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Generous People Share The Most Ungrateful Reactions To Gifts They've Faced

Generous People Share The Most Ungrateful Reactions To Gifts They've Faced

Generous People Share The Most Ungrateful Reactions To Gifts They've Faced

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Gratitude is one of those things that you almost don't notice when it exists, but WHOOOOOOOOSAAAAAAAU do we see it glaringly when it's absent. One reddit user asked a doozy of a question, and we picked out 20 of our favorite responses. Fair warming, you're probably going to want to punch people by the end of this.

My sister once started crying and locked herself in her room after my parents spent the last of their money buying her a Gameboy - because the Gameboy was grey and not pink. Reddit, what's the most cringe-worthy, ungrateful thing you've ever seen someone do?

1. The Pink Laptop

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My sister wanted a laptop. I was in college but had a little bit of christmas money saved up, so I decided to get her something.

I did a bunch of reading about what was the best kind of used laptop to buy. I ended up getting her a IBM Thinkpad T51. I formatted it, installed Windows XP, and went down to the school bookstore and got a student copy of Office to install on it.

I was talking to my mom the next day and mentioned what I Was getting her. My mom says "Oh, well she really wanted one of those new pink laptops, you should have gotten her one of those"

I explain I didn't have the hundreds to spend on a brand new Dell for her, but this was a perfectly nice IBM that would do great for her for her first year of college (she was graduating highschool that year).

Later that day I got a call from my sister where she proceeded to scream at me and demand I get her the pink Dell she wanted.

Fuck that. I sold it on ebay and ended up making some money on it. I don't remember what I got her that year, but it was something cheap, shitty and from walmart.

She dealt without a laptop until she was desperate and I gave her an even crappier one than the IBM a friend had given to me that was destined for his trash can.

2. Twenty-five YEARS or MONTHS old?

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My aunt gave a small birthday party for my cousin (who was turning 25) last fall. He got really upset and angry because she bought him a pair of black skateboarding shoes instead of brown ones. She tried to calmly explain that she couldn't find any brown ones, but he wasn't having it. I almost slapped him.

3. The Car: Round 1

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My sister was so unhappy with the car my parents got her that she tried to sell it every time it was parked. This was back before cell phones so the only number she had to give was the home phone which my parents always answered if they were there. They got her back by moving the car one day and telling her that someone had bought it but since it was their car they got the money for it.

4. Get Out

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I built my stepson a gaming computer, helped him set it up and got some games loaded up on it for him so we could game together and bond some. As soon as I had it all set up he told me to get out of his room and closed the door. I spent 4 months saving and buying parts for it one at a time.

5. The Car: Round 2

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One of my friends received a car for their 18th birthday from their grandparents. A free car. Their response was to break down in tears saying how much they hated it because it was an old man car and then absolutely refused to drive it ever. That's about when I had an epiphany and wanted that person out of life immediately.

6. Suddenly Feeling The Christmas Spirit

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Similar issue with a group of children I'll allow to remain anonymous, they complained about their Christmas gifts being either too cheap, or too lame or one of many other things.

Their Father returned all of them to the store, and bought something for himself and their Mother. The following year they were very humble and thankful for the gifts they received.

7. The Car: Round 3

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After my mom died my step dad took some of the insurance money and bought his daughter a brand new SUV. I heard she threw a screaming fit in the driveway because it wasn't a sports car. BTW me and my other siblings got nothing at all from him. Of course now she is 35 and still lives with her dad and still screams and whines for everything she wants so I guess karma is a bitch (and so is my step sister).

8. Forget The Life, Save The Carpet

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Here's just one of (too) many.. Early morning cardiac arrest call. We worked on this guy furiously, got a pulse back, everything went right. Good call. Guy gets into the cath lab right away, and walks out of the hospital alive a couple weeks later.

Then his cranky ass wife sends us a bill for carpet cleaning, saying that we tracked in mud on her carpet when we were saving her husband's life. :/

9. Made WIth Love

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My grandma spent a whole year, a WHOLE F*CKING YEAR knitting me, my brother and sister sweaters very nice sweaters in our favourite colours. My brother looked at his and said "why would you waste your time making this? I don't even wear sweaters, I'm more of a hoodie guy." he was 18 at the time, that makes it even worse. ungrateful bastard.

