| Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay |
Growing up, I was usually responsible for cleaning the kitchen and taking out the trash on trash day. Those were my chores. I knew that. So I did them. But few things would demotivate me more than if I was ordered to do something. Telling me to clean the kitchen when I have no way of proving to you that I was about to go to the kitchen is aggravating.
After Redditor ZOOW33M4M4fk asked the online community, "What was your biggest 'Well, now I don't want to do it' moment?" people shared their stories.
"We're no longer friends."
For my 18th birthday my parents bought me 18 lottery tickets. It's a sort of tradition in our family. Didn't win anything except another three tickets. The day after my party, my best friend and I were out shopping and I decided I wanted to exchange them for the other tickets so we stopped at the nearest gas station. I won $500. As we were leaving I was considering splitting the money with my friend. Until we got in the car and she told me to buy her a new phone. I was silent for a moment out of shock and she added "that money is mine too, I drove here"
I gave her $10 for gas. We're no longer friends.
"While I was at a jeweler's shop..."
While I was at a jeweler's shop buying my ex-girlfriend's engagement ring, she called and was screaming at me for having got the wrong kind of pot roast for a dinner we were hosting. I stood there, listening to her scream and cuss me out and decided I didn't want to do this for the rest of my life. Happily married now to a woman that is way chill and never screams at me on the phone.
We certainly don't blame this person.
It's truly amazing what being treated that way can do for your clarity. I developed significant self-respect the more I understood that such treatment is not okay. I'm a much happier and healthier person now.
This next one is pretty relatable.
"It has become a common thing..."
My mother always tells me something obvious whenever I try to do something, then immediately starts bragging to anybody nearby that I would've never figured out how to change that tire/wash those dishes/vacuum that rug if she hadn't told me how to do it. It has become a common thing recently to just drop whatever I'm doing and leave it unfinished until she does it herself. I hate having anyone hover over me just so they can treat me like a brainless moron who only exists for their personal amusement.
"Some of the best advice..."
Some of the best advice I've been given is "Don't discourage the behavior you want to see."
As a parent, I try to apply it every day with my children - which is hard, because I've always been really sarcastic by nature, even with my friends and loved ones.
So I pretty much stopped..."
A big name trainer came to the barn where I kept my horse. Totally different discipline, but I had absolutely no problem with her and her dozens of students being there.
I happen to be pretty good at certain things that this trainer simply could not do. She was very well known, but not necessarily GOOD at her job. So she had me give her students pointers from time to time. I love all aspects of the sport, and I enjoy working with younger riders, so I gave them pointers. You can see where this is going- before long, I was essentially teaching her students. She was getting paid hundreds of dollars for me to teach her students.
One night, she used my horse for one of her lessons, and got mad at me because her student couldn't ride it properly. Imagine a banjo player trying to squeak out a tune on a clarinet. It's not that the student *COULDN'T* ride it properly; she just didn't know how to finesse the situation. Essentially the trainer thought that since I was working with the student, the student should be able to ride my horse perfectly. Hell, I couldn't ride my horse perfectly.
So I pretty much stopped coming out when I knew they would be there, and if they were there, I stayed away. As much as I loved working with the kids, that ruined it.
"I like reading..."
Reading. I like reading but the moment my mom/a teacher tells me to read I just don't feel like it anymore.
That's a shame.
Reading is wonderful! I am immensely grateful to everyone who fostered my interest in reading.
This next one left us gobsmacked.
"My mum and I had both been thinking..."
My mum and I had both been thinking that what with the pandemic, and with how our house is situated so that it's quite visible when entering our village, we should decorate the house more than we normally do for Christmas. Nothing fancy, just a few more lights outside.
Then we got a village-wide email from a very well-meaning lady saying that since 'Christmas is going to be a little bit different this year' she was launching Operation: Light Up [Village] and wanted us all to put extra effort into the Christmas decorations.
