Ever been so annoyed wih someone or something that you reach your limit? You know what I'm talking about... when you're just so fed up that you can't take it anymore? I felt that way after ending a toxic friendship. It was such a relief when it was over. There had been a string of bad behavior and one day I hit my breaking point and thought, That's it. I'm done. Don't forget: There are also times when you make a choice only to learn your lesson rather quickly, too!
After Redditor ROYALTYAVE asked the online communiy, "What's one thing that made you say, 'Never again' and why?" people shared their stories. I found myself cringing as I read some of these submissions because hey, I can't say I blame any of the people involved!
"I applied and got in..."
Law school. I applied and got in because my parents thought I would be a good fit. I stuck out the first year because I was heavily influenced into thinking my career paths only included law, engineering or medicine. After the first year I was miserable and depressed, dropped out and now I'm doing something that I'm passionate about and is less saturated than law. My dad is still trying to convince me to pursue a JD.
"I'm not going through that..."
Getting an endometrial biopsy. Worst pain of my life. If I ever get cancer they can just take the whole damn uterus out, I'm not going through that again without anesthesia.
"Almost ruined my life."
Alcohol and Cocaine. Almost ruined my life. Started drinking at 16, started doing coke at 26, and took till I was damn near 41 to quit. Dumped my last baggie of blow out beside my garage 23 years ago and haven't touched the stuff since.
"My ex."
My ex. We were giving long distance a shot, it was an on and off relationship for like 3 years. I traveled 18 hours to see him only to find out he had been cheating on me and no one from his circle even knew I existed. I cried for a straight 18 hour bus ride back home. Never again.
"Roommates suck..."
Living with a couple. Roommates suck in general but a 3 times in my life I split an apartment with a couple and it was awkward at best, and truly miserable when they fought.
"I went on an overseas trip..."
Go on an overseas tour with a close friend. Always do a mini trip or spend a weekend with them exploring a new place to test the waters. I went on an overseas trip with someone who was constantly late, couldn't pay for anything, didn't want to do any of the activities we had planned, sulked around...the list goes on. We had completely different travel styles. She wanted to sleep in...I wanted to organise things, be on time and plan ahead. Basically our travel styles just did not mesh. I ended up having such a bad time I booked a flight home. Would never again go on a holiday with her again or any friend with a similar personality. Never again.
"Sure..."
Selling plasma 2x a week. Sure, it seems like free money to mess around watching tv and getting free cookies. But after a few months it occured to me that me constantly feeling exhausted wasn't me not sleeping enough. It was me missing tons of blood.
"I think..."
Working retail.
I think it's something every young person should do... once. People suck, especially with our BS culture of "the customer is always right."
"Open up my home..."
Open up my home to help someone. She ended up being a manipulative miserable cuss of a person who made my and my children's lives miserable. My husband (now ex) refused to see beyond her vagina and ignored his own kids' pleas for help. Kids and I moved out and he's now miserable and alone with no relationship with his kids. She left him at the first sign of his financial troubles.
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Companies That Clearly Hate Their Customers
Reddit user NerfGronk asked: 'What company clearly hates its own customers?'
Some companies seem to appreciate their customers and attempt to make their lives better, but others seem to absolutely loathe their customers and actively try to make them miserable.
It might seem odd that many of these companies stay in business, but many of them have monopolies or near-monopolies in their industry or area of the world.
Redditor NerfGronk asked:
"What company clearly hates its own customers?"
Ticketmaster
"Ticketmaster. They clearly hate music fans, bands and music itself."
- hoodlumonprowl
"Ticketmaster’s business model is being the bad guy, and business is good."
- RandomUser1914
"I recently had to sell tickets. I was charged a fee to buy them, another fee to sell them, and they added fees for whoever bought them from me. Then, they held my payout of over $500 for several months (still waiting, actually)."
- Amazing_Finance1269
Hewlett-Packard
"HP, f*ck those printers. They put so much R&D $ in to making sure they never work."
- gratusin
"I literally bought a new printer that came with ink because it was cheaper than buying ink for my current printer. The stupid setup process required me to create an account and download not one, but TWO different apps in order before I was finally able to print. They're turning into data mining companies that masquerade as printer companies."
- J4ck4lope9
"Of all the things I've ever bought, I regret my HP printers the most. This last one was the last thing I will ever buy from them. I'd be shocked if they don't have a 'VP of Customer Screwing' on their payroll."
"If I was literally dying and they sold the only cure for what was killing me for 25 cents, I'd spit in their face and die."
