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People Describe The Oddest Jobs They've Ever Had

People Describe The Oddest Jobs They've Ever Had

Working in entertainment production is one of those things that sounds awesome - and make no mistake, it is.

It's just that it's also one of those jobs that means when your partner calls you at 1 in the morning to ask where you are, and you tell them you're out measuring lemons for Beyoncé... it's not a euphemism and it's not that weird.

Queen Bey wants a bowl of 15 evenly sized lemons for her dressing room, Queen Bey gets a bowl of 15 evenly sized lemons for her dressing room.

And because catering runners care about doing their jobs well and usually have a multi-tool on them anyway, Beyoncé is getting the sexiest, most uniformly sized, lemons we can find.


Reddit user Tacoma__Crowasked:

"What was the oddest job you’ve had and why?"

Lemons for the Queen doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, honestly.

Weight Ballast

"In small rural town, I (15M) close to 200lbs got a job as a farm Hand expecting to work planting and harvesting."

"I was quite a large athletic lad at the time."

"And I show up for my first day of work and the planting equipment on the back of the tractor was missing some parts."

"So my boss told me to climb atop the planting equipment to make sure it would plant deep enough"

"FML I got hired to be a heavy object, weight, ballast."

"I will never forget my first job as weight"- Logical-Tomato-215

A Google-izer Or Is It Googlee ?

"Googling stuff for people."

"I used to work for kgbkgb, which was this text messaging service where you could text a number, ask any question, and get an answer for $.99."

"This was before smartphones became super huge, so it was a bit of a helpful gimmick back then."

"However, for everyone that we got asking normal questions like movie times, or what restaurants were open near them, or stuff like that, we got A LOT more people asking very stupid things that I would have to Google."

"I have this album of a bunch of weird questions that people sent to us."

"It was an interesting job that helped cover some things when I was in college, but it also had me using Google for a lot of weird sh*t."- -eDgAR-

evan peters google GIF by The Orchard FilmsGiphy

One Day

"I was employed by JC Penney for literally one day."

"I didn't quit, and I wasn't fired."

"That was the term of my employment."

"This was back in 1998 and I was entering my senior year of high school."

"They had a huge sale in the store and they hired dozens of people to cover every department because they were anticipating huge crowds."

"This was not a Black Friday sale, but they anticipated correctly, nonetheless."

"One of the shift supervisors gave me some busy work to start the day, folding shirts or whatever."

"After lunch I was basically asked to walk around from time to time and pick up any knocked over merchandise."

"The last few hours got boring, so one of the other supervisors that I had been chatting with throughout the day invited me to hang out during his break."

"His words were, 'what are they gonna do, fire you?' "

"Good times." - ThePreachingDrummer

Ring

"I was the girl that crawled out of a fake well at a Halloween hay ride once ."

"That was actually pretty fun!"

"Why: I was 14 and after four weeks working Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays all evening I got $150!."

"Under the table of course."- CaseyBoogies

The Ring Movie GIF by Arrow VideoGiphy

Corpse Uber

"Transporting deceased people who our county declared John/Jill Does to the proper county or city coroner once they were identified."

"Some obscure state law back in the 80's made it illegal to transport that particular type of dead person while the sun was up."

"Screwed up job, but it paid $15 an hour back in 1985."

"Guess it paid so much because most people were unwilling to do it."

"That was a hell of a lot for a college student to turn down."

"Interesting fact."

"When you hit a bump in the road, with an unprepared corpse, their bodies will gurgle, and sometimes air comes out of their lungs and hits their vocal cords."- Leftstrat

3D Pictures

"When i was a teenager I sold those magic eye pictures at a mall kiosk."

"Y'know the ones you have to stare at for a while till your eyes make out a 3d picture?"

"All day I had to try and help frustrated people try and see the f*cking sail boat."- Reddit

Fancy Title

"My first job was with a temp agency; worked in an accounting office going through boxes of records and making sure there were no staples or fasteners in anything."

"Then the boxes would go to another dept to be scanned onto microfiche."

