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Shaken Police Officers Share The Scariest Calls They've Ever Received

Shaken Police Officers Share The Scariest Calls They've Ever Received

Shaken Police Officers Share The Scariest Calls They've Ever Received

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As if being a cop or first responder doesn't already come with a built in scare factor, nobody thinks about -well who the heck would want to- the extreme danger or crazy of certain situations. Sometimes it can be the particular insidiousness of the crime or even the odd paranormal aspect. Law enforcement face frightening challenges on the dally. How they find the strength is beyond me.

Redditor *Rayanm3m3lord asked law enforcement personal __Cops of reddit, what has so far been the creepiest call you've ever had to respond to and what happened? And some of the responses will keep you up at night.

I HEAR DEAD PEOPLE.

911 Dispatcher reporting in:

Received a call from an elderly lady who had trouble breathing. I had taken several calls from her and her husband in the past so I recognized her voice. I dispatched an ambulance to her residence and held her on the line trying to keep her calm while the ambulance was responding. Ambulance advise that they a 15 minute ETA (She lived in a very rural part of WV.) I'm talking to her asking about her husband and how he was doing and just making small talk with her. The ambulance calls in and advises they are on scene and I let them know that she is in severe respiratory distress and I still had her on the line. I let her know the ambulance is coming to the door to go answer the door and she says okay and hangs up the phone.

Pretty normal yeah? Well here's where it gets weird. The EMT and Paramedic on scene call back about a minute later and advises no one is answering the door. We have a Sheriff Unit who was in the area pulling on scene about that time. The Sheriff Unit confirmed the address and advised he is breaching the door to make access to the PT. 5 minutes go by and the Paramedic on scene radios in asking who the caller was. I advise it was the elderly female who lived at the residence. He tells me that he's going to call in and needs to speak with the supervisor on shift. We get him over to the supervisor and the supervisor confirms the information that I gave him and asks what's going on. Apparently the elderly female had been dead for a while and was in already in full rigor mortis. They thought I was wrong on the caller but the other dispatchers played it back and confirmed that it was the female who called. The ambulance transferred the hospital and we got the same calls and disbelief from the doctors.

So... I took a call from a ghost!

NEVER TRUST A LOCKED DOOR.

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I am interning with a Sheriff's police department so most of my time is spent on patrol.

We got called out to do a wellness check which the Deputy thought was going to be a piece of cake like she was out of town or something. We get there and are met by the neighbors who told us that the mail is pilling up in the mail box and that there are several untouched packages on the porch. Ok so we go up the house and the front door is unsecured, so we crack open the door a couple of inches and the Deputy calls inside, but the door wont move any more. The house was one of those split houses where the stairs meet at the front door and the upstairs and downstairs are offset so we concluded that there might be stuff behind the door. Its about this time that the deputy tells me that she is a known hoarder and that could be why the door was stuck. He also mentions that if we see flies on the inside of the windows she is most likely inside and deceased. As we walk around the side of the house we notice a lot of flies on the windows. The back door was locked and as we looked in we noticed bags on bags of garbage diapers and misc shit all over the place.

We head back to the front and attempt to make entry. He pushes the door open, this time with more force, and from underneath I see a grease like liquid spreading out from under the door. The deputy stops, closes the door and calmly tells me that the lady was indeed dead, and wedged behind the door. From the dates of the packages We concluded that she had been gone about two months.

THE BONE COLLECTORS.

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Went to a welfare check. A neighbor called in he hasn't seen this guy for a few days and the lights have been on for a while. I go and look around and find no footprints or tire marks in the snow (recent storm). I check the garage and nothing. I check the house which was unlocked and found the guys cellphone, keys, wallet and cash with the TV on. That's when I realized this was now a dead body search. I looked everywhere in and outside the house and around the garage. There were several old junk vehicles on the property but again, no tire marks or shoe prints or anything. I call all recent numbers on his phone and no ones heard from him. Only so much I can do so I issue a BOL and we start getting NCIC paperwork ready.