We both instantly went off the idea. We'd really wanted to potentially cheer people up on their drives home, but not if this woman was going to think she was the sole factor in making this happen.
We eventually did decorate the house, and even brought some new multicoloured lights to do it, but it was later than usual, just so that we could make sure we weren't doing it at the same time as the Operation.
"One Christmas..."
One Christmas, I was going to invite the family to gather at our house for a change (instead of at our aunt's home).
But some are vegans, others allergic to all kinds of foods, while still others insist on having certain "traditional" dishes and that the house had to be decorated a particular way, or "it wouldn't feel like Christmas."
In the end, I just gave up and we went to our aunt's house instead - let her deal with all their demands and complaints.
"I'd have to gather my strength..."
When I'd call my parents, but the first 20 minutes of the phone call would be me unable to get a word in edgeways while they berated me for not calling more often.
Not surprisingly, this made me demotivated to call the next time, because I knew it couldn't ever be a quick call (I'd need to have a lot of time free to allow room for an actual conversation after the bollocking) and I'd feel awful. Who'd have thought that telling someone they're terrible every time you speak to them makes them dread speaking to you?
I'd have to gather my strength before a call--it could never be after a long day or anything because that would be so much harder to take--and prepare a list of what I wanted to talk about so I didn't forget from being so miserable by the time they finished their tirade. It took so much planning and emotional work.
How hard is it to say, "It's great to hear from you! How've you been?" Or at least to question whether all your children avoiding speaking to you might not possibly be your own fault, and try to change that?
"One day in class..."
This might not be a good example, but I had a good friend in high school, who I hung out with a decent amount. We were pretty close, and shared a lot about our personal lives with each other
One day in class I was sitting with him, his girl, and a few other acquaintances. I asked if he would like to hang out the coming weekend. His response was to laugh and ask if I did ANYTHING other than hang out with him, proceeding to (loudly) explain that he knew I hadn't done anything the previous weekend and if it weren't for him I would just sit at home all the time.
I've never wanted to redact an invitation so strongly.
"The dozens of times..."
The dozens of times I have come up with a YouTube video idea that I thought was cool late at night only to wake up the next day and think, "Meh, I don't really care anymore."
"Made me realize..."
I helped out at my kid's school wherever I could. I wasn't working so I was happy to be rostered in the uniform shop, bake for the cake stalls, supervise the disco and hand out flyers.
School sent out a letter saying parents weren't doing enough to support the school and it was "mandatory" that every parent did four hours of volunteering per year.
Made me realise how much I'd over delivered and how unappreciated my efforts were. Calculated I'd done about 30 years of my mandate and didn't give them a second more of my time after that!
(Yes you read that right, mandatory volunteering).
"Well, as can be expected..."
When I had to get glasses, I also wanted to get contacts, so as to not have to deal with the hassle of glasses. Obviously, putting things in your eyes is unnatural and against all instincts your body has, so they have someone help you learn how to put them in, and they make sure you can get them in and out successfully at least three times before you leave. The woman that was showing me was super unhelpful, and had terrible customer service. I think I was 21, so I know how to regulate myself, and can recognize when certain things happen.
Well, as can be expected, as I was bringing this foreign object close to my eye to put it in, my eye didn't like the idea, and I had to fight my instincts to keep it open. I also had to worry about my eye drying out, as I was moving slowly to avoid poking myself in the eye, or dropping the contact lens, or putting it in there folded or something. This woman, though, was very rude and annoying, and felt the need to keep telling me the same things over and over. "Don't blink. Open your eyes. Put it in."
Yes, I know, I'm aware of how this is supposed to work. No matter how many times I told her I got it, she wouldn't shut up and leave me alone. She kept saying "blink" every time I blinked. "Yes, I know I blinked! It's my own eye, I can feel it!" But she kept on, every single time. I was so pissed off at her. I wanted to just throw the contact back at her and tell her to shut up, but I just kept trying, to get out of there as quickly as possible.
