“Stranger danger" isn't just a rule for kids at the playground--it's a mentality that everybody should have. Maybe it's my paranoia, or the fact that as a woman I get catcalled every time I leave the freakin' house, but I personally believe that we need to be wary of strangers. And these stories are exactly why.
Here are some of the scariest encounters people have had with strangers. I'm not excited to read these- my anxiety won't thank me. Enjoy!
U/Anchovy7 asked: What's the scariest encounter you've had with a total stranger?
Being a former resident of New York City, I have had plenty of stories of people sitting next to me and saying creepy sh*t. It’s strangely comforting to know that other people feel that pain too.
Thank you, Marty.
It's a mix of the scariest, and the best:
I was eleven, and at the park with my cousin who was three. My cousin being a stubborn three year old told me to leave him be, and I sat out on the bench.
I was just reading my book, and occasionally looking up, until this like fifty something year old man sat down next to me, and just started talking.
He asked me, which kid was mine like four times, even after I made it quite clear I was uncomfortble, and then he get's all close to me, and was like:
"Do you want another one?"
So I started freaking out, until this homeless man, (who I later knew to be Marty) pulled me off the bench, and told him that he was lucky he didn't 'pop his jaw' and told me to go home.
I'm glad Marty showed up, because I don't know what I would have done.
Update: Marty says hello.
Never go to the library in a big city. Trust me.
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Not scary per se but deeply disturbing. Random dude at my local library accosted me while I was enjoying a new sci-fi novel and was absolutely convinced I was his son. Kept telling me he was sorry and he never meant to kill my mother who he called Pink and said some other heinous sh*t I won’t describe.
Bat sh*t crazy but he sounded so rational and calm the whole time. Sh*t gave me the creeps for a long time after.
Creepy af.
I was in high school and worked at a truck stop.
One night a trucker came in and stared at me for a long time. Wherever I moved to he was staring me down. I told him that if he needed anything that he would need to come to the counter and order it.
He just grunted and kept staring.
I'm not a small person and at that time I was in football, wrestling, and track. I was also at the gym 6 days a week. I was 190 pounds of muscle and teenager hormones. But the vibes I was getting from this guy were making me nervous.
I called up my other co worker and told them I was going to be in the freezer for a while. So I was stocking the freezers and coolers for a while and then went to the bathroom.
As I entered the bathroom the trucker jumped up and walked in behind me and just stood in there while I took a piss and washed my hands.
As soon as I got out I grabbed the trash bags and bee lined outside to take care of the trash at the pumps until he left.
My co worker asked me why the trucker kept following me after I finally came in.
I had no idea why. He never said anything. Didn't order anything. Just filled up his semi and creeped on me.
I've never been as creeped out by a person as I was with that guy.
The scariest encounters are the ones aimed at kids. Absolutely no sympathy for these monsters.
This is deeply disturbing.
When I was about 6 I was with my family at an incredibly crowded street festival we'd go to every year. I remember we had stopped to watch a band play for a minute or two, and then my mom (I assumed) took my hand and we continued walking.
After a few seconds I realized the hand I was holding was puffy and hot, and my mom's hands were always cool and more slender, so I knew it wasn't her hand I was holding. I looked up to see a woman with long blond hair and sunglasses grinning down at me. I said "You're not my mom" and she just laughed and said "That's okay, you can come with me anyway!"
Obviously my mom and dad had realized I was not with them at this point and were freaking out. My dad just happened to look in the exact right direction at the right time and saw this lady leading me away through a break in the crowd. He ran over to us, grabbed her shoulder and she dropped my hand and disappeared in the crowd.
I still can't believe he spotted us. It was like shoulder to shoulder people at this thing.
Wtf....
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I was 16 and sitting on a train station with my mother. Some man came over and started talking to her.
