The Best Real-Life Examples Of 'Never Interrupt An Enemy While They're Making A Mistake'
"Reddit user Spinksy48 asked: 'What is your 'never interrupt an enemy while they are making a mistake 'moment?''"
People will trip themselves up eventually.
Because liars and lunatics always make mistakes.
They may be small mistakes, but they leave just enough room to expose their wicked ways.
Sure we all want to fight off an enemy and be the victor.
But sometimes the victor's greatest weapon is nothing but a little patience.
Then, we celebrate with a smile as we watch the crumble.
And maybe we have a little victory dance.
Redditor Spinksy48 wanted to understand the fun of letting your opponent lose by just doing nothing, so they asked:
"What is your 'never interrupt an enemy while they are making a mistake' moment?"
If the story starts to get really crazy, just wait for a break.
Then ask a question from the beginning.
I guarantee you know more of the lie than they do.
Just keep talking, friend.
Gotcha
Dashcam Hello GIF by TranscendGiphy"I let the lady who changed lanes into me run her mouth about how I rear-ended her before pulling the cop aside to show him my DashCam footage."
ThrowingChicken
A Cherry Wave
"I was accused by a neighbor of reversing out of my drive and hitting his car. He gave me the date and time I had allegedly done it and pointed to a (small) scrape on my car that supposedly matched perfectly the location of the dent on his. This was 7 weeks after the alleged event, by the way."
"I said it wasn't me but told him to contact his insurance and we'd see what they said. A few weeks later I get a letter from my insurance asking what had happened, to which I responded with the date I had bought my car (and updated my insurance) - two weeks after the supposed bump."
"He never spoke to me again but I used to give him a cheery wave every time I saw him glowering at his window."
Gazcobain
Speak Once
"In a meeting with my project manager who has not been in the office or worked a proper full day for MONTHS, she has increasingly been annoyed by people bypassing her to get things done by telling me and her other direct reports what to do."
"I was about to answer a question for stakeholders, and she told me to let her speak one sentence and will let me have my bit. I did as I was told, and she told the stakeholder a completely wrong thing about the system we were handling and made a complete fool out of herself. She got sacked this month."
choiaera
We Hated Each Other
"Guy stole a presentation from me, this is 25 years ago. We hated each other. When he started presenting I realized I had made a huge error, didn’t say anything. Let him get through it. Asked him about the error, but he couldn’t answer. This was in front of COO. Got fired, not for just that, he was an overall douche. This was before everyone was on PCs, and had one printer in one room."
Bmilvis
Whoops
Office Space GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"When a coworker who I hated got fired a few weeks after I decided to stop fixing his mistakes even if it impacted a client."
Hrekires
It's always thrilling to see the bad colleagues go!
Bye. Bye. Bye.
I will see you on the 15th
Idiot Reaction GIFGiphy"Not my story, but several years ago my older brother was fighting for custody of his son with his ex-wife. As the first custody hearing date approached, they were exchanging [un]pleasantries over text and my brother ended up saying something along the lines of, 'I'm not continuing this conversation. I will see you on the 15th.' The ex-wife told him, 'The hearing is on the 25th dumba**.'"
"So of course instead of correcting her, my brother just allowed her to keep thinking it was the wrong date, and she missed the first hearing entirely. It became the first of many mistakes she made in the court system that eventually led to my brother and the woman who is now his second wife winning full custody of his son."
Damn_Furries
Follow the Prints
"I'm working on a job site and the architect is there one day. I've been given some light fixtures for the sconces in a leasing office lobby. The fixtures are meant to be hung from a ceiling, they can't be installed on a wall. I attempt to convey this to the architect, but he brushes me off and just tells me to follow the prints."
"I turn to the apprentice and say, well you heard the man, put them up. A bit later, we hear the crashing of glass. The architect asks what was that? I said your light fixture. As I picked up a broom and dustpan to go clean up."
