Traveling around the world means staying in all sorts of places, including beds and breakfasts, hostels, and small hotels. You know, like they have in horror movies. Sometimes those scenes even play out.
A now [deleted] user asked travelers of Reddit: What is your creepiest hotel story?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
15. Creep level: expert.
My mom was traveling for work and sat next to a man (fellow business traveler) on the plane. They had a casual conversation and exchanged business cards. Later that evening she's in her hotel watching TV and gets a phone call from the front desk that her husband is here and they want to know if they can give him a key to the room. Turns out the creep on the plane was pretending to be her husband to try to get into her room.
14. Don't think that was the desk.
I was traveling out of the country right after finishing up a huge 5-day work event where I had about 10 hours of sleep total during the 5 days.
I got to the motel, which is kinda run down and the carpet and blankets are damp but I'm so exhausted I don't even really think about it.
I fall asleep pretty much immediately at like 8PM local time.
At maybe 11pm or so, I get a call from the motel phone saying there's been a complaint about noise. I tell them that's impossible, I've been sleeping. They ask me if maybe it's someone else in the room and I tell them nope, I'm here alone so there's definitely no one else making noise. They ask me again if I'm sure I'm by myself and not causing any noise. I say yes again. Fall back asleep immediately.
When I woke up and thought about it some more, I realize how weird the entire interaction was. There was absolutely no noise I could hear anywhere nearby and I don't know why the motel staff would need to clarify so many times that I was alone.
Apparently they never called. So I assume it must've been someone calling the different rooms to see who was in the rooms and how many people. I've never been so glad to always always use the extra latch chain lock.
They ask me again if I'm sure I'm by myself
"Well, it's just me and these three large bikers with baseball bats, but they don't make much noise" - never tell a stranger that you are alone.
13. Creepy? Or strange.
While in the isles of Scotland, we stayed in a B&B. It was owned by a couple. The bedrooms were extremely well done and beautiful, but on everything there was signs to not "touch". To use the shower, you would have to ask the couple and the Internet ended at 11pm. The woman would also check on everyone at random times in the night, we would hear creeping in the hallway to make sure "everyone was sleeping" and not doing any illegal things like using the Internet. When we checked out of her B&B, she came into our room and said that we "stunk", and opened the window to prove this and demanded for money immediately.
Another traveller was kicked out of the B&B because the checkout time was 10am, and they were forced to stand outside (she wouldn't even let them stay inside) in the thunderstorm while their taxi came. Another traveller had to go a check (we were in an isolated place) to pay for the room and she took their bags and wouldn't give them back. But on the way out...she asked everyone if they enjoyed their stay!
EDIT: so I took a look at their trip advisor page and the ownership seems to have changed to a much nicer couple since we visited it in 2015. However all of the negative reviews are from before the change. Location was Isle of Skye, Portree
This is the sort of thing you should share on one of those lodging review sites so others are aware. Peculiar behavior, to say the least.
12. Don't get exterminated!
Found a hotel in Yangon (Burma) the day we got there for pretty cheap. They mentioned the rates were low because maintenance was being done on several floors. We sleep fine, wake up and head to breakfast. At breakfast we met some Germans who had also stayed the night in our hotel. They said they had not slept well because during the middle of the night someone woke them up to move them from the floor they were on. We (us and the Germans) found out later that they had been moved because they were on one of the levels reserved for maintenance, and part of the maintenance included gassing the rooms for bugs.
During the middle of the night they were just going around the rooms shoving the gas nozzle or whatever under the doors and letting them run; wound up killing the two people next to the Germans before they realized they'd accidentally booked people on that floor. We weren't on that floor thankfully but it has always stuck with me how seemingly easy it could've been to have gotten mixed up in that.
Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bedbug asphyxiation spray kill you at night.
11. As if the movie weren't freaky enough...
Family vacation. 1am. My brother and I had just finished watching The Shining on TV. Neither of us had seen it before. We heard someone trying to open our door. No one else was supposed to have keys.
Someone tried to swing open the door, but the hotel lock stopped them. They kept trying to open it multiple times, banging the door against the lock. After a few tries, they gave up. The hotel desk clerk accidentally entered the wrong room for their keycards.
It was probably best way I saw The Shining. I can't be scared more than that from that movie.
That's happened to me once. The housekeeping ladies weren't given an updated room rental schedule and tried to get into my room at 6am one morning. I had used the chain bolt thing and everyone was very confused. Super terrifying way to wake up though.
