Sometimes it's just best to keep your mouth shut.
However, it's always best to never be cocky or at least to know the difference between confidence and arrogance.
We have no idea what secret powers others hold.
And even if we are really great at something, it's best to be humble.
We can still kick someone's butt in whatever joust is thrown down though, just be nice about it, before you get slammed.
RedditorLightPancake914wanted to know who has accidentally overstepped a few times by asking...
People of Reddit, has someone ever challenged you to something you are an expert at without them knowing? If so, how did it turn out?
Yes.... I enjoyed that day!
"I remember once in high school, there was an assembly in front of the entire school. Can't remember the exact topic, but at one point the teacher pulls up a slide showing the village in Wales with a 58 letter name (Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch)."
"Then he points straight at me and says 'can you say that?' obviously thinking whoever he points at is not gunna be able to do it. Little did he know that my dad had been able to say it as one of his party tricks, and had been teaching me for years."
"Yes.... I enjoyed that day!"
KormaKameleon88
Fly Away.
Giphy"Guy told me all about how airplanes work, which planes are good, which are bad, you name it. Talked for an hour while sitting at the airport"
"I'm an airline pilot."
Washout22
The Mario Experts.
"My 9-year-old cousin challenged me to a round of Mario Kart (whatever the latest iteration is, he got it last Christmas). After thoroughly handing his ass to him, I pointed out to him that I've been playing the game since before he was born."
stealmyrecords
"My nephew tried this sh*t. he was doing 50cc races and winning and thought he could take me. the fool! I've been playing Mario kart since the beginning, even before his FATHER was alive!"
EricTheRedCanada
Tetris.
"Tetris. A version for Nintendo DS exists where you can link up via download, your cleared lines get sent to the other players screen, so it's a battle. The only other difference is you get a faster drop option."
"Freshman in college, on a trip and my friend was pretty confident (and determined) he could beat me at a game."
"34 undefeated games, just with him, and almost 2 hours determined that was a lie. People started taking turns after he gave up. Still undefeated."
NeonNintendo
Checkmate.
Giphy"In my first few weeks of this deployment, I was challenged to chess matches pretty frequently, but nobody wants to play me anymore :("
"I grew up playing chess. I've played against my dad a million times and only ever beaten him twice. As of a couple years ago I started teaching my son how to play. As a 2nd grader, he was whooping 4th grader asses at chess. Good times."
Judoka229
"Was out at a bar once and a dude challenged me to game off chess. Im by no means professional at it or even good, but I'm good enough to the point where i can beat anyone that doesn't really play chess. In his drunk mind i was a grandmaster."
luddoro
Stay Humble.
"Not a challenge, but when I was in 5th grade, I was the fastest kid in school. Our school went from K-8 and every year we had our own track meet and the kids who placed in the top three in each category would represent the school in the countywide track meet. 5th-8th grade competed against each other at our school."
"I won every single race by quite a stretch. I have always been fast and have been challenged to race and won every single time. When I went to the countywide meet, I was pretty brash and even my classmates were talking trash to the other schools."
"I came in 4th in the 100 yd dash, 5th in the 50 yard dash. I learned that day not to be cocky and that I actually needed to train and not rely on talent alone."
duckmunch
2 of the old deputies...
"As an infantry Marine, especially in weapons platoon, you get really good at spades. And I mean, really good."
"I left the Marine Corps and worked very briefly at a jail where I met another Marine, even better, a mortarman. We never discussed spades, nor played together at any time."
"2 of the old deputies wanted to play one night and said they were the best and no one could beat them. Since most people have never played spades, nor have a lot of people heard of it, they were surprised when me and the other former Marine knew how to play."
Devil Dogs....
"We went over the rules to make sure the different play styles were addressed and then one person decided to bet us. They lost at an overwhelming pace. Where it started to feel bad on how fast and easily we were winning. We didn't even speak to each other, but read each other's mind while playing."
"Man do I miss playing spades with a bunch of war fighting devil dogs everyday."
TOWonthewire1
Challenges are dumb. Just go home.
Play Hard.
Giphy"I play rugby in a club. Not really a pro but I can pull out a few moves and I definitely know how to tackle someone."
"A friend of mine challenged me to make him fall on the ground so I did a cathedral (I don't know if it's the right word, English, basically it's when you do a tackle but instead of taking him down to the ground the fastest way possible, you lift him first to make him recoil a bit before putting him on the ground) to him and he never asked me again."
dixthemean
StepMania...
"I used to play this game called StepMania (Think Dance Dance Revolution but with keyboard instead of a mat) all the time and was actually really good at it, but only 1 friend of mine knew. Another friend of mine was showing off how "good" he was in this new game he had been playing for a couple of weeks and dared us to beat him."
"I had only dreamt of such a moment before but that moment was finally there after about 10 years and he got absolutely destroyed."
bananapiece123
A Bird Duel.
"My girlfriend's sister kind of challenged me to a flipping the bird duel. For some time we flipped each other off unsuspectedly in creative ways. After a while I decided to send her a letter with a card I made. When you opened the card a printed finger unfolded and rose up like a Santa Claus in a Christmas card."
"I didn't sign it or anything. She kept the card and has it to this day. She told me she was really surprised and curious about getting a real letter via traditional mail. According to her boyfriend her reaction was berserk laughter. I won."
graablikk
15 Love.
Giphy"I got challenged to a tennis match by a house mate during dinner."