Ohhhhhhthehumanity
No Debt
"As I was being fired from a job, the district manager requested we record the conversation. He thought I was gonna be very upset, so I obliged. Then when he started to tell me why I was being fired he started with, 'You are gonna be graduating college soon, and we want to make sure we get ahead of you leaving us.'"
"I very calmly asked him to send me the recording right after he said that. Then later that day I called a lawyer. I now have no student loan debt."
JRTHEAMAZING
The Screams
"I reminded my ex-wife the divorce court was the next day and was invited to Get F**ked. So I went by myself, she failed to appear and pissed off the Judge so he asked what would be my desired outcome for assets and Custody of the kids. He wrote down whatever I wanted and I could hear her screams when she read the Orders from 3500km away."
comfortablynumb15
Silence
"There's a thing in law enforcement/legalese called a spontaneous utterance. Many many people will bury their own cases with these while bi*ching and moaning at their arresting officer on the way to jail."
raccoonsonbicycles
That last one is good knowledge to have in the back pocket.
Everyone obsessed with true crime doesn't really grasp the idea of... True Crime.
Do we?
It's not a movie.
This could be us.
Horror is happening all around us.
Maybe that's why slasher movies do so well.
Redditor Noahs_25 wanted to hear about some non-fictional tales of horror.
So they asked:
"What is the scariest story you know that is 100% true?"
I haven't seen much except your occasional brawl. So tell me more...
The Collapse
"The 1904 Cincinnati Privy Disaster. In 1904, nine schoolgirls drowned in an outhouse after the floor collapsed. They literally drowned in human waste."
Jenny010137
In the Attic
"I would call it creepy more than scary, but my mom's friend had a small house and lived alone. She noticed weird things: a batch of soup depleting faster than usual, missing eggs, damp towels in the hamper when she hadn't used any, extra dishes in the dishwasher, etc... This went on for months, she thought she was just being forgetful."
"One day she heard some thumping around in her attic and went to investigate. She found some make shift living quarters. Small radio, hot plate, sleeping bag, pillow, food wrappers, etc... She called the cops who came to keep an eye on the place. They ended up catching a homeless man climbing a tree, trying to sneak into her attic window."
"He had been doing this almost daily. He would wait for her to go to work, then go down stairs and help himself to food and amenities. The funny part about this story is they got to know each other throughout the ordeal, and the guy was actually very respectful, just down on his luck."
"She didn't press charges, instead, let him move in, helped him get a job, and he lived in the attic until he got back on his feet. Creepy crap with a happy ending."
Saganic
In the Road
"My mom was driving, and a guy ran out in the road, so she stopped so she couldn’t hit him. It was night time, so it was pretty dark out, and 3 other men emerged from the forest around, all trying to use the door handles of her car to get in. She locked them luckily, and gassed it to the nearest town. Remember to always lock your car after you start it, because if it wasn’t unlocked who knows what would’ve happened to her."
Oxidias
And it really explodes...
"Neishabur train dissaster is something that reminds me how death can come at any moment. A train with 51 wagons of sulphur, fertilizer, petrol and cotton wool somehow broke loose and rolled down the track about twenty kilometers until it derailed in the town of Khayyam, Iran. There were no humans on board."
"Chemical leaks ensued and authorities tried to extinguish whatever fires broke out."
"At one point, the whole thing explodes. And it really explodes. The whole town of Khayyam is literally demolished, 3 nearby towns are badly damaged and it was heard 70 km away. The wreckage continued to explode for several days after. Around 300 people died and more than that injured. An earthquake of 3.6 on Riechter scale was produced."
Chiruadr
Drop Dead
"My friend's boss bought an Audi A4 convertible, back when they were new and interesting. One of the talking points was the pop-up roll hoops that were hidden unless you rolled it. A few months after buying it he got to test those roll hoops out, as he lost control and skidded down a steep bank about 10m (~35ft) deep."
"The roll hoops did their job, and he survived with just cuts and scratches from the bushes he'd plowed through. The car ended up the right way up and he got out, walked back up the bank to the side of the road, then got on the phone to the police to report the accident."
