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People Describe The Creepiest Thing They've Ever Experienced That They Can't Explain

Some things just cannot be explained. Some things aren't meant to be believed. And a lot of these things can be creepy as f*ck. Here are some of the creepiest stories about the inexplicable, sure to get under your skin.

u/AestheticKing asked: What's the creepiest thing you've experienced that is completely true but you can't rationally explain?



Someone's looking out for you.

One night in my apartment I was dead asleep (probably in the middle of a REM cycle) when all of a sudden I woke up. It almost felt like something woke me up. Immediately I felt this insane urge to get out of bed. Like in my head I just thought "I need to get out of bed right now".

I followed this strange thought and nearly three seconds later a huge centipede fell from my ceiling onto my pillow, exactly where my face would have been if I hadn't moved.

Dawny-Devito

2:56

Giphy

I posted this once a while ago but here's my story:

Years ago when I was a teenager, I sat up at 2:56 AM (by the bedside clock), still fast asleep, and screamed at the top of my lungs. This was not normal behavior for me, so everyone in the house at the time came running to see was wrong. They had to physically shake me to wake me up. When I was finally conscious, I had no recollection of screaming or why I did so. After a bit of fuss everyone went back to bed.

The next morning, my best friend who lived up the street, walked over as she usually did, to ride to school with us in the morning. Sitting at the table, she yawned and said she was tired because she'd had a nightmare the night before. In her dream she, my sister and I were sitting in a car downtown when shots rang out and a man covered in blood ran out in the street. She woke up at 2:56 AM (by her bedside clock) when, in her dream, I screamed.

I freaked out because of what happened the night before, but it gets weirder.

Later that day, my older sister (the third person in the car in my friend's dream, who knew nothing about the screaming incident or the dream) was downtown outside of the courthouse building where she worked. Shots rang out and a man with a gun ran into the street. He was a jealous ex, who had gone into the hair salon where his former girlfriend and her current boyfriend worked, killed her, and critically wounded the new boyfriend.

As he ran into the street at 2:56 PM (by the courthouse clock) he pulled out a knife and stabbed himself in the throat, covering himself in blood and killing himself, directly in front of my sister.

...and my sister screamed.

anoem

Stalker.

On my morning commute to university, I noticed the same car behind me every day for about a week. I tried to brush it off but paranoia began to set in. I would abruptly change lanes, take a different route to school, or drive slow enough for traffic to go around me... still the sedan was in my rear view mirror.

The following morning, I simply pulled into a Walmart parking lot and sat in my car for 20 minutes. The vehicle following me did the same. Then I slowly drove my car towards the parked sedan to get a look at the driver or license plate. The car peeled out and drove off. I never saw it again.

I tried to tell the story to friends/family but it definitely makes me sound crazy. It's been several years since and I still have no idea what they would've been after.

Ideal-cactus8

Chris and Ben.

I was super young when this happened so the details for me are fuzzy but I've heard this several times from my mom and my grandmother.

When I was little (around 4-5) we were living in my grandparents house. Now weird things have always happened in that house dating all the way back to when my mom was a child so this was just another thing in a looooong history of strange occurrences.

When we lived there I had two imaginary friends named Chris and Ben. I only have vague memories of Chris because he was very mean to me. The way my mom tells it I would clear paths for them, leave space for them at the dinner table, and generally only interact with them. This started to worry my grandparents because they are VERY religious and demons are a thing I guess. My mom started to worry when one day I started screaming telling her that Chris was attacking me while trying to hit at my back.

My mom and grandparents decided they needed to clean out the house because they were convinced something evil was in the house but they didn't tell me they were going to do it. After they cleaned the house out I approached my mom and asked her why Chris and Ben were sitting next to the dumpster.

Anyway, that's how my family became convinced that evil spirits latched onto me as a child.

Confused-Gay-Ghost

That's spooky.

Giphy

I had driven to university with one of two sets of car keys for my car. After a long day of classes, I returned to my vehicle to find my keys were no longer in my pocket. I went back and searched all the classrooms I'd been in that day to no avail, and had no luck with the lost and found.

I bit the bullet and called my parents. They drove over with my spare key, and I hopped in and drove home. When I walked into my bedroom, there they were. My origins set of keys, sitting squarely in the middle of the floor.

No idea how that could have happened.

IWasEatingThoseBeans

Creep magnet.