After a while I looked at the clock and informed my mother that we needed to go because our train was about to arrive. He flew up from the seat and started screaming at me and wanted to fight me. My mother was confused and tried to explain to him that I was her daughter and that we really did need to leave. He just continued screaming which of course made teenage me scream back at him. She had to pull me away from there.
I never understood what made him see red like that. All I did was inform my mother our train was coming and we needed to leave.
That’s horrifying.
I will never forget it. When Ghostbusters 2 came out I wanted to see it. My mom took me to the local theater I think I was around 9.
I needed to use the bathroom so I ran down the small hall and turned the corner. When I saw a much older man come out of the bathroom. When he saw me he stopped went back in. When I didn't move he opened the door peeking his head and arm out motioning me to come towards him. I probably looked like a deer in headlights I didn't move. It was frozen until he said: come on, come on in. Panic rushed over me and I ran back towards my mom, who said I was pale white. She quickly left the theater with me and went home. Stranger Danger worked out that day in the 80s.
I can still picture him, or atleast the picture my brain made of this memory.
So this one’s kinda obvious, but clearly there had to be a section about the horrors women go through every day if we dare step foot outside our homes. Here are a few intense stories.
Moms looking out for each other.
I dropped my son off at school one morning and then went to the grocery store with my infant daughter. It was so early, there was only 1 or 2 other customers. There was an older man with a walker that I didn't really pay too much attention to that kept popping up in the same aisle as us.
I got out to my car and put my groceries in and then was putting my daughter in her car seat when the man came up behind me. He asked me a question and when I turned to answer he shoved his walker into the back of my legs pinning me against my car inside the open door. I tried moving around but couldn't go anywhere except forward and he started pushing me down to the floor of my car. I was so scared that once he had me down there he was going to go for my daughter so I threw myself over her so my whole upper body was in her car seat and wedged myself in tight trying to cover as much of her as possible.
He grabbed me by the hair and was trying to pull me up when someone started honking their car horn. Another mom had been sitting in her car with her own baby asleep and had seen what was happening. Another car pulled up behind mine and the man ran over and got in quickly, obviously never needing the walker. The police were called but the plates on the car that he left in were stolen so as far as I know he was never found.
It can happen in your own home.
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I was taking a shower in the bathroom of the walkout basement. My 3 year old son was upstairs with my mother eating breakfast. I heard him open the door and told him "Mommy is in the shower, you have to wait."
The door didn't close but he didn't respond either so I asked him to go back upstairs and ask grandma for whatever he needed.
Instead I see a a shadow and outline of a hand touching the shower curtain and realize that there is an ADULT in the bathroom, not my son.
I scream and punch through the shower curtain. I don't think I connected, but I heard the man run out anyway. As fast as I could I jumped out and grabbed a towel to check on my son and mom. At the same time my mom was coming downstairs to see if I was ok from the scream.
The man never went upstairs and they didn't even know it had happened. The walkout basement door and window were open.
I called the police and they didn't find him, just my empty wallet about a block away. They did come back to me a few weeks later to let me know that they caught a guy in the area assaulting women at gunpoint and they think it was the same guy.
Never been so scared in my life.
Add: The most visceral part for me was knowing he was just standing quietly in the bathroom while I talked to him like he was my son. Honestly, I don't know why but that creeps me out the most. It felt really violating at the time.
Been there.
I was walking home from the bus stop after school. About 15 years old. It was really not far but there were construction workers drinking on the side of the road. One of them got up and followed me home calling suggestive things. I honestly can't remember what but his intentions were clear. This was about 200m from home so I sprint home. We have an automatic gate so I realize he will catch me if I wait for it to open or he'll follow me in. So I climb over which is normally not easy but that day I flew over.
I was really shaken up. For me this story is actually about what happened next. Which is that I called my mom who had an intense job. She dropped everything at work, came home immediately, made me hot chocolate and pancakes. We had a long conversation where she validated my feelings and fear. She's the best.
Truck stops alone at night are the worst.
