There's nothing some people love more than drama. Not being involved with it, of course, but getting to witness it, and indulge in all the glorious weirdness of it. It's addicting. Don't lie, we all love to hear about it.
Sometimes the tension is too much to handle. Piebalddacshund asked:
What's your greatest, "you can cut the tension in the room with a knife" story
Awkward moments are usually pretty d*mn cringey. Here are some of the wildest stories.
A bad time for twerking.
“I bartended in college. The new manager, during the club rockin, at midnight, proceeded to cut off the music and tell 200 drunk college kids about how he was 120 days sober and showed everyone his coin. Then he preached about sobriety and him not having custody of his kids for about 4 minutes before putting Lil John back on so girls can twerk.
No one twerked.”
Now THAT’S awkward.
College Graduation GIF by Duke UniversityGiphy“Graduation day at the college where I work. The commencement speaker, a famous journalist, is giving her inspiring speech, working in little bits of trivia about our school. But something seems off. And as she starts listing our famous graduates, we realize she's Googled the wrong college, and is talking about the hyper-conservative Christian school a thousand miles away that happens to have the same name.
But the speech goes on and on, fifteen minutes more, with more awkward details she looked up on the wrong Wikipedia. And nobody wants to tell her while she's onstage. A murmur goes around, even the graduates' parents have figured it out by now, and several thousand people slowly cringe themselves to death.
To her credit she graciously apologized on her TV show and gave the college a nice promo.”
Yup, she REALLY did something there.
“At my sister's wedding, her "frenemy" showed up wearing a white dress... and to make it KNOWN she came upstairs to her room at the banquet hall before the "big entrance" (classic Italian wedding, you know?). She walked in and all of us bridesmaids and my sister were just slack-jawed. (she had zero reason to come upstairs except to show off her floor length white dress).”
[deleted]
“I just don't understand the mentality here. Is there a single person anywhere who would think ‘wow, she really showed the bride’ rather than ‘that guest in the white dress must be a raging c*nt’? That just makes yourself look bad.”
When family gets involved, that’s when you know sh*t has REALLY gone down.
The husband handled that well.
“Several, it really makes you feel older and make your BP skyrocket.
My cousin (F) came out to our family during a party. In front of her husband of 5 years and their 2 kids. She confessed to seeing another woman behind his back and that they've been together for far longer than she'd been married and she was the true love of her life and the kids names were her idea.
She then introduces her to everyone and as the silence went on and the the color in our faces returned, her husband just stands up and shakes the woman's hand and tells his wife that the papers will be coming along.
Party ended right there and her parents were pissed, they didn't care about her being a lesbian but her cheating was a big problem.
I learned that her lover had been in and out of rehab and is in no condition to support her or the kids.
My cousin had her marriage annulled but she lost custody of her kids, and could not get any settlement. By the end she didn't have a house and was basically homeless.
She's still with her but her kids refused to visit or have anything to do with her. Her girlfriend acts as if she's the one who gave birth to them and sends hateful messages to the father.”
This might win for the most tense.
toni collette dinner GIF by A24Giphy“My dad was an amazing father but once, when I was about five, he was gone all weekend. It was not like him to do this. He was a great dad and we were all crazy about him and so was my mother. Mom was stressed beyond belief.
At the time, she didn't work and he was our sole provider. There were four of us. She was a devout Catholic and Friday night, she lit candles and had all of us kneel and pray for his safety. Saturday morning, she called the police and said he was missing. Sunday morning, they called and asked her to come and identify a body that matched the description she'd given.
She was f*cking rattled when she got back. Some guy who was my dad's height and weight had been murdered. I can only imagine what she felt going into that room and seeing THAT on the slab. She asked to see his arm that had a tattoo and it was the wrong tattoo.
Dad came home Sunday evening with some cock and bull story about being slipped a mickey (old school roofies). You would have needed a jack hammer to cut the silence between them.
My mother always brought his plate to the table first. That night she brought all of our plates first. When she put his down, it was SO HARD, I remember his food being about two inches in the air from his plate. He didn't say anything. She didn't speak to him for a good while. Let's just say it never happened again.”
Things That Are Normal Where You Live But Crazy Anywhere Else | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
This is so sad.
“My mom died due to an overdose and without a will. At the funeral home, my stepdad, grandmother, aunt, brother and I were in the office to plan my mother's funeral.
My aunt and grandmother hated my stepdad. They said he enabled my mother, and didn't take care of her. My stepdad also owed my grandmother money.