10. Bikers FTW.
When I was 12, I was staying in a motel with my mom on a road trip. We were in the middle of nowhere in Texas at a motel that had a decent rating in our guidebook and was really cheap, so we went for it. In the middle of the night, the owner knocked on the door and told us we had to leave because he wanted the room for someone else (!!!) My mom was outside arguing with him while I was gathering our things, and I was terrified because I heard him start yelling.
I looked out the window and saw about half a dozen bikers in vests appear out of nowhere (maybe a nearby room?) and start confronting the owner. My mom came inside quickly and we watched them start harassing the guy, things like "she's paid to be here. You're gonna let her stay tonight! We don't want to ever hear sh*t like this from you again!" And the owner was saying things like "I don't want any trouble!"
Everybody left fairly quickly and we didn't ever hear anything about it the next day at checkout. We weren't able to sleep very well because we were so shook up, but it was better than getting in the car again.
Thank you, anonymous biker gang.
9. Someone was watching.
In 1996 while air-drying naked after a shower lying on my hotel bed in Beijing with the curtains drawn, I received a call demanding I put on clothes.
Oh my god what was your reaction?
I agreed that I would be more comfortable clothed, and obliged them.
8. Hostels seem fun.
Oh I have one! Though this has turned out quite long to describe.
So mine takes place in a London hostel a few weeks ago. I have 2 friends with me that are both male, and we're staying in a 9 bed mixed dorm. There's 3 sets of 3 tier bunk beds. I'm in the bottom bed of the right bunk, friend 1 in the top of my bunk, friend 2 in bottom bed of middle bunk.
So, we get in at 2am and all just quietly get in our beds, after a few minutes of lying there trying to sleep I hear rustling behind me (I'm lying on my side facing the wall). So I think it is just someone going through their bag and ignore it.
Then I feel a hand on my hip over the cover, I turn round and it's a random guy telling me to move over and trying to pull at my cover. I initially thought he was drunk and wasn't sure which bed to be in so I tell him to go find his own bed, and then he shuffles away to bottom bed of left bunk.
Then he comes back again, i again tell him to go back to his own bed and he shuffles back to his own again. This happens another couple of times, with me gradually speaking louder and getting less polite telling him to f--- off.
So I'm shaking cause the situation is making me nervous, and message my mate that's on the top bunk, saying I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep that night. He messages back casually thinking it's cause of someone's snoring. This is when I find out both my mates have ear plugs in and although they've heard me speaking, they each thought I was speaking to the other friend. So I tell him the situation and he starts keeping an eye out.
I hear the guy go to the bathroom that is en suite, but I can tell from the light he left the bathroom door open whilst doing so and refused to look. My mate fills me in that the guy was walking round with his pants down and deliberately left the door open to get me to look, but either way the guy goes back to his bed after and we think the situation is finally over.
Then it happens again, my mate keeping an eye out shines his phone light on the floor and shouts for the guy to f--- off. Apparently he was crawling across the floor again towards me.
The guy suddenly takes offence at my mates light shining on him and starts actually climbing the bunk ladder like King Kong to get to my mate on the top and was trying to take his phone. They wrestle for a while with my mate actually kicking the guy in the neck to try and keep him away, only for the guy to swing backwards and come straight back at him again.
I use this time to run for security, who find the guy still hanging on the bed when they get there, then call the police and have the guy taken away in a riot van and banned from the building.
Whilst the police had dragged him outside waiting for the riot van, the guy even head butted the brick wall several times.
No idea what that guy was on cause it wasn't alcohol, but definitely on something to take a kick to the neck and still act like nothing happened afterwards.
The guy kept trying to blame my mate when security came as well, saying things in broken English like "come up here and see how violent this guy is".
My other mate that had slept through the whole incident kept saying the next day that he couldn't believe how friendly everyone in London is.
Edit: please don't let this put you off hostels. I've travelled in them alone around Europe and never had any problems before. Usually hostels are a great way to meet people or find activities to do in the local area.
7. Smart if true.
A friend and I once stayed at a pretty fancy B&B for the night. The lady who owned it was absolutely lovely, but would appear out of no where. We'd be sitting alone in a large room with one doorway and suddenly she was in the room with us. Either this joint had secret doors or something really creepy was going on. She seemed to know things that we'd said or done as well. The thing that tripped us out the most was hearing someone trying to open our door during the night. She was super lovely and the building was beautiful, but we were relieved to check out the next morning!
I'd bet money she had secret passages and used them to make people think she was a ghost, in order to build reputation as a haunted B&B. Would get pretty popular.