I was traveling home to California and I was in Nevada. It was an emergency so I'd packed and left at around midnight. It was about five thirty am or so in rural Nevada. I was at a stop on my usual route. I was very familiar with the particular stop, and it was just an hour or so before the California border.
Being a lone female, I concealed carry (I have my extended permit which allowed concealed through several states, except California) and I was at my truck at an empty spot, and I was in the cab disassembling and putting away my gun to be in compliance. Stepped out to go to the restroom and someone had managed to get close to my truck and was hiding along the passenger side, and I didn't know it until I'd walked passed them.
Whoever it was grabbed me from behind. I let out the loudest, most blood-curdling scream. Oscar-winning scream. But there was no other people at this stop. I fought and tried to buck the guy off of me, but I wasn't doing very well. Kicking lead him to lift me off the ground where I couldn't get him, and trying to break through his arms made him bend me over with him still behind me. I'm not sure how long I was screaming and fighting, but then I heard tires screech and I figured it was the creepy van my parents told me to avoid as a kid coming to take me away. Nope. It was a Toyota Corolla full of local teenagers headed to the gas station before school. The teens jumped out and ran towards us, and the driver stayed in the vehicle. The guy who grabbed me took off, two of the kids chased him through the desert beyond the gas station on foot, and the driver and the other kid made sure I was alright.
I send these four boys Christmas and birthday cards every year. I'm sure if it wasn't for them I would've been kidnapped or killed. Josh, Austin, Mason, and James, thank you guys.
The world is terrifying, my dudes. I've been harassed by my fair share of strangers, and it's the reason why I'm super careful just was walking around my neighborhood.
Protect yourself, protect your kids, protect your friends. It's scary out there
In the words of every millennial who was once on Tumblr, adulting is hard. I’ve been a legal adult for nine years now, and I still don’t fully understand taxes. I just let TurboTax do its thing and hope for the best. They REALLY need to teach that sh*t in schools.
But I’m not the only adult who still feels like a child! I think a lot of us can relate to that. And to be honest, we can be very unprepared for what life throws at us.
U/cracksandcrevices asked: What is an adult problem that nobody prepared you for?
The worst part is the cruel awakening that we actually have to, you know, do stuff on our own.
Choosing things is hard.
Having to not only make important decisions by myself (I expected that much) but also having to do so in a timely fashion uninhibited by indecision.
Having to make decisions is such a big thing for me. Intellectually, of course I knew I'd have to make decisions. I just want ready too make them without knowing the consequences and at the speed of life.
Errands eat up sooo much time.
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How much time you spend just doing stuff.
"Oh need to replace my tire and that's over by the store, so while I replace the tire I can do some errands and I'll save time and be home in no time" three hours later "Okay just one more errand before I head home"
Also how putting off a small task just a couple days in a row can quickly amount to a longer chore/responsibility later. "Eh I can just leave this in the sink, get to it later before bed" x 2 days "Why is this grime caked onto this plate still I've been scrubbing for 10 minutes straight!"
That’s what delivery is for.
Being sick and having to care for yourself. Like when you were younger your parents would get the medicine, or the medicine cabinet would just be stocked all the time, etc. But here I am with a cold having to build up the energy to go to the supermarket to buy some asprin and throat lozenges all by myself.
Underwear gnomes are the true pests.
The endless cleaning. I had chores when I was a kid, but I had zero clue how much actual work went into keeping house. I cleaned my house this morning and by midweek it'll be a war zone of pet hair, crumbs, and dust. I don't even have kids wtf it's like the underpants gnomes show up when I'm asleep and mess my house up.
Another sh*tty thing is the crushing loneliness that comes with adulthood. Why didn’t they tell us that we would have no friends after the age of 25?
The only thing I miss about school.
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A lack of community. Growing up you have your elementary school. Each day you see your friends and participate in activities together. Sometimes they move away and sometimes you do, but it largely stays the same through high school and middle school. Flash forward to adulthood and you're just alone. You want to make friends IRL, but have no idea how to go about doing it without seeming creepy, desperate, or god knows what.
