Had you consciously made a decision to take a different path when confronting the proverbial fork in the road, you might have ended up in a place you could never come back from.
Or sometimes you have absolutely no control over the outcome of things, and it all boils down to being at the right time or place that in some cases literally determines a situation of life or death.
"What is a bullet you dodged?"
Love was in the air, until it wasn't
Safe Schnoz
"One time I dated this guy but we broke up. Which was fine. Later I find out during the bath salts phase he bit his girlfriend's nose off. I’m glad I wasn’t with him at the time or it would have been me."
– PricklyPanda75
Wanting Kids
"I dated this girl for a while. She was cool and like people do at some point, pretty early on she asks 'what age do you wanna be when you have kids?' I said 'ideally like my early to mid 30’s, I wanna have some nice one on one time just being married.'"
"She’d then say 'for me I could have them at any time, ya know ten years from now would be fine or this year would be fine.' I don’t think much of it, but she would ask me on a that question to me on a weekly bases and I kept giving her the same answer."
"The relationship lasted long enough where we were going to have sex soon and when we were talking about usual stuff like preferences etc I said that I wanted to use a condom and she didn’t want to show it, but I could tell this greatly bothered her. She kept saying stuff like it won’t feel as good and don’t you trust me and stuff like that. I didn’t trust her with all her comments about having kids. I wasn’t gonna do it without a condom."
"She broke up with me. She said it was because she’d met someone new, but I’m pretty sure me not budging on having kids at age 22 was a factor. Last I heard this new guy got her pregnant and her new boyfriend and her have both dropped out of college."
"I hope the best for them, but I’m sure am glad that it wasn’t me."
– Bigchonky3
These Redditors managed to avoid possible physical harm.
Stranger Danger
"I was maybe 7 yo, playing in my neighborhood, beautiful sunny day, within sight of my house. A car stopped, guy got out, asked for help, said I just had to put my foot on the brake so he could fix his car. He seemed like a nice man, and he started talking about how to hold the brake."
"I was focused on execution, if I could do it, and started to walk to his car. A neighbor yelled out their screen window, angrily asking what I was doing, told me to go home. I didn’t know why they were angry at me but I ran home, and the guy took off."
"It wasn’t until I was an ADULT that I even thought back on this and realized this was suspect. At the time didn’t even mention it to my parents, and neither did my neighbor. My naïveté was breathtaking."
– popcorn5555
Missed Shooting Spree
"Didn't stop at the 7/11 that I stop at everyday for coffee in the morning yesterday. About the same time I stop there a girl was shot and killed (employee at the store) when it was robbed."
– nryporter25
After The Robbery
"My mom always goes to places to do transactions in person. Like she goes to the doctor's office to make an appointment, she never orders stuff online. She also goes to the physical bank branch to deposit or get money."
"One day like ten years ago she gets to the bank and walks in."
"Everyone is just standing there, white as sheets."
"Someone had just walked out after robbing the bank."
"She probably crossed paths with the robber outside."
"Blows my mind."
– BaaBaaTurtle
Literally Speaking
"A literal bullet on a gun range. Cease fire was called and we went to change targets except one guy that shot at the target next to mine while I was downrange. Being shot at is not fun."
– foreverkasai
The Boston Marathon
"I decided not to go watch the finish line for the Boston marathon in 2013. I was only a few blocks away and decided to head into my dorm because the leaders had all finished at that point and I didn't feel it was worth it to go watch the rest. Less than 10 minutes later I started hearing sirens from my window and got a text from the girl I was dating at the time that they weren't letting her off the T at Copley for some reason."
"If I had just kept walking straight down Boylston like I had originally planned, I probably would have gotten there just as the bombs went off."
– mysistersacretin
These prospective homebuyers and business owners reluctantly moved on and wound up being grateful that they did.
Screwed Homebuyers
"Few years back when the wife and I were looking at buying houses... we had our hearts set on a certain home which, admittedly would have squeezed our budget too much. Although, we could pull it off."
"We ended up finding another more suitable and affordable home."
"We later learned that the owner of the home we wanted left with all the chattel and fixtures he wasn't supposed to, leaving the home buyers screwed. They initiated a lawsuit and suddenly within the next week, their car tires got slashed and someone attempted to set fire to their garage."
"yikes."
– Illfury
Sh*ts Creek
"There was a block of land on the edge of town we were very interested in. Large, in an historic area, has a creek running through it. Already approved for a new house."
"We made offers, but kept getting knocked back (the place had been on the market for nearly 3 years but he was holding out for magic number he had in his head)."
"In the end, we gave up and bought elsewhere. The property sold for less than the magic number. Six months later, we were hit with huge floods. Most of the property disappeared into the creek. So glad we dodged that one."
– peterdeg
Restaurant Takeover
"Not me, but my sister and her fiance:"
"They met working at a restaurant. He worked his way up from a bartender to manager, and she was a hostess when not teaching. After several years there, the owner let them know that he had terminal cancer and had like 6 months left to live. He didn't have anyone to pass the business down to, so he offered it to them. He asked for a very small payout so he could be comfortable in his last few months."
"While very grateful, my sister and her fiance checked things over, and determined that the building was going to need major repairs soon, and some other things were going to make it so they would not actually make money off of it for a while."
"They were in their mid 20's and pretty nervous about owning a business, much less a restaurant. So they ended up turning it down."
"That was February 2020..."
– Nik_Tesla
When Came A Storm
"Not me but my parents: My parents owned a rural property (a small for weekends and renting for events) from 1985 until 2016 when they sold it, after two years trying to sell. Just 3 weeks after they sold it, a massive storm destroyed the property giving the new owner a loss around 40% the price of the estate."
– raicorreia
When my company for a major theatrical production spent a few weeks in Mexico city, we were thrilled to go exploring on our days off.
But we were always cognizant of not drinking the water there.
We weren't thinking much about patronizing the food stands, however. When a group of us drifted along the beautiful, scenic waterways of Xochimilco, a vender on a barge passed by and offered us a variety of skewered meats, which smelled amazing.
But I knew my weak constitution that is not accustomed to eating from the local venders would not digest the food well, so even though I was famished, I passed.
My friends, did not. That night, every single one of them who patronized the vender got seriously ill from food poisoning.
It's a good thing our waterborne field trip was on our day off. Otherwise, a good fourth of our company would've been out of commission, and the show would've been canceled.
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