It may have been a while since you've been in school, but we bet if we asked you to tell us about "that one teacher" most of you know EXACTLY who in your life you'd tell us about.
For me, it was a bonkers Latin teacher who was older than dust and had so many anger issues it wasn't even funny.
Buddy creeped on the girls all the time, constantly picked physical fights with the popular boys, and at one point flung a desk and grabbed a student by the throat.
But that wasn't the cingiest. Nay, dear reader. The cringiest thing was the time he commented that he was kind of bummed out that he hadn't fathered an obviously pregnant student's child since "everybody else got a turn."
Someone on Reddit asked:
Whats the cringiest thing a teacher has done at your school?
And it turns out my latin teacher was far from alone in being a creeper, but more importantly that there are about 150 flavors of cringey happening out there, and teachers have mastered them all.
The Hand Dryer
My classroom was next to a girl's bathroom. My teacher would always pause class to go yell at them for using the hand dryers and "disrupting the class", but we knew he was just looking for an excuse to invade their privacy. He would also drop pencils in front of his desk and ask girls to pick them up. He was arrested a couple years later for having porn on his work computer. Not sure where he is now. Hopefully, still in prison.
The Virgin Diaries
Co-worker told his class he's still a virgin. He's 45.
We had an older, unmarried religious studies teacher who used it as a point of moral pride that she had remained a virgin. Never thought it was appropriate for teachers to be discussing their sex life and/or lack thereof.
- nella20
I'm not sure if ours actually told people she was a virgin, but we all knew. She was in her 50's (or at least looked like it), extremely Catholic, unmarried and still lived at home with her parents.
- amyeh
The Bossa Nova Jingle
We had a substitute music teacher in 5th grade. I have no idea how she was hired but she had very little patience for children and would use the lesson time to rehearse her own projects on the synthesizer but wouldn't let us participate or make any noise at all. So, we would sit on a large U-shaped sofa and watch her play, bored out of our minds.
One day, two of the rowdier kids (a very, very large girl and a much smaller boy) got into a fight while we were sitting on said sofa. The girl threw the boy off the couch and he fell backwards into a very wobbly shelf that was full of old toys, clown wigs and small musical instruments.
This released a domino effect because -unbeknownst to anyone - the synthesizer cord had been tangled up around one of shelf legs. As the shelf and the kid crashed to the floor, the cord got pulled taut, toppling over everything in its way (music stands, plastic chairs etc).
Then the synthesizer violently crashed to the floor, the taut cord tripping the teacher over in the process, making her land butt first, in a very bizarre cross legged position.
As we watched in horror and disbelief, there was a brief moment of silence where all that could be heard was the bossa nova jingle from the synthesizer.
Just Sing
I had this math teacher, Ms. Greene (not her real name) who loved to sing. Her voice was fine, that wasn't the problem. The cringey things she did as a result of that love of singing, though...
When we were learning the quadratic equation, she had us sing it to Adele's Rolling in the Deep, and for the next couple of months, if someone wanted to use the hall pass, they had to sing the quadratic equation to get it.
Then there were the birthdays. If someone had a birthday (and a friend in that class who was enough of a jackass to inform Ms. Greene of said birthday,) Birthday Person was forced to stand in front of the classroom while the class sang Happy Birthday. But not just regular Happy Birthday, oh no. Ms. Greene would divide us into three groups and have us sing it in cannon, which does not sound good.
The ensuing four minutes were spent with the class looking down at their desks, mumbling Happy Birthday. If Ms. Greene didn't think you were singing loud enough, she would lean down, look into your eyes, and sing loudly at your face. Birthday Person looked on in embarrassment and pity.
- Bao-Babe
William and Harry
My time to shine.
First day of sophomore(?) year. Had PE class. Teacher was one of those skinny, tiny old ladies with an unreasonably high amount of energy. She starts class off with, "Hope we're all having a good day today! Well, except for Diana's children!"
This was the day after Princess Di's death.
Listening To Jesus
I went to Catholic school all my life. My Junior year religion teacher was discussing with us the Catholic teaching on sex. I forget how it came up, but she explained that, when having sex with her husband, she'd turn the portrait of Jesus over their bed to face the wall, but she said she could sometimes hear Jesus saying, "Go (her name) go" like he was cheering for her.