Next day the day shift officer goes over to follow up. Turns out, the guy was plowing his driveway and either had a medical condition or something and either passed out or died on the spot and crashed the truck onto the other junk cars, which then caught on fire (edit: investigation leads to the fact this happens a week before I got this call) leaving only a pile of bones in the front seat covered in snow. I felt like crap for not finding him that night but it was really creepy knowing his remains were inches away from where I was searching.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT DARKNESS LURKS BELOW.

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I'm not a cop but my dad just recently shared these stories with me. My grandfather was a cop in a small town in the 60's-70's. Late at night it was common for officers to pull over vehicles driving through town, especially if they didn't recognize them. He pulls over a bus load of people. He walks through and asks them where they are headed, yada-yada. They were headed to California, it was Charles Manson and his group.

Another story. Same grandfather, same stop a car passing through protocol. Asked the driver where he was headed, BS'd for a while and told the guy to have a nice evening. Few towns over guy gets pulled over again, shoots and kills the cop. Apparently he was doing this as he drove along, get pulled over and shoot the cop. When they questioned him he said he had been pulled over by my grandfather, but he was such a nice guy he didn't kill him, but he did have the gun sitting in his lap.

IF ONLY PEOPLE WOULD REACH OUT SOONER.

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Went to the site of a suicide by firearm. The guy was DRT with two gunshots to the head. How you ask? The first one didn't complete the job. You could see where he walked to the bathroom mirror, looked at the failed suicide attempt and then returned to the living room to finish the job.

Not sure if that counts as creepy, but I've always wondered what was going through his head when he looked in the mirror.

NOBODY IS SAFE APPARENTLY.

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I stopped a 25 year old Asian male from entering the east executive entrance of the White House. He had slit his wrists and neck prior to his arrival, but not deep enough to hit major blood vessels. He told me that he was a secret agent working for J Edgar Hoover and that he was 60 years old. He said he had important information to pass to president Obama. I ended up having to detain him, stop the bleeding and then involuntarily commit him. Turned out to be a local college kid, going through some mental health issues. I've field interviewed hundreds of White House "callers" but this kid took the cake.

SOME CALLS ARE SADDER THAN MOST.

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I responded to a report of an unresponsive infant. When I arrived, all the family members were standing around casually in the front yard pointing into the house. I found the baby in the back room laying on her back on a bare mattress. I started CPR, but realized the baby was probably already deceased. We rushed her out to the arriving ambulance hoping they had a way to bring her back. I learned she was the mother's second suspicious SIDS death, and I had her other children removed from her care. The difficult part was when I left the scene and went to the ER to see what came of the situation. As I walked in and asked where she was, an ER nurse walked over to me and handed me the deceased baby swaddled in a blanket and told me to wait for someone to show me to the morgue. So I'm standing there in the ER in uniform holding what everyone thinks is a live infant, but rather, an infant corpse, and several people stop by wanting to see her and commenting on how cute it is to see an officer holding a baby. It killed me inside. I was ushered back to the morgue after what felt liked an eternity, and told I had to wait with the baby until the medical examiner arrived.

THE GRAVEYARD IS FULL OF ANSWERS.

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Two adults reported missing; parents of two adult children, one male, one female.

Alerts are in place for the missing people's credit cards. The father's credit card hits on a purchase at a jewelry store where an engagement ring was purchased. It leads us to the son who made the purchase of the ring. Son is questioned and confessed to killing both parents and burying them in shallow graves. The son led us to the grave site and we began the process of recovery. Both mom and dad had black garbage bags over their heads being held in place by duct tape around their necks. The site of the bodies, especially their faces once the bags were removed and the smell is something I'll never forget.

IT'S HARDEST WHEN IT'S ONE OF YOUR OWN.

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My father has been an officer for 20+ years and this story is probably the worst thing he has ever had to do. My father and I were heading to the range one day to sight in our hunting rifles. We were in his police vehicle since we were going to the shooting range for local law enforcement personnel. Dispatch came over the radio to get an officer out to a 911 call of a possible dead body. Many of the officers joked over the radio that it was probably a prank or someone overreacting since it was around Halloween. The responding officer arrives at the scene and calls in that he is going into the woods to investigate. A few minutes later he sends out a call confirming it's an actual dead body and to get the necessary resources sent out to assist. Then the responding officer personally calls my father because he recognized the body. It was my dad's brother. He had been having rough times. The second worst part was that he had been reported missing for a few months. The worst part was that my father had to go to assist in the removal and scene investigation. That day was the first time I ever saw my father cry and I was in my mid-teens.