"The following semester..."
I was friends with someone who I had several classes with, but they didn't fully grasp the subject. Since I wanted to help I tutored them for about an hour before every class. I didn't mind since I was helping a friend and the review paid off for me a couple of times. At the end of the semester I needed help in a different class because of a disability I have. The task was light for someone physically able, would take around 10 minutes, and was the difference between the project being done or not. So I asked them and they asked for money. Not even mentioning the tutoring, I offered to buy drinks afterward because it felt weird to just pay someone after giving them so much free help, but they insisted on cash. I declined, didn't finish the project, and told myself that I wasn't going to tutor them again. I just didn't tell them that.
The following semester we had multiple classes together and they still struggled. So I kept my word to myself and watched them fail two classes while dropping a third I wasn't in, but was based on the basic skills I had been tutoring them in in the previous semester so could have helped. They kept hinting at wanting help and I just ignored it. The regained free time was nice and seeing how one-sided our "friendship" had been allowed me some schadenfreude at their failure, but they did get revenge by physically attacking me in a way that targeted my disability at the end of the semester so that sucked.
This pretty much sums up my own experience with contacts.
It was terrible and the woman at the shop made me so uncomfortable the more she yelled at me. It made me nervous. And being nervous certainly wasn't going to help me put this foreign object into my eye. I stuck with glasses until LASIK a while later.
This next one made us think, Why would you do a thing like that?
"When I was a little kid..."
When I was a little kid, I promised myself that when I grew up, I would make a bowl of cake frosting and just eat the whole bowl, without bothering with the cake part.
There really is something to be said about being made to do things.
In that scenario, even the things you want to do sound like things you're better off avoiding.
But seriously, I just don't have much of a sweet tooth so the idea of eating cake frosting––just cake frosting––kinda grosses me out.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments below!
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Lifehacks, if applied properly, can really change the course of a single household chore.
Chores can really be such a pain to take care of, and nobody wants to do it. But with a little life hack under your belt, you might be able to turn chore time into something a little fun.
u/rat-avec-london asked:
What is a lifehack that seems fake, but is a true lifesaver?
Here were some of those answers.
My Finger, The Glass
If your ring gets stuck on your finger windex will slide it right off. Worked at a jewelry store for five plus years.
You can also use any oil (cooking, automotive... anything).
You can also reduce the size of your hand (and finger) by holding it up in the air. Chilling your hand in cold water THEN holding it up in the air for a couple minutes whilst rubbing oil &/or dishwashing fluids in there... trifecta of ring removal.
Should work on anyone that just stole Sauron's prize - though biting it off also works, i suppose.
Multiple Uses
Use shaving cream as anti-fog. I used it on the inside of my motorcycle visor. Smear it on, let it dry, then rinse off and dry. It also works for bathroom mirrors. You can use it on a small spot so you can still see when you get out of the shower.
Shaving cream also removes the smell of urine. If you ever have to take care of someone who is old and/or sick and who wets the bed, a little shaving cream on a rag wiped over their buttocks after they are thoroughly cleaned up helps them really smell clean again.
It's a bit of a sad tip, I know, but you never know when you might end up caring for someone who needs help with things like this. Nobody wants to smell. A dab of shaving cream to restore a bit of dignity? Priceless.
Pretty Important For Stage Actors
Every male should know this. If you want to get rid of an awkward boner flex any muscle in your body maybe an arm. For a minute. The blood will rush to that muscle and away from your penis. Crisis averted.
These life hacks really don't seem real at all, but if you can swear by them, they can save your life.
Obligatory Poop Hack
I saw a comment on one of these kinda threads that recommended gently rocking back and forth while pooping. I've never had any problems in the bathroom, but I happened to be sitting on the toilet when I read the comment so I decided to give it a test drive. I was pleasantly surprised at how quick and effortless the whole experience was and I haven't gone back to my old stationary technique since. As a bonus, #1 and #2 now require the same amount of time in the bathroom!
