Hearing someone say something hurtful about you sucks. It doesn't even have to be a purposefully negative thing, or an intentional hurt - sometimes it's just rough to feel like people aren't on your team. Oh, you thought it only happened to you? Psh. Wrong.
It's not just people who hate you that talk trash, either. I remember my mother telling my now-ex-husband to be careful with me because I was manipulative and would try to take him for everything he had. We've had our differences (obviously, or he wouldn't be my ex) but even he will 100% attest to the fact that she couldn't have been further from the mark.
Let's just say my mother has always been one to assume the worst about me in all cases possible.
Reddit user lunardownpour asked:
What was the worst thing you have ever accidentally overheard someone say about you?
and yeah ... ouch. The responses were rough.
Should Have Died
In high school I was in a terrible car accident. My first day back at school 3 weeks later, I walked into my AP English class and heard some girl say "She honestly should have just died in that accident. Better for everyone that way."
She was actually just mad that her boyfriend had broken up with her and very publicly asked me out; and that I had beaten her in an important writing contest. The results of the contest had been posted that morning. She seemed angry that I was still doing my work when I was out, but I couldn't leave my bed so why not?
Coincidentally that was also the first time I realized my best friend would always have my back. She hadn't realized I walked in and verbally destroyed that bitch in front of about 12 of her friends.
... Just Not Her
"When I'm ready to settle down It'll be with someone like her... just not her"
By the guy I'd been seeing for a while when someone asked him why we hadn't made it "official" yet.
- Lo_88
Right Idea, Wrong Kid
My stepdad insisting I was sleeping with my boyfriend (wasn't) and that I'd wind up just like my mother, pregnant at a young age. My mom got mad because obviously it wasn't easy being a teenage parent but she did well for herself and for me. This eventually turned into a yelling match about why he would date/marry her if he had a problem with her having me at a young age and him trying to backtrack and bring up other issues to deflect.
Turns out he had the right idea, just the wrong kid. My sister, his biological daughter, had my lovely nephew days before she turned 18.
- Stephyt
The Birthday Party
GiphyIn 6th grade the "popular kids" went to one kids birthday party. Don't know how but I found out about it existing, and my parents forced me to go. This was back when all the boys were invited to birthday parties.
I overheard the birthday boy telling someone that I wasn't invited. Really sucked.
- NickDST
Thanks Mom
"He literally has no friends. Our son is weak and can't do anything."
Thanks Mom.
The Rebound
Was dating my ex, and was at her house and we were outside, went in to use the bathroom and left them outside. Little did they know, the ground level window was open, so i could hear them start talking, and it went a little like this.
Friend: "I cant believe you're dating that POS, he's creepy"
Ex: "I know, I told you hes a rebound for jack"
Friend: "As long as you get rid of him, hes so annoying to be around"
- advntg
Fluent In Greek
I'm fluent in Greek, but I don't look Greek at all. When I was a lot younger I walked into a restaurant with my girlfriend at the time, the couple next to us was constantly talking about us in Greek. Just wrecking me mostly. Such as:
How is this 1/10 with this 10/10?
Muscle head must be on steroids.
His pants and shirt don't even fit.
Probably no money and is abusive.
Finally I had enough and I wrote them a note in Greek that said something like: "You are hurting my feelings. I don't understand why you people are rude and evil, please stop." and passed it on to them.
When we left the bill was covered.
- CanAgent
Smell
I had my head down in class and overheard two girls talking about how I smelled
That really got to me especially since I'm a borderline germophobe. After that I doubled up on everything like showers, oral hygiene, face washing, etc...
Everyday at school I would always worry about how I smelled and it would make me slightly depressed at times and give me anxiety about going to that class
To this day, I still feel insecure about how I smell to others.
A Little Bit Of Weight
I wouldn't say worst but it's not nice. My mum weighs about 140kgs (just over 300lbs) has had both hips and a knee replaced, went through menopause at 37 and has all these other ailments like osteoarthritis and fatty liver disease. She'd rather pop a pill then do anything else to somehow ease her illnesses and the PRIMARY thing that would contribute to a better life is her losing the weight.
I have had a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy 5 years ago, suffered with PCOS since 11, and so still didn't lose weight as much as other women. I have now been keto for three years after finding out I had serious food allergies (wheat/yeast/soy). So I'm very mindful of food, nutrition, exercise etc.
I do Olympic weightlifting 3 times per week, strength training, horse riding and yoga for physical and mental health. I've lost over 45kgs (about 100 lbs) on my journey and improved my life significantly. As a result, I've also had to buy clothing that fits and get used to wearing things more form fitting.