"While he was standing there a driver from a car that had seen the accident came over to speak to him. Approaching from behind the other driver asked if he was okay. My friend's boss turned around to reply and dropped dead. His neck had been fractured, but was in one piece right up until he turned his head, when it severed his spinal cord."
BigBadAl
Well this is all giving me heart palpitations.
Shots Fired
"Artimus Pyle the drummer from Lynard Skynard survived a plane crash and walked to a nearby house only to be shot by the homeowner. The homeowner saw a bloody long-haired man and winged him. Pyle survived that as well and made a full recovery. He told the story first hand in an interview with Howard Stern. That’s how I initially heard of this. I don’t have that audio, but I did find this https://lynyrdskynyrd.fandom.com/wiki/1977_Plane_Crash"
Rickson20
Bunk
"The driver one of the Semis we took in on trade died in the truck. The sleeping area is a 'bunk' with a mattress that can be flipped up and under it is a seat and a table. So during the day it's a Dinet set up. And at night, you pull a lever and pull the bunk down to sleep. Well something happened and the bunk flipped up while the driver was sleeping and it pinned him against the wall. He couldn't get it to drop back down and suffocated."
"He was stuck there for somewhere around 12 hours. Someone had noticed that he was parked for an unusually long amount of time for the kind of deliveries he did. The company that built the sleeper did something to the bunk so that couldn't happen again and supposedly recalled all of that sleeper style."
z0mbiemechanic
“gut feelings”
"When my aunt was about 16 she was working at a grocery store and had a boss in his mid twenties. One day he called the house and was begging her to sneak out and hang out with him. She was considering it because it was her boss and she didn’t want to say no."
"My mom, who is two years younger than her, always gets these incredibly spot on 'gut feelings.' She had one that night and begged my aunt not to go out with him. Thankfully she listened to my mom and told him no which made him really angry. He ended up going out that night and meeting another girl."
"He took her out to some cliffs and pushed her off. Somehow she lived through this and was able to get him sent to prison. I feel so sorry for that girl and so thankful for my mom and her gut feelings. Always trust your gut."
pessimisticoptimista
Normal
"I spent my first 10 years in New Delhi. Back then, we would find dead women (burnt with acid or set on fire) and it used to be so 'normal.' Like oh look, another one of those dowry cases where her family didn't pay the husband enough money so they killed her. Many years later i revisited those memories and realised how insane that actually was! I'd totally forgotten about all that."
saywat30
A Close Call
"My friend tripped and fell onto the tracks, landing his face onto the 3rd rail. We kinda stood there in absolute shock because we thought he was dead, but then he said, 'can I move? Will I be electrocuted?' We told him to move instantly and he did, we got him off the tracks, and no less than 2 minutes later a train went zipping by. I think the 3rd rail turned on seconds after his face came off of it. I know that's not scary to a lot of people, but to me it was because I would have lost a close friend back when I was about 12."
tacolikesweed
'Is this your room?'
"I was in a crappy motel. The room had bedbugs. I was too exhausted to go to the front desk. I just needed to make it until the morning. I slept in the tub. hours later I hear someone breaking through the window. I had a big knife with me and ran out into the room to find a man halfway through my window."
"We stared for awhile at each other in shock. I think we both were scared. then he says, 'Is this your room?' I'm like, 'yes, this is my room man!' more staring. Then he slowly starts backing out while cursing me for leaving my window unlocked and not expecting him to break in. Motel on Watt ave, Sacramento."
We're Open
"That there's a guy casing the bar that I work at literally right now, and I can't do anything to stop him. He's been in asking what time/days we're open, and what days we have security. Caught him feeling the corners of our windows and doors too. Unfortunately, until he breaks in and robs us, the police won't do a thing."
ExtraEvilJesus
So Cheap
"A guy I worked with was riding his dirt-bike through the woods and somebody hung a cable between two trees. My buddy caught his throat on it and saw the dude steal his dirt-bike. Woke up in the hospital with a lacerated throat and a broken larynx. Pretty crazy what somebody will do for something so cheap."