This is really hard when you are not overtly religious so you cannot join a religious community. My friend and I talk about this from time to time, it's arguably the hardest thing to deal with in life. It gets worse the longer you live, as you know you are outliving your generation.
The reason why I have cats.
You can go days on end without having to speak to a single person, at first it's a dream come true, after about 2 months you start talking to your toaster to pad the silence while waiting for your toast.
I literally haven't spoken to someone beyond saying thank you/no when buying groceries in months. At first it felt kind of freeing and now it's just kinda sad.
Ditto on this advice.
The inevitably of your parents dying. My dad just passed away and I'm 25...no one could have prepared me I guess.
I feel you. Mine passed away back in August when I was 28. There's nothing you can do to prepare for it, and I'm afraid I have no magic words to make it better. Just know you're not alone. I'll never say it gets "better," but it eventually starts to suck less and your hard days get a little less frequent. I'm so, so sorry.
The sad fact is, you have to start fending for yourself with no one to help you. And that’s terrifying.
Saving money is hard for this reason alone.
Basic home maintenance: when to change air filters, smoke alarm batteries, timing of lawn care, how often do you clean the gutters, are you supposed to clean under the stove, what is edging, how do you recycle, how to change locks, etc.
Not to mention the random costs that spring up. Trying to save up money? Good for you. Except your sink just sprung a leak so you need to pay a plumber to fix that. Now you can save money agai... Nope, car needs servicing. Okay, your can definitely save money now.... Wait, that leaky sink sprouted mold so now your bathroom needs to be gutted and redone.
We are all Squidward.
Being absolutely exhausted most of the time. I never thought I'd be the 'I hate everyone' guy. But I am and everyone can f*ck off.
We all become Squidward after hitting a certain age.
You either die a SpongeBob or live long enough to become a Squidward.
Me? I'm Patrick. F*ck your rat race.
As someone who has lost a parent, I can tell you that sometimes you will never be prepared for certain events in your adult life. Everyone’s experience is different, and sometimes adulthood just means figuring it out for yourself.
You got this, grown-ups of the internet. I believe in you
But how much of what we see are authentic reactions?
Curious about the experiences of those who were on camera, Redditor S3xySouthernB asked:
"People who were on reality family shows as kids (think super nanny, wife swap etc) how much of it was real and how much was fiction/set up for drama? Did anything change?"
Unreality
The following Redditors frowned upon the concept of being portrayed differently on camera.
The Gamer
"I was on Wife Swap when I was 10 years old. My family had to switch with a farming family and we were supposed to be the 'city family' even though my family and I lived in the suburbs. There were plenty of quotes taken out of context as you'd expect. They also incited plenty of drama. I was framed as addicted to video games so they took my xbox and gameboy color for the week. A few days in one of the crew members came in with my gameboy and said 'look I found this' and handed it to me. It shouldn't be surprising that they sent the woman staying in our house into my room to 'catch me in the act'."
"To be honest not much has really changed in my life except getting snapchats of my 10 year old face when my friends catch the reruns. I'm open to any questions if anyone is curious."
It was Season 3 Episode 13 of Wife Swap"
Update for anyone who was curious about how much money the show gave us. The initial amount was $20k but after taxes it came to around $15k like others had expected."
Crazy On Cue
"My parents were 'dinner guests' in an episode of Nanny 911 and they said literally everything was staged. I don't remember all of the details, but they said the directors had a 'code word' that they would say to the kids when they were supposed to start acting all 'crazy'. And then once the scene was done, the kids would be perfectly normal."
False Front
"My friends parents were on worlds strictest parents. They came to my house on 4th of July and when they showed our house on tv it was a huge mansion rather than our actual house. The camera crew also told the visiting 'bad kids' to steal alcohol from our house."
Hoarders
A glimpse into the lives of those who are unable to part with their possessions is not always scripted TV.