6. Fire? What fire?
I arrive at a secluded, coastal hotel south of Marmaris Turkey around 2 AM. It had been a long day in Istanbul followed by a flight and long bus ride into Marmaris where I haggled with non-English-speaking taxi drivers... who were not even aware that this small resort exists. When the taxi pulls up to the hotel... it's on fire. When the owner, standing out front sees us he opens the taxi door excitedly, "You come. I have nice room for you!" I point out that the hotel is on fire but he simply gestures and says "Small fire. No problem. You come." I. Am. Utterly. Exhausted.
I find myself following the owner into the hotel, stepping over fire hoses, waving away smoke, passing fire fighters as they run up and down a very nice staircase. We pause at the second floor landing and the owner tells me, "See. Fire only on this side of hotel. This side no fire. You come." My exhaustion removes every ounce of common sense and I follow him to a room down the hall. The room is indeed fire-free. I quickly scan the in-case-of-fire message on the back of the door, checked the window escape, and promptly pass out with my gear and boots on. In the morning I awake [alive] wondering if I dreamt the entire thing. I go down the smokey stairs past the charred other side of the hotel. The owner is so happy to see me [still alive] that he eats breakfast with me.
I went back a few years later and the hotel had fully recovered.
5. No word on the identity of the phantom pooper.
I toured around in bands a lot in my twenties, and not once but twice came back to my hotel room to find a turd in my shower. I was the only person with a key to the room. One was in Germany and one was in Belgium. Two years apart, completely separate tour and crew.
4. Pedophile Buddha.
Did the couchsurfing.com thing with a friend a few years ago. We are both big guys so typically feel safe everywhere we go.
Show up at the house, 60-year-old guy opens the door while on the phone. Hes only wearing sweat pants. He signals for us to enter. He continues his conversation and ends with an I love you. He turns to us and says welcome, and apologizes for being on the phone. He starts talking about his GF, who he was talking with, and how she lives overseas. He mentions he has several GFs and boasts about being a ladies man. He then starts to show us pictures. These girls looked like they were 14, while sliding through the pic he accidentally showed us one of their passports. This weirded us out a lot. We were early twenties and didn't really know what to do, so we said we were tired and wanted to sleep. He walked us to the room while rubbing his belly. Told us he we make breakfast in the morning.
We decided to sleep the night, but leave before he woke up. My friend slept on the bedroom door so he couldn't sneak in. We got up super early and bolted.
We got super weird vibes from the guy and just felt gross/weird about the whole thing.
3. I nope out at dolls.
Stayed in a B&B in Pennsylvania that seemed cute enough. They did have a wall of antique dolls in the main room but otherwise no signs of weirdness.
That's until we were settled in the room. I noticed some scratches on the floor near a book case and after some inspection realized it was a secret door. When I asked the owner, who gave a creepy vibe if it worked he said yes and showed me that it opened to their office (which was a cluttered room with a computer and piles or crap). It had a lock on their side and when I asked if there was a lock on my side he smiled and said "no." When I showed some concern that there was an unlockable entrance to my room that was camouflaged that they didn't tell me about he just kept smiling.
So that night no sex (fear of cameras) and I barricaded the f*cking door and barely slept.
It was many years ago (before FB/Twitter etc) so we're racking our brains to remember the name. It was near New Hope, PA is all we can remember at this point.
New Hope is lovely except creepy place...
2. "Mi scusi."
When I was 12, my family took a vacation to Europe. At our hotel in Rome, there was this amazing indoor pool...and being a child of my age, I would have spent the entire vacation there if I could. During one such swimming excursion, some random gentleman, I think probably around 40-something, comes over to me and starts tickling my feet. My mother is with me, but is preoccupied with one of my other siblings. He speaks English as well and starts teasing me for being ticklish and telling me how I'm "simply adorable." Through my giggles, I keep shyly asking him to stop. He doesn't, and just keeps teasing me and touching my feet and lower legs. This went on for maybe 2 minutes tops before my mom sees what's happening and goes into super protective mode and tells him to back the f*ck off.
1. You're supposed to sleep in your room.
Im not sure if this qualifies or not. Let me know.
When I was like 14/15, I went with my family to Las Vegas and we stayed off the main strip in a 2 bedroom suite. It was a smaller casino/hotel. My parents left to go out and enjoy the night while I stayed with my younger siblings. They slept in the bedrooms and I was in the living room watching tv. I think I dozed off at around midnight and when I woke up, I was in a stairwell. Outside of the hotel room. I had no shoes on. I had no cell phone. No room key.
I went to the front office and told them I was locked out of my room and they believed me and gave me a key.
I still don't know why I was out there. To this day, I have never sleep walked. I don't know what happened. Maybe I did sleep walk, maybe something happened during those hours that I cannot remember. But it was creepy enough for me to share.
