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People Divulge What Happened To Their High School Sweetheart

For the teenagers deep in the throes of a high school romance, the rest of the world fades away.


Stocked with those underdeveloped adolescent brains, teenagers in love are certain that their love will last forever. No parents, no geographies, no accidents, no external circumstances could possibly interrupt a love so powerful.

Of course, that isn't always the truth. In fact, it rarely is.

Usually high school romances, in the grand scheme of things, are remembered as simply that: a first love that didn't work out.

But there is no doubt that the relationship, as preliminary as it was, held a deep impact on both people. The experiences of that time set the tone for future intimacy. The memories linger.

Which is why so many Redditors had no difficulty giving informed responses to a post asking about the status of high school sweethearts. For a years-old love, it certainly appears top of mind when you read through these.

GavinThePenguin asked, "What happened to your highschool sweetheart?"

Civility

"She is married to what looks to be a pretty great guy, and she is working at her dream job, so presumably she is pretty happy."

"And I'm happy for her."

-- nrdxp

Early Tragedy 

"She was living in a group home when we dated freshman year. She aged out at 18, and fell right off the radar."

"Turned out she went to live at a homeless encampment and didn't survive the winter."

-- Washjockey

Consistent Displays of Character

"Mine contacted me when he heard I was getting married. Turns out he was married at the time with 3 kids but he would leave his wife for me now that I was 'ready to be married'..."

"...hmmmm so marriage is just a process of interchangeable parts?"

"He reached out again some 30 years later. I connected to see if he had grown up. Nope, still a di**, on his 3rd wife but willing to have sex with me if I was open to it!"

"No thanks!"

-- honorthecrones

No Love Lost

"He cheated on me with my cousin on Christmas eve in our house. Broke up with him. Few months later he started to date my step mom."

"Last I heard he works at a cook at a bar and is a deadbeat dad that hasn't seen his kid in 7 years."

-- Zombie_Queen_51

Beating the Odds

"She recently got engaged to some loser that she's too good for. We're also buying a house together!" -- AlliRmbrIsDrtSkyDrt

"Such a sweet twist. Congratulations 🎈" -- pttrusha

Not All First Loves Don't Last

"She's in the other room watching Jurassic Park with our daughter." -- A-Grey-World

"That is life goals. You should be watching JP too!!!!" -- Kevrack_Invades

"Sick bastard. WHY DIDN'T YOU JOIN THEM WATCHING THAT MASTERPIECE" -- nicknameedan

A Mature Outlook

"She dropped off my radar for 15 years. Then we happened to cross paths when I decided to attend a community gathering and walk for Pokemon Go of all things."

"We exchanged hello's and caught up for a few minutes, but she didn't have time to talk. Turns out she was beyond busy, because she was the one who organized the event."

"I don't think I'm a proud point in her life, and she didn't seem that excited to see me, so I just let her do her thing and stay out of her way."

"Our time together is supposed to be in the past, and that's where I'll keep it. I had a good time at the event, though, so I'm glad she put it together."

-- QuarantineTitans

Full Circle 

"He broke up with me amicably after 8 months when we were 16. We went to different universities, 5 years and 2 degrees each later, I traveled through his city for a job interview."

"I went for a drink or three with him after the interview - it was as if we'd seen each other yesterday. He walked me to the train, just in time - but I hopped off to kiss him before hopping back on as the train departed."

"5 years later we're in the process of buying our first house and are engaged. ❤️"

-- purplegeog

Patterns

"She's getting married soon to the guy she dated immediately after me. Similar to the girlfriend after her. I haven't dated all that much actually, but so far 2/3 actual relationships have found their spouses after me."

"Number 3 still has the chance. Not sure how I feel about this, but hey. Tired of being single? Break up with me. 66% chance you'll find them after."

-- TheGreatAeritus

The Past Is Always Here

"She broke up with me over a text message 2 months after highschool ended. 10 years later I was at a friends wedding rehearsal at the same venue my ex was getting married at that day."

"The world shrinks a little bit each day."

-- blast201

Convenient History

Without planning it, we ended up in the same college. He studies Med and I Biology, so we help each other sometimes."

"The advantages of having dated the top student."

-- MoonCat15

A Mature Trajectory

"She broke up with me which I don't blame her for. I was on the wrong track, selling weed and had no goals. That set off a dark period for me but eventually I moved out of town, started my own business, and haven't looked back."

"We reconnected a few weeks before the high school reunion actually two years ago. She's doing quite well! And has a great husband."

"We caught up and wished each other the best, shoot a message every now and then. I wish I knew how to be just a normal friend with women when I was a teenager LOL."