My stepdad hated us all. My brother had stolen from him, he thought my grandmother and aunt were over-bearing, and he blamed me for my mother dying because I had cut off contact with her (it was for my own well-being).
My brother was just plain angry at everyone but me. He thought my grandma hadn't supported my mom. He also was in such denial that he thought my stepdad had murdered our mother.
My grandma also partially blamed me for my mother's death because of going no contact. My mother had been an addict for years, but apparently I was the reason she overdosed.
I was fuming angry that all of these people blamed me for the actions of someone else and I was being scapegoated again for my mother's actions. I was mad at my mom for not having a will, and for dying when I was 25.
I cannot imagine the tension that funeral director felt in that room, as all these people who detested one another tried to agree on funeral arrangements.”
Friendships can be really fickle, especially when we’re young. Definitely makes for a whole lotta awkwardness.
That’s karma.
“Back in highschool, my best friend was dating one of the most popular guys in school (not just our grade, the entire school). So it was a huge deal, and she gained a lot of popularity from it. This meant her getting invited to a lot of parties and I got to tag along to many of them.
During one of these parties, I was sitting with her boyfriend and another mutual friend of ours. I had gotten up to go inside and wash my hands, when I heard muffled sounds coming from the pantry in the kitchen. I went and looked, and my friend was in there hooking up with another dude. It wasn't just any dude either, it was the "weed guy" of our grade who was very awkward and weird.
Word spread around the party about this, and basically everyone knew what was going on but my friend's boyfriend because he had stayed sitting in the same spot for a while and nobody had the balls to tell him what was happening.
Finally after like twenty minutes, my friend comes out with the "snacks" she was getting and sits next to her boyfriend. You could've heard a pin drop as everyone got silent and stared at the two of them.
Worst part of it all, her boyfriend chuckles and says "you were in there for a while, what'd you do, lock yourself in the pantry?"
The tension was practically unbearable. Eventually he found out the truth, not sure how, but they broke up the next day and she basically became ostracized from hanging out with anyone that was even slightly popular. It never really blew over either, she had to transfer schools for the next school year and she deleted her social media accounts for several years."
We’ve all been in this situation.
Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory Tantrum GIFGiphy“I had a friend back in middle school that invited me to spend the night at her house. I was there for maybe 1 hour when she asked her mom if we could order pizza and her mom said no. My friend then proceeded to have the absolute worst, over dramatic screaming temper tantrum at her mom and then started screaming at her that I wanted the pizza and they were being rude for not buying it. This carried on for the rest of night and I just sat on her couch beet red waiting for it to end.”
Awkwarddddd.
“"When I was in 6th grade or so, I was invited to my friend's birthday sleepover party. She tells me to be there on Friday after school. So I show up with my overnight bag. Nobody else is there yet but I didn't think much of it. I just thought she wanted me to be there early to help set up and hang out. She says nothing. Her parents say nothing. But I could start to feel something was up when her mom takes us to Walmart to get things for the party. I said things like "we're going to have so much fun tonight!" that was met with awkward silent tension. I sat and watched TV with her family for a while and I could feel the whole room just go stagnant.
About an hour after we got back from the store, her mom started making dinner. I asked if I could help her, but that I thought she was going to be ordering pizza for the party. She finally told me that I was an entire day early for the party and that I needed to go home.
Edit: for those who asked, the party was terrible. She invited all the "mean girls" from school. It felt like Jenna's birthday party in 13 Going on 30 fr. I ended up leaving early after they started making tiny baby gay me uncomfortable by daring each other to kiss."
Not the impression you wanna make.
“My ex's family camping trip. Her mom is talking to one of her daughters, and the daughter says something along the lines of "I don't think I've ever seen you actually angry" and my dumb*ss has to chime in, ‘she was pissed at me once when I took your sis to two movies in a row and forgot to give her a heads up that we were gonna be back later’ mom chimes in ‘nope, I was pretty mad at you around thanksgiving a year or so back’.
I immediately grabbed my toast, downed a big ol glass of shut the f*ck up, and dipped out of that conversation. She was referring to when she found out I took her daughters virginity.”
We've all been there, on every end of it. Awkward moments are just a part of being human. Just remember, “this too shall pass". Or something.
Tension passes. Don't forget that
"After a recent study found 1 in 8 men under 35 admit to taking condoms to funerals "just in case", what's your experience with this?"
Select Crowd...
"I went to my grandma's funeral and hit it off with this hot nurse."