IF IT'S A STORMY NIGHT... PRAY HARDER.

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It was a stormy night on the Oregon Coast. A lady was driving drunk and ran into the back of a parked school bus. When she did, her car caught on fire, but she was able to escape. When I found her slowly walking down a side street, I was telling her to stop and turn around. When she turned around, her lower jaw was gone, and she was totally dazed. She ended up surviving but needed tons of plastic surgery.

A SWERVING TRUCK IS NEVER A GOOD SIGN.

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My dad was on the freeway, and saw a guy in a big truck (it may have been a mail carrier?) that was swerving and driving crazy. He pulled him over, and the driver's hands were shaky and covered in blood. It turns out he had a body in the back of his truck that he had killed not long before.

AS IF MY NIGHTMARES AREN'T BAD ENOUGH!

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Man this was probably 2010, 2011... I was really new. Call came I'm as an "unknown problem", basically the 911 was so messed up, even dispatch didn't know what to call it. Turned it this guy had just murdered his step father and then walked to his grand parents house to kill them as well. He stabbed his grandmother through the eye with a Rambo style bowie knife, one that had the compass in the pommel of the handle.

He missed her brain by about an eighth of an inch, so she did not die. Instead she came running out of the house when we got there, knife sticking out of her eye, and the compass was spinning around because she was moving. My brain literally went "that's not real" and I went past her, along with several other cops, before the sergeant was like "what in the actual hell are you guys doing?"

She survived. We caught the guy in a stroke of pure luck. Elderly woman with a massive hunting knife for an eye, definitely the creepiest thing I can remember seeing.

CHRISTMAS ISN'T ALWAYS A JOLLY EXPERIENCE.

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I once went to a two fatality car crash. The cars had collided head on in a 55mph zone.

One of the drivers had left the house suicidal, and it was surmised that he picked a car out at random and went straight into it.

I had spoken with that man several weeks prior. I won't describe the rest of the scene, but the worst part of it is...

This was Christmas Day. Not a merry Christmas at all.

I THOUGHT 'SILENCE OF THE LAMBS' WAS FICTION.

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My uncle was a sergeant and had to be called several times out to a house for domestic abuse. This older guy had someone he would pay for the guy to swallow certain objects like paper clips and human hair. They would defecate into a bag and the older guy would sift through the feces like a god damn treasure hunt for the items. He would then put them in an envelope and file them.

The All-Time Biggest First Date Red Flags

Reddit user APT3993 asked: 'What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?'

When you're on a first date, one of three things will happen. Either you'll like the person and want to go out again, you like the person fine, but not romantically, and won't want to go out again, or the person will display a behavior that is so off-putting (or make you genuinely fearful), that you won't even want to see the person ever again.

My best friend and I are basically the same person, so when she met a guy who he had a lot in common with, she figured I'd like him too and set us up (I had previously told her I was okay with being set up).

Well, it turns out the guy actually hadn't read any of the books, watched any of the shows, or heard of any of the bands he talked about with my friend. I didn't understand why he would lie about all these things until I left the table.

When I came back, he was on the phone with someone and he was telling them he only told her he liked all those things because he liked my friend. When he found out she was in a relationship, he decided he'd let her set us up in the hopes that he could date me until my friend and her boyfriend broke up, and then he could swoop in.

I just walked out and when he finally texted me asking what was up, I told him I overheard him, then proceeded to block him. My friend was mortified to hear about the date, and I decided never to be set up again.

I'm not the only one who has gone on a date and discovered a huge red flag. Redditors have experienced this too, and are eager to share their stories.

It all started when Redditor APT3993 asked:

"What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?"

Dates Of Relationships Past

"They won't shut up about their ex."

– SiriusGD

"Had this happen to me on a 2nd date."

"Asked if she could use my computer, I said OK. Then she pulls up her ex's FB profile to browse through it, and she spent the next 10 minutes comparing me to him, saying he she thinks that I will turn out to be controlling and manipulative like him because we both grew up on a farm and we both like cars."

"Ummm, wut?"