So over Xmas mum bought me all these things from a store that were size xxxl -I think that would be 20-22 AU at the store she purchased from. I could see just looking at the garment it wouldn't fit, but in my mums eyes I'm as fat as her. So I tell her it doesn't fit and she doesn't believe me until I put the pyjama pants on and pulled the waistband over my head. Instead of laughing about it she got pissed off.
We went to that store to change the items but being that I've not purchased from them before I didn't know what size I would fit. So I'm trying two sizes and she purposely wants me to wear the larger size. I do a few swaps and put the smaller size on and she says "oh that's lovely" and when I tell her it's the smaller size she says "it's grabbing at the back". (It wasn't).
So I hear the sales lady come up and she asks my mum if I'm ok and my mum says "She's lost a little bit of weight and wants to wear everything tighter now" with such disgust in her voice.
I couldn't believe it. I took everything off and opened the curtain and threw them back at her and told her she could buy something for herself with the credit from the store.
It's your mum and you don't want to think she's jealous or dislikes you but more and more I think she doesn't like me at all. A person who likes you wouldn't behave like that.
My husband says she's jealous because she can't even bend to tie her shoes let alone walk even 100 metres without panting like she ran a marathon.
Dear Diary
GiphyMy step-dad reading my diary of love poems to his friends at the dinner table and laughing about "how stupid" it was. I was like 8, for hell's sake. And that diary was stored in my desk drawer in my room. I was absolutely livid.
Just Like Her Father
"She looks just like her father when she's angry" My father regularly beat the everloving snot out of my mother. It got worse after I was born. FACS removed me at 6 months old, for 6 months, because my father was holding me when he swung at my mother and he dropped me. She left when I was 2. I overheard her telling a social worker this quote when I was 16.
It hurt like hell because I apparently reminded her of the man who scarred her for life in many ways whenever I was grumpy.
The Sentimental Jacket
I overheard my friends say:
"She always wears that jacket, Probably cuts herself that ugly [deleted]."
It killed me on the inside. The jacket was from my aunt who moved far away. It reminded me of her. I stopped wearing that jacket and felt ashamed.
- FightingHope
Proud To Be An American
I have family who are very proud of their Mexican heritage. I'm very proud to be an American and I've served in the US Marine Corps.
I've over heard them talking in Spanish (since they forget I can still speak it), and they joke about how stupid they think I am for having joined. They feel that I deserve the hassles I'm getting dealing with the VA.
Do The Job Right
Basically I was in a toxic relationship at the time, and it was just a constant cycle of my ex gaslighting me, becoming jealous of anyone else who spent time with me, putting me down, etc. For context, I was also in an abusive situation at home living with my dad, and I had met my ex, Mark, and dated him as I was dealing with my home life.
We were a long distance relationship, and we mainly chatted on Skype. We'd have voice calls and video chats often, usually when my dad was asleep for obvious reasons. When I explained to him when I'd suddenly hang up during calls or I was gone for a while without warning it was because of my dad. Mark would just laugh it off with really awful jokes about it.
Don't get me wrong, I love dark humor as much as the next guy, but it hurts to hear that when you're dealing with getting beat regularly. He constantly vented to me about stuff in his life, but got angry when I even got the smallest bit upset about anything in my life.
Fast forward near the end of our relationship; Mark was in a call with me and another person, sharing what was showing on his screen as he was using his laptop. I suppose Mark assumed I fell asleep since it was late and I was quiet, or didn't care/forgot that he was sharing his screen.
He opened his chat with the other person, and I saw some of the stuff she and Mark were saying about me. Mark's message to her that said something like:
"LMAO I hope her dad gets mad enough to do the job right next time"
He knew that dad threatened to kill me a few times.
His Girlfriend's Kids
My father was talking to my grandmother about how I was weird and he preferred to be a father to his girlfriend's kids.
Biggest Disappointments
I saw my favorite teacher from secondary school in a pub. I heard him say to a friend that I was one of his biggest disappointments.
I'm well aware that I haven't met expectations but this hit me really hard.
- JoNimlet
So Boring
GiphyNot sure if this counts but I was casually going through my girlfriend's comment history and found out she had made a post on the Couple Advice subreddit about how boring I am. She said that she feels like I'm preventing her from having fun and "caging her in."
Not the worst thing I've heard but it hurt to see how my girlfriend felt I was so boring she was considering breaking up with me.