-- burrsient

Measuring Up

"She broke up with me after we graduated and is now engaged to the super wealthy dude she broke up with me for and living in Italy."

"Needless to say, she's doing better for herself than I am lol"

-- furious_platypus

Nothing But Good Thoughts

"Graduated HS in 2002, we lost touch but reconnected ( just text not in person) a couple years ago. He got his masters in ecology, moved to Alaska for a bit, now lives in the North East."

"He was the kindest guy. I wish nothing but the best for him always."

-- theWildBore

What Could Have Been

"Stayed with her 6 years. She died of breast cancer last year at 37 married with 3 kids to a different man."

"It was one of my biggest regrets in life not marrying her, but part of me is glad that I wasn't with her when she died, left alone, with three children."

"I still never had children to this day."

-- CaptainPatterson

Dodged a Bullet

"Best friend in High School. I had a massive crush on her. She was pentacostal, but never seemed too uptight. We never dated, and I was happy just hanging out with her. Caught up with her on Facebook, like, 20 years later."

".....she's full on islamaphobic, homophobic, Trump-supporting, racist, uptight Karen now. Really sad to see, because she was such a sweet and caring girl in high school. :( "

-- tygs42

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When I was in seventh grade, I had aspirations to be a poet. I made a Mother's Day card for my mom with a cute (but now, cringe-worthy) poem inside, and a hand-drawn picture of a rose that took me hours to perfect.

A friend saw the card and said they wished they could do the same. Then suddenly, she asked if she could buy the card from me. I said no, since I needed to give it to my own mother, but I said I could make her a copy. From there, my friend got the idea for me to make copies of the card to sell. I went along with it, mostly because I didn't think it would actually work.

Turns out, it did. After making sure people would actually be interested, we went to the library after school and made several color copies of my card for 10 cents each. The next day, we sold each card for $1. Not only did we make enough money so that my friend and I could both afford to get our moms an actual present in addition to the card, but we had enough leftover to put us over the top for the money we needed to buy the matching faux leather jackets we'd been wanting all year.

The next year, many people who bought cards asked me to do it again, so I did. Once again, we made a killing. We didn't try to do it again once we got to high school, but it was definitely fun while it lasted.

When we tell people this story, they think it's a pretty crazy money-making scheme. Maybe it is, but we're not the only ones who ever did anything like this. Redditors know all about crazy money-making schemes, and are eager to share their own stories.

It all started when Redditor primeiro23 asked:

"What are the craziest ways you’ve heard of people making money?"

Tumble Into Business

"In college, I take a class on how to start & run a small business. Prof tells us to think of ridiculous business models for our fictitious businesses as we will get more out of the class that way. Stupid ideas ensue. Selling paperclips door to door, refilling car gasoline tanks in people's driveways, service to read & summarize the newspaper to executives etc."

"One classmate decides he is going to sell tumbleweed."

"Guess who quits college and started a successful business? Tumbleweed guy. Takes a van to the desert, collects tumbleweed and sells them to Hollywood movie & TV studios who need them. Keeps the tumbleweed in a warehouse and since they never spoil, his only costs are gasoline, storage & a website. He eventually becomes the number one tumbleweed provider to studios around the world, shipping tumbleweed globally."

"Made a heap of money selling what millions of people drive by and ignore every year."

– Accomplished-Fig745

Synopses

"I did have a job reading and summarizing newspaper articles to the boss. Literally only task I was hired for."

– Draigdwi

"An actual union job in the film industry is reading scripts and summarizing them in short mean book reports."

– Trixiebees

Jump!

"Heard of crazier, but a guy I know, friend of my mother's, went to Texas 30+ years ago. (we are from Norway), and he noticed every single garden had a trampoline. And it was almost always "jump king" - the circular with blue mat ones."

"So he went to the HQ, bought 10 and took back to Norway. Within days they were sold, and he ordered 50 more, same thing. So he became the only importer and has God knows how many millions to his name today."

– alexdaland

"This IS wild. I went to Norway recently and one of the first things I noticed was that almost EVERY yard had a trampoline in it."

– TrulyMadlyCheaply

Working For A Home

"Back when Dogecoin took off I wrote a guide on recovering old lost wallets and it got so popular I was flooded with requests for further help. Some corrupted wallet files, some lost passwords, etc."

"I have a background in computer science and experience in data retrieval and password cracking, so I started helping people in exchange for a percentage cut (industry standard for wallet recovery). All above board with a contract and everything."

"For a while I was getting new clients every week and making hundreds up to thousands of dollars on every successful recovery (with a fairly good rate of success). The biggest one I ever recovered was a 19 letter long password someone had lost. The work dried up when the price of doge dropped but it got me the down-payment on a house."