– alwaysmyfault

"He angrily told me I would “love” his ex wife. Proceeded to cry while talking about her. They’d been divorced for 5 years. I genuinely hope he is doing better."

– TX_Mothman

"She constantly compared me to her ex, and sat on her phone for most of the night, then expected me to pay for her two bottles of wine, plus really expensive meal and desert."

"She asked me out btw, not the other way around."

– Stuspawton

I Know What I Want

"The guy who tried to change my order with the waitress because he didn’t think the drink I’d asked for was sufficiently feminine."

"I ordered beer. I don’t remember exactly what he thought I should have, maybe white wine? It was a long time ago."

"The waitress was looking at me like ‘You heard that sh*t too right?’ and I told her actually I wouldn’t have anything, thanks, and I left."

– MaggieLuisa

"He changed it FROM A BEER TO SOMETHING ELSE!!?! That’s amazing to me. Like it’s bad enough if you ordered an IPA and he said, “I dunno, sweetie, your delicate female taste buds probably can’t handle the hoppiness. Hey, honey, why don’t we get the lady a Coors.”"

– AdaptiveVariance

The Position Of Boyfriend

"We met for drinks after work (since we both work in the same industry) and she showed up with a list of interview questions. She literally had a checklist on her phone for me to fill out. I thought she was joking at first, but the questions were extremely personal, like how many sexual partners you've had, the oldest, the youngest; How much money you made the previous year; If you owned a house, a car, a boat, a plane; Did you have a criminal history; Where do you parents live; Are they alive; Who did you vote for in the last election; All kinds of stuff like that."

"I even proposed that we could just use that as a conversation starter and we could work through them like that as a fun way to get to know each other. I was really trying. She tells me that she's not answering any of them because I'm trying to date her, not the other way around!"

"I laughed out loud thinking she was kidding, then realized she was absolutely serious. I wished her all the best in the dating world, chugged my beer, overtipped the waitress, and left."

– OkFrostina

"Yeah, I would really push that to the limit without getting law enforcement involved. Start with all the times I have ended up in rehabilitation, my abductions by UFO, the wild, kinky sex partners I have had, the millions I have lost before living under a bridge, etc."

– passporttohell

Scary As Hell

"Had a guy who insisted on buying the most expensive pizza at the restaurant despite my protests then kissed my head when he walked past me to use the restroom. After dinner we walked along the waterfront, he kissed me and then immediately tried to choke me "to be sexy". First date, last date."

– Twours1944

"What the sh*t?? Who taught this idiot that choking in public on the first date all without consent is a great get-to-know-you move??"

– villainsimper

Stranger Danger

"This was literally the day of a first date. But I had matched with an older man when I was still on dating apps. We planned to go on a hike on a very beautiful day by the water. On the day of the date, he wanted me to leave my car at his place, while he drove us through the backwoods so we can beat traffic. I said I’ll be happy to drive myself, and he laughed and canceled. His reasoning was he’s been stood up so many times and he didn’t want to waste his time and me not show up. I said “okay!I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you find what you are looking for. “and blocked him."

"The red flag was when he genuinely got upset that I didn’t want to ride in a car with a stranger through the backwoods for our first date."

– Jesusdoescrack

"You should have said “you fear being stood up, I fear being murdered.”"

– The_She_Ghost

Truly Gross

"He pointed to another woman at the bar and said she was his ex. But she happened to be my lesbian roommate."

"Yes, I told him I knew he was full of it cuz she was my roommate, and I pointed out her girlfriend who was there with her. I don’t remember what he said exactly but he had no choice but to admit he was lying. I wish I had asked why he said it. I assume to make me jealous? Like that’s a good way to start a relationship? Obviously, that was the only date."

– Grapegoop

​Those Who Came Before

"He told me he had been divorced 5 times. I'm taking the advice of 5 women I don't know."

– 13liz

"The way you phrased this killed me 😂"

– CumulativeHazard

Got Her Feeling Emotions

"Does bursting into tears after I told them I didn't like a TV show count?"

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"I'm curious as to what TV show it was?"

– ladydamnation

"Grey's Anatomy."

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"bursts into tears"

– akennelley

Um...What?!