Never
My English teacher in secondary school (high school for you Americans) had her husband also work at our school and on Thursdays we had English after lunch. She always showed up to class on Thursdays like 10-15 minutes late and would always have a new stain on her cardigan (she never washed this cardigan apparently because their were at least nearly a 100 of these stains on it).
Another time she told us her fantasy about having the entire New Zealand rugby team run train on her at the same time.
Final one, she strode into class one day grabbed her boobs and announced "breasts, we all have them, we should all get them checked".
She should have never been allowed to teach.
That Boom Ba-doom-boom Bass
We got a new principal at a small, tightly knit charter school. He was a large, middle aged man who really wanted us to accept and like him. Honestly, it was really hard to. He had an authoritarian approach to an unusually democratic school and seemed inherently inauthentic/disingenuous. One day, he decided to tell us that if we reached these high testing scores, he would dance to Super Bass by Nicki Minaj. We did, because we all thought it would be funny, but the man took it way too far.
He dressed up as Nicki Minaj, wig and feather boa, and it was honestly kinda horrific. He got on a table on all fours, started twerking, gyrating, and it was awful. None of the students or teachers could really look at him the same way. A lot of people said it was the day they lost all respect for the man. It was only a month or so into the year. Most people's first impression was that moment and it was kinda scarring to see.
Everyone had their phone out and I'm pretty sure that it still haunts him (even though it was ten years ago) because he hasn't done anything similar since. I don't remember if anyone cheered, but I do remember the shock my friend's face because she had been sitting at the table he climbed onto and was way too close to his buns, hun.
Tough One
Cleaned the sweat out of my 8th grade mustache during an exam using his finger while saying "tough one, no?"
This wins the award. An 8th grade mustache is nauseating. Someone touching it? And empathizing on the flop sweat. Jesus.
Quite The Journey
Probably cringeworthy by today's standards, but back in 1983 it was pretty cool. Psychology class...yeah, we had one. Taught by Mr. Greenwood, who looked a lot like Charles Manson, but would get pissed off if you said that. Otherwise, he was awesome.
One time, he had us all figure out our "mantras" and then made us meditate for the rest of class. He would bring a record player in on Fridays (yes...records...it was the 80s) and you could bring in your favorite album and he'd play it while we all had a free hour of study (homework for other classes or whatever) on the condition that you had to agree with him that "Wheel In The Sky" by Journey was the greatest rock song ever.
Seriously. In order to get your album on the turntable, you had to stand up in front of the class and say "Wheel In The Sky by Journey is the greatest rock song ever."
He also put on a presentation about how people around the world flipped each other off...with visual examples.
Probably the weirdest and most inappropriate thing he did was have us hallucinate. He set up this experiment where we sat staring at a poster on the wall while a strobe light and sitar-like music played, and the music synced up with the strobe and after about 15 minutes the walls started to...um...fluctuate.
He explained what he was going to do the day before, and looked knowingly into the back row of students and said "whatever you do...don't drop acid before class."
I'm sure some parents would have had a problem with all that.
- gogojack
Safety Scissors
My seventh grade geometry teacher used to unzip her knee high patent leather boots and trim her overgrown leg hair with safety scissors in the back of class. I wish I was joking.
Ew.
Date another teach. Not just because she is 25 years his junior or because she was his student when she was in high school, but also because he's still married and with kids.
Middle Schoolers Don't "Go Potty"
My Spanish teacher is one of the cringiest teachers I've ever met. She's a good teacher, but she is just so...I can't even describe it.
We were learning about masculine and feminine noun endings, and the day before the lesson, she told us "ok, so get ready for tomorrow, because I am going to teach you how to go potty."
To a group of middle schoolers. To this day, I can't believe she said that.
Serial Home Wrecker
My 12th grade gym teacher was deemed "home wrecker" because she successfully broke up two separate marriages. One was with some guy and the guys son was in my grade and this gym teacher would try to act like a step mom to him while he completely ignored her for obvious reasons. The second was with another gym teacher at the school. She was moving on to her third victim (yet ANOTHER gym teacher) by the time I graduated.
- cswivel
Mr. No Bones
My one math teacher decided to show the class some "real dance moves" this man has been called Mr. NO BONES since.
A Tampon Tantrum
My 8th grade algebra teacher randomly stopped lecturing, walked to her desk, grabbed a tampon out of her desk, and walked out of the room. That's not cringeworthy, and at that point the girls had gotten on to the boys of our grade about making period jokes so none of us even laughed about it we just sat there and started talking while she went about her business.
