People Break Down The Scariest Moment They've Ever Experienced On A Date
Dating is supposed to be fun, right?
You get to go out with a person you've hopefully made some kind of connection with, spend quality time together, alone, and forge those bonds with the intent to lead to something better.
And then there's dates like these, which are so awful you might reconsider the whole concept of "dating" ever again.
Reddit user, LankyJeweler4925, wanted to be a little terrified when they asked:
"What was the scariest moment you’ve had on a date?"
First dates are already a cocktail of nerves and excitement. Odds are you might say something awkward and or not phrase something the way you pictured in your head, and that's cute, don't get us wrong.
And then there's saying or reacting the way these people did.
Classic "Shmosby"
"He said he was in love with me and he couldn't live without my scent. It was the first date. I didn't check if he's still alive lol"
Freckles1339
When Your Date Throws You Into The Line Of Fire...
"Dating an extroverted woman that convinced me to go out dancing/cubbing with her. She got drunk and started talking sh-t to some chicks and their boyfriends somehow and telling them that I would bear them up. The bouncers stepped in but they were mean mugging me all night. I thought I was going to get curb stomped or shot at coming out of the club."
BidDaddyFarts
There's a lot you can say about someone who gives off the following vibe on a first date.
None of it is good, but you can say a lot.
Asserting Imaginary Ownership
"He took me out to several different bars and was an @ss the whole night. Plunked me down in a seat and promptly ignored me. I struck up a conversation with the lady next to me. Her husband was talking to someone on my other side. My date comes up to me as the lady and I are exchanging numbers. He accuses me of trying to start a lesbian relationship, takes my phone, and leaves me at the bar. I had to walk back to his place to get my car."
"I knocked on my door and asked for my phone back. He gaslights me, telling me he didn’t have it and I must have dropped it. The next day I got my phone back and he got upset when I told him we weren’t seeing each other anymore. Sat outside my house a solid 5 minutes after I kicked him out."
MuffytheBananaSlayer
Overcompensating For Something
"I just turned 18 and met this guy at a job I was at. My long term partner had recently passed from a drug overdose and this guy invited me to a classic car show."
"I wasn’t really interested in him, but my parents said I should go. I decided why not. He complained because I didn’t wear a dress (first red flag)."
"Then, he asked me if I was afraid of guns. I said not really, I’ve shot them before."
"Well, he pulled out a pistol in the middle of the car drive. I was hours away from home with this guy that I just met, and he had a gun. This was at the beginning of the date."
"I tried to get him to take me home, but I had to spend several hours with him. I ended up getting away from him using the bathroom excuse and calling my parents."
"It was the worst and most frightening date I have ever been on."
Hello891011
GUNS
"I once hooked up with a guy while I was in college (I’m also a man) and, after we were finished, he started talking about guns and asked if I had ever held a pistol before. I said no and he pulled one out and handed it to me. I didn’t want it but he was super insistent and I just remember it being shockingly heavy. I handed it back and tried to be as cool as possible while leaving and going to the car."
"Told him I’d see him again, told him the gun was cool and thank you for letting me hold it, told him to text me soon, etc. Once I was gone I blocked his number and was more paranoid about who I slept with going forward."
Esosorum
And then there's these, stories so harrowing you almost wish the person never went out on the date to begin with. Doesn't matter if they ended up married in the end, no one should have their life threatened on a date.
Dude Needs To Work On His Pickup Lines
"i was once told in the car coming back from the date that i would look good in the coffin. i swear to god that i left his car in the middle of nowhere and yet i felt safer than sitting next to him."
awellintentionedmess
"Wtf that's some psycho sh-t. How did you leave?"
Biosentience
"literally jumped off. still i was nice. i told him i didn’t like what he had said to me and told him to pull over and then i left. i didn’t want to risk since there was a big covered plastic bag in the backseat with something in it. watching all these crime stories all my life made me being really conscious at that very moment. paid off. later in life i found out that there was an axe in this plastic bag."
awellintentionedmess
Be A Better Person Than This
"When I was 18 and naive, I went to the cinema with this guy from tinder and the whole time he kept touching my leg and trying to put his hand up my skirt. It gave me the ick and just wanted to leave."
"After the movie he dropped me home and I went upstairs to bed. About 10 minutes later I turn around and the guy from the date is stood in my bedroom threshold. I was home alone for the weekend too, so I started to panic."
"I asked him why he was in my room, and he said he needed the toilet, knocked but apparently I didn’t hear so he let himself in. At this point my heart was pounding in my chest and I didn’t know what to do."
"He said he had a really nice time and basically pushed me onto my bed and started kissing me. I pushed him away as nicely as possible and said my mum would be back in a minute."