Hoarding For Real
"I worked with a junk removal company for an episode of hoarders and it was actually 99% REAL. The only thing that they would set up a couple times was if they opened a box and found something interesting off camera they would re-open it on camera and act like they just found it."
Laundry Tub
"My mother was (probably still is, we aren't in contact) a hoarder and you don't HAVE to make sh*t up. They're seriously, seriously mentally ill but they refuse help because they don't think they're mentally ill, or 'it's not that bad' or they're 'going to get to it next month' or whatever. Total denial and self delusion, which is, yanno, common with severe mental illness."
"Example: for who knows what reason, my mother started putting dirty laundry in the bathtub. Eventually there was just a mountain of it. She wouldn't wash it despite our washer working fine. She wouldn't move it. She wouldn't let ME wash it. I was showering at school for weeks already when I told her 'Mom the laundry in the tub has to go. This is ridiculous. I'll help with it.'"
"She said 'There's no laundry in the tub.'"
"She actually tried to DENY REALITY. I went in there and was like 'These are clothes. In the tub. This is laundry.'"
"She replied 'Oh I think those are clean.'"
"I said, 'So then put them away?' I knew they weren't clean. I just wanted to shower."
"She said 'I'll do it this weekend when I have off.'"
"I hate to spoil the ending but..... she didn't do it."
"She hired a dumpster once and was going to 'throw out everything'. It got there. Normal sized dumpster. She didn't throw out anything because 'they sent too big of a one'. Paid hundreds of dollars to hire this dumpster and didn't use it."
"Oh. Then. She was going to sell the house. Someone actually wanted to buy it to gut and flip. It was really a cool old house, speaking design-wise. She decided at the last possible second not to sell. Had to reimburse the buyer's closing costs plus a bunch of other fees."
"Then cried to anyone who'd listen how the realtor was a scammer who 'tried to sell her house out from under her'. Like they're just rouge realtors going around, listing people's houses without their consent and selling them."
Drama
Are the emotional outbursts exhibited on reality shows genuine? Not always.
Hairy Situation
"A class mate of mine was on my country's Next Top Model. Before getting into the show she was asked what kind of hair she would never want to get, so that the producers know about it and not make her have it during the makeover episode. My classmate had long blonde hair which she really loved, so she said she doesn't want them to cut her hair off and that she also hated strange unnatural colors like blue, pink etc."
"Fast forward to the makeover episode. The hairstyling team comes in and finds her hair unfitting for a model, so she needs to get a makeover and guess what? Her makeover obviously consists of a pixie cut and green hair to make her look like a 'punk fairy.'"
"My class mate cried throughout the entire process, so I guess the producers got the drama they wanted out of this."
Cue Anger
"There was a family in our neighborhood who was on a show here in Germany. One day, when accompanied by the camera crew, one of the daughters suddenly threw a screaming fit in public, which was totally unusual for her. When the mom was asked later what the f*k had happened, she said, for a tantrum you get 200 bucks extra."
– RayNooze
"A girl I went to school with was on 'My Super Sweet Sixteen'. She was always quiet but well-liked and the kids on that show were usually monsters so we were curious about how the episode would paint her."
"There was one scene where she was checking in on a vendor and they said something might not be finished in time for the party and she didn't have a meltdown or anything but she said something dramatic like, 'Oh no! That's going to ruin my whole birthday party!'"
"After the episode aired her friends who were with her said they did a couple of 'takes' because her first reaction was like, 'Oh, that sucks. Thanks for letting me know.'"
It appeared the majority of Redditors who vouched for a show's realistic portrayal of people on TV was Hoarders.
For Redditor azulweber, the circumstance was relatable.
"yeah my grandmother and her sister are both hoarders and i have no problem believing that it's real. i can't imagine someone who isn't a hoarder being willing to allow a show to do that to their home and belongings just for tv."
Sadly, the exploitation of a person's mental illness seems to make for must-see television.