"Things were going great until my brother pulled me aside and said it was my second cousin."
'You know who shows up at funerals for old people? "
"Family members."- bumblef**kglobal
"I remember seeing a really hot chick at my grandmother's funeral."
"Immediately thought was I should chat her up."
"Then my brain went to, 'What if she's family and we just never met?'"
"I just went back to mourning."- VideoGameDana
Okay then...
"Once I was dating a girl whose dad absolutely forbid us from dating."
"Like, would lock his daughter in her room and take her phone to make sure we did not communicate."
"She told me when we spoke for a moment at Starbucks that she would date me if her dad was out of the picture."
"He died is a car crash on the freeway, and since her mom liked me invited me to the funeral."
"My girl and I sat next to each other at the funeral and couldn't wait, got it on in the parking lot of the funeral home."
"Condom was necessary."- crunchysquare
car studio GIF by ZI ItalyGiphyNever The Funeral, Always The Wake
"Ngl, some of the best parties I’ve been to have been wakes."
"In no way disrespectful, they were a celebration of the person’s life and also a massive tension release after grimness of the funeral itself."
"So I’m not surprised some people take a condom just in case."
"I’ve never done it, but I didn’t often expect to get laid regardless of situation."- Goryokaku
Oops...
"Proudly in the 7 out of 8 camp."
"But the 1 in 8 aren’t wrong."
"Heard through the family grapevine that one of my female cousins met a dude at a funeral and they banged it out the same night."
"Also turns out they were related (what’re the odds at the funeral of a relative? )."
"Distant enough they would never see each other again (different branches of her family), close enough that their family photo albums have overlapping people."- ESQBOJaguar
If You Really Think About It...
"Biologically speaking mourning/death triggers mating instincts as though that death tells the lizard brain in us that we need to procreate because death is scary."
"Scum'ically speaking, funerals typically leave people especially women in a state of fragility that leaves them vulnerable to suggestion and coercion."
"Socially speaking, some people, both men and women, seek comfort and company after/during a mourning period and when two people engage in comforting each other emotionally through a death it can trigger chemicals in the brain that cause the idea of connection or chemistry which can inevitably lead to copulation."- KURO-K1SH1
Season 18 Episode 3 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyBetter Safe Than Sorry!
"If you forget to bring a condom you increase the chance of casual sex with 10.000%."
"It’s a well-known fact."- Mukkeman
Not Just Men...
"I'm not a man and I've taken condoms 'just in case' pretty much anywhere."
"I've told folks to take condoms 'just in case' to a festival who I was sure would never have a one night stand and who I had never even seen mingle with any man/woman."
"It's a safety."
"The thing costs less than a dollar, but if anything somehow would happen, not having it could cost you your healthiness or independence/freedom due to a child being your new responsibility."
"Unless you absolutely, 100% am sure you will not be having sex that day, and no one will be able to change your mind - carry a condom."
"And having visited a funeral is likely not impactful enough to everyone to make them absolutely sure of that."-deterministic_lynx
It Is, Indeed, A Source Of Comfort...
"I'm a woman, but I'm going to point out that grief affects everyone differently."
"Some people get an intense need for sex when they are grieving, I speak from experience here."
"Perhaps they're carrying them everywhere already, but choosing to take some specifically to a funeral makes perfect sense to me."- Sexy-Snowflake
"My bf's son died, and his sex drive was significantly higher around that time period, I think it's just a way men deal with stress."- Arielxxxlee
Sexy Ava Gardner GIF by Turner Classic MoviesAlways Listen To Your Mother...
"When I turned 15 my mom told me to always have a condom in my wallet just in case."
"That was before people realized it was really bad to keep it in your wallet."
"So yeah I’ve been pretty much everywhere with one 'just in case'."- euphoria110
If It's Already There, Why Take It Out?
"I do too."
"I'm not going to remove the random condom that is in my wallet just because I'm going to a funeral."
"Not that I ever needed one, I'm still a virgin BTW."- azarbi
When One Life Ends, Another Begins...
"I’ve heard that the proximity of death increases the desire to make new life."
"Anecdotally, my FIL and MIL met at a funeral and 9 months later my husband was born."- KerouacsGirlfriend
Lionel Messi Hug GIF by FC BarcelonaGiphyNot SPECIFICALLY Funerals...
"We bring condoms everywhere, 'just in case', not only the funeral, you silly!"- WeetIkVeelNL
No one should be judged if they happen to have a condom with them when attending a funeral.