"He then left and I locked the door behind him. I didn’t sleep that night and was terrified he’d break in or something."
smf101
A Happy Ending, At Least?
"I went on a date with a girl not knowing that her ex boyfriend was in a local Mexican gang. She had just broken up with him about a week prior… he didn’t take that well. On top of being a garbage human for physically and mentally abusing her, did I mention he was in a f-cking gang? She and I went out on a whole date, multiple places, back to her house to drop her off."
"I don’t realize until I’m leaving the parking lot of the restaurant we went to that we were being followed… all the way back to her house. I dropped her off, and the guy continued to follow me. Knowing I don’t go home, I make intensional turns and things to confirm he’s following, and he was. Called her, she said don’t go home and I’ll call you back."
"She called me back 20 minutes later after I drove through 2 different police stations and she said “you’re okay to go home now, just act normal” which isn’t sketchy at all. I went home, he followed and drove off… I walk to my apartment door and there’s 30+ Mexican gang members there and her cousin who’s in that gang, as well as her brother who isn’t but knows them. I had never met them before, so I was like I’m dying today. The brother asks how I’m doing, and said “just go inside, you’re good.”
"They stood outside my door and in my apartment complex for 4 hours and then went home after the brother knocked on my door and said that shouldn’t ever happen again."
"That girl I took on a date, ended up dating for 3 years and is now my wife and we had our first baby in September, and celebrated our first year of marriage last week."
MTB199262
“let’s go outside”
"I don’t want to make this story too long, but I met this guy on tinder that I really liked and we went out dancing and to get drinks. We were talking for weeks but this was our second time going out together. During the time we were talking, there were a lot of little red flags that would tell me he drank too much, but I was a lot younger and naive back then and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt."
"Any who out of no where he’s like 'let’s go outside' starts messing around on his phone and is telling me 'I’m trying to find us a way out of here' and said the guys standing by the door were after him. So I’m like okay, let’s go back to my car so maybe we can go somewhere else. My car was parked pretty far away because we had gone to multiple locations that night.. anyways he gets it into his head that multiple people are after him."
"Like random people on the street. Once we were in a part of downtown that wasn’t so busy, nobody around, he started to think that I was out to get him too. I was trying to call his friend (who was nearby) to come get him but he took my phone away from me because he thought I was calling the cops, and then he threatened me. I got scared because I thought 'if he hurts me here and leaves me here, nobody’s going to find me until morning' and it was pretty cold out."
"His friend eventually came and got him and I left. Once I was safe I was jittery all night from the anxiety having been in rocky relationships before. I told him about it the next morning and he didn’t remember any of it. I broke things off shortly after."
cheese007_
Bye...
Season 9 Smh GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Woman asked me back to hers, got there and she introduced me to her boyfriend....noped outta there."
Candy_Lawn
The Crazy One
"I was at a guy's house, it was like our 4th time meeting and we started getting a bit more touchy and kissed more, I said I was gonna head home around 12 as I had a long day and he got in my face and got super aggressive and angry about it, like a child having a tantrum asking me why I didn't want to stop over at his place, this guy was 6ft 6, huge muscular guy who could probably pick me up with one hand."
"I stood my ground and told him to stop overacting and respect my decision. After that blow up I never saw him again. Should have seen the flags as he always claimed his exs were crazy... looks like he was the crazy one."
spiralgalaxym83
Broken
"I took my date to the city from the burbs maybe a 15-20min ride. I was 17 and had an old S-Class Benz that I bought from my dad's friend an old timer who didn't use it too much and owed my dad some money for work on another car. The car ran like a dream and I loved it. We were on the way and traffic started to build up so I removed my foot from the gas and as I braked I noticed the gas pedal was stuck at about 60mph."
"Without thinking I reached down and tried to pull the pedal back. I did it just in time without her noticing. I didn't tell her anything and the date went spectacular. I damn near broke a rib bending like that. Don't forget to stretch kids it could save your life."
Jenghrick
Get Sober
"Was on a date with a girl who proceeded to get very drunk, by the time we finished eating I had to carry her out. Honestly I didn’t notice she was that drunk during the date. Probably cause she was Korean and her English wasn’t very good, that and I was a horny early 20 something I kind of just assumed she was being silly on purpose."
"Well she was so drunk I had to walk her like 9 blocks to where I had parked the car since we had done some window shopping before settling on a restaurant. I have never felt more stress than walking a nearly blackout very attractive Korean girl 9 blocks in the middle if the city with people all down the street giving me looks. I honestly wanted to take a less popular street to avoid the looks but thought that would for sure look way creepier."