- scottimusprimus
NBA
"The NBA. Oh, want to pay to watch games? OK, but you better not want to watch a team close to you because we black out those games since cable companies pay us to do so! Oh, you're using a VPN? F*ck you! We're trying to stop that, yes, we will literally attempt to stop you from seeing content you literally pay us for."
"Yo ho, b*tches."
- DravenPrime
"I was so mad when the finals came around this year. I had gotten league pass to watch the playoffs, because these are the only games that are remotely watchable from a competitive point of view. Being from Germany, I had to stay up until 3am, but given that this was a finals pairing I had been rooting for all postseason, I thought it'd be worth it. And then I find out the finals are only on ESPN+ and some f***in TV channel and not on the NBA's own streaming service. What kind of backwards, dumb crap is that? But since I was on vacation during that time, I thought to myself 'Meh, I'm gonna treat myself.' So I tried to get a monthly subscription for whatever channel the games were on. Turns out it is impossible to even register if you're not a US citizen. VPN doesn't help, because you need a US credit card to even sign up. Seriously, what the f?"
- debiler
Comcast
"Comcast is the obvious first thing that comes to mind."
"Been free of them a few years and they just tried to sell to me again today. When I was a customer and had issues (related to internet and xfinity mobile) the issue never got fixed and actually drew out the process of switching providers."
- panopt1con
"Not sure if anyone remembers 'The Consumerist' blog/zine/whatever, but Comcast was the only 3-time winner of the annual Golden Poo. In 2007, they beat out Blackwater after the Nisour Square massacre was made public."
- IvanNemoy
Purdue Pharma
"Purdue PHARMA. Pieces of horsesh*t."
- Acceptable-Damage
"Don’t disrespect horse sh*t like that"
- Additional-Share4492
"As a pharmacist (US), 100% agree. Drug reps/ads/marketing/putting a financial incentive on any prescribing or dispensing AT ALL should be illegal."
- humpbackwhale88
Intuit
"I'm like 8 hours deep into trying to fix a Quickbooks issue for someone with their phone support, so I'm going to go with Intuit."
- teeth_03
"Used to have to call Intuit pretty much regularly to help with QuickBooks stuff at my old job and I can confirm this. I was always holding for over 40 minutes and then the person I got could never help me resolve anything. There was a time I had a case that didn't get resolved for like a month, and I called to see if they had a resolution and they'd closed out my case number without notifying me."
- OhSoNotS01mportant
"Intuit owns TurboTax which lobbies the government to make taxes more confusing to force people to use their ~$200 service."
- DigitalUnderstanding
"Every April my motto is 'F*ck TurboTax'"
- Inevitable_Bag_6232
Niantic
"Niantic"
- Leeser
"Hello fellow Pokémon Go player."
- Moon_Dark_Wolf
"I came here to say this. Most games add more and more quality of life fixes as the game goes on, whereas Niantic constantly takes things away and makes the experience worse."
- bound52
"The players are the product, not the consumer (Niantic sells the user data in bulk)."
"The fact Niantic was so hell bent on revoking the QOL improvements from the pandemic that made it a much better GAME shows how little they care about making a good game."
- SlapHappyDude
US Airlines
"Literally every US airline. Midwest Express was a brief exception until Frontier murdered them and mutilated the corpse."
- pinniped1
"🎶 because we’re Delta airlines, and life is a f*cking nightmare🎶"
- FlabbyFishFlaps
"Now go take this meal voucher that doesn’t work. Go! Fetch!!"
- insultant_
"I never got how they could book more passengers than seats. They're literally selling what they don't have. Yeah they may have no shows so what they've paid."
- ADelightfulC*nt
Pacific Gas & Electric
"PG&E here in California. They literally killed all those elderly people in the Camp Fire, got a slap on the wrist for it, and have upped all our bills to cover the fines they had to pay."
- melissamarieeee
"There was also this one time when a segment of gas pipe they didn't get to fixing leveled a neighborhood."
- J_B_La_Mighty
"Dont forget about them blowing up part of San Bruno... And the north bay fires.. and"
- ImMacksDaddy
Nursing Homes
"Nursing Homes. They keep you alive just to make money off of you. My mother is in a living hell."
- Limp_Distribution
"Paramedic here, can confirm. Sorry about your Mom."
- RXakis
"My wife just retired from one as a nurse and would agree with you. We are more humane to our pets than our elderly."