It's The Alcohol
If you have funky armpits and need to fix them fast, use hand sanitiser. I figured this out years ago when I remembered that the smell comes from bacteria reactions - which antibacterial hand gel kills stone dead. Instant results and the medical smell lasts only a minute. Don't do this routinely though as it's delicate skin.
But Hopefully It's Just A Playing Puppy
True lifesaver: if you are ever attacked by a dog, push your forearm INTO the bite. This pries the jaws apart and prevents them from clamping down. If a dog is attacking you, the best thing you can do is offer your forearm, push as far back as possible, and then grab the dog by the scruff of its neck with your other hand to hold it. The dog is now functionally muzzled and you have control of its head. The sooner and harder you push into the bite, the less damage the bite will do.
Get It Off Anything
That rubbing alcohol removes chewing gum.
I'd go through a 20 layer deep marketing funnel to get to that tip because it really does work.
Also wow! Thank you for all of the awards nice Redditors. I completely forgot I left this comment and came back and my notifications had blown up.
And previously impossible situations will give way at long last.
Sayonara Capsaicin
Rubbing vegetable oil (or any cooking oil) on your hands after you cut up jalapeños or other hot peppers. It gets rid of the awfulness that would normally be left on your hands from the peppers. I rub my hands with oil and then wash it off with dish soap. I can totally remove my contacts after doing this. It's crazy how well this works.
Crying Crying
Put your onion in the freezer for 10 minutes before chopping it. It freezes the juices just enough to slow down the process of it turning in to a gas, giving you a few minutes to chop the onion without tears. I learnt this tip from a kid's science show years ago and I haven't had to deal with onion tears since. So many people don't believe me, and then are genuinely surprised when it works.
Just A Quick Little Base
The cheapest, most effective, and safest insecticide against roaches (especially those huge "water bug" roaches that we have in the South) is a spray bottle of mostly water with just a little liquid dish soap in it.
Shake the bottle & get the water a little foamy, then spray the roaches. They will run, scrabble, and attempt escape, of course, but they will die. The soap film suffocates them faster than any chemicals will.
A friend told me about this, & I thought she was nuts, but I tried it & it works amazingly well. Plus it's very easy to clean up and safe around food (not that you want to spray soapy water ON your food).
Incorporating any of these lifehacks into your home may make a big difference. You'll never want to turn back.
Or you will, whatever. But they're worth a try!
Gamers Who Stream Live Share The Creepiest Thing They've Ever Heard Someone Say Into Their Mic While Playing
| Image by Olya Adamovich from Pixabay |
I'm not much of a gamer, but I have quite a few friends who are. I never fail to be unnerved by some of the stories they share about toxic personalities who give the gamer community a bad name. Did you know for example that women often have to deal with misogyny and abuse while playing online? Blatant sexism can turn something as simple as enjoying a videogame into an emotional minefield for women.
After Redditor TerribleVanilla3768 asked the online community, "Gamers of Reddit, what's the creepiest or scariest thing you've ever heard someone say into their mic?" people shared their stories.
Content warning: Some sensitive material ahead.
"Someone walked into their apartment..."
Playing WoW years ago (12 or so years ago when this happened) with long-time guildies. The raid leader was talking and giving instruction and then cut out with:
"What the f*** was that? Hey, who are..."
And then the mic went silent. 40 of us just sat there wondering what happened. No one knew the Raid leader in person (or where they lived), so we tried contacting Customer Service to report it. I don't remember what they/Blizzard did (it was like twelve years ago), but the Raid kind of fell apart that night. I think the cops did get sent because they eventually made it to the Raid Leader's apartment.
The next day, Raid Leader was on and apologized. Someone walked into their apartment and went into their bedroom. Turns out a senior neighbor (I think it was an older lady, but, again, 12 years) got "lost" and thought they were on their floor. They walked into the apartment (RL forgot to lock the door) and got startled in "their" bedroom when he shouted out. The Senior were very confused as to who this loud person was in their apartment but ended up feeding Raid Leader cookies (his own as it turned out) until the police came and sorted it out.