Beatleborg22
Trapped
"Nutty Putty Cave in Utah was sealed up in 2009 after John Jones was trapped upside-down in a small crevice while spelunking. When rescue teams finally arrived he had been upside-down for so long that his legs were drained of blood."
"The only possible way to have gotten him out was to break his legs, which would’ve sent him into fatal shock. He died after being trapped for 28 hours. His body’s still in the cave."
"Squish"
"Amateur rugby. Guy gets hit pretty hard and dislocates his hip. While waiting for the ambulance, a guy runs up saying he's a physio and can at least relocate the joint. He cracks the hip back into its socket and the guy SCREAMS. One of his testicles had been jolted out of place in the accident - and had been chilling out in the empty hip socket."
"Squish."
chocolate_on_toast
Off Duty
"Two off duty US soldiers were on a train in France. When walking past a toilet they recognised the loading noises of rifles coming from inside. They waited outside and jumped the guy when he came out. He was a terrorist who was about to go through the train killing people."
"https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-u-s-soldiers-help-subdue-attacker-on-french-train-1440238328"
jplevene
Dead
"An acquaintance of mine sent his son to triathlon camp in Texas. A week later, his son came back from camp. The next day, the son was complaining of a headache. Four days later, he was dead. Healthy, happy, fit 12 year old one week, dead the next."
"Turns out the lake had Naegleria fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba. Nothing scares me as irrationally as already being dead and waiting for your body to catch on. Link for those interested."
persondude27
As if Dateline NBC isn't enough to watch. Goodness...
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
People Who Have Narrowly Avoided Being Murdered Share Their Experiences
It's the spooky time of year where horror and gore are all around us. In movies, shows, and campfire stories, we share the most gruesome tales to scare one another.
But when you're faced with real life horror, that's a different stories.
In a 2019 study from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime found chances of falling victim to a homicide worldwide are about 6 in 100,000.
So we went to Reddit to know what it's like to narrowly escape a murder.
Redditor EntertainerWeary7463 asked:
"People who escaped killers in the last second, what is your story?"
Thank goodness they escaped to answer this question.
A terrifying bike ride.
"I was biking home at midnight from work in the city, 2 people stopped my bike, 1 had a bike 1 was on foot. My flight reaction kicked in I started biking as fast as I could. She tried to grab my bag but couldn't hold on and the guy chased me down on his bike for another half mile dinging the bell saying he was going to kill me. Was able to lose him and make it home without them in sight."
"Side note: my car got broke into that night as well."
"All after a working double in the ER."
"Let me add, who knows if they were gonna kill me but given the area I was in and circumstances, I was scared for my life and felt like they would have left me beaten and unattended to, so I feel this qualifies."
"The ringing of the bell with the death threats is a nice touch."
Strangers at a bar.
"It's weird, I was just thinking about it the other day. At the time, I was 22 years old and I went to a casino in New England. I got pretty intoxicated and met this older guy at the bar. I asked him if he wanted to go outside to smoke he said yes. And we went outside and 3 tribal police jumped out of the bushes and slammed him to the floor because he was on the run for assautling and murdering someone."
"So I didn't escape, the Native American police saved me."
"You were very lucky."
"Yep. The part I think about the most is that invited him outside- he didn't even have to do the work. As a good prospective victim, I did it for him. At the risk of sounding melodramatic I wonder if he saw this tendency in me from far away somehow. I do NOT talk to strangers at the bar anymore. In some ways that's sad but it's for the best. Obviously from that point onward I come from a bias perspective on the benefits of socializing with random people."
Caught in the act.
"I was walking home from a late shift and heard this commotion behind a few stores, as I got closer I noticed that it was a guy literally stabbing the sh*t out of another guy, he turned around to see me and came running toward me, I knew of a side alley for service us near my work and I cut down there and circled back round to find the man had been brutally stabbed but not fatally, I called the emergency services and the man lived, the CCTV of that night was able to help police identify him and he's currently in prison on 2 counts of murder and 1 attempted. So yeah that was close."