- marklar_the_malign
Insurance Companies
"Literally any insurance companies. Home, auto, life, health. Doesn’t matter they all hate their customers"
- Awkward_Dad2023
"When your whole business model revolves around NOT giving your customers money..."
- NotAnotherBookworm
"Former auto. We’re trained weekly on techniques for how to get you off the phone sooner over actually doing the work to fix their problem. Steering customers back to your scripts they made up for every situation because the customer holds no power in the situation. Also here’s some “best practices” for faking empathy!!"
"The thing about insurance is they 100% can help with many things that they simply won’t help with."
- Petrcechmate
AirBNB
"I'm shocked that AirBnB isn't on this list yet. They absolutely don't care about their customers and have significantly made real estate worse. Their fees are almost as bad as Ticketmaster."
- tcrudisi
"Yeah f*ck Airbnb. For lots of reasons, but their contribution to the housing crisis is top of my list."
- gakka-san
"I was just thinking this too. Not to mention how much gentrification it’s causing."
- loidalien
"Yes, omg. Some of these properties are awful. Stayed in one in which furniture was all covered in dog hair, and yet they gave me no vacuum. Found someone's old Pizza Hut in the oven as well. Air bnb claimed it had been 'professionally cleaned.'"
- DistrictHot1695
Spectrum
"Spectrum aka Speculum"
- hairy_ass_truman
"One of the two companies I wanted to add to this list was Time Warner Cable. They are freaking awful."
"They also changed their name to Spectrum. Probably because they were so hated they needed to ditch the name. I refuse to use their new name and still refer to them as TWC."
- tcrudisi
"Pretty much any Internet provider. They have colluded for 20 years now to ensure that no competitive region exists. In my state, there is 0 overlap of services for network speeds above 100MBps. you can get ATT DSL everywhere, but 25 MBps down and 1-2 up is insufficient for a huge swath of the population. I support a wide range of users who work remote. If their base speeds aren't 50mbps down and 10 up, we won't even process a trouble ticket."
- dapopeah
"How my blood boils even reading the name. Spectrum is the worst company I've ever had the misfortune of giving money to. They have a monopoly on internet on my street, so I have no choice but to deal with them."
- ZombieOfun
Netflix
"Netflix. Good show. Naw, let’s cancel it and renew cheap crap and raise the monthly cost."
- DukeRyder
"Not true, CEO said they never cancelled a popular show /s"
- Ph455ki1
"I lament the joke that in the future there would be a thousand channels, yet nothing to watch, came true."
- Deleted User
How do companies that so clearly hate their customers stay in business?
A huge part of adult life is learning to be financially responsible.
This means, keeping track of the money you earn and where it comes from, making a budget plan or at least budgeting in your head, and never spending more than you have, even if you think you'll be coming into some extra money soon.
In college, I bought a ticket for a Broadway play I wasn't even that keen on seeing just because my best friend wanted to go. Buying my ticket would clean me out for the month, but since my birthday was the following week, I figured I'd get some money from my dad, who had been gifting me money instead of a material possession since I was 12.
Well, my birthday came and went, my dad decided to give me a gift card to a bookstore, which was a nice thought, but useless at the time, and I had to ask my friends for loans just to buy groceries that month. I lived above my means that month, which was a terrible experience, but it taught me to be smarter when it comes to finances.
Redditors know all to well how easy it is to make poor financial choices, and sometimes never learn your lesson, and they are ready to share their experiences.
It all started when Redditor Pitiable-Crescendo asked:
"What was the most disappointing movie you paid to see?"
That Stinks!
"My friend's roommate once asked him to borrow money so he could order novelty fart-smell spray from Amazon, instead of waiting for his paycheck."
"There are worse financial choices than going into debt for a can of fart spray, but it's certainly the funniest one I've heard."
– The_Lawn_Ninja
"Well, to be fair, how good was this fart spray?"
– Mercurial8
Worse And Worse
"Driving a very expensive car with tons of body damage because all their money is going to their $800 a month car payment and they can’t afford to fix the damage they caused with their sh*tty driving."
– Eyfordsucks
"I had this exact conversation with my friend today, if you cant afford to fix your car, you probably shouldn't be owning a 2022 60k Mercedes."
– Windir666
"You don’t even deserve it if it’s beat up after a year!"
– mclarensmps
Trust, No Trust
"My wife’s siblings each just received a 117k disbursement from their mothers trust. So far one brother who doesn’t own a home nor a pension plan and is 55 went out and bought a brand new Harley Davidson Full bagger bike. The other brother, who was homeless three months ago is shopping for a Dodge Charger. He is 65 and can’t afford to retire. Her three sisters haven’t made any big purchases yet.It is tough to watch knowing how hard my in-laws worked to leave a little money for the siblings."