_Steve_French_
Oh Well
Shrek Film Smile GIF by PeacockTVGiphy"First date with my wife she took me off roading and when we went over a hill into a dip a donkey was just chilling in the middle of the trail, we drove off the trail and finally came to a stop without hitting any of the car sized boulders that are common in that area. The donkey just stood there the entire time not giving AF."
Peelboy
Walk On By
"We were walking by a river and he said « don’t worry i won’t drown you today » Safe to say i didn’t go out with him again."
zestygerman
Dumb Move
"We were driving past a police station. She was looking for something in her bag. Placed a big bag of weed on the dashboard, with cops outside. This was well before the acceptance and legalization of it. Not that it would have mattered as it was not a small bag. No one saw it, but what a dumb move on her part."
TheBklynGuy
Hi Mom
"I recently went on a second date with a girl (we’re both in our mid-late 20s) at a café and 20 minutes in a middle-aged woman at the table next to us just butted into the conversation. I was kinda confused until she introduced herself as the mother, and then she proceeded to hang out at the table for like 5-10 minutes before leaving. It was incredibly awkward, and although I kinda smoothed past it in the moment it did weird me out that her mom was just spying on us without me knowing, and the daughter never acknowledged her either until she joined in."
Nowhere
"There is a popular beach near my university, and you need to drive though a road that looks like it takes you to the middle of nowhere. Freshman me didn't know this, and I swear I thought I was going to die during that 10 minute drive."
pups_and_doggos
Be open. Be honest. Be your true self. These are the simplest ways for you to make a real connection on a first date.
Unless being honest means taking a gun out. Just, don't.
Vegans Who Started Eating Meat Again Share Their Experiences
Reddit user Capital_Brain2676 asked: 'Vegans that started eating meat again, what happened?'
Most restaurant menus have caught up with the times to offer plenty of options to patrons with various dietary restrictions.
Vegan dishes tend to be a top priority, with gluten-free options being a close second.
Thanks to these options, groups of family and friends can dine together and not be limited by restaurant choices.
But when there's a sudden break in routine on the next outing, it can be jarring when the vegan in your group suddenly orders prime rib or a juicy burger that is not a plant-based patty.
What the whaaat?
Curious to hear from those who did a dietary 180 after routinely nourishing themselves with food grown from the earth's soil, Capital_Brain2676 asked:
"Vegans that started eating meat again, what happened?"
Some people were told what's good for them.
Point Made
"I know someone who was a vegetarian for 13 years simply because someone told them they couldn't do it. I guess he figured 13 years was enough to prove a point and went back to eating meat after."
– ottersandgoats
"I feel like 2-3 years would be enough though??"
– WebBorn2622
On A Dare
"I knew a girl in college who did that. She was dared in middle school to become a vegetarian and... she just stuck with it. More power to them."
– ComplexWest8790
Some people were left with no choice but to ditch veganism.
Thanks, Mickey Ds
"Got cancer. Ate whatever my body would take without throwing up and that just happened to be chicken nuggets."
– BratS94
When Choices Are Limited
"Homeless and pregnant = eat what I was given."
– anon
"I’ve always wondered this actually. If a homeless vegan eats what they’re given. I’ve given homeless people subs in the past because of veggies, protein, and carbs (all necessary things) and wondered if they would eat it if they’re vegan. I’m sorry you’ve been on that road. I hope things are better for you now."
– Saltwater_Heart
The Saying Goes
"There is a reason for the saying 'beggars can’t be choosers,' you give what you can/have and you can’t always accommodate the person you are giving it to, don’t think too hard about it. Also, hope OP is doing better."
– Reikotsu
Certain medical conditions prevented these Redditors from sticking to their restrictive diets.
Cooking For Two
"I still eat mostly vegetarian food and have done all my life. However my husband was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and coeliac which means that a high fibre/lower iron diet is not an option and a lot of the substitutes aren’t gluten free. More often than not when he has meat I’ll leave it or have the veggie equivalent but there are just not enough hours in the day to make 2 separate lasagnes and sauce etc."
– Chanel-Chic
Troublesome Ailment
"As someone who has UC, that's very cool of you to cook a more UC friendly diet. I dated a woman for 6 months who was a pescatarian. Every time I cooked, it was something we both liked and could eat. Every time she cooked, she focused on what she wanted and it didn't seem to matter whether I could eat it or not. She was nuero divergent and had it in her head that veggies = good regardless of what it did to my insides. For anyone who doesn't know, UC is inflammation due to my immune system attacking the lining of my colon. So it's inflamed (unless you're in remission, which a fair amount of people aren't). Large amounts of fiber makes the food sit there longer and get more packed, which hurts like all hell being tight up against inflamed tissue. And certain ones create gas of an unimaginable magnitude and strength."