Escaped the most prolific killer in the U.S.
"I once heard this story where there was this guy coming home late at night when some guy offers him a ride and he accepts. But then he gets this odd feeling and jumps out of the car. A few years pass and he sees this documentary on tv on a serial killer. Apparently the killer had took off his back seat door handles and when the police ask him why he did it he answers, 'Cause the first guy I tried to kill jumped out of the car.'"
- kie_m
"I saw this too it was a college hitchhiker who needed to get back to his dorm when John Wayne Gacy picked him up"
"Oh man that hitch hiker is very lucky to have got out of that car alive."
"Believe it or not, Gacy apparently gave a few hitchhikers rides and didn't kill them. One even offering to have sex with him for money (almost all of his victims did) but he declined."
"33 murders, paid around 150 young men for sex. 20 percent chance of murder. Horrifying. 5th most prolific serial killer in US history (that we know of)."
- drak0ni
Another hitch hiker.
"Hitchhiking back in the day and a guy in a big shiny Cadillac gave me a ride. He then proceeded to tell me about the two young men he slept with the night before."
"Told him to let me out right here and he kept going. Pulled off on a gravel road and drove down it before stopping. He started to reach under his seat as soon as the car stopped."
"I spun around and kicked his head bouncing it off his window, got out and ran like hell back to the highway and immediately got another ride."
"Have absolutely no idea if I hurt him bad or not and I never lost a single night's sleep over it."
"Wow that was close! Good job on the fast thinking and action!"
"No thinking involved. That was just pure scared sh*tless reaction."
"Did they ever get caught?"
- ZaYeDiA
"Never even knew their name. And from the little bit of reading I've done on it, most psychopaths aren't caught. A very small percentage of society, but with 330 million in the US it still adds up."
Parents Explain Which Things Surprised Them Most When Their Child Moved Out | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Parenting is a lifelong commitment but the load is certainly lightened when kids go off to college or move away for their first "adult" job. It can be quite ...Saved by a seven year old.
"I was five years old when this happened."
"My parents had just separated and my mother decided to attend a girls' night out. She commissioned my 16-year old, male cousin to babysit my siblings and me."
"After my cousin put my siblings and me to bed, he invited some friends over to hang out. One of his friends was completely messed up on acid. Said friend went into the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife from the block on the counter and walked towards my bedroom."
"My brother (who was 7) happened to be watching this guy from his own bedroom. As soon as he saw him walking towards my bedroom, my brother jumped up from bed, ran into my room, grabbed my arm and pulled me off the bed just before acid guy began repeatedly stabbing the mattress."
"I don't recall what happened next that night. I only remember looking at my shredded mattress the next morning and then watching my mother talking to some people at the front door."
"I would later learn that once I was dragged off the bed, my brother began screaming, which brought my cousin and his other friends running. Upon seeing the carnage, they all wrestled acid guy into submission, called the cops and had him hauled away."
"The people at the door the next morning were the acid guy's parents. They offered to pay off my mother in exchange for her dropping the charges against their son. Mom agreed. I got a new mattress and my mom bought a nice, above-ground swimming pool with the leftover money."
"Acid guy would go on to finish college, get married, have several children and now owns a successful car dealership. He's not exactly a killer, but only because of the quick thinking of a seven year old."
The lifeguard was no help.
"When I was 11 a sitter took a bunch of us to a public pool. Around 4ish, the sun moved and it was getting cooler so everyone headed out."
"I was last of our group in pool. Not a good swimmer. I noticed two teen boys pointing at me. They suddenly dove into the water. One grabbed my long hair and pulled me to the bottom while the other tore my bathing suit bottoms off."
"I fought like the devil and they eventually surfaced for air. I did too, and they jumped out of pool and took off. I regained my strength and got out of pool and found a lifeguard who I think must have seen something. Anyway, the lifeguard told me if I couldn't get along with people to leave the pool."