No charges and Raid Leader thought it was funny, and had a nice conversation with the other person and then the police walked them back to their own room and did a wellness check. I guess the senior was living with an adult child, but wandered off and got lost.
So it ended up being a happy story, but hearing your friend/associate get cut off in mid-speech and then going AFK/timing out of the game while shouting "who are you?" was the creepiest thing I overheard. Half of us were sure they just got jumped by someone, the other half thought it was a bad joke. I also was just a year out from my own B&E incident where I was held up at gunpoint and robbed, so I was having a bit of a panic attack too.
This is thankfully a bit more lighthearted than other stories here.
Dementia is no joke.
"I was doing a Destiny 2 raid..."
I was doing a Destiny 2 raid and a guy started violently beating his kids. Like we could hear the sound of a belt in the background and the screams of the children. He then came back and was all chipper like "All right, sorry for the noise, let's get back to it!" And all of us were dead silent.
"A few weeks later..."
Was playing Destiny 2 on PS4 a year ago, when I met some people from a clan. I wanted to do some raids so I joined.
A few weeks later one of the clan leaders told me, in a cold and absent voice that he once killed two people in an accident. He then proceeded that he now works in a warehouse, driving a stapler all day and that he constantly speeds, because people should pay attention where they walk and it's not his fault if they get run over.
I didn't play with them from then on and soon left the clan. I don't want to know what's going on in his head.
"Mostly..."
Mostly people threatening to come to my house and attack me.
One time on Siege, I was in a party with some folks I just met. A new guy joins, and he knows the girl in the party, her address, and starts texting her stuff like which room she's in. We dealt with it quickly.
"The worst..."
Normal crap you hear being a chick on the internet. Lots sexual harassment, etc. I've gotten to the point where it doesn't even register in my head as anything but background noise.
The worst was probably when I was twelve, playing on my iPad. A guy on the text chat threatened to doxx me and followed me around the game world, right behind me, claiming we were "having sex". I just wanted to play a fun PvE zombie game, yo. Dipped pretty quick, couldn't sleep that night. Creeps online don't remember it in a week, but that f**** with me as a kid.
The fact that this is just the reality for so many women...
...is depressing.
"It was 2008..."
It was 2008 and my Xbox 360 was brand new at the time and a birthday gift. I eagerly set everything up and the first game I decide to play was a pre-installed demo called Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions. For a demo, this allowed online team matches and headset usage. This was also the moment when my fellow players found out that I was a girl.
A guy with the username "KillaMan" messaged me almost immediately and pressed why a girl decided to play a game clearly made for guys. I forget exactly what I wrote, although I said as much as I'm there for the same reason everyone else was. Well, he kept on messaging me, only his messages turned into explicit ones about me "willing to do more than play a shooting game," among other things. I ignored them, then he went so far as to say that he could find out my home address no problem. Even if he was bluffing, I was still freaked out and decided to block and report him. His handle registered as non-existent when I went to look him up.
Weeks went by and I get a message from a gamer tag that sounded vaguely familiar. It was that guy again, but this time he was accusing me of reporting him and threatening me that I "needed to prove I was hot". I said no, then he came back and asked for naked pictures in return for an Xbox Live gold membership. I shouldn't have even entertained him, but I decided to play along. I replied to his message that if he was serious and the code was real, send it to me. If the code didn't work, he wasn't getting nudes.
Guy sends the code and it was legitimate. I thanked him and told him to stay by his email for his "surprise". Once again, I reported him to Xbox and blocked him for good measure. Never heard from him again.
"I was playing with my friend D..."
I was playing with my friend D. We were playing Minecraft with a couple of our other friends and D said something stupid and I told him to shut the hell up and he said, "Keep talking to me like that and I'll bring my Glock to school and take care of everybody who keeps bullying me starting with you."