She gets back in, we all go silent and wait for her to start lecture again, and she just starts going on a rant about how woman have needs and we shouldn't laugh about it. Again, nobody was laughing or even talking about it. This rant went on for the rest of the period, it just went on and on. We had to finish the worksheet she had given us to learn what we needed for the homework for that night... none of us knew what to do because she was venting about her period in front of the class instead of teaching.
Point Made
My white creative writing teacher was reading a rap song a kid had wrote out loud and said everything including the n word multiple times.
He was trying to make a point about how if it is uncomfortable to hear him read it then don't give it to him. He definitely made his point...
Game Time
Not a teacher, but a substitute. Would ignore lesson plans and teach something random. Ended up pulling the fire alarm during a class she had hijacked for games instead of actual lessons because she was up first for charades. Fairly certain she got blacklisted not just from the school district, but the state.
Dating and the search for love and companionship... What a nightmare.
This journey plays out nothing like in the movies.
Every Prince or Princess (or everything in BTW) seems to have a touch of the psycho.
The things people say during what should be simple dinner conversation can leave a dining partner aghast.
Like... do you hear you?
Redditor detroit_michigldan wanted to discuss all the best ways to crash and burn when trying to make a romantic connection. They asked:
"You're on a date and it's going really great. What can another person say to ruin it completely?"
I once had a guy ask me if I was willing to follow him into the woods, depending on the price of the meal.
Yeah. No steak is worth that.
Plans After...
"Thanks for the ride but I have a date with someone else, I figured you wouldn't drive me if you knew I was going on a date with someone else and I really needed a ride."
"Online dating, talked to her for a while, finally got the courage to ask her out and then she said that as we got there."
iareyours
Mirror Image
“'You look just like my wife!'”
catalinachild
"I did have a guy tell me I reminded him of his son. I don’t believe English has a word to adequately describe my feelings at that time."
UnicornMagicRainbow
"That would definitely do it."
chaotica78
Third Wheel
"'Hope you don't mind if my mother joins us.'"
ofsquire
"Actually had a girl do this on a first date because she had anxiety issues. Honestly wasn’t bad except that 90% of the time she was silent and her mom talked over her."
"I didn’t mind that much and wouldn’t have minded trying again when she was more comfortable except that she was let go at the company we worked at and she deleted her social media profiles and she never responded on her number. Ah well."
Seightx
Liar
"'Hey bro aren't you gay? I made out with you last night.'"
"Random dude I've never seen before in front of my (f) date."
JHXC16
Was he lying though?
Filter Issues
"'You looked better on Tinder.'"
waqasnaseem07
"Isn’t it basic knowledge that everybody looks slightly worse than the worst picture you can find?"
no_user_ID_found
The Past
"'My ex used to do that too.'"
xxIvyOF
"Yep. I’ve definitely had two otherwise-decent-guy date-situations sour because the ex-comparisons just would not stop flowing. No woman wants to be seen as interchangeable—I’m not here to perfectly fill that ex-sized hole in your life. Focusing on the present moment and a future we could build together is a courtesy we need to grant each other in earliest dates of dating."
LarkScarlett
Powerless
"'I'm an alpha, you cant handle my top energy.'"
Midnightgay28
"I actually left a dude in the middle of dinner, in part, for saying this. I ordered an Uber under the table while pretending to listen to him. Went to the bathroom, and never came back. That was when I was young. Now I’d just say, 'How about we enjoy this meal in silence, before we head our separate ways.'”
UnicornMagicRainbow
Mommy...
"'Mother says I should be back by 9.'"
"Saying 'mother says' just feels weird."
bunnyrut
"That gives me Norman Bates vibes."
Werewolf_lover20
"'Mother says alligators are aggressive because they have an overabundance of teeth, but lack a toothbrush.'"
sodaextraiceplease
Obvs...
"'If you were going to be murdered, what method would you prefer. Purely hypothetical. Obvs.'"
Specific_Tap7296
If it looks anything like a Dateline NBC episode... RUN!
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Despite the advancement of technology rendering people left to their own devices–literally–to entertain them, there are some leisurely activities that will never go out of style.
Or so you would think.
Do people still knit to pass the time? Are people actively collecting stamps?
It depends on who's asking.