– edawg660
"I'm sure this is exactly why your wife's mother left all that money in trust in the first place."
– malogan82
They Can Be Cute Without That
"Designer shoes and jewelry on your infant."
– GenX-1973-Anhedonia
The Lap Of No Luxury
"I worked as a bank teller many many years ago."
"One of my semi-regular customers (Doctor) would come to deposit checks from some pharmaceutical company that he got for prescribing so much of their sh*t. I'm talking 20k, 30k checks that he'd get from them every quarter."
"Anyways, he was making really good money as a Doctor, because his monthly pay that he was getting from the hospital was around 35k net. So I figure he was making 50-60k a month, gross."
"His account was always empty though. You'd be shocked at how much money they spend on stupid sh*t."
"$800 DirecTV bill."
"$1300 bill to the local country club."
"$750 landscaping bill."
"$2500 car payments."
– alwaysmyfault
"I’m not surprised at all. It’s very common for people to live outside their means."
– appyness67
The Better The Job...
"Unfortunately, it is a hard one to answer."
"I used to work in the banking/mortgage industry in Canada 18 yrs ago and this one stuck with me, and I have seen both sides of the coin."
"Example 1- early 30's married couple both doctors. Finally making some money but large student debt. A nice, big rented house with 2 nice cars (prorsche and lexus, leased). No kids and multiple vacations every year. They tried to get a mortgage, and they didn't qualify for anything."
"Example 2- early 30's married couple with a child. Both working decent 60k jobs. Currently renting a modest place with 1 car. No vacations and had some savings. They qualified for a 500k mortgage and were ecstatic. While in the process of telling them that that was their maximum threshold, they stopped me and said, "we try not to live beyond our means so we can hopefully own one day.""
"It was at that moment that I realized that because you have something, it doesn't mean you own something."
– mpah78
"I was in the mortgage game for a while too. It’s crazy how many peoples finances didn’t match what you would assume by looking at their life from an outside perspective."
"The amount of people who were doctors/lawyers and felt they deserved the good life but really had too much debt to live like it was noticeable"
"As well as the blue collar types who saved and saved and never really change their lifestyle at all."
"It’s also crazy how bad at personal finance doctors were. Whenever I heard “we are both doctors” I would wince. One of them was gonna have a bananas credit score with every card maxed out."
"Or anyone with a new fully loaded Nisan titan."
– Small-Cauliflower-37
Live For The Now...
"People who refinance their home in order to take a vacation. You took a week off and only thirty years to pay for it. Brilliant idea, bozo."
– 710AshburyStreet
"Guy I know took a 25k loan on his house to go on on vacation for a month with his family."
"Said you only get to live once. the thing is he went on vacation back to his birth country, and wanted to live large so people think he's successful"
– Fr33z3n
Nothing Lasts Forever
"Going into debt for a wedding."
– alterperspective
"This is so true. A close friend is still paying off her wedding but the marriage ended last year."
– armyofsnarkness
No Joke
"Making payments on a tattoo."
– Queen_of_Trailers
"I met a woman on a dating app once that had a number of tattoos. She had a low income job so I wondered how she could afford them. Turns out she was on a payment plan with the tattoo studio....I was like yeah, no thanks."
– working_class_tired
"Wait, what?! This is actually a thing?! I thought it was just a Jeff Foxworthy joke from the 90's. Holy sh*t, people actually do this..."
– ifnotmewh0
"TIL you can set up payment plans for tattoos and that’s enough learning for me today."
– watudo22
Pika Pi!
"I spent over 80$ tryna win a giant pikachu and failed"
"Could have bought that thing for 34$ but it was well worth it"
– Nolifelolwhat
Save Money, Buy A Car
"Drives a Maserati, but works as a fitness trainer and is in six figures in student loan debt"
– RosemarySaraBlack
"Reminds me of my cousin who lives with his folks, along with his wife and their baby. Apparently, he’s saving so much money on rent that he went out and bought a $65K Tesla. His folks were a little miffed about that, haha."
– BringYourSpleenToYa
I would be miffed too!
Do you have any stories? Let us know in the comments below.
Small talk and gossip have a funny way of impacting the information that we receive and what we feel about it.
So much so, we sometimes accept events or concepts as fact because we've heard the information so many times.