"Anyway, a fair amount of the time, I had to order delivery or takeout because otherwise, I would have been farting or sh*tting my brains out overnight. So I appreciate what you've done like you wouldn't believe."
– Wishilikedhugs
Bye Bye Veggies
"My gastroparesis diet led me off my vegan diet as well. I can’t handle legumes, leafy greens, and most vegetables. Hard to be a healthy vegan without any of those."
– Jefauver
When Vegan Ingredients Turn On You
"Yup. Crohn’s Disease ended my 17 year vegetarian stretch. I’m in remission now and don’t eat red meat but I am sensitive to several vegan friendly ingredients like garlic, onions, cauliflower family and now I can avoid them without starving."
–friscodayone
Cooking For A Full House
"Back when COVID had everyone in lockedown, myself and my roommate's family would take turns cooking dinner and it was fine. Then my roommate went on the NOOM diet, her daughter was diagnosed with GERD and couldn't have anything acidic, and her husband was diagnosed with celiac. Oh, and another family member disliked potatoes. I finally had to bow out. It was way too much of a pain in the @ss to cook a meal that met all of those restrictions."
– panda388
Sometimes, you just gotta have meat.
Costco Chicken
"Not my story, but a good friend of mine was vegetarian, very nearly vegan for over 10 years. One day she was in Costco and walked past the rotisserie chickens. Without thinking she put it in her cart. When she got home she stood over the sink and ate it with her bare hands. She had no idea what came over her. Her telling me this story is still one of the funniest things I've ever heard. She is still very plant forward in her eating, but she won't hesitate to order a burger or a steak when she wants it now."
– NotAlwaysGifs
Ravenous
"I went on a weekend backpacking trip with a girl who had been religiously vegan for a few years. It was a pretty physically intense trip, and the last day heading back was in pouring rain the whole way, so by the time we got back to our car, we were absolutely exhausted, filthy, and starving."
"There was only one restaurant anywhere nearby, one of those highway diners. We get there and I notice she's got this kind of crazy look in her eyes. I ask if she's okay, and she just says 'I need a steak.' I laugh, but she goes 'I'm serious. I can't help it. I need a big greasy piece of meat right now or I'm going to die.""
"Sure enough, she orders the biggest steak on the menu, and wolfs it down in minutes, and the crazed look goes away. After that, she went right back to being vegan like nothing had happened. The look in her eyes was a little scary to be honest."
– AxelShoes
Unless it's a matter of life or death, there's no way I can survive being a vegan.
I don't have a strong enough will power to avoid eating meat.
So if that day ever comes when I'm forced to make a major change in my diet that won't include red meat and you're around me all the time, apologies in advance for my perpetual state of being hangry.
When getting together for dinner with friends, there isn't a more convenient, economical, or (hopefully) fun way to do it than having a potluck.
That way, one person isn't responsible for cooking everything, not to mention cleaning all the dishes afterward.
And everyone can contribute something they love, be it handmade or store-bought.
Of course, the ongoing risk with potluck meals is that one dish proves to be much less popular than others, possibly even going completely untouched all night. Perhaps the only thing worse than a dish going completely untouched is only one person touching it and then warning others to avoid it.
Redditor aquamarinetangerines was eager to hear about the most disgusting dishes people have ever seen or tasted at a potluck, leading them to ask:
"What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen someone bring to a potluck?"
Disgusting AND Lazy...
"Has a guy bring in his 'specialty corn'.”
"It was legit canned corn in a crockpot with spices."
"Thing is, he tells us 'ya, my wife took it to her pot luck on Tuesday, they didn’t eat it so I saved it on low in the crockpot and brought it here'.”
"It was Friday."
"Corn was brown."
"Nobody ate it."
"He kept eating it saying it was so good."
"The following Monday his new name at work was Corn Cob Rob."- ComparisonHonest
"She opened a can of tiny shrimp and poured it out, liquid and all, on top of a block of cream cheese."
"That was it. I guess we were supposed to eat it with crackers."- cherrybounce
Happy Fun GIF by Chopt Creative Salad Co.GiphyCheck The Dates...
"My grandmother-in-law."
"Everything she brings."
"The first time was stale cake in a bowl of syrup(?)."
"It was both cake and soup, while also being neither."
"She has meat in her deep freezer older than some of her grandchildren."
"She’s a depression-era cook, so expiration dates don’t apply to medicine, cupboards, or freezers."