So Much Better
"I heard Johnny is dating her, he can do so much better"
The entire room agreed. I was at the door as the room fell silent when they realized I heard them.
The Drunken Phone Call
My mom got drunk and was talking to someone on the phone. She said she wishes she had aborted me. This was right after I came out as trans.
A Flight To Catch
After a suicide attempt that nearly killed me, I heard my dad say to someone in the emergency department
"How long is this going to take? I have a flight to catch in the morning."
It's one of the only things I remember about that night.
- Phoral
The Ugly End Of The Scale
I was in English class, must have been about 15 years old. There were two guys sitting next to me who were chatting amongst themselves whilst we were doing work. The two 'popular' girls were sitting at the back of the class, one was extremely beautiful the other one was...kinda average.
I heard one of the boys ask the other one if they thought the average looking popular girl was hot, his response was "I mean, kinda, shes not like [pretty popular girl's] level but shes not like..."
Then he looked around the room briefly and said my name. The other guy then agreed with him and they moved on in their conversation.
I think the reason why it crushed me so much was the fact that he didn't intend on me to hear, he wasn't saying it to try and be funny or hurt my feelings, he was just using me as an example of someone on the ugly end of the scale in order to get his point across.
If they said it loudly for me to hear I would have just brushed it off as kids being mean, but the fact that it was something I overheard made it so much more painful.
The Fun House Lady
I was told, to my face, that when I laugh I sound like the fat lady at the fun house. Not something you want to hear. Especially when you laugh alot.
Jeans
GiphyEarly in my career, I got an email from a co-worker, meant for someone else, talking about how tight and out-of-style my jeans were. I had zero self-esteem back then so I threw the jeans away after work that day. Now I would've laughed it off, or more likely I would've used it to embarrass the dude who sent it.
- DenL4242
Hurry Up
Approached my mother to tell her I felt suicidal, that I thought I needed help. Under her breath as I left she muttered:
"Hurry up and do it then and stop talking about it."
I was 15.
The Church Ladies
I was walking into a church as a teen, two older ladies were walking by and I heard one say out loud:
"That's one ugly kid."
There was no one else around so they had to be talking about me.
Then the other one (I guess to be nicer, but sounded worse) said to her:
"Well, he's not ugly to his momma."
Thanks.
Companies are typically in business for profit, and very few have the goal of keeping the customer's interests in mind.
But some corporations go even further to get more out of their customer in exchange for their "quality services" and as a result, the line between general business and scam becomes blurred.
Redditor jwwin asked:
"What is a predatory business that shouldn't be legal, but is?"
Students paying an exorbitant amount in tuition in order to seek higher learning should be warned there are additional expenses to cover for.
A Textbook Example
"College textbooks, they will release an 'updated' edition every semester but the information doesn't change. And then after you spent a fortune on the books the places that buy textbooks will give you like 5% of what you paid for the book."
– teethalarm
A "Double Whammy"
"Former Prof here. I talked with a book rep about this once and learned a lot. It is a bit complicated but worth understanding. Book publishers rely on large quantity sales to make any money on a book because the cost of production is so high up front (author, editors, printing, etc.). So, for a book to be profitable, it has to sell a lot of copies to spread the cost of production across all the books. A paperback in the fiction section might sell 100,000 or more. A textbook might sell as few as 1,000. So, the publisher needs everyone to buy the book to break even."
"Now add colleges into the mix. Somewhere in the 1980s (give or take), colleges saw publishers selling books and making larger profits on them than the college bookstore was making per book. So they got the bright idea to start buying used texts and reselling them. Before that, a text would come out and 97% (making the number up but it was close to that) of the students would buy the book in year one, 85% in year two, 75% in year three, 60% in year four and 50% in year five. A $50 dollar book would cost $25 to make (again, making the numbers up), sell to the bookstore for $40 ($15 publisher profit), and be sold to the student for $50 ($10 bookstore profit). Across the five years, the producer would make a profit."
"Then, college bookstores began offering students $25 for a used book and selling it for $40 ($15 profit - $5 higher than that of a new book). Students would then prefer the $40 used book over the $50 new book. But that cut the publisher's sales from 97% to 50% in the first year. Because they could not sell as many books they had to do two things: (1) raise the initial price of the text to cover the production cost in 1-2 years rather than 4-5 years, and (2) cut the cycle down from 4-5 years to 1-2 years to ensure that they got sales of the book. That is a double whammy. Texts that used to cost $50 now cost $300 or more. And they have a new version out every 18 months or so. Students refuse to pay that price and that cuts the sales numbers even further forcing the price up again. And, with new editions out so frequently, it is harder to sell them back to the bookstore."