Redditor Emma_Mendoza_ asked:
"Historians, what historical fact does everyone believe in, even though it is not fully proven?"
Textbook Records
"I think many people don't understand that the history taught in schools is sort of a middle ground that historians found during vehement discussions. In particular when it comes to poorly documented events historians tend to present them in a reasonable narrative by biding points that make for a nice story."
"In reality, much of that was very random and didn't make any sense. Later, historians label something e.g. 'renaissance' by inventing the word that is supposed to explain those random events. One thing that struck me... was that the fall of the Western Roman Empire was not a dramatic event for Romans."
"It just happened after decades of unfortunate events. To Romans the day Odeaker removed the emperor was just another political turmoil at the top... much as those that happen daily in your country and go unnoticed."
- TraditionalCherry
Boudica, Who?
"Boudica, the famous Celtic warrior queen who led an uprising to protect Britain from Rome... may not have existed."
"All accounts of her existence come from Roman historians such as Tacitus and Cassius Dio who not only had never stepped foot in Britain but were born after the event took place."
"Tacitus' account came from what he was told by his father-in-law, Agricola, who was stationed in Britain during the time of the event. Cassius Dio's account of the event is far more colorful in its description, but also far more likely to have been fabricated."
"That being said, there is archaeological evidence to suggest some truth to the tale. In both accounts, Boudica and her army are said to have sieged the Roman capital of Camulodunum (now Colchester) and razed it to the ground. There is a burn layer in the city of Colchester that is dated to the year that the revolt took place."
"Also in Tacitus' accounts, the rioters were said to have raided the city's Temple of Claudius and violated the statue of Claudius by beheading it and throwing it into the River Alde. In 1907, the head of a bronze statue depicting Claudius was found in the village of Rendham, downstream from the River Alde."
"So while we lack any material evidence that directly confirms Boudica's existence, we do at least have evidence to suggest that there was a civil disturbance within Roman Britain during the time that her revolt took place."
"Nevertheless, she served an important role in both Tacitus' and Dio's narratives through her alleged speeches to her armies, in which she directly criticized the rule of Emperor Nero (and emasculated him) and the state of Roman society due to its overindulgences. Despite being a female barbarian warrior, she is valorized in the narrative by being given traits that are masculine, heroic, and civilized, embodying the Roman ideal more so than Rome itself under Nero's rule."
"In that sense, there is a likelihood Boudica may have existed to some extent, but the popular narrative around her serves more as a contemporary Roman propaganda piece than an accurate historical narrative."
- LexGonGiveItToYa
Height Is All Perspective
"Napoleon was average height for his time, it's just the average back then is smaller than today which caused us to think he was small for some reason."
- jolankapohanka
"That, and French feet and inches were slightly longer than the English ones. Which the English knew. But it made for good propaganda to not properly translate his measurements and instead claim he was short."
- ElNakedo
Titanic-Sized Truths
"A couple of truths about the Titanic:"
"People saying it was 'unsinkable' was a reflection of shipbuilding at the time. People would have described any modern ocean liner that way, and there was nothing particularly special or unique about the Titanic (in terms of safety)."
"Bruce Ismay being the villain of the story and pressuring Smith to speed up is based on the testimony of only one passenger so it's disputed if such a conversation ever occurred. Ismay denied it (for whatever that might be worth) and there are also many other factors that suggest that it would not have happened, or if it did, Ismay was pleased with the time they had already made as opposed to suggesting they go faster."
- KavyenMoore
The Truth About Archimedes
"Since the new 'Indiana Jones' movie brought it up:"
"No, Archimedes probably did not invent a death ray by using a giant magnifying glass. Although it is attested to in historical sources, the fact that it’s impossible under the known laws of physics suggests it is probably an exaggeration."
- Poorly-Drawn-Beagle
The Rasputin Treatment
"Rasputin was not the lover of the Russian Queen, he simply knew how to treat hemophilia, which Prince Alexei suffered from, and was thus given direct access to the Royal Family. The royal court hated that this strange-looking religious weirdo with no nobility had such massive influence over the Royal Family, so a rumor that he was secretly banging the Tsarina was spread as an attempt to get the Tsar to remove him from the court."
"He couldn’t actually even TREAT hemophilia, he just made everyone stop making it worse."
"The doctors gave the boy aspirin, which made him bleed more, which freaked out his mom who had terrible anxiety and other mental problems, which the boy picked up on and freaked out further. Rasputin didn’t allow him to take aspirin and calmed his mother down, and that’s all it took to keep the boy in good health."