"Once she tried to give my daughter (2yo at the time), cough medicine that expire 9 years before she was even born."- dirtandstarsinmyeyes
"We had a potluck today and someone brought some Doritos."
"People started eating them and complaining that they tasted like dirt."
"We looked at the bag and it had a promo for 'Mockingjay part 1'."
"The chips expired in 2014!"
"This was a mixed department pot luck and we haven’t found the person that brought the 9 year old chips."- Chicken_Scented_Fart
Beef In Place Of Walnuts? Makes Perfect Sense...
"Someone made brownies with ground meat in them to a church potluck."
"My vegetarian friend discovered this when she bit into one."
"She was more confused and horrified about their existence than she was upset about eating meat-."
"It was the concept of this abomination itself that was disturbing and baffling."
"I thought she had to be wrong."
"'You haven't had ground beef in years, you don't know what it tastes like anymore, it's probably something else'."
"I tried them."
"It was beef."
"I was disgusted and really, really, really confused."
"Years later, I found out that apparently this was a thing."
"Someone came up with this-- putting beef in brownies-- as a substitute for walnuts for people with nut allergies."
"While this explains it a little, in theory, I'm still confused about why someone would assume that people who can't eat walnuts would prefer to eat ground beef brownies over just regular nut-free brownies."
"My sister reminded me that she was also there for this and she had tried the brownies first, and that they were actually the reason she stopped wanting to come to church."
"'I started doubting the entire establishment', she says."- Unfey
Hungry Pizza GIF by Papa JohnsGiphyHonest Mistake? Or Adventurous Experiment?
"Someone brought Deviled eggs and instead of sprinkling paprika on them they used cinnamon."- TinyWifeKiki
Veering From The Recipe Doesn't Always Pay Off...
“'Homemade fried chicken'.”
"Which translated to ‘chicken that I covered in pancake batter and breadcrumbs and dropped into a frypan until the outside looked cooked'."
"It wasn’t even seasoned."- Tying_pyrope
Not Everyone Likes Things Spicy...
"An apple pie, but they didn't have apple pie spices, like clove, cinnamon, or nutmeg, and said they used taco seasoning by accident and expected people to eat it."
"I, a dumb b*tch who likes to torture themselves tried it, and promptly tossed it into the trash when they looked away."- jirohen
Hot GIF by GIPHY Studios 2018GiphyAt A Restaurant No Less!
"A Korean-American coworker brought homemade kimchi, but she admittedly didn't know how to make it and just 'winged it'."
"It was fermented wrong and was covered in mold, which she didn't seem to understand was bad."
"The vegetables were basically half liquified and it smelled like dumpster juice."
"The thing is...half of the chefs at work had learned to make kimchi correctly and safely since various different kimchis used to be on the menu before she was hired."
"So we all instantly knew it was wrong and unsafe, but no one wanted to tell her."- No_Pear_2326
Cross Contamination...
"At my previous job, I had a coworker that would frequently cook food because it was his 'passion' and he would bring it in to share with everyone."
"On a few occasions, someone would get ill after, but infrequently enough that people wrote it off as a coincidence."
"This coworker goes out on PTO and asks another coworker to feed his 12 cats while he is gone/scoop the litter boxes."
"Unfortunately, it was discovered the coworker was cooking/serving us food in the same pans he was also sometimes using as litter boxes for his bushel of cats."
"When confronted, he stated he thought this was fine because he washed them after."
"We never ate his food again."- Kitten_spawn
Surprise Ingredients Rarely Pay Off...
"Casserole with a side of roaches."
"Not even kidding."
"They crawled out of the bag she brought her dish in."
"I stopped participating in potlucks after that."- CanUFeelItMrKrabs
new york cockroach GIFGiphyYesterday's Delicacies/Today's Atrocities...
"Grandma's Jello salad, made with cottage cheese and celery."- GoatEatingTroll
No two people share the same taste in food, hence why we shouldn't always be hurt or offended if our contribution to a potluck doesn't prove popular.
There's also nothing wrong with choosing to pop by a supermarket instead of preparing something yourself.
As a store-bought lasagna will always go over better than homemade kimchi covered with mold or ground beef brownies...
The way people spend money has always fascinated me.
For many years I waited tables.
I worked in high-end, low-end, and all of the in-betweens.
And what would shock me most (besides all of y'all's BAD behavior) was the waste.
The waste of food, but more importantly the waste of money.
How does someone order a $50 steak, only eat half and toss out the rest?
No doggie bag. No leftover.
It must be nice to have that much coin to toss away.
Redditor StalkSmash wanted to discuss everyone's shopping habits, so they asked:
"What is one thing that you flat out just don’t know how people afford?"
Premium liquor choices always stun me.