I am a magnet for weird things but the absolute creepiest was when I was home alone at maybe 17 or 18 I heard a baby crying in the garage/storage room. It was unmistakably a baby. My neighbors didn't have a baby, there was nothing in the house that could have accidentally gone off to make that noise. I got up to check what it was and got this absolute bone chilling fear and noped straight out of my house for a good 3 hours until I knew someone else would be home. That room always gave me the creeps growing up.

This and the time my friends and I all had the same nightmare after seeing something supernatural on Highway 1 but I already posted about that.

00dlez0fN00dlez

Poor kitty.

I moved home for about a year when I took a new job. I was convinced my dad's house was either haunted, or someone was living in the attic and/or basement.

I would hear this almost howling noise. Like a cat that was afraid, but wanted to be found. One day it was really loud, and it was multiple howls, and I was paralyzed with fear. The vent in my room connected to the one directly below me in the basement. I called my dad and could barely talk and said there was an "animal or something" in the basement. He immediately came home (he was just a few blocks away).

I heard him go into his room (presumably to grab a gun) and then went and looked around in the rooms downstairs. Never found anything. But there was something there. I swear that noise was coming through the vents. The vent was inches from my bed, and that seemed to be the source of the noise.

Above my room was the attic. I would occasionally hear what sounded like footsteps running across the attic. It sounded like a small animal, or multiple small animals. But sometimes there were other odd noises from the attic. It was too loud to be from the roof. It was right above my head.

My dad frequently left the door to the garage unlocked (but the door to get in the house from the garage was always locked). But he left a ladder in the garage going up to the attic...

Anyway I was really paranoid during the year I lived there. Maybe these things have rational explanations, but no explanation helped me sleep better at night.

LegendaryDeathclaw12

Angry room.

Giphy

Several years ago, we lived in a rental house that had a sketchy ass history. We lived there about 4 years, and I never encountered anything weird until probably the last year or so that we lived there.

I had just gotten off work and was headed by the house to grab my bookbag for a class I had that night. My then husband had not gotten home from work yet, so no one had been in the house since we all left that morning.

Our front door opened into the living room, and my bedroom door was immediately to the right. We had a computer desk in the far left corner of the room.

Immediately upon entering, I smelled the most awful stench of rotten eggs and simultaneously noticed that the computer chair was turned towards the front door. The computer screen was lit up instead of in sleep mode like it should have been as if someone had been at the computer using it and turned around to face me when I came in.

The entire room just felt so...angry. There is really no way to describe it. I yanked my bookbag off my bedroom doorknob and hauled ass out of there. I knew my husband would be arriving in a bit, so I waited a few minutes and called him while I was driving to school. He said he didn't smell anything in the house and no clue what I was talking about.

There were some other minor creepy things that happened in that house but that moment scared me the most. We stayed there about 6 more months until the house burnt down while I was at work.

vodkamakesmepuke

Footsteps.

Idk if this is worth to share, but here it is..

Back when I was young like 7 or 8, I'm sleeping beside my mom on a mattress on the floor in the living room because we don't have a place to sleep on at my grandma's house.

I once woke up maybe at 2 or 3AM, I heard someone playing with the spoon and forks in the kitchen, just imagine the noise it makes. I am awake but I didn't tried to open my eyes because I was scared. I tried waking up my mom, shaking her, obviously I never tried to open my eyes lol. But she still doesn't wake up. I lost hope so I began to go back to sleep and think of it that it's somehow a rat got stuck in the utensils lol.


I waited till the noise disappear. After a few seconds it disappeared, I thought I can now sleep comfortably. But then, I heard foot steps walking barefoot on the tiles back and forth.

I made myself brave, and open my eyes. I got shocked on what I saw, there's no one there. But the foot steps never disappeared. I kept waking up my mom, and shake her to wake up, and she suddenly woke up that easy, unlike the first time. All of the noise suddenly disappeared. And I look like a crazy person. As of now, nobody still believed me on what I experienced.

People kept telling me why I didn't wake up anyone in the house, but my mom didn't even feel me waking her up.

JoshVs191

Seems like The Twilight Zone.

Some friends and I decided to go on a hike. After 45 minutes, we'd seen some interesting things. An info sign about a cool local plant, a section where the path was she straight you should see the horizon flanked by trees, a little bench overlooking a lake...

But at the end of the 45 minutes, it started to rain, and we decided to head back earlier than planned. The walk back to the car took 15 minutes, our friend was timing it the entire way. The path had no branches, and yet we didn't pass the bench or the lake at all on the way back.

We all felt really weird about that.

IWasEatingThoseBeans

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.