"I had some fancy title, like 'Accounting Clerk' and was making over $11 an hr., back when min wage was still like $5 and change, so I thought I was living large'."

"A funny part of the story is that I started on a Friday, and came to work in khakis and a polo-Monday I came dressed the same way and got spoke to about dressing professionally because Friday was casual Friday and not normal dress code."

"Lol felt dumb having to wear business attire and a tie when I was in the back in a cubicle pulling staples out of documents."- HalfBeatingHeart

Cutthroat Cookies

"Worked for the girl scouts and ran the cookie sale for a regional area that included a major American city."

"Craziest and most stressful job I ever had."

"It seems all cute and charming until you have 30 furious cookie moms screaming at you in your office at 6:30 AM on a Saturday because the truck carrying 5 pallets of thin mints is stuck in a blizzard."

"I had to break up fist fights between parents because someone 'stole' someone's spot outside of a grocery store. It's cutthroat."

"Anyway that job was decades ago and I still have stress nightmares about it!"- Neither-Copy785

episode 19 GIFGiphy

Kitty Sitting

"Not a job exactly but one awesome day."

"I used to work in the concrete business."

"We once had a job pouring a slab for residential parking and a neighbor nearby had a kitten just a couple months old."

"It would not stay out of the concrete as you can imagine it thought us picking it up and washing its paws was a game."

"Eventually the boss told me to grab the kitten and go hold it hostage in the truck."

"So I spent the next six hours sitting in the truck with a super friendly kitten sleeping on my chest."

"I got paid to babysit a kitten."- Sectaguy

Giphy

Kept That Swamp clean

"Swamp Janitor."

"Official title was 'invasive species removal technician' but really I was a swamp janitor. "

"There was this invasive aquatic plant that would completely take over swamps and choke out all the native life, so my job was to go in with a rake and pitchfork and literally just clean up the swamp of this devil plant."

"Some parts were cool, watching eagles fish, seeing turtles come up for air and big fish swimming in the water but a lot of it sucked."

"The plant had sharp seeds that would pierce your skin and your waders."

"You'd get leeches, tics and mosquitos on you all day."

"Physically exhausting with lots of sun."

"You'd have to haul the plant matter to giant compost heaps that were full of snakes, for some reason the snakes liked it."

"It was a unique but grueling job."- UniverseBear

bathroom stall GIFGiphy

See the Pyramids Along The Way..."

"Multi-Level Marketing."

"Kid told me about a really cool energy drink company back in high school."

"I wanted money."- 992882

Smooth Operator

"A bank was digitizing their records."

"I got paid to remove staples and creases from paper so all their old records could be scanned without issues."

"10 hours a day, just removing staples and creases."- Both-Grocery-7008

Not The Job, But The Clientele

"I'm a host at a local restaurant and I have met both the most mundane and weirdest people ever."

"My favorite story is that a few months ago I had 3 different people, all men in their 40's to 50's, come in one after another say almost the same thing."

'They all said 'can I get a table for [large number here]'."

'I have to say, they were all in different parties, completely strangers that walked in 5 minutes apart with the same line."- f---thezodiac

Lisa Simpson Restaurant GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy

Happy, Despite People Looking Down At You

"Shoeshiner."

"15 year old female and I needed cash."

"Would shine shoes at car washes and country bars, usually made $100-300 a day."

"Oddly fun and met a ton of people, got other odd jobs from businessmen like hostess check in at events and functions."- Starlettohara23

Left Them Feeling Blue

"Got a job through a temp agency working at a scrap metal plant."

"Because I wasn't 18 yet, I couldn't operate most of the heavy machinery or the fork trucks."

"So they put me in a side room and had me siev cobalt."

"So for a while, I would run the positive motion conveyor, which was just a big table hooked to a rotary motor so it made all the stuff on it 'hop' from one side to the other."

"At one end, they hung a 1-ton bag of cobalt over the conveyor."

"At my end, I had a metal grating over a bunch of barrels."

"As the conveyor advanced, the dust fell through into the first barrels."