When a certain friend can just casually order a $30 martini because of the vodka choice, without blinking, I'm stunned.
Jealous first, then stunned.
Stay Home
Hungry Night Court GIF by LaffGiphy"People who eat exclusively by ordering takeaways or delivery from restaurants. It's mind-bogglingly expensive."
woke_agenda
Secrets
"Secret hidden families. I can barely afford 1."
judgeeveryonesbiznes
"At my last job, a woman told me her (ex)husband had a secret family. She found out when I guess the mortgage company called to ask about some documents for the new house. No idea what he did for work. Wife, two kids, a house, and whatever the bonus family consisted of."
Tomacxo
"My dad did this. He had started a company in another city within the state, as that was where the industry prospects were better. Aaaaaaaand time rolled on past and I guess he missed having family around, just not ours."
luckycaller13
Bad Upkeep
"Eyelash extensions and the upkeep of them."
CollegeFabulous3535
"I got them. They took 2 hours to put on initially and then you have to go back every two weeks to get them filled or you look like you have mange."
"You also have to brush them every single morning or they will point in every direction, and God help you if you have a cold or allergies where your eyes get even slight build-up. You can't just pick any crusty s**t from your eyelashes because the fake ones are glued on and this acts as a stopper so you can't just slide it off your lash."
"I spent so many mornings standing in front of the mirror cleaning and arranging one f**king eyelash at a time. I couldn't deal."
Purple_Chipmunk_
Overpaying
"I still don't know how we afforded daycare. At one point had two kids in daycare for a year before oldest went to kindergarten."
PJ_lyrics
"We have two kids in full-time daycare, the daycare that we go to is slightly below market rate for the area, we're going to pay around 25k this year. Thank God my oldest goes to kindergarten next fall."
"We overpay on our mortgage because we're trying to pay it off quicker, but if we paid the actual loan amount daycare would cost more than our house."
"And let me be clear, my wife and I are the lucky ones. We waited to have a kid until our late 30s, and I was 40 when kid 2 was born. We both have good careers and make good incomes and it's a serious, serious financial stretch for us to be able to afford it, I honestly don't know how other people do it and there's no way I would have been able to afford two kids even 7 or 8 years ago."
topcide
For Fun
Shark Week Ocean GIF by Pudgy PenguinsGiphy"A boat or RV (or both)?! I can barely afford to exist much less spend all this money on recreation."
Korashime
Boats have always been an issue.
Just remember the Titanic.
Upkeep
Face Botox GIF by Montreux ComedyGiphy"Women who keep up with nails, lash extensions, Botox etc. That crap is expensive as f**k!"
GingerMeTimberMate
Up in the Air
Flying Music Video GIFGiphy"First-class airfare... it’s just so overwhelmingly expensive in comparison to regular seats I can’t imagine anyone ever having that amount to spare unless you’re incredibly wealthy."
Fit-Vanilla-3405
International Worth
"International First Class tickets. I'm going to Japan in a month and was thinking of going in style. I got a nice raise and a bit of vacation time saved and wanted to treat myself. Forget it all. $17k was the cheapest I found. Absolutely insane!"
trapNsagan
"Buy economy than wait. They will send emails out to bid on the business and first-class seats that are not sold. Or you can check on the airline's app for seat upgrades closer to the departure date and upgrade cheaper."
brosiedon7
Special Days
"Multiple-family foreign holidays per year. To be clear, I'm not criticizing anyone on this, and I appreciate that if you leave in mainland Europe, it's easier than here (Scotland)."
"I am just genuinely amused/bemused when I see people on their 2/3/4 foreign holiday of the year on social media."
"We went to Portugal last year (Fantastic country, btw). 2 adults 2 kids (the eldest boy was playing in a football tournament), and it was probably £3.5k and that was done cheaply. We don't go into debt for a holiday ever, though."
MelmanCourt
Getting on in Years
"Eldercare. $300 a day is about typical for most states, and it goes up if they need special care (dementia, etc)."
"3/4 of Americans who live to 21 live to 65, of which 2/3 will need long-term care for an average of 3 years. Maybe not all long-term care is nursing level, but some of it is even more expensive -- memory care, etc. Comes out to roughly $150k per person-- and almost double that if you limit it to those who need any at all. Somewhere between a generous down payment and a new house. Who can afford that -- especially after decades not working?"
Opening_Cellist_1093
First-class has always been an intriguing aspect of mine.
But that extra coin can get crazy.
I'll stick to coach.
I have no aesthetic or emotional issues with getting older as it certainly beats the alternative, so I freely admit I have reached a certain age.