"He took me to his house (he lived with his mom) just so HE could eat dinner with his mom while I sat in the living room. I listened to them eat and talk about my looks like I couldn't hear them. Apparently, I was pretty but "needed to be taken down a peg or two." I said my period had started so I had to go home. A future abuser and his enabler mommy."

– BigMcLargeHuge77

Ew...Just Ew

"We went to a movie. He spent the first half with his hand inside one of his socks, then pulling it out and smelling it, putting it back in, repeat, repeat."

"Then he spent the second half trying to hold my hand. With his sock hand."

– Deleted User

Bad From The Start

"She asked if I could order for her because she was uncomfortable talking to the brown waitress.

"Added: Same girl would not stop talking about Kardashian gossip even though I told her I know nothing about them and didn’t care to know."

– CanaDoug420

Stop, Theif!

"He showed up drunk with a bouquet of flowers he admitted he stole from his mother's flower shop."

– LookAcrossTheWater

​Cringe-Worthy

"Went to a charity coffee shop for a date. It was “free” coffee where they just ask for donations which went toward their org’s efforts to feed and house people. They explained this to him and asked if he wanted to make a donation for our drinks."

"He said no."

– Shredded_Wheaties

Oh, yikes! I would be so embarrassed!

In fact, I'm kind of losing faith in dating as a concept.

people sitting inside plane
Hanson Lu on Unsplash

Commercial aviation began in the late 1920s, spurred on by early aeronautical companies and several record breaking solo flights.

Since then, there are few places on Earth that can't be seen or accessed by plane. Only icing limits humans from low altitude flights over certain areas like the polar regions, while a lack of landing locations keeps some areas accessible to only the smallest pontoon planes.

From January through December 2022, United States airlines carried 853 million passengers. Globally, air travel reached a high of over 4.7 billion passengers before the pandemic limited flights.

Since then, global air travel has rebounded to over 3.7 billion passengers.

With almost 100 years and over a trillion passengers, the people who crew these flights are bound to have seen everything happen that possibly could at airports and on a flight.

Keep reading...Show less
A skeptical man
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

We've all heard our fair share of conspiracy theories, from thoughts about the White House to aliens and beyond.

But some conspiracy theories have become truly strange and nuanced, and it's hard to stop listening to the person explaining their beliefs, because as weird as some of these theories sound, they could almost by some stretch of the imagination make sense.

Intrigued, Redditor Accomplished-Leg-991 asked:

"What's the weirdest or craziest theory you have heard of?"

Seems Plausible.

"Traffic barrels are left up for so long because the Department of Transportation bought too many and has no place to store them."

- dailysunshineKO

The Grass Is Always Greener

"The truck driver that delivered my flooring gave me this gem: The push for green lawns in the US is by Big Pharma."

"The cliff notes version is that to get green grass, you need pesticides, pesticides cause cancer, and cancer is good business for drug companies. It was like a 20-minute long rant to get to that conclusion and it was an adventure."

- StillBald

"I need to drink with him for one night. That cannot possibly be the only banger he's got."

- karenalphas

The Ice Wall

"Recently TikTok kept giving bizarre suggestions where people trying to prove Ice Wall in Antarctica that Earth is bigger and something is hiding behind ice wall in Antarctica… What the h**l."

- XenophanesJunior

"It's a weird subset of flat earthers, who believe in an 'infinite plane' that lies beyond the ice wall (guarded by NASA, of all people), and the reason? The infinite plane has endless amounts of gold mines and gems they can mine for infinite money."

- bag2d

Tinkering with the Algorithm

"That Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen, and they made the movie 'Frozen' so that when people googled 'Walt Disney Frozen,' the movie would come up first."

- LizardPossum

"They updated this theory, but now it is with Taylor Swift. It basically says that she went to that Kansas City Chiefs vs NY Jets game so that when people search 'Taylor Swift Jets,' it will only show news about the game, and not about her going everywhere with her private jets."

- abirll

"It's so wild now these rely on people being completely unable to go to page two of a Google search."

- LizardPossum

The All-Important Celebrity Weddings

"I had a coworker that fully believes the government controls the weather so celebrities can have nice weddings."

- pinballgizard

"Out of all the reasons to control the weather, celebrity weddings are a top priority for the government."