- theoriginaldandan
This Is More Than Sparta
"There were way more Greek warriors than just the 300 Spartans during the battle of Thermopylae."
- ascootertridingataco
Not 'Et Tu Brute'
"Caesar's last words were not, 'Et tu Brute?'"
"That line was created by William Shakespeare."
"Caesar's actual last words are not known but it is speculated they were Why this is violence. After Senator Tullius Cimber grabbed his toga down just as the assassination was beginning."
"Though even those words must be taken with a grain of salt."
- Lizzy_Of_Galtar
The Truth About King Tut
"King Tut is only relevant because his tomb is the only one that was not extensively robbed."
- Peyyton01
"Not robbed until the 1920s anyway."
"I've heard the reason for that was because he was such an insignificant pharaoh that reigned for such a short time that people forgot where his tomb was."
- ST616
"His tomb was placed in the valley of the Kings where rubble was piled on top of and the yearly floods brought more unintentional burying with it. I did see somewhere that his tomb was below the workers' lunch/rest area."
"They now know that whatever he died of was a surprise as his tomb wasn't even finished as there were still brush marks in the plaster on the walls whilst painting. Additionally, they're unsure if his sacrifices used was intended for him, but that's another thing altogether."
- enchantedspoons
"He wasn't a notable Pharaoh, and if anything, one that ancient times would have pitied/loathed."
"It's definitely the uniqueness in the tomb and the preservation rather than him being an important historical figure in Ancient Egypt."
- thetightestchungus
The Fall of the Library of Alexandria
"That the texts in the Library of Alexandria held some sacred knowledge that is lost forever and would change the way we look at the world if we knew what's inside."
"But, we DO know what was inside. 80%-90% of the Library of Alexandria was copied and spread throughout Africa and the Middle East by the time it had burned down."
- ItsADepature
"Saying the Library of Alexandria was lost to a fire itself is also wrong. The Library of Alexandria was actually multiple libraries within the city, and only one of which famously burned and most scrolls were actually saved. The truth is the Library of Alexandria wasn’t lost to a raging fire; it simply fizzled out over the centuries..."
"Interest in the libraries waned, rulers cut funding, buildings fell into disarray and/or were converted for other uses, etc. It’s just far more dramatic to say that a huge chunk of the world’s knowledge was lost to a fire; propaganda that became “truth” over the last 2000 years."
- casual_creator
The Writing of 'The Odyssey'
"People believe that Homer was an actual living person who composed the entire 'Odyssey.'"
"There's no historical proof of his existence. It's entirely possible he's either a composite of many different storytellers or a mythical figure himself (the blind bard)."
- chipdriver
Lost in Translation
"I'm not a historian, per se, although I read a lot about ancient civ/history."
"Just found out today that Virgin Mary might just be the accidental mistranslation of a word hundreds of years after the original writings. And that's if you even take scripture seriously to start."
"Apparently in a translation from one language to another, the word for 'young and nubile' was swapped for a word meaning 'virgin' and the entire Virgin Mary arc started as a result."
"If true, it's wild."
- AVBforPrez
Numerical Translations
"Everyone in the Heian era in Japan (who was not an aristocrat or clergy) was a farmer first and foremost. This belief originates from records labeling all those people farmers (new theories suggest that the term's meaning shifted over time) and taxes being paid in rice."
"Again, recent discoveries indicate common practices like exchanging the goods brought in yearly for their value in rice and then accepting the rice as tax. We are fairly certain that this was done to balance the books and in actuality the farmers submitted their goods and the authorities wrote the complicated exchange process down but never actually carried it out for the sake of efficiency."
"This leaves the issues of rice fields, as the legal framework required everyone to keep and tend a certain area of rice fields. The reality suggests that most profitable businesses paying their tax on other goods had lower farm yields than most. The question here becomes whether they engaged in other means of accumulating value because they only had bad soil or whether they simply neglected the assigned fields."
"If the former is the case we can be somewhat certain that the society was (at least in its own perception) primarily farming-based. If the latter is the case (as is the consensus among many historians right now, but not in school books or among the Japanese general population) it seems Japan was more advanced at that point than previously thought."
"I tend to think that they were initially based around a mostly subsistence economy with a feudal-adjacent system but evolved into a normal feudal society (by relaxed standards) fairly soon. Still, historically almost everyone believes in the subsistence idea, despite evidence slowly accumulating against it."