People Break Down The Most Ridiculous Majors They've Ever Heard Of
Reddit user GazelleHistorical705 asked: 'What is the most ridiculous college major you’ve ever heard of?'
Many high school graduates face the conundrum of what to major in when they go on to pursue higher education.
Teens who haven't already sparked an interest in a particular field by the time they graduate wind up buying more time waiting for enlightenment by electing "undecided."
But to avoid any stigma of being an idle scholar, some students settle on majors they thought never existed.
"Fun with pasta," anyone?
While such a major might not exist, I wouldn't put it past some academia for coming up with it.
Curious to hear what those unheard-of specialized fields of study are out there, Redditor GazelleHistorical705 asked:
"What is the most ridiculous college major you’ve ever heard of?"
Majors with one word, please.
Sounds Like A Hard Major
"PENIS. My school offered a major in Political Economy of Newly Industrialized Societies, but eventually realized the acronym and changed the name. Pity. I hope some were able to get their degrees with a concentration in PENIS."
– OhMaiMai
Hidden Objective
"Golf."
"It was made so the Vice Chancellor could buy a private golf course for the university, so he could play on it. I believe it had 5 enrollments ever, and one was a joke that didnt show up or pay. It got cancelled the first year, but he got to enjoy his own personal golf course for some years after."
– jadelink88
Just Throwing Ideas
"Frisbee. A friends roommate at Amherst was in some kind of 'create your own major' thing and chose frisbee. His family had momey and college was just a formality."
– hightower65
Certain concepts as a major were hard to grasp.
Seed Of Despotism
"IIRC, like 20 years ago some college in Indiana offered a major in World Domination."
– Rev_Christopheles
"You can only get a job as a henchman with a BS."
"You need a full PhD to be an evil mastermind."
– JimBean823
A Vague Focus
"PhD in general studies."
– dravik
"Tf do you even write your dissertation about."
– Fragile_Line
"Everything."
– ProsciuttoPizza
"Generally."
– cropguru357
Let's Take It Outside
"An old friend has a Bachelor's degree in Outdoor Activities. He was never able to explain exactly what that meant, though."
– EnlargedBit371
"A guy I know majored in Recreation."
– kmsc87
"When I was there, my college had one of the top Parks Recreation and Tourism Management (PRTM) programs in the country."
"It had the nickname 'Party Right Through May.'”
"It was extremely popular with student athletes, especially football players."
"There’s always a demand for graduates too. It seems like one of those fields where you shouldn’t need a college degree to do the work, but you need one to get in the door."
– JimBeam823
Going At Your Own Pace
"When I was in uni my friend dated a guy who was majoring in leisure studies. I used to joke that leisure studies is a 4 year program, but if you’re good enough at it you can do it in 6."
– Mtldoggogogo
Things went up a notch.
Arghhh Ya Kiddin' Me?
"At MIT you can be certified in being a pirate if you complete the courses of pistol, archery, sailing, and fencing."
– yhdreytaweatrst
"It’s not a major, it’s a certificate. But if I ever get my own office it’s going in a very nice diploma frame and I’m gonna see who notices."
– PoorCorrelation
Veritable Hodgepodge
"My university had an Interdisciplinary Studies department that served mainly to get super duper seniors graduated. They would cobble together the random credits people got because they changed majors every semester into a 'degree.' You get some wild majors like a BA in Culinary Traditions and Music in the Former British Empire."
– pinelands1901
Sapphic Education
"My college briefly had a major in Nordic Lesbianism."
– WhizzleTeabags
"I've read many of the responses on here where most of them weren't ridiculous imo but you gave the best one!"
– 90DayTroll
"HUH."
– OP
Make It Up
"At a graduation at the University of Redlands. They have a degree whereby you basically take the classes you want and call it what you want."
"The degree conferred was, I kid you not: 'Still trying to figure out who I am.'”
– dmur726
Clearly there's a major for all occasions.
But at the end of the day, does it really matter as long as you have a BA in something to show you were academically tenacious?
Now go out there and carve out your own path, young scholars!
Just make sure you can pay off those student loans.
Maybe there should be a major on how to avoid debt.
Possessed Photography on Unsplash
Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as:
"the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and translation between languages."
AI is broken down into four types—from most basic to most advanced:
- Reactive machines
- Limited memory
- Theory of mind
- Self-awareness
The first two—reactive machines and limited memory—currently exist.
Reactive machines AI have no memory—it responds directly to current information. An example is a recommendation based on your streaming activity.