10. Feeling Ashamed Of Yourself?

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My brother and I were raised by a single mother, our father having died when I was four, my brother eight. After he died we moved from where we lived to where my grandparents live, to be closer to family. One day, my brother and I were apparently just acting like brats. I don't remember it, I was young, maybe seven at the time. We wouldn't help my mother clean up or something. Well my mother told my brother to watch me for a little and then she left for my grandma's, three minutes away. I learned later from my brother, who was told by my grandma, that my mother left that day so that she could sit at my grandma's and cry. She just cried about how she couldn't take everything that we were doing. I've never felt worse about anything in my whole life, and I was probably eight years old when I found out.

11. The Car: Round 4

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A girl at my high school put a brick on her gas pedal and crashed her brand new mustang into a concrete wall, at school.

All because the car she got for her 16th birrthday was the wrong color.

And she kept bragging she'd "get a new one. I'm just teaching my parents a lesson."

She got expelled, and arrested. After that I don't know. It was two months from graduation.

12. Not Very Fair

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Know a friend whose mom absolutely spoiled her. Her mom, despite being disabled and with limited income, does everything she possibly can for her only daughter. Buys her phones, expensive clothes, whatever else she wants, and most recently a new car. Hell, she even does her homework for her, since my friend is D'ing or failing all of her classes, simply because she hates school and can't be bothered (even though she says she wants to go to college.)

All in all, this girl is blessed with this awesome fucking mom. My friend, however, usually doesn't have many pleasant things to say about her mom unless it's on Facebook.

So apparently there is this fair that they go to as a family every year, and her dad had recently died, so it would be the first year without him. Her mom brings it up and the ingrate called my friend point-blank says she is not going to let her mom go. Why? Because she only wants her cockhead of a boyfriend there. Her mom, who was on the verge of tears, said, "But.. we go every year.."

Broke my heart.

13. A Verbal Beatdown

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My spoiled teenage cousin almost earned himself a dickpunch last Christmas. We were talking about what we each got for Christmas that year, since we're both gamers. I was excited that my wife had gotten me SWTOR. He got a bunch of games, a new 360 since his old one was "dirty and scratched" (from his nerd-raging) with Kinect, a Fender guitar, a new drumset, an iPhone 4 (to replace his "stupid 3gs"), and since he'd just turned 16 his parents gave them their "old" 2009 Toyotta suv (thing is sweet, fully loaded, beautiful). I was like "Damn dude, that sounds like a hell of a haul." His reply:

"Yeah right that car is f*cking gay. My buddy at school's parents got him a Honda S2000, a Burton snowboard, and him and his girlfriend new iPhones, plus they got to go on a cruise for Christmas. I told my parents what car I wanted, they're just cheap." I gave him a verbal beatdown the likes of which he needed to hear, rubbing in just how rough his life is, all the while he's rolling his eyes.

14. Scene-Kid Sweater

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It wasn't the most expensive of gifts, but my mom bought me a sweatshirt I really wanted for Christmas. I was in my scene kid stage and wanted my clothes to fit tight, so I told my mom to get me a medium even though she'd normally buy me a large. Well, I opened up my gift, got excited when I saw it was that sweatshirt, and then immediately threw a fit when I saw the sweatshirt was a large. I basically threw it on the couch and went "Great, well now I'm never going to wear this". I acted like a dick the rest of the day and made it a point to not even try the sweatshirt on.

Eventually I put it on in my room and it fit perfectly. I thought about the fact that I had yelled at my mom for something that she bought out of love for me, and didn't need to get me in the first place. I felt pretty fucking ashamed of myself and gave her a sob-filled apology. I'm always grateful anytime anyone gives me any sort of gift now, even if it's something that I wouldn't in a million years want.

15. Santa's Failed Miracle

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One Christmas the only thing I wanted was a Super Nintendo. I was probably about 10 or 11. Granted, this was after the N64 had already come out, but I believed so hard that Santa Claus could work miracles that I thought he could get me a Super Nintendo new in box. After I opened all my gifts and realized a Super Nintendo was not among them, I began to cry. Looking back on that day, I feel really horrible about it. We ended up with a compromise: I returned one of my gifts and used the money to purchase a used Super Nintendo. The Super Nintendo stopped working a couple years later, but that Christmas morning is something I'll always be embarrassed of.