- RoamingArchitect
The Truth About Calvary
"Obligatory not a historian, but a pre-historic archaeology student who has used this opportunity to research quite a bit of medieval history too."
"That cavalry only ever attacks from the rear or sides, and that frontal-charging infantry with cavalry is almost suicidal for horses."
"This I believe is a myth originating from what amounts to balancing decisions in wargames."
"While it is true that frontal charging with cavalry is tricky, it is still relatively common. During certain periods it was more common than in others. One of the most prominent instances of frontal-charging cavalry was the Latin European culture of the Middle Ages (High Middle Ages in particular). Their mounted knight's frontal-charged infantry for hundreds of years, to generally great effect too."
- ThisOneForAdvice74
Through word of mouth and entertainment, there are certain stories that have been so powerful, they're simply accepted as fact from the beginning.
What's amazing to think about is how they're never contested after being heard for so many years.
When I was 11, I developed a crush on a boy who was obsessed with X-Men comics. Wanting something to talk about, I told him I loved the X-Men, and was dying to read the issue he had on his desk, which I knew was new only because my brother was into X-Men and I was the one who took him to the store to purchase it.
The boy seemed pretty impressed and asked me who my favorite X-Men was. I said Wolverine since he was the only one I knew. The boy agreed with my opinion.
That night, I looked up biographies and power descriptions of a bunch of X-Men characters so I would be able to discuss the characters with him the next day. However, the next day, he didn't want to discuss the characters, but the events of the newest issue. He asked me if I had read it, I stupidly said yes, and he asked me what my favorite part was.
I was literally saved by the bell, as class ended at that moment, but the lie seriously backfired. I ended up never speaking to that boy again because I could not get trapped in another X-Men conversation. I never lied to a crush again.
I'm not alone in this. People lie about being interested in all sorts of things -- sometimes really dumb things -- to impress a crush or date. Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their stories.
It all started when Redditor Adventurous-Ebb6556 asked:
"What is the dumbest thing you have pretended to be interested in because you wanted to date someone?"
Shouldn't Have Lied
"Going antiquing"
"Now we’re married, and we go every weekend"
"Help"
– Hoyle33
"Ah yes, is your home also filled to the brim with things that we will "resell someday""
"I think I have about 10 antique tables in my basement"
– vikingArchitect
A Crazy Route To Success
"Law. She was telling me about working for her dad's law firm during college and she was going to sign up for a Princeton Review LSAT course. I had good grades, a double major that had no career options other than professor in both, so I signed up for the LSAT class to study with her. Ended up getting a full ride to a school that rejected her and she broke up with me. This upcoming Monday I'm scheduled for maybe my 150th jury trial (if I had to guess how many I've done over 15 years)."
– SpiceLaw
"This is reverse Legally Blonde"
– Particular-Sink7141
"illegally brunette?"
– TH3_V3GAS
The Guitar Was More Interesting
"Started playing guitar to impress a girl. Got into guitar and kind of lost interest in the girl."
– Rude_Independence_14
"…then lost interest in all girls…then also guys…then there was just the guitar. We moved to Montana and started a small business selling crocheted guitar cosies."
– classactdynamo
Microsoft Of Course!
"Excel. Dude kept talking about how good he is at it. Wedding is in January."
– Starrydecises
"Make sure he gets it properly on his calendar since Excel is notoriously bad at dates. Clearly he wasn’t."
– raines
Yikes!
"I joined theater at a community college and started dating another actress in the class. I vaguely like musical theater, but I’m not crazy about it. She was tho. She convinced me that I love musical theater and I should transfer to a 4 year university and pursue that as a degree."
"I applied for the musical theater program at a 4 year university, I got accepted, and she and I wound up breaking up after a month at the new school. I didn’t want to deal with changing degree plans."
"I now have a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre and I don’t even like musicals that much.
"I just tell people I have a degree in “theater”"
– Pope00
"You win, dude."
– dearlysacredherosoul
"Have you thought about making a musical about it?"
– TomPal1234
Lie, Exercise
"Was dating a runner who as reeeaallly into distance running. I’ve never ever felt compelled to run but talking about it with him all the time convinced me to try it … I’m running my first half marathon in less than 2 months hahah"
– Ukeiok
"Did you get the guy tho?"