"My stepfather went to the pool when he got off work to have 'words' with the lifeguard."
"What kind of lifeguard is this?! Dude should not be in that role at all! I'm glad you survived!"
- xcomcmdr
"Almost sounds like they were in on it, they were so casual."
Our mental health system failed this family.
"My brother-in-law killed my mother and father-in-law and their dogs, set several fires, and was most likely on his way to our house for us and our dogs before his truck caught fire."
"He'd set several fires in town, including to his own property and a neighbor's, and something caused his truck to ignite - we don't know if it was some kind of accelerant and intentional fire or if gunfire returned from police set it ablaze. My partner is devastated; we were very close to his parents. Lots of therapy and support from friends and family lately, which has helped, but it's been hard -- especially because his brother was mentally ill and had tried seeking inpatient services months earlier only to be told it would be a 3 month wait."
"Please tell me he's either dead or in prison for life?!"
"He died in the truck, either as the result of the fire or of police gunshots. We don't know for sure yet."
"When I was maybe 10 or so years old, my family took a trip up the west coast of the United States. We stopped at a familiar thrift store we would always visit each time we'd go visiting in the area. My mom and dad usually didn't mind me going off in stores as long as I stayed a few aisles away."
"At some point in the store, I started to realize a man following me around. I didn't think much of it but kept my guard up just in case. (Was taught stranger danger early on). I get to the toy section, and was playing with a few random toys when the man started asking me questions randomly. 'You have pretty hair. Do you brush it yourself?' 'You like to play with toys? Which ones do you prefer?' 'What's your favorite color?'"
"At this point I'm getting scared because he was closing the gap between us and I was stuck down an aisle that only had one way out. He began coming closer to me, a creepy look on his face and as he tried to reach out to touch me I screamed bloody murder. EVERYONE in the store ran over to see what was going on."
"The man freaked out, grabbed me and tried to run. I'm screaming for my parents who came running a few seconds later and my dad punch the guy, grabbed me when the guy let go of me when he was punched, and we went to the front of the store to call the police. (Back when cellphones didn't exist). Police arrived and my parents told them what happened but I guess the guy bolted out the back door because he was gone. I don't remember all the details of how he escaped."
"A few years later I was watching the news and saw a familiar face and my mom started freaking out and told me and my dad that the guy on the TV (he was booked for kidnapping,). It was the guy who tried to take me."
Threatened to be set on fire.
"College buddy and I had just completed a big project and went out for late-night milkshakes to celebrate. On the way back he stopped for gas near campus. Three kids (maybe 13, 15 or 16, and 17 or 18) are there with a gas can asking for a ride back to their car. For some unknown reason my friend (who was normally pretty curmudgeonly) offers them a ride."
"We go several blocks to a sketchy part of town when they tell us to pull over behind a car parked along the side of the road. As soon as we do, the youngest kid opens the back passenger door and books it, the middle kid starts splashing gasoline on us, and the oldest gets out via the back driver side door and leans into the front trying to grab to grab the keys and demanding our wallets or they'll set us on fire."
"I go for the eyes of the guy leaning in, he pulls back and we skedaddle out my side, soaked in gasoline. The middle kid comes after me and I just push him and we start running. I lose my flip-flops and am running barefoot, we jump a fence and find a bougainvillea bush on the other side, and finally make it back to the gas station and call the cops. Within 1 minute we have (what I later learn) is every patrol car in town pull up."
"They take us back to find the car, which is abandoned with a gasoline pooling on the floorboards. We have it towed and go back to file a report and look through mugshots. The police question us for what seems like a long time, and finally as we're leaving one of them apologizes for the third degree and tells us based on the location they initially thought it might be a drug deal gone bad."
"Finally get back home, throw away my clothes, and as I'm showering and trying to get the gasoline smell off of me, notice blood running down the drain. Discover in my hasty barefoot retreat I'd stepped on a dime-sized piece of glass that was still embedded in my foot."
"Not a great night, although it has gotten me out of jury-duty a couple times."