Limited memory looks into the past and monitors specific objects or situations over time, and adds the information to adapt responses. Self-driving cars are a good example of limited memory AI.
The other types—theory of mind and self-awareness—don't exist yet.
Theory of mind AI would be able to understand intentions and predict behavior while adjusting its own responses, simulating human interpersonal relationships.
The final step in AI is self-awareness. These would be systems that have a sense of self, a conscious understanding of their existence.
As AI advances, some human work functions will be done cheaper or more efficiently by AI.
Reddit user othersimon asked:
"Those who actually had their jobs replaced by AI, what was the job? What replaced it? What do you do now?"
Not Me!
Redditors definitely had feelings about businesses implementing AI.
"To everyone who argues that AI isn't capable of doing their job yet I say, so what? All that matters is your boss thinks it can do the job."
"Laughing at their failure is small solace when you're unemployed."
~ obscureferences
"I mean how many people were fired because they had been working for 10 or 20 years and earned high pay, to be replaced by some minimum wage worker who completely botched the job and took twice as long?"
"Lots."
~ Black_Moons
WUT U MEEN IZ RONG SPELD?
"My entire editing team was replaced by a robot that was supposed to write and edit text like a human can."
"They didn't test the robot first—it was terrible, and their entire project failed."
"No tears were shed."
~ IllustriousNight4
"My wife was a copywriter/wrote blogs for internet optimization online primarily for legal and medical fields."
"AI took over and her company either fired everyone or severely reduced the amount of pay that was offered per job—wife is still unemployed."
"But we heard just last week that it sounds like the company is now going under."
~ The_SchnitzelMan
"AI-written articles are obvious from a mile away and they’re terrible."
"I think Google should penalize search rankings for AI generated content as it’s often not valuable to the reader who is looking for useful information."
"And these articles bastardize Google’s own value in a sense as the info showing up in search results is materially less valuable than genuine content."
~ mokikithesloppy
1, 2, 3...
"Worked at Amazon for a few years. Did inventory basically all night."
"Then they installed cameras, scanners, AI, etc..."
"Still need a human, but yup, a lot of us were no longer needed."
"SBC (simple bin count, just count everything in the bin, easy) is redundant."
~ somecow
Unexpected Development
"I was on a very small software development team at a relatively large company."
"We were often tasked with not only working on our project, but utilizing new cutting-edge technologies to test whether they would be viable before rolling them out to the rest of the dev teams."
"We were asked to start leveraging AI to help us with our development and we gave it pretty high praise."
"Apparently we talked it up too much though and they decided to see if they could simply bypass needing software developers and have the business analysts generate code from their requirements and then send that code straight to QA."
"They didn't really test if that would work before laying off our entire dev team, and a couple of months later they laid off the remaining members of the team because it wasn't working out."
"It was just one of many bad decisions they made around that time and they're currently struggling and losing market share because of it."
"I'm still working as a software engineer and use AI as a useful tool, but I'm sure to always let my supervisors and managers know what its pitfalls are and how its just supplementing my work, and not completely doing my job for me."
~ karma_aversion
"Software dev here, new exec came in and replaced me (only dev) with 'no-code' software."
"From what I hear from my friends still there, they shot themselves in the foot."
~ tanMud
"In order to get AI to work well for you, you’d have to spell out your specs in great detail and spoon feed it. Of course, in order to do that one would need to know exactly what they want first."
"Unless they have a helluva business analysis team, that is a fantasy."
"Oh, and how are they going to update the AI generated code down the line? There is a guy on my team who is sharp as a tack but his code is actual mental gymnastics. I make him spell it out to me because it simply makes no sense."
"Turns out he was writing code that was assisted by ChatGPT. AI writes code that computers can read, devs need to write code that other devs can maintain/expand."
"AI can create stuff from scratch, sure, but I don’t think it’s prepared as of yet to digest complex code, interpret it, and then add to it with more complexity. They could try to run everything we do with AI but will hit some dense walls quickly."
~ skyphoenyx
No Injuries If There's No People
"Some warehouses have some self driving high reach forklifts."
"Someone said that their warehouse has only 2 human high reach drivers & 9 self driving high reaches."
"Crazy stuff."
~ wistteria_
"Lights off manufacturing is getting closer by the day."
"I work in a facility that’s about 800k sqft. It has 20 employees in it and hundreds of not thousands of robots. We make millions of widgets a week."
"Single use medical devices. All plastic. Huge boom in business during Covid, back down to earth now! But still very profitable."
"All the lights are on sensors because there are areas people don’t go into for weeks at a time. It’s eerily quiet and creepy. If there’s an issue we fly someone in from another location."