After all, should the moment arise, better to be prepared and safe.
On the other hand, if any of these people are attending the funeral with the intention of "getting lucky", that's just... yeah...
Redditor Spinksy48 wanted to understand the fun of letting your opponent lose by just doing nothing, so they asked:
"What is your 'never interrupt an enemy while they are making a mistake' moment?"
If the story starts to get really crazy, just wait for a break.
Then ask a question from the beginning.
I guarantee you know more of the lie than they do.
Just keep talking, friend.
Gotcha
Dashcam Hello GIF by TranscendGiphy"I let the lady who changed lanes into me run her mouth about how I rear-ended her before pulling the cop aside to show him my DashCam footage."
ThrowingChicken
A Cherry Wave
"I was accused by a neighbor of reversing out of my drive and hitting his car. He gave me the date and time I had allegedly done it and pointed to a (small) scrape on my car that supposedly matched perfectly the location of the dent on his. This was 7 weeks after the alleged event, by the way."
"I said it wasn't me but told him to contact his insurance and we'd see what they said. A few weeks later I get a letter from my insurance asking what had happened, to which I responded with the date I had bought my car (and updated my insurance) - two weeks after the supposed bump."
"He never spoke to me again but I used to give him a cheery wave every time I saw him glowering at his window."
Gazcobain
Speak Once
"In a meeting with my project manager who has not been in the office or worked a proper full day for MONTHS, she has increasingly been annoyed by people bypassing her to get things done by telling me and her other direct reports what to do."
"I was about to answer a question for stakeholders, and she told me to let her speak one sentence and will let me have my bit. I did as I was told, and she told the stakeholder a completely wrong thing about the system we were handling and made a complete fool out of herself. She got sacked this month."
choiaera
We Hated Each Other
"Guy stole a presentation from me, this is 25 years ago. We hated each other. When he started presenting I realized I had made a huge error, didn’t say anything. Let him get through it. Asked him about the error, but he couldn’t answer. This was in front of COO. Got fired, not for just that, he was an overall douche. This was before everyone was on PCs, and had one printer in one room."
Bmilvis
Whoops
Office Space GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"When a coworker who I hated got fired a few weeks after I decided to stop fixing his mistakes even if it impacted a client."
Hrekires
It's always thrilling to see the bad colleagues go!
Bye. Bye. Bye.
I will see you on the 15th
Idiot Reaction GIFGiphy"Not my story, but several years ago my older brother was fighting for custody of his son with his ex-wife. As the first custody hearing date approached, they were exchanging [un]pleasantries over text and my brother ended up saying something along the lines of, 'I'm not continuing this conversation. I will see you on the 15th.' The ex-wife told him, 'The hearing is on the 25th dumba**.'"
"So of course instead of correcting her, my brother just allowed her to keep thinking it was the wrong date, and she missed the first hearing entirely. It became the first of many mistakes she made in the court system that eventually led to my brother and the woman who is now his second wife winning full custody of his son."
Damn_Furries
Follow the Prints
"I'm working on a job site and the architect is there one day. I've been given some light fixtures for the sconces in a leasing office lobby. The fixtures are meant to be hung from a ceiling, they can't be installed on a wall. I attempt to convey this to the architect, but he brushes me off and just tells me to follow the prints."
"I turn to the apprentice and say, well you heard the man, put them up. A bit later, we hear the crashing of glass. The architect asks what was that? I said your light fixture. As I picked up a broom and dustpan to go clean up."
Ohhhhhhthehumanity
No Debt
"As I was being fired from a job, the district manager requested we record the conversation. He thought I was gonna be very upset, so I obliged. Then when he started to tell me why I was being fired he started with, 'You are gonna be graduating college soon, and we want to make sure we get ahead of you leaving us.'"
"I very calmly asked him to send me the recording right after he said that. Then later that day I called a lawyer. I now have no student loan debt."
JRTHEAMAZING
The Screams
"I reminded my ex-wife the divorce court was the next day and was invited to Get F**ked. So I went by myself, she failed to appear and pissed off the Judge so he asked what would be my desired outcome for assets and Custody of the kids. He wrote down whatever I wanted and I could hear her screams when she read the Orders from 3500km away."
comfortablynumb15
Silence
"There's a thing in law enforcement/legalese called a spontaneous utterance. Many many people will bury their own cases with these while bi*ching and moaning at their arresting officer on the way to jail."
raccoonsonbicycles
That last one is good knowledge to have in the back pocket.