It's the age of sound effects when I get up from a chair and asking younger people to pick things up off the floor for me.
It's the age of having to use Urban Dictionary daily to understand messages I get from younger friends and relatives.
But as much as I don’t understand their language, music or hobbies, there's a lot they'll never understand about my childhood and adolescence.
I was reading an article by writer Eric Chilton who pointed out Gen X—the generation born between 1965 and 1980 of which I'm a part—was the last to live in a world without the internet, cellular phones and social media.
And those are only a few examples of the paradigm shifting innovations in our lifetimes.
Reddit user WeirdJawn asked:
"Older Redditors, what do young people get completely wrong about past decades?"
As a young person, I was fascinated with the idea my maternal Grandmother lived through the transition from horses to combustion engine vehicles, the inception of commercial air travel, the creation of the motion picture industry and the invention of television.
But I've lived through vinyl LPs and 45s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and digital music players.
If I wanted to see a movie as a kid, I went to a theater—or drive-in—or waited for an often heavily edited version to air on TV. Then cable movie channels were introduced, followed by LP size video disc players, then Betamax and VHS, DVDs, HD and Blu-ray and now?
Digital downloads and streaming services—I haven't been to a theater in years.
GiphyTV
"Up until video rental stores in the early 80's, at school the next day every kid was talking about what was on TV the night before, as every single family was watching tv together every single night."
"With some exceptions, most people watched the same thing as their schoolmates or co-workers, just to be a part of the conversation."
~ Grimjack2
"There's something very isolating about modern media.
"You can be into a TV show, or YouTube series, and nobody else you know has heard of it."
"I'm a fan of aYouTube series—RedLetterMedia—that's pretty popular and very well regarded amongst its fans, and only one of my friends has heard about it.
~ SlashThingy
GiphyUnanswered Questions
"Probably just how often you had to accept that you couldn't find out the answer to something."
"If you had a question you could ask your family, maybe your friends, maybe your teachers, and your last chance was the check the library."
"But if the library didn't have the answer, then you just had to accept that you weren't going to get an answer (or you'd have to hope to come across that answer someday in the future)."
"Now you just ask Google and get 10 answers in just seconds."
~ john_jdm
GiphyOne & Done
"How on-time you had to be for your favorite shows because there was little to no chance you’d see that same episode again until they (hopefully) did re-runs during summer."
"I remember waiting anxiously for the nightly news to be over so I could watch my favorite TV shows."
"Commercial breaks were just mad rushes for the bathroom, or to the kitchen to get something quick to drink."
~ ladyeclectic79
"Once it was done, it was gone."
"The happy tears I cried when they finally released The Stand miniseries on DVD about a decade after airing."
~ Barrys_Fic
"I feel I was in the last generation of this, even though channels were much more prevalent and reruns of everything was the norm."
"I remember rushing off the bus with all my friends because we were absolutely SURE Goku was gonna defeat Frieza this episode. And it was a crap shoot whether or not the driver would be fast enough for us to make it."
"Years later when DVDs started becoming more prevalent, they STILL didn't put shows on collectable media regularly. You couldn't just get an entire season of a show and binge it."
"At most you could find a 'best-of' compilation of five or six of the most popular episodes, and that was only if the show was incredibly popular."
"And what I am describing here was considered 'having it good' compared to older people."
~ McFlyyouBojo
GiphySay Cheese!
"That it was incredibly common to just not have pictures of events or other things we see as important now."
"Not only did we have entire vacations where no pictures were taken, we could go months without a single picture being taken of any member of our family unless it was particularly notable."
"A trip to St Louis? No pictures. A trip to Disneyland? Maybe a picture at the entry gate or one of the souvenir pictures of us with a character."
"A trip to zoo? No pictures. An average day? Forget about it!"
"Frequently, the only pictures taken were at major holidays like Christmas or on someone's birthday."
~ bbbbbthatsfivebees
"I explained that to my kids the other day."
"What if every picture you took cost a dollar?
"And you don’t know if it’s even good until probably weeks later, as long as the photo lab doesn’t f*ck up processing."
"Or your film or pictures don't get lost in the mail going to or from the developer or they don't send you someone else's photos by mistake."
~ beebsaleebs
"You had to plan ahead to take a photo."
"'Did you remember the camera? Did you remember to buy film or flashbulbs?”
~ brazilliandanny
GiphySo Few Options
"It's an exceptional AMOUNT of media to consume now. In the 90s, you had 3-4 super popular channels, and 4-5 low rated channels. They all showed one show at a time."
"Now we have a dozen streaming services with infinite media options."
"It's becoming increasingly difficult to engage in office conversation because so much content is available, people do not have to stray as far from their interest to consume content they want to consume."