Curious to hear about hobby trends, Redditor gizehgizeh asked:
"What are once popular hobbies that are slowly dying these days?"

Before we've become conditioned to living on our phones, these activities used to keep people occupied.
Before Texting, There Was This
"Letter writing."
– littlekingMT
Literal And Tangible Joy
"Well the internet killed pen pals for sure. I do remember I had a Japanese girl for a penpal maybe back in 2007 or so. I honestly don't remember how it started, pretty sure some website, but that was a fun experience. But now I can just straight up talk to foreign people real time, lol. But yea getting a physical letter that someone took the time to write and mail still is hard to beat feelings wise."
– skyburnsred
Model Trains
"When I was growing up, every town had a model train store in it. Now I have one in region and everything else has to be bought online."
– Hairy_Effective1172
Pretty Rocks
"Don’t see anyone playing marbles anymore, I had an awesome collection in school."
– sheeple85
"I had some marbles as a kid in the 90s. My grandma got them for me and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them. I always imagined them as a thing kids in the 40s played with."
– Ryoukugan
People Were Moving Canvases
"Paintball has been dying a slow death since 2006. Sad, really."
– hobo_recycler
Before the general population began hating clutter, collecting was once a "thing."
Precious Coins
"Coin collecting... I'm a silver/gold nut and I'm always hunting for precious metal coins. whenever I go into a shop they get all excited because 'no one under 70 collects coins anymore.'"
– ThatFishySmell99
Post It
"Stamp collecting."
– spooky_scully_mulder
"Collecting in general, really. Of course there are still prominent collectors but it's slipped more into enthusiast and niche territory than being a popular hobby that you might expect anyone to have."
– iuytrefdgh436yujhe2
What A Gem
"Rockhounding was immensely popular back in the 1950's and 1960's. Personally, I think it's a fascinating and fulfilling hobby, but when I go to a meeting at a rock and gem club, I'm usually the youngest one in the room by several decades."
– filthy_lucre
People once enjoyed making things.
Admiring The View
"Stained glass. I learned how to make it from my old man, and my junior high art class teacher also taught it. Very few artisans are still around."
– brobeanzhitler
Metal Vocation
"Black smithing."
– kenworth117
"I bought a forge to try. It’s insanely hard work, and crazy expensive. I still haven’t finished a piece."
– DSentvalue
Scrapbooking
"Yeah. I'm watching the arts and crafts stores around me completely uninstalling their racks for specialty paper. Now the only thing they have is mega packs of repeating colors/images. To boot all the inclusions like papercraft/die-cut things, washi tape, scissors, stickers, etc have gotten so expensive I would rather go buy $5 bags at value village to get an assortment of things versus buying anything new. I really, really miss yard sales for the same reasons."
– Phantasmai
I envy people who have jobs that are basically their hobbies.
Not everyone gets paid doing what they actually enjoy and have a profound level of passion for.
If they do, kudos to them.
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When we first meet someone–whether through mutual friends, at school, or in a new work setting–we generally feel people out to determine if they're worth getting to know.
While the process could take time, some people make our jobs much easier after spotting instant red flags.
Curious to hear about our general radar of people, Redditor xxFluffie asked:
"What is something that makes you immediately dislike someone?"

Some people just think they are absolutely hilarious and never realize they're the only ones laughing.
Next In Line
"They laugh about having screwed someone else over. If you think you're not next, well, you'll learn."
– whiznat
Unfunny
"when you mention you don't like a thing and they immediately do that thing 'as a joke.'"
– wayfinder
Playing Devil's Advocate
"Kneejerk contrarians. People who, no matter what you say you like or believe, just have to dismiss it and say they like or think the opposite."
– BubbhaJebus
People who put others down get slammed here.
Bad Parents
"When they treat their kids sh**ty in public. I don't mean handling tantrums, setting a rule, having to hurry to the train etc. I mean perfectly normal-behaved kids getting in trouble for trailing along peacefully, looking at things, asking questions etc."
"If you don't like tiny humans who learn the world, why have them??"
– raxeira-etterath
Public Humiliation
"Treating people sh**ty in public for laughs. Like being rude to service workers because they think it’s funny. Big red flag."
– Ok_Personality_1080
Simply Uncalled For
"Someone who is a d*ck to other people or animals for no reason."
– xebt1000
Those with ulterior motives rubs people the wrong way.
The Scheme
"If they try to get me to join their MLM scheme."