We know he was joking but this happens a lot.
Does D know that this stuff is not funny?
Seriously.
"This one guy..."
This one guy told us about his "poop bucket" that he used when gaming for too long so he didn't have to go to the toilet.
And this wasn't in some random lobby, we were all part of the same gaming website and were pretty familiar with each other.
Still to this day I don't know if he was trolling or serious.
"Somebody tried talking to me..."
Somebody tried talking to me using my real name and city. To this day I have no idea how or why he doxxed me.
Sadly, there are some gamers out there...
...who seem intent on ruining things for the rest of the community. If you hear something, say something.
Have some of your own stories to share? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments section below!
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People Break Down Their Craziest 'I'm Gonna Die Here' Experience That They Actually Survived
| Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay |
As horrifying as the Covid-19 pandemic has been, I can't help but marvel at the people who got through a bad bout of the virus and are still here with us today. The stories I have heard have unnerved me: Quite a few people I know honestly thought they were going to die before things got better. (That's the crazy thing about this virus––you could feel like hell for a while only to experience a major turn-around within 24 hours.)
After Redditor Rares asked the online community, "What is the worst 'I'm gonna die' situation you've been through? people shared their stories.
"In a particularly rough place of the river..."
I was canoeing with my dad when we were on holiday in France. In a particularly rough place of the river, another canoe bumped us and our boat went upside down. I got carried away by the current until a man pulled me out. To this day I am glad that the man was there, otherwise, I would not be here.
"That same year..."
I was kayaking with some friends down a familiar river but the water was much higher than usual. My boat got stuck sideways across a wave. I could move sideways across the wave but I didn't have the strength or skill to get out of either end. After two or three minutes I realised I had to capsize and swim. I was carried about 200m downstream before I could get out. Someone got my boat and paddle but I'd lost my shoes. I had to walk about a mile downstream barefoot to catch them up.
That same year I travelled to the French Alps to do some skiing. I had lessons and thought I was competent enough but on my last day, I found myself on a run that was too steep for me to handle. After falling multiple times I found the only way I could stop myself from going too fast was to fall again. It took me two hours to get down a slope that others were finishing in about five minutes. I kept having flashbacks to the kayaking incident. I kept thinking how stupid I was not to have learnt anything about keeping within my abilities.
"I got a viral infection..."
I got a viral infection that spread to my brain in 2019. By the time my sister got to me to get me to the hospital, I was blind and deaf and "feral" (bit my sister, she has a scar). Everyone at the hospital told her I would've died a few hours later, definitely wouldn't have made it through the night.
Now I'm a disabled amnesiac with chronic pain.
"Had to make an emergency roof repair..."
Had to make an emergency roof repair on my house during an ice storm. Slipped, slid towards the edge of what would have been a 30' fall onto concrete. Stopped with my feet off the edge.
This is terrifying.
To come so close to that and to be stopped in the nick of the time by some dumb luck!
"Remainder of their family..."
A person with a gun shoots and kills one neighbor. The remainder of their family runs to our house for protection. We all hunker down as the person with a gun tries to get into our house.
Also terrifying.
Hopefully the authorities arrived in time.
"Facing down my then wife..."
Facing down my then-wife who was armed with a 9mm handgun. She pulled the trigger and thankfully nothing happened. I took the gun away from her and she ran out of the place. Still don't know why the gun didn't fire. She ended up going to jail and I divorced her shortly thereafter.
Well, there's a happy ending to this one...
...I guess? Sorry you had to go through that.
"A woman was being assaulted..."
A woman was being assaulted outside of my apartment by what seemed to be a boyfriend or husband.
I went out to shout at the guy, and he turned his rage on me instead.
I was about 85% sure I was going to be shot or stabbed. Fortunately, he didn't, and he backed down when he noticed that a crow of concerned people had arrived, and everyone was on the phone with 911.