- Suspicious-Craft4980

The Truth of Social Security Numbers

"Your social security number indicates which bank you were sold to at birth."

- compuwiza1

"Ah, sovereign citizens..."

- CaptainMikul

Dinosaur Bones, Huh?

"Dinosaur bones were placed on earth by Satan to trick people into 'abandoning' God."

- River_7890

"There's a big American Church whose members believe that dinosaur bones exist because God made the Earth with leftovers from a previous planet."

"Mental gymnastics to justify their belief that the Earth is only 10'000 years old and C14 dates dinosaur bones as being millions of years old..."

- mrsrosieparker

"I'm absolutely not shocked. The person who told me jumps through so many mental hoops to try to disprove science. She thinks that the government is secretly working for Satan to convert people, too."

"Oh and of course Disney. She's crazy overall. Not just with religious stuff. I could tell so many stories of her crossing lines and saying off-the-wall things. I try to not associate with her as much as possible."

- River_7890

The Worst Kind of Waiting Room

"The USS Philadelphia Experiment and the US army soldier who claimed he was in an interdimensional waiting room as a greeter for eternity until he was suddenly transported back onto the ship."

"People claimed it was a cloaking device gone wrong and left men's bodies trapped within the steel of the boat upon reentry."

"I never looked into it but read about it in a book that had a statement like, 'Nothing in this book is true but it's exactly the way things are,' or something similar. Always thought it was the wildest conspiracy theory ever when I was a stoned teenager reading it."

- Hereforthecake

Phantom Time Conspiracy Theory

"There’s a whole podcast with hundreds of episodes dedicated to this subject. Worth a listen. One of the wildest ones is that Charlemagne’s grandson moved the calendar forward ~300 years and thus the Dark Ages never happened."

- seandowling73

Gives the Shortcut a Whole New Meaning

"Met a dude at the gym who believed that the CIA had built tunnels throughout the Earth's core, connecting all the major cities. Was some kind of global takeover scheme."

- Latham74

Infathomly Large Trees

"Mountains are all the stumps of ancient fossilized enormous trees."

"I'm absolutely obsessed with this theory. It's connected to flat earth, but flat earth isn't a requirement for this theory nor do most flat earthers believe it."

- inkstainedgoblin

Under Control

"We're all infected by parasites that feed on our stress hormones released by negative emotions like guilt, sadness, anger, fear, and so on. They control our minds and, thereby, us to an extent. The only way to combat them is by being aware and questioning if your thoughts and actions are truly your own thoughts and actions."

- 42clickslater

Enough Said

"The one about JFK Jr. coming back to help Trump win the 2020 election is still tops in my book."

- pinkyknee

Big Pharma Chickens

"That owning chickens is the gateway drug to believing conspiracy theories."

- sarcasawm

"As someone who has owned chickens, the only thing they're a gateway drug to is getting more farm animals."

- CelticArche

"That’s what Big Goat wants you to believe."

- MissRockNerd

"Big Farm-A."

- cannedcream

As wild as some of these conspiracy theories were, there's no denying that they're fascinating, some for the simple fact that they're almost plausible.

They at least get you thinking in a new way, and perhaps that isn't such a bad thing every now and then.

Two guys hi-fiving each other
Tyler Nix/Unsplash

A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.

The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.

Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.

Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:

"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"

These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.

Recurring Favor

"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."

– Queasy-Location-9303

"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."

– StiffAssedBrit

The Errand Girl

"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."

"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."

"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"

"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."

"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."

"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."

– ChamomileBrownies

Testing The Friendship

"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."

– plzdontgetmad

"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."

"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."

– NoMrBond3

People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.

The Chaperon

"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."

"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."

"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."

"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."

"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."

– Duffarum

Unwilling Companion

"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."

"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"

"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."

– Auldale

There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.

I Can Do It Better

"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."

– Complex-Half8338

"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"

– Hot-Coffee-8465

Never Steal The Spotlight

"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."

– Jasssin23

"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."

– thefifthtrilogy

All About Me

"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."

– PokemomOnTheGo

People can just be so rude.

"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."

– Tofflus1

"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."

– CatGoNoTail

Not Missing High School

"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."

"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."

"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."

– Symnestra

These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.

Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.

We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.

Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.