"My job was to pick the big chunks of cobalt off of the grating and toss them into another set of barrels."

"It was hot and humid, and cobalt dust is blue, so every day I came home looking like a damn smurf."- Hephaestus0308

Giphy

Paid To Pillage?

"I (14NB) had a gig exploring abandoned places to take stuff out of there."

"It was interesting."

'I didn't record but I explore abandoned places."

"For my job, it was houses."

"For my hobby, I did schools, funeral homes, summer camps, hospitals, day cares, etc."- Lonely_Person_1670

Better not have snuck a sip!

"Serving beer when i was 10 years old with my 9 year old friend in the most alcoholic country in the world."- Old-Command-7706

A Sign Of Bad Things To Come.

"So not really a job but when I worked for this restaurant in my home town I got called in on one of my days off."

"I only worked like 3 or 4 days a week, and I was 16 and thought I could use more money."

"So I go in to see about 7 people with my same position there, I was a dishboy, and I was so confused I ask the manager what they needed because they didn't disclose it over the phone."

"They asked me to scrub all the trash cans as if someone else couldn't have done it and it was a very slow day."

They weren't happy about it and just told me I couldn't go home until I did it."

"Now I hadn't even clocked in yet and I was unaware that I could've just left but I was scared of losing my job so I did it and I think I lasted there for another 2 or 3 months before I was like nope I'm done."- nuchiha44

Trash Can GIFGiphy

Weird Can Often Be Fun

"Working in an old brick quarry that was now a landfill."

"Collecting and sorting scrap metal for recycling."

"Also operating heavy equipment, a john deere drot and a cat d7 bulldozer."

"Best job of my whole life, so much fun."

"Super dangerous but had a blast 10/10 would do again."- dowend

Okay so we've measured lemons for royalty, been a taxi for dead folks, and been an overpaid staple remover with a fancy title.

You're up, readers.

Got anything that competes with that?

The All-Time Biggest First Date Red Flags

Reddit user APT3993 asked: 'What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?'

When you're on a first date, one of three things will happen. Either you'll like the person and want to go out again, you like the person fine, but not romantically, and won't want to go out again, or the person will display a behavior that is so off-putting (or make you genuinely fearful), that you won't even want to see the person ever again.

My best friend and I are basically the same person, so when she met a guy who he had a lot in common with, she figured I'd like him too and set us up (I had previously told her I was okay with being set up).

Well, it turns out the guy actually hadn't read any of the books, watched any of the shows, or heard of any of the bands he talked about with my friend. I didn't understand why he would lie about all these things until I left the table.

When I came back, he was on the phone with someone and he was telling them he only told her he liked all those things because he liked my friend. When he found out she was in a relationship, he decided he'd let her set us up in the hopes that he could date me until my friend and her boyfriend broke up, and then he could swoop in.

I just walked out and when he finally texted me asking what was up, I told him I overheard him, then proceeded to block him. My friend was mortified to hear about the date, and I decided never to be set up again.

I'm not the only one who has gone on a date and discovered a huge red flag. Redditors have experienced this too, and are eager to share their stories.

It all started when Redditor APT3993 asked:

"What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?"

Dates Of Relationships Past

"They won't shut up about their ex."

– SiriusGD

"Had this happen to me on a 2nd date."

"Asked if she could use my computer, I said OK. Then she pulls up her ex's FB profile to browse through it, and she spent the next 10 minutes comparing me to him, saying he she thinks that I will turn out to be controlling and manipulative like him because we both grew up on a farm and we both like cars."

"Ummm, wut?"

– alwaysmyfault

"He angrily told me I would “love” his ex wife. Proceeded to cry while talking about her. They’d been divorced for 5 years. I genuinely hope he is doing better."

– TX_Mothman

"She constantly compared me to her ex, and sat on her phone for most of the night, then expected me to pay for her two bottles of wine, plus really expensive meal and desert."

"She asked me out btw, not the other way around."

– Stuspawton

I Know What I Want

"The guy who tried to change my order with the waitress because he didn’t think the drink I’d asked for was sufficiently feminine."

