dove into some tall grass, turned out there was a huge pile of redwood planks obscured by the grass. I dove in and came to an abrupt halt. I had managed to impale a roughly foot long redwood "splinter" (thing was about as think as a pencil) right in-between my left ring and middle finger, right through the webbing and all the way down to the wrist. I end up in the ER, and I had this very very attractive redheaded nurse that kept my attention even as a 9-year-old. I sat quietly while she slowly removed the whole twig from between my fingers.

Fast forward 2 months. I am camping with my grandparents and my grandpa is teaching me how to fish. I was using one of those little three pronged barbed lures, and when I cast it I noticed nothing hit the water, so I start reeling back my line and lure until it stops and my arm starts hurting. Oh well, certainly that is a coincidence. So I can't seem to reel my lure all the way back to me and I am tugging and reeling and my arm is hurting more and more until my grandpa noticed that I hooked my upper right arm and had successfully dug the barbed lure all the way into my arm. My grandpa being the resourceful one decided he can yank it out with pliers, so he grabs a pair. This pair must have been the original pair, they were huge and probably a good 73% solid rust. Several fruitless attempts later I am sat in the passenger seat of his truck being taken to the ER.

I get in there and I am wailing, and the universe decides to hate me today.

  • We end up at the same ER that I went to for my twig removal
  • My male nurse is wearing scrubs with a fishing lure pattern printed all over it.
  • And lastly when they get me into the room, mister fishhook shirt has the audacity to tell me I shouldn't be crying, that it's not that bad, that some poor kid was in here just a few months ago with a huge stick stuck in his left hand right between his fingers.

I lose it. I start bawling and blubbered out a"That.. that was me!" The nurse looks up at my grandpa and my grandpa just nods a silent "Yup" to the nurse.

That was fun.

Cursive

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When I took the SATs, they had us write that whole honesty sentence in cursive for some bizarre reason, as if that makes it somehow more legitimate than actual handwriting. I hadn't written a word in cursive in like 9 years, and couldn't remember how to write some of the wackier letters. It took me several minutes longer than anyone else to write that entire stupid sentence.

Later, one of my friends mentioned how one of his buddies had to take the SATs with this stupid kid who took forever to write a cursive sentence.

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#SuitUpSunday

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Co-worker was talking about their brother having been up skiing at my local mountain, and they apparently saw a guy snowboarding in a full suit, carrying a briefcase and sipping coffee while carving down the hill. Apparently it made for a really surreal day for them.

I informed her that the guy in the suit was me, and that I do that every Sunday at my mountain, often times as part of a whole crew of folks wearing suits. #SuitUpSunday, been at it for almost 10 years now, but this was the first time I felt like a celebrity because of it.

I'm just out there to make memories for people, so I was very happy I had succeeded.

Roommate

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When I was in college, going into sophomore year, three friends from the dorms and I decided to get an apartment together. We lived together over the summer before moving into a different apartment in the fall. There was one girl who never paid rent, was a complete slob, ate all our food, just was awful. The worst incident came when I came home late one night and she was sleeping in my bed and peed in it on purpose when I asked her to leave, right in front of me. When we tried to have discussions with her about the mess and the money, she would flat out deny everything or just literally put her hands over her ears and say 'la la la'.

Anyway, after the bed peeing incident, we replaced her on the lease for the fall. It was over a month beforehand so she still could sign up for the dorms (or find another apartment).

So by crazy coincidence, I was at a random party in another state three years later, right after graduation. I was talking to this girl who said "Oh, you went to **university?" and started to tell me this story of her childhood friend who went there who had a terrible apartment story. In this story, three mean girls played an elaborate prank on this girl, tricking her into living with them then throwing her out to literally live on the streets. They stole her books and all sorts of s***. So I was like, oh that is really mean. Then she said,"oh here she is now," and lo and behold ...

It was my former roommate.

Some Desperate Girl

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I once tried to flirt with a guy in college and knew the guy loved Star Wars. Said something along the lines of:

"Why don't we watch all the Star Wars movies together and then not actually watch them ????"

Needless to say, he was NOT into it, but I remained friends with the guy and we had overlapping friend groups and hung out often.

Throughout the years he suffered a few concussions due to rugby, and as a result, he often confused events and overall had a bad memory. We were out at a bar with all his friends and he starts casually talking about some desperate girl who tried to get him to come over by using Star Wars as an excuse to bang!

All his friends died with laughter.

I sat there, red as a tomato, completely mortified and not saying a word.

Near Robbery

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When I worked at Gamestop, I was told there had been a plan by some kids to tie me up, beat and rob the place when I took out the trash one night. But my boss wouldn't let me leave for vacation tomorrow without cleaning the store. So instead of taking the trash out at 9, I got around to it at 11.

In that time, one of the other stores noticed the people waiting by the trash, called the cops and they were arrested. I was oblivious to all of this.

A month later I had moved and been promoted. On my first managers I had to learn about the new rules in place. One brand new rule was that if you were closing the store alone, you couldn't take out the trash. You had to leave it by the door for the morning. Then they told me the story of why the new rule was in place. An employee narrowly escaped possibly being murdered

No one knew it was me who had been working that night.

I Got Killed

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I met a girl in college who started telling me about her brother's friend who had the same first name as me. Proceeded to tell me my life story (drug addiction, abusive relationship, abortion) but apparently her brother heard that I got killed.

My Crush And My Dead Dog

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When I was in middle school, my family went on vacation. We left our dog at home and asked the son of a family friend to take care of her for the two weeks we were gone. This boy was about a year older than me and was dreamy(at least to my 7th grade eyes). I still consider him my first official crush.

Well about a week into our vacation, my dad gets a call. Our dog has been hit by a car and has passed away. Tears all around.

About a year later, I am hanging out with some girls from my class when one of them starts laughing and telling this story about how one time she went on a date with a boy and they walked this dog he was taking care of. They weren't supposed to take her downtown, but they wanted ice cream. They got so distracted making out that they didn't even notice when she ran out into the street and got hit by a car. Who was she on the date with? My crush. And my dead dog.

I've never told my family.

H/T: Reddit

Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

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Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?