"That's why you see so many 'course packs' now - where a professor will pick a few pages from a book to give to the students. I went from having nearly every student purchasing a text in my early career to having zero students with a text late in my career. Your professor probably dislikes the state of affairs as much as you do. I cut down what books I would select because I could not justify students paying that much for what they were getting. I would also recommend students look for older editions on Amazon and the like which got me in trouble with my administration because I was not supporting the bookstore. But, it was difficult to teach from a text that no one had or had access to. The University's desire to generate revenue from texts truly was killing the chicken because it was not producing enough eggs."
"So look for an older edition on Chegg, Amazon, or the like and match it up with what your professor is teaching from the new edition. You are right, it probably has not changed. Be careful for the problems at the end of the chapter - that is often where the changes are."
– BewnieBound
These businesses parade as services but they are notorious for taking more than what you're willing to pay for.
For A Future Owner
"Rent to Own (furniture, appliances, TVs, video game systems, etc.) The mark up on the interest over time ends up costing 4 times the purchase - or more."
– PartyAlarmed3796
"Well the trick is to not pay (seems to be what a lot of people do)."
– Expensive_Ad2695
"Which is why those places are so expensive and why they're actually kinda necessary for some people."
"They're taking a pretty big risk on people with no credit, and if a person with shi*ty credit needs a refrigerator or other necessary appliance, there's usually nobody else willing to work with them. Also, most of them report to credit agencies so you can build your credit through them."
"I'm not a fan by any means and I hate that people are buying video game systems and couches through them, but I still think they're filling a need."
– Pitiful-Pension-6535
Money Sucker
"Payday loan companies – they're like financial vampires, sucking the life out of people with high-interest rates."
– neonliolia
"And yet most of them are owned by major banks... hmmmm."
"Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, JP Morgan/Chase collectively all own the largest payday lender companies."
– Bramtyre
"In Canada, there is an effort to turn Canada Post into a kind of bank that offers basic banking services to the most vulnerable. Not sure what happened to that, but it was an alternative to check cashing and payday loan rackets."
– hobbitlover
Greedy Event Vendor
"Ticket Master."
– LTVOLT
"Agreed. We went to a preseason hockey game the other week. Tickets were $5 each but there was around $8 of Ticketmaster fees for each one and you had to use their app to get in the door because the barcodes change like every 30 seconds or something. It's ridiculous."
– darfus1895
Where can citizens turn to receive genuine care without drying up their financial resources?
Big Pharma
"Health Insurance and over priced perscription drugs."
"Wife is type 1 diabetic. Her pump is over $1000 a month WITH 50% coverage. $177 for just the sensor pack. We have the best coverage we can afford."
– Dukeboys_
"US pays the middle man for health care coverage. The middle man and the health care provider come up with "health packages" you can buy into, just in case you get sick. It's just sick how they funnel money from the middle class into this."
– dcoolidge
"Healthcare insurance industry. They can straight up reject claims you should be covered for and make you jump through near endless hoops to get them to pay for the service that is part of your plan."
– ColdHardPocketChange
All Out To Get Ya
"Homeopathic 'medicine' sellers."
"Psychics"
"Domain search engine registration scams (fake emails or physical mail that shows up saying 'your domain search registration is about to expire' and look exactly like warnings that your domain name is about to expire)"
"Fake homeowner warranty/car warranty scams loaded with so many limitations and exclusions they’ll basically never pay out."
"Multilevel marketing systems like Amway."
– 4wqrewtety
Losing Sight Of Kids' Well-Being
"From my experience working in group homes for youth are awful. The owners only want money and the more kids in care the more money."
– OddReputation3765
Going Nowhere Fast
"Car insurance."
"You get penalized for using it. Even just once in some cases."
– Effective_Sundae_839
"1000% agree. I was rear ended by a hit and run driver while i was stopped at a stop sign. Literally came to a stop for 3 seconds max and got destroyed. Car insurance wanted to give me 4k and shut me up. It’s called the nuisance fee. I eventually lawyered up and got 25k out of it. But like wtf. B*tch that’s what we PAY FOR, following renewal of my policy it increased hundreds of dollars a month and that was even after i switched to a different company. 'A claim is a claim regardless who is at fault.'”
– HitBackZach
Businesses taking advantage of their customers should be a crime, yet here we are.
What companies can you think of that legally continue to look after their own profitable interests above providing a decent service?