"I ordered beer. I don’t remember exactly what he thought I should have, maybe white wine? It was a long time ago."

"The waitress was looking at me like ‘You heard that sh*t too right?’ and I told her actually I wouldn’t have anything, thanks, and I left."

– MaggieLuisa

"He changed it FROM A BEER TO SOMETHING ELSE!!?! That’s amazing to me. Like it’s bad enough if you ordered an IPA and he said, “I dunno, sweetie, your delicate female taste buds probably can’t handle the hoppiness. Hey, honey, why don’t we get the lady a Coors.”"

– AdaptiveVariance

The Position Of Boyfriend

"We met for drinks after work (since we both work in the same industry) and she showed up with a list of interview questions. She literally had a checklist on her phone for me to fill out. I thought she was joking at first, but the questions were extremely personal, like how many sexual partners you've had, the oldest, the youngest; How much money you made the previous year; If you owned a house, a car, a boat, a plane; Did you have a criminal history; Where do you parents live; Are they alive; Who did you vote for in the last election; All kinds of stuff like that."

"I even proposed that we could just use that as a conversation starter and we could work through them like that as a fun way to get to know each other. I was really trying. She tells me that she's not answering any of them because I'm trying to date her, not the other way around!"

"I laughed out loud thinking she was kidding, then realized she was absolutely serious. I wished her all the best in the dating world, chugged my beer, overtipped the waitress, and left."

– OkFrostina

"Yeah, I would really push that to the limit without getting law enforcement involved. Start with all the times I have ended up in rehabilitation, my abductions by UFO, the wild, kinky sex partners I have had, the millions I have lost before living under a bridge, etc."

– passporttohell

Scary As Hell

"Had a guy who insisted on buying the most expensive pizza at the restaurant despite my protests then kissed my head when he walked past me to use the restroom. After dinner we walked along the waterfront, he kissed me and then immediately tried to choke me "to be sexy". First date, last date."

– Twours1944

"What the sh*t?? Who taught this idiot that choking in public on the first date all without consent is a great get-to-know-you move??"

– villainsimper

Stranger Danger

"This was literally the day of a first date. But I had matched with an older man when I was still on dating apps. We planned to go on a hike on a very beautiful day by the water. On the day of the date, he wanted me to leave my car at his place, while he drove us through the backwoods so we can beat traffic. I said I’ll be happy to drive myself, and he laughed and canceled. His reasoning was he’s been stood up so many times and he didn’t want to waste his time and me not show up. I said “okay!I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you find what you are looking for. “and blocked him."

"The red flag was when he genuinely got upset that I didn’t want to ride in a car with a stranger through the backwoods for our first date."

– Jesusdoescrack

"You should have said “you fear being stood up, I fear being murdered.”"

– The_She_Ghost

Truly Gross

"He pointed to another woman at the bar and said she was his ex. But she happened to be my lesbian roommate."

"Yes, I told him I knew he was full of it cuz she was my roommate, and I pointed out her girlfriend who was there with her. I don’t remember what he said exactly but he had no choice but to admit he was lying. I wish I had asked why he said it. I assume to make me jealous? Like that’s a good way to start a relationship? Obviously, that was the only date."

– Grapegoop

​Those Who Came Before

"He told me he had been divorced 5 times. I'm taking the advice of 5 women I don't know."

– 13liz

"The way you phrased this killed me 😂"

– CumulativeHazard

Got Her Feeling Emotions

"Does bursting into tears after I told them I didn't like a TV show count?"

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"I'm curious as to what TV show it was?"

– ladydamnation

"Grey's Anatomy."

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"bursts into tears"

– akennelley

Um...What?!

"He took me to his house (he lived with his mom) just so HE could eat dinner with his mom while I sat in the living room. I listened to them eat and talk about my looks like I couldn't hear them. Apparently, I was pretty but "needed to be taken down a peg or two." I said my period had started so I had to go home. A future abuser and his enabler mommy."

– BigMcLargeHuge77

Ew...Just Ew

"We went to a movie. He spent the first half with his hand inside one of his socks, then pulling it out and smelling it, putting it back in, repeat, repeat."