~ MemeTeamMarine
Smoking Or Non?
"They understand restaurants had 'smoking sections' and that bars & clubs were filled with cigarette smoke. But I don't think many understood how pervasive smoking was."
"Non-smoking areas or sections didn’t exist before the 1980s. There were ashtrays and people smoking literally EVERYWHERE."
"Jury boxes had ashtrays in front of every juror. Judge smoked, lawyers smoked, the gallery smoked."
"You smoked on planes, trains, busses, taxicabs, and in all transportation centers."
"You smoked at the library, the PTO meetings at schools, the town hall and all city offices. Hell, you could smoke at the courtyard at my High School as a student."
"You smoked in the elevator and on the escalator. The mall. The grocery store. Sports venues. Doctor's offices. Hospitals. Sitting at your desk at work even if you were in a cubicle or open area."
"The movies. The plays, opera, concerts and every other public performance, people smoked."
"A non-smoker would come home often smelling like smoke. One was constantly surrounded by smoke. It was insane."
~ parkerjh
"You literally made ash trays as a grade school art project, that’s how common it was."
~ _Poffertje_
GiphyWhat Choices?
"Probably under estimating how few choices there were."
"Today, it seems like everything imaginable is available in a variety of sizes, delivered to your door over night."
"Catalogs and mail order had 4-6 week delivery."
"Malls were the best thing ever—all the stores in one place, a wide variety of products and sizes and not downtown."
~ 2Loves2loves
"And also just how little people knew they were missing out. If it wasn't on network evening television (Channels 2, 4, 7, 9, and 11), or on a store shelf in your town, or in the Sunday newspaper... it simply didn't exist for you."
"If you had an inkling something existed—say, tin foil that comes in sheets instead of one giant roll—you could go around asking people, if you wanted. But you were more than likely to just get a shrug and, 'Why would you want such a thing?'."
"Let's say you were particularly enterprising, so you dial '0' and ask the operator for the number for corporate headquarters of Reynolds Aluminum Foil, if you knew the city it was in. Because there was no internet, and the only way to find a number was by dialing '0' and speaking to a telephone operator."
"But even if you spoke to someone at Reynolds, they had no way to exchange money for goods at that level, and they probably would just tell you they sell it in the Ohio area, and that would be that."
"You went to the market. They have one brand of pancake mix, and no one had ever heard of anything different, and why would you want a different brand, anyway?"
"Then you go to the hardware store, and they carry one brand of paint, and no one had ever heard of any other brand of paint."
"And it was that way for a long, long time."
~ nOwsL-ACEna-pe2323
GiphyOne For the Road
"How common drinking & driving was."
"Until MADD came along, people did this routinely."
"It's where 'one for the road' originated."
~ HailRoma
"Yes! When my friends and I had our 18th birthdays in late 1979, the thing to do was to celebrate by driving through Beer Barn, where you could literally drive-through to get beer, wine, wine coolers, whatever."
"Then open them up and drive while drinking. At 18. This was in Texas."
"It also was not uncommon for my dad to drive while drinking when he was taking us wherever at night."
"Zero education on why you should not do that."
~ emeraldcity4341
Good & Bad
"I am definitely older (born in 1949 so Baby Boomer)."
"What today's young people don't appreciate is how, growing up, we had to invent our own sources of fun."
"There were no video games (which I enjoy playing), just 3 channels on a black-and-white tv (we didn't get color until 1967), and no real entertainment aimed at kids."
"All we could do is interact with each other and play established games like marbles or maybe an organized sport like Little League baseball."
"There was a baseball diamond, overgrown with weeds, across the street from us, but mostly we played in the woods that surrounded us, climbing trees pretending to be pirates or some such.
"I loved the bookmobiles that would visit my street, and I must have read every biography (all bound in blue covers) in my elementary school library."
"It was a different era with many fewer distractions and much more time for sustained imagination."
"Being a different place and time, we developed different skills for interacting with the world and each other than young people do today."
"Was it better? That's hard to say. We tended to have an insular view of our own little world, while today it is hard to escape what it happening everywhere on Earth."
"We had to wait days for a letter to arrive, and we shared a party phone line with our neighbor's phone. That is a far slower pace than today's instantaneous texting culture. (Yes, I do text.)"
"Some things have been lost while others have been gained. That's the way it always will be. Just wait."
~ BOBauthor
GiphyIn Chilton's article—referenced at the beginning—he stated:
"We [Gen X] will be the last generation to know the world without...
- Cable TV
- Cell Phones
- The internet
- Seat belt laws
- Remote controls for the TV"
What would you add to the list?