"Trucks unload raw material into large totes. Robots collect the totes and deliver to the material storage area. A human inspects quality and quantity."
"Machines mold the widgets, a robot pulls them out, cameras inspect the parts. Data is sent to a central quality facility in Mexico."
"When the lot is approved, robots pick up the totes and delivers to packaging lines where it gets boxed up, weighed, labeled, and taped shut—all by robots."
"Then the completed pallets get delivered back to the warehouse where a truck picks it up and delivers to the customer."
"We have a few engineers (I am one) that maintains, inspects, and reports out on the systems. We have three security guards—one whose job is a ‘buddy’ to escort people to dangerous areas."
"If you had an accident we wouldn’t know about it until your shift ended."
"There’s a plant manager, a pair of quality techs, a couple material handlers. And two maintenance folks."
"That’s the entire operation."
~ bondsman333
Digital Age
"I used to be a projectionist."
"Now a movie is on a hard drive and it's programmed to run remotely."
~ FlintWaterFilter
Facing the Future
"I'm about to lose my job to a layoff, but I will be replaced by 2025."
"Working in semiconductor manufacturing, most of production is fully automated already with plans to automate more. My job is basically to babysit idle machines right now."
"The maintenance crew will always be necessary but as soon as AI can do the rest of my job, I am not necessary at all."
"I can be replaced by code, the company would love to get all the product made without paying people for their time. I know I am expendable to them but it's the best paycheck in the county."
"Sad but it's the truth. Gonna have to try and stick it out while I apply to new jobs."
~ DERtheBEAST
It Is What It Is, But Isn't What It Isn't
"I feel like this is going to happen a lot in the next few years."
"Don't get me wrong, AI is an incredible technology, and depending on the specific implementation, it's capable of great things."
"But the unveiling of ChatGPT and AI art bots started a bubble of sorts, which we're currently still in."
"People seem to be over-conflating and misunderstanding how AI works, what AI is, and what AI is capable of, and for that reason, I think we're going to see a lot of misguided layoffs coming."
~ AbyssalRedemption
Technological advancements have eliminated human labor forever.
This isn’t a new dilemma created in the computer age.
All we can do is pay attention and adapt.
Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
According to the General Social Survey, 20% of married men and 13% of married women reported having sex with someone other than their spouse.
In the United States, 17% of all divorces cited adultery on the part of either or both parties.
But 70% of married women and 54% of married men reported they didn't know of their spouses’ extramarital affair until their spouse confessed.
And how did the other 30%-46% figure it out?
Reddit user Ok-Still2345 asked:
"How did you find out your significant other (SO) was cheating on you?"
Out of the Mouths of Babes
"Hell, my 5-year-old grandson told me!
"He said 'you ain't my favorite pop pop...Rodney is!' I said who the f*ck is Rodney?'."
"The rest is history."
~ Able-Acanthisitta681
STI Was a Big Clue
"My best friend had chlamydia she got from a hook up. And then weirdly enough my fiancé at the time started having symptoms of, coincidentally, chlamydia!"
"This was the 2nd partner she had done this to me with."
"I had just gotten out of the hospital for a spine surgery, so thankfully I didn’t contract it."
"I gave him a ride to the Walk-In clinic (he couldn’t drive) and left him there."
~ brokenbackgirl
Keep It Down Over There
"Neighbor called me asking if we could be a little more quiet with the sex."
"I was in another state."
~ gooberhack
"This is how my neighbor found out her newborn child's father was cheating on her."
"She was working an overnight shift and their other neighbor (I was away) called in a noise complaint for a woman screaming."
"Dude was having sex his ex while he was supposed to be watching his newborn."
~ kaloonzu
Friendly Exes
"Oddly enough my ex-girlfriend (call her A) at the time told me."
"She messaged me asking if me and my girlfriend (call her L) were still together.
"I said yeah."
"A sent me a picture of L grinding on some dude's lap at a party."
~ CystandDiseaseLetter
Making a New Friend
"I caught an ex in my 20s in a similar way. My friend called me and he was like 'hey man are you still with her?'."
"'Yea why?'."
"'I'm going to send you a picture, I'm here right now, sorry man.' It was a picture of her on some dude's lap at a house party making out."
"I drove to the house, parked outside, texted her the picture, then walked inside. Walked up to her, told her we were done, looked at the dude, said 'congrats she's all yours now' to which he responded completely clueless that she had a boyfriend, and yelled at her."
"She left. He and I proceeded to get sh*t faced together at that house party and became really good friends for about 5 years before he moved to the other side of the country."