"Then he spent the second half trying to hold my hand. With his sock hand."

– Deleted User

Bad From The Start

"She asked if I could order for her because she was uncomfortable talking to the brown waitress.

"Added: Same girl would not stop talking about Kardashian gossip even though I told her I know nothing about them and didn’t care to know."

– CanaDoug420

Stop, Theif!

"He showed up drunk with a bouquet of flowers he admitted he stole from his mother's flower shop."

– LookAcrossTheWater

​Cringe-Worthy

"Went to a charity coffee shop for a date. It was “free” coffee where they just ask for donations which went toward their org’s efforts to feed and house people. They explained this to him and asked if he wanted to make a donation for our drinks."

"He said no."

– Shredded_Wheaties

Oh, yikes! I would be so embarrassed!

In fact, I'm kind of losing faith in dating as a concept.

people sitting inside plane
Hanson Lu on Unsplash

Commercial aviation began in the late 1920s, spurred on by early aeronautical companies and several record breaking solo flights.

Since then, there are few places on Earth that can't be seen or accessed by plane. Only icing limits humans from low altitude flights over certain areas like the polar regions, while a lack of landing locations keeps some areas accessible to only the smallest pontoon planes.

From January through December 2022, United States airlines carried 853 million passengers. Globally, air travel reached a high of over 4.7 billion passengers before the pandemic limited flights.

Since then, global air travel has rebounded to over 3.7 billion passengers.

With almost 100 years and over a trillion passengers, the people who crew these flights are bound to have seen everything happen that possibly could at airports and on a flight.

Keep reading...Show less
A skeptical man
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

We've all heard our fair share of conspiracy theories, from thoughts about the White House to aliens and beyond.

But some conspiracy theories have become truly strange and nuanced, and it's hard to stop listening to the person explaining their beliefs, because as weird as some of these theories sound, they could almost by some stretch of the imagination make sense.

Intrigued, Redditor Accomplished-Leg-991 asked:

"What's the weirdest or craziest theory you have heard of?"

Seems Plausible.

"Traffic barrels are left up for so long because the Department of Transportation bought too many and has no place to store them."

- dailysunshineKO

The Grass Is Always Greener

"The truck driver that delivered my flooring gave me this gem: The push for green lawns in the US is by Big Pharma."

"The cliff notes version is that to get green grass, you need pesticides, pesticides cause cancer, and cancer is good business for drug companies. It was like a 20-minute long rant to get to that conclusion and it was an adventure."

- StillBald

"I need to drink with him for one night. That cannot possibly be the only banger he's got."

- karenalphas

The Ice Wall

"Recently TikTok kept giving bizarre suggestions where people trying to prove Ice Wall in Antarctica that Earth is bigger and something is hiding behind ice wall in Antarctica… What the h**l."

- XenophanesJunior

"It's a weird subset of flat earthers, who believe in an 'infinite plane' that lies beyond the ice wall (guarded by NASA, of all people), and the reason? The infinite plane has endless amounts of gold mines and gems they can mine for infinite money."

- bag2d

Tinkering with the Algorithm

"That Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen, and they made the movie 'Frozen' so that when people googled 'Walt Disney Frozen,' the movie would come up first."

- LizardPossum

"They updated this theory, but now it is with Taylor Swift. It basically says that she went to that Kansas City Chiefs vs NY Jets game so that when people search 'Taylor Swift Jets,' it will only show news about the game, and not about her going everywhere with her private jets."

- abirll

"It's so wild now these rely on people being completely unable to go to page two of a Google search."

- LizardPossum

The All-Important Celebrity Weddings

"I had a coworker that fully believes the government controls the weather so celebrities can have nice weddings."

- pinballgizard

"Out of all the reasons to control the weather, celebrity weddings are a top priority for the government."

- Suspicious-Craft4980

The Truth of Social Security Numbers

"Your social security number indicates which bank you were sold to at birth."

- compuwiza1

"Ah, sovereign citizens..."