"When I was about 14..."
When I was about 14, my church went on a youth retreat to rebuild a church on the coast that had been devastated by a hurricane. On the Saturday night of the trip, we went to a bowling alley to finish the weekend on a high note.
I was with all my buddies, there were the "hot" girls in the youth group to be impressed. I had way too much soda and popcorn and was ready to light up the night. The church had rented a Chevy express 12-passenger van, the kind where the seatbelt for the middle row of seats crosses the doorway and you have to duck under it. Well, my idea was to get a running start and launch off of the step into the back seat of the van.
So I did it, and it went pretty well. I got a lot of momentum, and when I launched off the step of the van it was almost perfect. I had intended to go under the seatbelt of the van, but I missed. The seatbelt hit me on the chin, and my momentum forced it down, onto my neck. Feeling the pressure on my neck I panicked and slammed into the back of the second row. The impact flipped me over the seat, into the floorboard of the third row, and twisted the seatbelt behind my neck. I'm not a small kid so my arms were pinned and the more I tried to get them free the tighter the seatbelt got because it had locked due to the impact.
The elapsed time of what had happened was maybe 45 seconds, and the youth leader was still inside paying for the rest of what the group owed. It took about five minutes for a kid to realize that I was actually struggling, and run inside to get him. He ended up cutting the seatbelt with his pocket knife and I am convinced that he saved my life.
"I don't know why I never told her..."
When I was a kid, my mom was a single parent and had awful taste in men. This one, in particular, was a drunk, at all hours of the day.
One day, he was babysitting us while my mom was at work and took us to the local park/lake to swim. About 3 hours go by with my sister and me having fun in the lake but we were tired and hungry and wanted to go home.
The guy had been sitting under a tree the whole afternoon with one of those one-gallon igloo coolers that he said was water, and was "sleeping." When we got out to tell him we wanted to go home, he didn't wake up. It took probably half an hour to shake him out of his alcoholic coma, and then my sister and I (about 4 and 8) had to get him up a very steep hill to the parking lot. He wasn't exactly a large man, but we were little, and pushing a grown man up a hill who keeps stumbling back down was not easy.
Finally, we make it to the car. That was when I realized we were in trouble. He actually got into the car and drove us home, and I use that word lightly... We were on sidewalks and people's front yards more than on the road. I was terrified and kept begging him just to stop, but he ignored me. How we made it home without crashing or being seen by police is anyone's guess. The worst part was that to this day, my mom doesn't know about this event. I don't know why I never told her... Maybe I thought I'd be in trouble. But I was a much more timid child after that.
"My scariest situation..."
My scariest situation was when I was about six. My family and I were at a camping site in a forest. I decided to go a little further and I started getting chased by three stray dogs, but I managed to get back to my parents safely.
Everyone you meet has a story.
You really do not know what other people have been through unless you ask. The resilience of the people around you might surprise you.
Have some of your own stories to share? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments section below!
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Married People Describe The Exact Moment They Wanted To Propose To Their Significant Other
It isn't always the case, but for many couples who go on to become married partners, there was a moment when it became clear and obvious that the other was their soulmate.
Like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky, the realization strikes and the truth feels inarguable: that person is who you want to spend your life with.
And while the epiphany is common, the specific circumstances around it are as various as the many couples who experience it.
Some Redditors shared their versions of that story.
Necochan asked, "Married people of Reddit, what was the moment that made you go, 'this is definitely the person I am going to spend the rest of my life with?' "
For some people, the moment came when they observed their partner demonstrate an act of service.
There was something about the way they couldn't help but act, that their whole essence seemed to become obvious--and something their partner never wanted to let go of.
A Gentle Soul
"We were out swimming at the lake, and there was a ladybug in the water. He carefully picked it up and let it sit on his shoulder until it was dry enough to fly away."
"I've never met anyone who was so gentle with animals - his dog, my parents' diabetic cat who needed shots, friends' cats and dogs."