– internetpillows

Horsing Around

"A cabbie in Dublin once told me a story about one of his fares who had a brilliant hustle."

"The guy was a sculptor. He would watch horse races, then when a horse won, he'd use social media to contact the owner directly with a digital mockup of a life-sized sculpture of the winning horse. Now, the people who own winning racehorses tend to be very rich - we're talking sheikhs, oligarchs, billionaires. Every now and again, one of these owners would bite, and spend €100,000 euros or so on a statue commemorating their animal's win."

"Dude only did a couple a year, and spent the rest of the time living the good life."

– escoterica

Sweet!

"Richest guy in a rich town near us makes enormous amounts of money buying Hershey bars and rewrapping them with customised retirement celebration designs or corporate logos to be given away at events. Literally just rewraps them in pieces of paper and doubles or triples his money."

"Every time I try to start a company or invent a better product or something, I ask myself why I’m not just rewrapping candy bars."

– perchance2cream

"F**k man, I think I found my new niche."

– LibertyPrimeIsASage

Slightly Used

"I went to college in a capitol C college town. A friend of mine bought an old school bus, fixed it up and took out all the seats."

"At the end of every semester she would drive around the neighborhood that was the fancier side of off campus living and collect whatever the rich kids were throwing out before they moved / went home for the summer. Flat screen TVs, couches, computers, tables, it was wild to see what people would chuck out and replace the next semester rather than having to deal with getting a storage unit or moving themselves."

"Sold it all on Craigslist over the summer or the beginning of the next semester and made a killing."

– sam_neil

Credit Where Credit Is Undue

"When I worked in a really busy, upscale restaurant my coworker would put all of his cash-paying customer’s bills on his credit card and keep the cash which he used to promptly pay off his credit card."

"He did this all day, every day for quite a while and the points started to add up and he was getting free airfare, etc."

"Worked great for a while until management notice a rise in credit card processing fees with an emphasis on one employee and they shut him down real quick."

– blinkysmurf

We Found Gold!

"My buddy worked his way through college by panning for gold. This was in 2009 in California. Most days he made nothing, occasionally he would come home with a couple hundred bucks worth and I think once he found a night worth over $1k."

– discostud1515

"My cousin had a metal detector when he was in HS. He would go every weekend down to the lake and take it with him on vacation. He found all kinds of things. He did find gold jewelry and would sell it online. He made so much money he bought his own car."

– Content_Pool_1391

Sleeping For The Job

"I knew a woman whose job was literally to sleep."

"A local office building owner wanted somebody on-site 24/7 to be the point of contact with first responders if they ever needed to be called. So they hired her to come in to the building in the evening when the maintenance crew was finishing their work. And she would settle up to sleep for the night in a bedroom they'd set aside for her. In the morning she'd hand the building back over to the office employees and go on about her day."

"No first responders were ever called. It's about the least stressful legitimate job I could ever imagine."

– CaptainTime5556

The Secret

"Back in the 90s, I knew a guy who put an ad in the classified section of the newspaper which read something along the lines of, “For $10, I’ll tell you my secret to making easy money. Send $10 cash to (address) to find out how.” People would send him $10 & he would then instruct them to put a classified ad in the newspaper telling people to send $10 & how to make money."

– freudianfalls

Accident Payment

"I was pushed down the stairs by a teen girl who told me to "pay attention and get out of her way" i ripped my dress during the fall and was getting back up when some guy rushed up to me, apologized for his daughter and handed me $500 as compensation."

– thebrilliantcounc

"LOL - years back, I was in a parking lot during a snowstorm. A guy was trying to pull around me, slid on the snow/ice and hit into my passenger side door. It really and truly was an accident. He was all apologies. We exchanged info - he said to get a quote and he would pay for the damage."

"Well, the car I was driving at the time was a crappy old Ford worth maybe $500. But, I went to a body shop, got a quote on the repair and it was $900. I faxed it to him (this was back in the 90's, LOL) thinking he'd tell me to go through the insurance company and just have the car totaled out."

"To my surprise, I had a bank check for $900 from him in my mailbox three days later. Now, I already owned another car, so I pocketed the $900, sold the smashed car for parts for $300 and ended up with $1200 on a car that was worth only $500 before the accident. I was very glad that he ran into me!"

– Deleted User

Only Feet

"I have a friend who sells pictures of her feet. In heels. Barefoot squishing cake. In mud. She charges extra for special requests. Has strict ‘no go’ rules. Never shows anything above the calf so she can’t be identified (no tats). All proceeds go to her kid’s college fund. Has made enough to fund a PhD."

– NotACrazyCatLadyx2

The things people do for money! But, I guess it works for her!

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