- CaptainMikul

Dinosaur Bones, Huh?

"Dinosaur bones were placed on earth by Satan to trick people into 'abandoning' God."

- River_7890

"There's a big American Church whose members believe that dinosaur bones exist because God made the Earth with leftovers from a previous planet."

"Mental gymnastics to justify their belief that the Earth is only 10'000 years old and C14 dates dinosaur bones as being millions of years old..."

- mrsrosieparker

"I'm absolutely not shocked. The person who told me jumps through so many mental hoops to try to disprove science. She thinks that the government is secretly working for Satan to convert people, too."

"Oh and of course Disney. She's crazy overall. Not just with religious stuff. I could tell so many stories of her crossing lines and saying off-the-wall things. I try to not associate with her as much as possible."

- River_7890

The Worst Kind of Waiting Room

"The USS Philadelphia Experiment and the US army soldier who claimed he was in an interdimensional waiting room as a greeter for eternity until he was suddenly transported back onto the ship."

"People claimed it was a cloaking device gone wrong and left men's bodies trapped within the steel of the boat upon reentry."

"I never looked into it but read about it in a book that had a statement like, 'Nothing in this book is true but it's exactly the way things are,' or something similar. Always thought it was the wildest conspiracy theory ever when I was a stoned teenager reading it."

- Hereforthecake

Phantom Time Conspiracy Theory

"There’s a whole podcast with hundreds of episodes dedicated to this subject. Worth a listen. One of the wildest ones is that Charlemagne’s grandson moved the calendar forward ~300 years and thus the Dark Ages never happened."

- seandowling73

Gives the Shortcut a Whole New Meaning

"Met a dude at the gym who believed that the CIA had built tunnels throughout the Earth's core, connecting all the major cities. Was some kind of global takeover scheme."

- Latham74

Infathomly Large Trees

"Mountains are all the stumps of ancient fossilized enormous trees."

"I'm absolutely obsessed with this theory. It's connected to flat earth, but flat earth isn't a requirement for this theory nor do most flat earthers believe it."

- inkstainedgoblin

Under Control

"We're all infected by parasites that feed on our stress hormones released by negative emotions like guilt, sadness, anger, fear, and so on. They control our minds and, thereby, us to an extent. The only way to combat them is by being aware and questioning if your thoughts and actions are truly your own thoughts and actions."

- 42clickslater

Enough Said

"The one about JFK Jr. coming back to help Trump win the 2020 election is still tops in my book."

- pinkyknee

Big Pharma Chickens

"That owning chickens is the gateway drug to believing conspiracy theories."

- sarcasawm

"As someone who has owned chickens, the only thing they're a gateway drug to is getting more farm animals."

- CelticArche

"That’s what Big Goat wants you to believe."

- MissRockNerd

"Big Farm-A."

- cannedcream

As wild as some of these conspiracy theories were, there's no denying that they're fascinating, some for the simple fact that they're almost plausible.

They at least get you thinking in a new way, and perhaps that isn't such a bad thing every now and then.

Two guys hi-fiving each other
Tyler Nix/Unsplash

A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.

The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.

Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.

Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:

"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"

These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.

Recurring Favor

"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."

– Queasy-Location-9303

"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."

– StiffAssedBrit

The Errand Girl

"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."

"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."

"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"

"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."

"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."

"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."

– ChamomileBrownies

Testing The Friendship

"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."

– plzdontgetmad

"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."

"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."

– NoMrBond3

People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.

The Chaperon

"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."

"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."

"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."

"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."

"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."

– Duffarum

Unwilling Companion

"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."

"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"

"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."

– Auldale

There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.

I Can Do It Better

"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."

– Complex-Half8338

"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"

– Hot-Coffee-8465

Never Steal The Spotlight

"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."

– Jasssin23

"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."

– thefifthtrilogy

All About Me

"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."

– PokemomOnTheGo

People can just be so rude.

"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."

– Tofflus1

"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."

– CatGoNoTail

Not Missing High School

"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."

"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."

"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."

– Symnestra

These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.

Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.

We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.

Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.