– spazmcgee1
Hard Sell
"A guy I used to be friends with in high school reached out a couple of years after graduating about a business opportunity he wanted my opinion on because 'you've always been smart', then he set up a Skype call and brought some other dude into the call and they started trying to sell me on what was clearly an MLM scheme. The guy went from friend to 'I'm never talking to you again' in a matter of 10 minutes."
– Mental-Afternoon-164
A Timeline
"Good gawd, this! I've had more than one exposure to this abject bullsh**tery..."
- Back in the late 80's/early 90's I was invited to a meeting of literally the OG "Pyramid" where you're recruited to pay in, and then you go out and recruit others to pay in, and the last in line got f'kall.
- In 1995 I had a coworker try to reel me into Amway, which was a hard no.
- In 2000 it was Pampered Chef, though to be fair they did have useful products.
- In 2009 a coworker tried to get me into some stupid video calling service that was obviously stupid from the description. He even got offended when I called bullsh*t.
– Mystical_Cat
Too much ego is a no-go.
I Can Do Better
"Being a b*tch just to stroke their own ego."
"We get it, you can lift 5lbs more than the 12 year old, you don't have to rub it in their face just because you're slightly better"
– Livia_Pivia
Can't Top This
"Oh, you did <story that's been told>? That's nothing! I did <implausible story>.
"I get the whole empathy through relating common experience, and I'm someone who does that (which drives some people crazy on its own), but there's a big different by empathising through common experience, and one-upmanship."
– Tisarwat
Lacking Conversational Etiquette
"Starting to talk over me when I was already talking."
"Stop it you rude, arrogant jerk."
– R33Gtst
If one or more of these traits sound familiar to you, you're not alone.
We don't have time for braggadocios, pyramid-schemers, and conversation interrupters.
And that's just for starters.
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Children tend to believe just about anything they hear.
That there are monsters under your bed, watching too much TV will make your head explode, and silly faces will be permanent if you make them too often.
The sky is truly the limit when it comes to silly things that children will believe.
Some call it naivitée, other's youthful innocence.
But it's hard not to look back with embarrassment on certain things we believed as a child, that today might simply seem dumb.
Redditor Disastrous_Toe_6548 was curious to learn the multitude of silly things people believed when they were children, leading them to ask:
"What's the dumbest thing you believed as a kid?"
Pleading to deaf ears...
"My dad told me he had hearing loss and couldn't hear me if I whined because my pitch would get too high."
"Would completely ignore me until I asked him questions in a normal voice."
"Trusted him implicitly until I was 12 and he yelled at my younger brother for whining."- Tyrion_Stark.
Get it while you can.
"That they took everything off the shelves when the supermarket closed."- fgyfddg.
Silly superstitions.
"My grandfather used to tell me that if I played with the fire, I'd pee the bed."
"I believed him for a while, until I got older."
"I think he was just trying to protect me from the fire."- teddypa1981.
"Rain, rain go away..."
"That if it was raining where I was, it was raining everywhere in the world."- morningshartz.
Age is just a number.
"My parents used to seem really old to me, so much so I believed they grew up like cave people as children, wearing giant leaves for clothes and what not."- Laleena_.
So that's how they're made!
"That smokestacks from the power plant created clouds."- Scaniarix.
An instant cure.
"The sun gives you sunburns, therefore, moonlight should heal them."- velocipeter.
Better safe than sorry.
"Don't drink and drive meant all drinks."
"My dad was super confused when I told him he wasn't allowed to have any soda until we got home."- hulagirlslovetoparty.
Don't believe everything you see on TV.
"There was an episode of Mickey Mouse where Mickey couldn’t reach something at first, so he tried again and somehow his arm was long enough to reach it."
"As a small kid I believed that if I couldn’t reach something, I should just try reaching for it again and my arm would then somehow be long enough to reach it."- That-Dutch-Person.
The miracle of childbirth.
"That babies are pooped out."
"When I was like 7 I was listening to my aunt as she explained that childbirth was pretty intense and painful for her, and I was all solemnly like, 'yeah, sometimes just my poops are painful, I don’t think I could get a baby out' and she went 'um, WHAT?' and her reaction made me realize real quick that I had f*cked up somewhere and I tried to change the subject while my mind was just reeling lol."- thesoundingfurrows.
Oh to be a child again.
And to believe literally everything you're told.
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