– apell_ri
"Majorly messy. He moved across the world, I visited him, he’s now seeing someone else but will be back in my city in the future. I’m pretty cut up about the whole thing but I guess we’ll see what the future holds"
"at least I’m a runner now hahah"
– Ukeiok
He Was A (Sore) Loser
"Does it count as dumb if I wound up enjoying it? Learned to play Magic the Gathering in middle school because I had a huge crush on one of the guys who played at lunch every day. We hung out a couple times, then he refused to talk to me after the first time I beat him. But I kept playing, still do, and it my late 20's it turned out to be one of the first things my husband and I connected over."
– thing_m_bob_esquire
"You know the kid wasnt the right one when he couldnt be humble in defeat."
– Nnetaru
Ride Like The Wind
"I said I could ride a horse, which I clearly couldn't. She booked a beach ride and after the initial slow walk to the beach she took off on her horse and mine decided that it would be cool to follow them at full speed. I remember praying to any god that would listen to help stop this creature, white-knuckled it until the end."
– pavlovsape
Travel Plans
"I used to have this habit of lying about my ancestry when I was drunk. Really, a lot of the times, I was just f**ked up and confused - my mom is adopted and all she really knows about her lineage is that she is central or Eastern European. She got one of those DNA tests done that tell you where your family is from, and she told me the results, but over time I’ve kind of forgotten them."
"So I’m sitting in a bar, a guy approaches, he sits beside me and he looks sad. I was a couple drinks deep so I began to talk to him about why he was sad, how I could help, etc. I told him that I love to travel when I’m feeling “stuck” in life, and I asked him where he would travel to if he could go anywhere. He said he wanted to go to Russia."
"“How cool, I’m actually Russian!” 🙄 “No way, really? What are the odds?” “I know, crazy, right?”"
"He was quite drunk by this time as well. We started talking about buying plane tickets to Russia together, changing our identities, etc. we actually tried to buy tickets, but found out quickly we needed visas and we were too drunk for that sh*t. I found him really charming, I liked talking to him. I took his number down even though I was going on a two week trip to another state the next day. Got back from my trip, got back to work for a couple weeks, but he was still on my mind so I invited him to hang out."
"Long story short, we’re married now. Fwiw, he does now know that I’m not Russian."
– TripAway7840
Desperation?
"I once went along with a girl who was wiccan and truly believed her pet rock was her familiar and she would talk to it."
– Mad3yez
"I converted to Latvian Orthodoxy when my girlfriend’s parents said that she couldn’t date anyone outside the faith."
– ExistentialCamper
"Many years ago, School choir. I can’t sing. My parents were bewildered at having to attend a recital to watch me lip sync."
– TalkaboutJoudy
Backfired
"His deep conspiracy theory level fixation with alien coverups... I told him I'm open to the idea of extraterrestrial life and then unwisely agreed to an Ancient Aliens marathon. It lasted about three weeks."
– Throwaway28404028
Dating Diet
"On a first date at a coffee shop, a guy I liked said his family was “sort of Buddhist” and so he grew up eating lots of vegetarian food and plant-based alternatives. I said that was super cool, and that “I always wanted to eat more plant based.”"
"We were both in college, so when we started seeing each other regularly, most of our dates were getting meals together in the dining hall. For MONTHS, I was eating way more vegetarian food (and not good vegetarian food, we’re talking steamed tofu and sometimes unseasoned chickpeas) mostly because I wanted him to think I was cool and respectful of animals."
"Eventually, I decided to come clean and say that I was doing it to impress him but that I needed to stop eating sh*tty dining hall tofu. He then told me he had noticed I would always go for plant based, so he had also been eating more vegetarian also in an attempt to impress me. We ditched the dining hall that night and went for double bacon cheeseburgers."
– Forward-Community708
"Bacon brings people together!"
– ArcheryTXS
Movie Saddness
"It may not be the dumbest content but I have a dumb story about The Hunger Games. Years ago I was interested in a girl who was looking forward to seeing the second Hunger Games movie. So I watched the first one in hopes of taking her out to see the second one. Unfortunately for me she started seeing someone else before we went, so I felt Id wasted my time. Fast forward a year. I started seeing a girl just after Halloween of the next year and she was super excited about seeing the third Hunger Games movie. So, once again, I watched the Hunger Games movies in prep to see it. In keeping with the theme, we split like a week or two before the movie came out, so to date I have seen the first two Hunger Games movies and have no intention of watching any more"
– tenphes31
"This is basically me with Twilight."
– zombieforguitars
"I had a roommate agree to go see the new X-Men with me if I went to the new Harry Potter with her. I had to watch like 3 movies to get caught up and went to the 4th with her in theaters and then she totally bailed on X-Men"
– nAsh_4042615
That story sounds pretty familiar!