"He thought that because I was fat he would beat me easily."
"After some deliberately condescending comments from me he got agitated and we settled on a bet; loser runs home naked (about 2miles through the city)"
"I was indeed fatter than him, my freshman fifteen had become a thirty."
"I also had 12 years of competitive tennis under my belt."
"Nothing spectacular in terms of talent, I had just liked the game a lot, but certainly enough skill to send his skinny butt walking."
"I almost died laughing after the first game already because he was terrible at tennis, wtf was he thinking?"
FeverTreat
Olympic Challenge.
"Classmate challenged me to a handstand contest not knowing that i've been a gymnast for 19 years. Got $100 and bragging rights."
growingtohatemyself
"Haha I was going to share a similar story. I was in gymnastics for a couple of years when I was a kid so I can still do cartwheels and handstands and I'm also pretty flexible."
"But now I'm pretty overweight so at a crossfit gym recently the trainer was convinced I couldn't do a simple handstand leaning against the wall and when I told him I could he was like ya okay sure show me. So I cartwheeled over to a wall and did a handstand and held it for at least 30 seconds."
its_julz
Not in my House!
"My nephews thought they could bring smash into MY HOUSE?!"
"oh you picked Fox? Uncle you must have never played this before have you hahaha, he's not very good"
"They don't want to play video games with mean uncle anymore after not being allowed to touch the ground."
manaworkin
Pok-e Master.
"I did some student teaching in a middle school, and some of my kids challenged me to a Pokémon trivia contest. I wiped the whole entire floor with them. Casuals."
SomeGuyInShorts
"Dumb fool middle schoolers. They don't know about the Pokémon masters of the 90s."
nzcnzcnz
The Lefty!
Giphy"It's pretty well known that I'm good at tenpin bowling. On a work trip recently, my coworkers drunkenly decided to challenge me to a game - 'and to make it fair, you can only bowl with your left hand!'"
"I beat them solidly."
"(Am left handed.)"
seven_seacat
Dead or Alive.
"At the end of a party a colleague of mine took out his Xbox and asked with a large grin if we wanted to play the fighting game Dead or Alive."
"I was obsessed with it when I was younger but never told anyone I even play video-game. He didn't took a single round with his best character while I was drunkenly playing random characters."
"I even let someone else that never played the game before win a round to screw off my colleague."
Ntghgthdgdcrtdtrk
Speed ice skating!
"Speed ice skating! There was this really douchey guy in our group of friends who felt the need to show me up one night when a bunch of us were skating. I had played hockey growing up, unbeknownst to him, so I agreed to his challenge to race. After I lapped him (a few times) he just started laughing at himself realizing how cocky he had been."
"Turns out he was actually a really kind and caring guy, just so socially inept that it came across as rude. We became pretty good friends and I remember during a really bad flu i missed a few events and he was the only one who thought to call me up and see how i was doing. He got married recently and I couldn't be happier for him!"
JillandherHillsJillandherHills
I destroyed her!!
"When Pokemon ultra sun and moon came out I bought sun, my niece bought moon. I am 32 and have played since I was a little guy, she was a first time player. After a couple months of playing she cockily challenges me to a battle, like constant trash talk... I destroyed her. Like not even close to being close. As the battle ends I look up in triumph and she is crying. Like shaking crying. She throws her DS down and runs off to her room. I felt like the biggest fool in the world."
wham-alama-dingdong
"Indeed you do"
"At a social gathering, a guy that claimed to be a "music maven" <his words> talked on and on about J.S. Bach's Symphony No. 9, "Ode to Joy."
"Without mentioning that I taught music history, I simply remarked that Bach was a baroque composer and never wrote any symphonies - that "Ode to Joy" was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, not Bach's."
"He emphatically said, "Well, I know what I know."
"And, as I described here in askreddit some time ago, I simply replied, "Indeed you do," and let it drop."
Back2Bach
Raw.
Giphy"I mean, I would hope that they know I'm an expert on food, since they came to a nice restaurant where I'm the sous chef."
"But a small portion of the guests refuse to admit that they are wrong."
"The most memorable story is the rare seabass. This woman insisted that she wanted rare seabass, even after I told her that seabass doesn't have a temperature gradient like steak... it's either cooked or it's sushi."
"She complained that it was raw in the middle. No crap, lady."
cscott024
The Challenge
"My friend challenged me by giving me a WW2 quiz. Didn't turn out so well because i had, at that time known basically every event in the Second World War and was obsessed with it. Needless to say, I answered every question correctly."
ImTheFluffalo
I'm Dumb
"Back in college I went to go visit my best friend at his college. I don't know what he was thinking but he was feeling pretty cocky and challenged me to a drinking contest, 'I bet I can go beer for beer with you!' I'm 6'3" 200 pound frat guy, he is 5'8" 120 pound skinny kid. We are not even drinking anything heavy, basically Sam Adams and Shiner Bock."
"90 minutes later I'm polishing off beer number 7 barely even got a buzz, he is puking in the toilet. The best part we were laughing so hard, he goes 'I'm a f**king idiot' and we high five as he goes back to puking in the toilet."
RollThemBones
There are always lessons to learn. I do know things...
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.