16. The Robot

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Well, unfortunately the only one that comes to mind was me. It was Easter 1995 (I think) and I'm all excited to be getting me some new toys. Then I see this big, stuffed robot sitting there with my Easter basket and I got upset because it wasn't what I wanted (what I wanted was most likely something Power Rangers related, but in any event it was anything but that). So I ran to my bedroom crying and sat on my bed thinking what a waste this Easter was. Cue my dad, who comes to the scene and sits down with me and explains that the robot in question was a gift knitted by my mom (which I'm sure took a long, long time), who was now upset by my reaction. He then went on to let me know that if I kept this kind of behavior up, it would be the last time I would get any presents for a while. Soon after I apologized to my mom, thanked her for the present, and then bawled because I felt really super bad about how I had acted. Especially since it was such a fucking awesome robot. A few years later, when we were still moving into our new house, I couldn't find my robot and asked my mom where it was. She told me that she had thrown it out because it was starting to get a little old and ragged, and I about cried. To this day I'm grateful to receive gifts, even if I'm not wild about them.

17. The Small Potential Murderer

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Just the other day my little 6 year old cousin, another 12 year old cousin, and myself were playing my PS3 in my room. We were playing Skate 3 which in only single player on one machine so we had a rule that you play untill you fall three times and then you pass the cotroller around and let the next person play. This system was working fine untill all of a sudden the youngest cousin fell his third time because he got the skateboarder run over by a car on one of his turns and when me and my other cousin told him it was time to share the controller he completely seriously replied with "I hope you both get run over by a car in real life... I will kill both of you in front of your fathers."

I was completely shocked by this and didn't know what to say, I just took the controller off him and told him to leave the room.

18. The Cell Phone Blackmail

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I work at a popular place that sells Cell phones. and The most cringe-worthy one I can think of is how this mom and her teen daughter come in the store looking to add another line to their family plan for the daughter. she was told to pick out anything in the $50 dollar range, and the mom said how the $50 is all that's left in their current budget. The teen girl pointed to the biggest most expensive android phone she could find and said "I want that one", it was a $200 phone. The mom says "sorry hun, we don't have the money to do that, its not in the budget, we can only get you a $50 phone". the kid's response was to so casually say "hah, well if you don't get me the one I want, I'll just misbehave until you get it for me" The mom instantly buckled and got her the $200 phone. All the while I'm standing there praying that she instead would do the right thing, take her child out back and beat her.

19. Regretting It Ever Since

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My mother was terminally ill with Colon cancer. She was bed ridden and I remember 8 year old me wanting to go to the public pool with a friend. At first I told my mom I would understand if she said no, but could she take me? She reluctantly told me no, she couldn't get out of bed. I flipped. I screamed and cried and threw a tantrum. I accused her of irrational things such as "if my sister asked you would!" or that "it really isn't that hard!"

Less than two months later she died. It wasn't until I was 14 that I found some writing she left for me. "I love you, but you need to curb your anger" was what made me fall apart, because I knew what she was talking about. I've regretted how I treated my mother every day. Kids can be so cruel.

20. A Happy Ending

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It isn't really a present or anything... But one time my mother made Tuna Noodle Casserole for dinner. Now, a lot of people in my family hate fish, me included, but we were tight on money and we already had all the ingredients in the house so my mother didn't have to go buy stuff. My mom made it and sat down at the dinner to eat with the family... everyone said "I hate fish, why did you make this, I'm not eating this!" even my dad said "I'm not really in the mood" and of course I wasn't really all that thrilled either since fish, any fish, are my least favorite meals... but when I looked up at my mom and saw her really look sad at that empty dinner table with her sadly eating the casserole by herself it made me sad and angry that everyone abandoned her, so I sat down, loaded my plate (which was almost half the casserole dish) and started eating all the casserole my family wouldn't eat and saying "This is pretty good mom" me and my mother had a wonderful time eating together and truthfully it wasn't that bad, but I still wouldn't look forward to eating Tuna Noodle Casserole... I almost finished that whole pan.

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.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

Keep reading... Show less
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?