~ burkechrs1
Her Friends
"Her best friend called me and told me. She was very gentle about it, knew it would hurt a lot."
"Eased me into it, provided evidence, wished me a good evening."
"When that friend and I ended our convo, I called my then girlfriend and informed her about what happened. It felt good to have a counter to every excuse or lie she tried to retort with."
"Going in prepared spared me from just going back to her, probably."
~ danielstover
"My ex girlfriend's best friend did this for me as well."
"It was my birthday and I invited them all to a hotel in socal to celebrate. The friend pulled me away and said my gf had slept with like 5 people during our relationship."
"She saved me possibly years of heartache."
"Funny thing is, she hated me. She only told me cause my ex pissed her off."
~ Pawn_captures_Queen
"My ex's friend all summer kept referring to me as 'Scotty' and I kept asking why and my ex would get mad and 'sshhh' them."
"I finally found out that it was a reference to the song 'Scotty Doesn't Know'."
"Oof. This was in high school."
~ kikistiel
His Friends
"I had an ex whose friends were the reason I found out he was cheating on me after deep cleaning his apartment while he was in the rehab that I helped get him into."
"Real solid dudes. Wish I kept in touch with them over the years.
"They saved me so much grief."
~ tenderourghosts
In the Clouds
"Shared cloud storage photo album had backed up some damning pictures."
~ notyourregularninja
Photo Finish
"Had a picture on his phone of his side piece in our home holding our child."
"My head exploded."
~ Lady013
Gaslighters
"Found a long, maroon-dyed strand of hair in his BEARD."
"I have short blonde hair."
"Funny enough, he had constantly accused me of cheating beforehand."
~ MiniJackalope
"My ex husband was the same way."
"He swore I was cheating but it was him."
~ ddgg17
"My ex too, yeah. She blew up at me several times to accuse me of cheating while she was visiting her sister over Christmas."
"Her roommates informed me that she had a threeway with some random guy and her cousin on that same trip."
"Honestly at that point I was glad for the excuse to dump her."
~ camelCasing
Surprise Gift
"We were living a few hours apart for a few months because of work. I was driving up every weekend to see her."
"She called me and told me that she had to go see her dad or something that weekend. I knew she had been super busy and stressed at work and she loved wild flowers."
"I spent all day Sunday picking wild flowers, bought a vase, and drove up to the house she was renting, intending to drop them off on the porch so she'd see them when she got home that night."
"Her car was there. A sport bike was parked next to it."
"And she has never been quiet in bed when she didn't have to be."
~ JeevesTheRunner
Right Person for the Job
"I received an 'anonymous' email from someone who felt I 'deserved to know' that he was seeing someone else.
"The email included details about the relationship and several screenshots."
"99% sure it was sent by his side chick who wanted a promotion to main chick."
"I gracefully gave her the promotion and he found a replacement for her old position shortly thereafter."
~ apostate456
Ignorance is supposed to be bliss, but there's one thing all of these stories have in common.
Everyone was happier to end a relationship with a cheater than continue being lied to.
Things People Didn't Realize Were Expensive Until They Became An Adult
I was very fortunate that my parents were able to pay all expensive not only through adolescence but even through college. However, they made it very clear that once I graduated, I was on my own.
I made every effort to make sure I could afford to live once I graduated. I made copies of all the recipes my parents got when they bought stuff for me, and started saving my own receipts, something I didn't do through high school. I calculated monthly expenses and created a budget for the future.
When I graduated, I had accounted for all the big expenses: take-out food, the expensive skin care essentials I needed to keep my acne at bay, and utilities (heat, AC, electricity).
What I didn't realize was that small expenses are not so small. Microwavable meals went up by $2. Gas, which was pretty steady while I was in college, seemed to shoot up daily. And things that don't seem expensive at first glance, such as toilet paper, become big expenses as they add up.
I'm not the only one who had these realizations. Redditors have too, and are eager to share what items they didn't realize were expensive until they became an adult.
It all started when Redditor ForeignReviews asked:
"What item did you not realize was expensive until you became an adult?"
Yummy, Yummy
"Food is both more expensive and goes bad quicker when you're an adult."
– BriSnyScienceGuy
"I know right! I honestly love grocery shopping, so when I started driving I would go grocery shopping when I had the car and so nowadays I do maybe half of the grocery shopping. But, it's just so expensive. I often look for deals and will buy generic/store brand on most items but, still."
"My biggest tip for "goes bad quicker" is to always get from the back, because usually that's where the longer lasting stuff goes and when it's stacked, get from the bottom. When it's stuff with longer shelf life like cereal and canned stuff, I don't usually bother. But I mostly do that with bread and dairy products. My mom taught me that when I was little."