Shameless
"We had fish at a restaurant for dinner. Didn't sit well with me and by the time we were back at his apartment my stomach and bowels were raging."
"I was so embarrassed that I was spending half the evening in his bathroom so he told me about the time he accidentally sh** himself at a 7-11. Keeper."
Supreme Kindness
"My then-boyfriend and I had taken my wheelchair bound brother to dinner and a movie. When we got home I went to use the bathroom before going through the routine of getting my brother changed, meds, and into bed."
"I came out of the bathroom to him getting my brother out of the chair and onto the bed to change, all the while hilarious 'messing up' to make my brother laugh hysterically. I came right in to help but boyfriend shooed me away to do it all himself."
"It took triple the time but they were both in stitches, turning a usually admittedly mundane routine into a ton of fun. We'll have been married eleven years on the 22nd of this month."
Just a Look
"I had appendicitis. I had just come round from surgery and my mum, dad and now husband were there. We had been friends for years and had just started seeing each other. Both still very worried in case it went wrong."
"Well I was still groggy from the anaesthetic, but it was a womens only ward so they couldn't stay. But I didn't want him to leave. I was so afraid. No idea why, maybe the drugs idk. The look on his face as they led him out broke my heart."
"That's when I knew that man would always be there for me. I mouthed 'I love you' for the first time as he walked away. Been together 7 years now and married for 4. I love that man."
-- Daylar17
Other people experienced the epiphany when an interpersonal interaction took on a whole new weight, and they realized this was the person they wanted to always be with.
Time Passing Invisibly
"When our first phone call lasted over 8 hours. We both had so much to share with one another."
"I flew out to see him within a month. I quit my job of 11 years and moved to his city the following month. We have been together almost 9 years now, and he's still my favorite person to talk to."
When Even the Bad is Good
"We were at a low moment. Lots of bickering and stupid fights. I was still making her lunch every morning before she went to grad school, but it was a rough time in our relationship."
"And then I realized I never wanted to be fighting with anyone else. I wanted to work through our problems and spend my life with her. So we did, we've got two kids, and life is really good."
"All relationships have crisis moments. Find someone worth getting through those moments."
-- LiverFox
Another Side of Her
"My wife is a 'strong independent woman who don't need no man' Which I personally love how she wants to do and think for herself. But this also means she has lots of walls and won't let anyone in and always has to be a badass at all times."
"But in private I can make her blush and smile at will. It's a side of her nobody knows about but me, and I love it."
The Only Place
"My then-girlfriend and I were sitting on the couch one evening just talking. I don't even remember what we were talking about, probably something stupid, but I was struck by the sudden realization that there was no place I'd rather be."
"Just being with her, talking about serious topics or nothing at all, is perfect, and there's no place I'd rather be than with her."
Others, however, pushed back on the prompt.
They explained that, for them, there was no single moment. Rather, there was a slow build until they knew they were with the perfect person.
Everything Enriched
"I realized I had found my person when I started noticing changes in myself. I was more confident, happy, relaxed, and so on." -- Mamacourtney
"My boyfriend has chronic health problems and thus has a lot of bad mood moments in relation. But other than that? He's constantly happy, smiling, confident, and it makes me happy knowing that I've given him an environment that keeps his constant emotion happiness, with his health sprinkling in the rain cloud moods." -- Tomoyo_in_Transwise
A Partner, In Every Sense of the Word
"I hear this question a lot, and I never have an answer. Because I think one day you just come to the realization that living any part of your life without them would be awful."
"I got married not because I was madly in love but because I wanted her to experience all of life's highs and lows with me. I wanted to watch her succeed and grow as a person. I don't believe in soul mates, but I do believe in making a relationship work because it brings you joy."
For all you single people hankering for this feeling, trust that one day it will come your way. And for all those who have such a moment in their own biography, maybe today's a good day to reminisce about it with your partner.
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