– ariana61104
"Yes! Having to feed yourself and your household is getting too expensive and so tedious. I really admire my mom for making dinner every night when I was growing up. Thankfully I don't have kids so me & my husband are okay with just eating snacks sometimes."
– WildMoonWitch
So Sweet
"My parents split up when I was a kid in the 90s, and I remember going to my dads apartment in another city, and him cooking us steak on the grill. I always loved that."
"Once I moved out I was like "wait steak is how much? Why the hell did Dad keep feeding us this?""
"Then I realised he was eating poverty meals all week to treat his kids on the weekend."
"For his 60th birthday us kids pooled our money and took him to arguably the best fine dining restaurant in my province for the full tasting menu. Seeing him light up at trying things like caviar and truffles for the first time made me realize how much he has sacrificed for us."
"So yeah, steak is expensive."
– KFBass
"You guys are awesome; what a nice story. He raised y'all right."
– Augustus58
Where Do I Sit?
"Gotta be furniture."
– harrisrichard
"When I bought my house I only had a bed in the master bedroom and all my friends kept saying “you make good money just buy furniture, you could have it furnished in a month.” Then they themselves bought houses and now understand why it took me a year to furnish my house."
– Stetikhasnotalent
They Don't Need To Be That Nice!
"Rugs. Why did no one tel me a ‘nice’ rug was $18,000."
– BenSadfleck
"But it really ties the room together."
– alittlec4
"Dude, you could fly to Morocco and get a hand made wool rug for that much. What the heck are you buying?"
– mofukkinbreadcrumbz
"My dog isn’t going to want to butt scoot on anything cheaper than 10k."
– iamaliberalpausenot
Car Accessories
"New tires. Most unexciting $1,000 purchases I have ever made."
– PRCraig
"Also why the hell are oil changes so expensive now!?"
– johnstonb
"Bro fr I swear they were just $20 just a second ago now it’s like $60?? I asked my dad to teach me how to do it myself as a teen and he said it was so cheap that I might as well pay someone else. That didn’t last."
– greeneggiwegs
Walk It Off
"A good pair of shoes will set you back a bit, especially if you need more specialized ones for whatever reason."
– sedition-
Part Of The Family
"Pets."
– TeacherLady3
"They have gotten a lot more expensive due to expected care changing dramatically, and how we feel about them."
"The idea that you would put a pet down because a vet treatment costs too much is horrible now, but was pretty common in the past. Outdoor cats were the norm so they pretty much fed themselves and you had far fewer litter changes - litter was just clay, and you tossed the whole thing."
"Dogs ate table scraps and whatever they hunted down, or cheap as dog feed made of whatever ended up on the slaughter house floor (bones and all)."
"While purebreds were probably still super expensive, most people had a mutt or tabby, that the found/were given, instead of buying."
– RandomChance
"All true. But I waited until I was in my 50's and had raised my kids until I could afford a pet. Like kids, I wasn't going to be a pet owner until I could provide the care they deserve."
– TeacherLady3
The Cost Of People
"Kids."
"I'm amazed how my parents could afford me."
– only_stupid_answers
"My parents had 5 of us. It amazes me to this day, that my fathers paultry salary at the time had to support it all. How the f**k could anyone do that today?"
– The_REAL_McWeasel
Vroom, Vroom
"Cars, all grown-ups had them, maybe even multiple. I still think its insane that some cars are more expensive than a 2 bedroom apartment."
– Tommer_nl
"I remember people restoring cars all the time when I was growing up. I would love to do it but even a rough condition rolling rust is super expensive now for even common things people aren’t super after."
– Pup5432
"Yeah what the hell!? I feel like everyone's dad (mine included) had a project car that they were tinkering with."
"All of my 'tinkering' is to keep my single, daily driver running!"
– disisathrowaway
Shiny Teeth And Me
"My teeth."
– Bumfuzzled_Hobgoblin
"Teeth are luxury bones, don’t ya know? Why on earth would regular health insurance cover them? Hahaha. The fact that vision and dental are separate from the rest of your body is absurd."
– Blackfoxx907
I See You!
"Glasses. I have awful eyesight and an astigmatism and got quite a shock when I had to pay for my own prescription glasses for the first time."
– Heavy_Mycologist_104
Time Flies
"Free time."
"As a kid I had loads of it and gave it away. now I can't afford even a minute !!"
– TokenFeed
"I took a toll road home today for an extra hour of free time and it was the best money I ever spent."
– squidkiosk
What I wouldn't give -- or pay -- for some extra free time!