The terror is unmatched.
"Two guys followed me home from work when I was 15. I called my mom because I noticed them and was being careful. I got inside my house and locked the door and the guys started banging on the window. My mom conferenced in 911 while I tried to find a different way out (one big window and one outside door for the whole house). Cops showed up right as the window broke and they were coming in. I remember being curled up in a corner yelling to 911 to hurry up. Nothing will ever match that terror."
"Please tell me they were arrested!?"
"They actually ran. I had to give a statement and do the drawing thing. My dad picked me up and we drove around town looking for them. We actually drove by one of them but he and I made eye contact and my throat closed up and I froze. On one hand, I'm glad because I'm sure my dad would've beat him half to death (if not completely) but on the other hand, they both still roam free."
The chances of being murdered are usually based on location, age, race, and gender, so it's hard to say what the actual chances are, but if you want to find out you can go to RateMyRisk.com and find out.
And try not to worry too much.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Facing rejection when asking somebody out is never pleasant. But there's no denying that some people let you down easier than others.
Middle school and high school kids, for example, seem to have no idea how to deliver bad news gently. Their fragile egos lead them to either clamor awkwardly, be absurdly mean, or make it all twice as bad by laughing openly.
Here's hoping these stories don't remind you of any experiences you had to go through.
Redditor StUPiD_CaKe asked:
"What is the worst possible way to be rejected?"
Many people talked about how painfully casual some people can be. There is something about minimizing how the other person must feel that just feels awful.
Setting the Record Straight
"Preemptive rejection. I've had it happen a couple times. Both times were with women/girls who were part of a circle of friends. I never showed any interest in either, but, somehow, they both felt the need to say, out of the blue, 'I'll never sleep with you.' "
"It's all good - things evened out."
Times Change
"Not a rejection but when we were in college a girl I had been friends with throughout high-school said 'Ben I used to fancy you a few years back but my standards have gone up since then.' "
"She said that in front of all our other friends, fortunately I found the whole thing hilarious."
-- Benjii_97
I Guess It Wasn't Going That Well
"I went on a first date with a girl. We had a nice dinner and really seemed to be hitting it off. We decided to visit a jazz club after dinner. Some guy started flirting with her when she was on her way to the ladies room. It continued when she was on her way back. Dude then posted up nearby and just kept looking at her and winking at her while she was sitting at the table with me."
"She excused herself and went over and started talking to the guy. I was hopeful that it was a 'What the fu** is your problem, dude?" conversation. But no. Soon they were laughing and joking and exchanging numbers. When I decided to call it a night, she thanked me for dinner and said she was going to hang out a bit longer."
Crickets
"I was outright ignored. Just not a single thing said. So I awkwardly never talked to them again because they didn't seem to want to talk to me."
Other Redditors recalled times when they were greeted with laughter. Those excruciating few seconds have been nearly impossible to let go of.
At Least He Didn't Have to Be In the Room
"In middle school my friend wrote a letter to his crush asking her to a dance. Dropped it on her desk and then left because he was nervous."
"As we walked outside we watched her through the window reading it, laughing, and then getting a bunch of her friends to come over and they read it together laughing their a**es off."
-- wooztheweb
One Kind Soul
"Middle School, I had my friends, she had hers, I asked her, she said 'No...no...' "
"My friends laugh, her friends laughed. But one of her friend said to my buddies, 'Why you laughing that's messed up.' "
"Thank you kind friend of hers."
-- daehuac
One-Two Punch
"well... I never thought Id share this but.."
"I liked a girl in middleschool. confessed to her before going to a new school in a different state due to moving.
the day i told her she said ew thats gross, then started laughing."
"a few monthes pass and im enjoying my new school and went to visit my grandparents, and i get a call from the same girl who said i was gross. she called and said she was sorry and wanted to give it a shot."
"i said sure and lo and behold she starts laughing and said she cant believe that worked, and started teasing me for believing that would happen or that shed want that."
-- Silevence
Others remembered times that a person looked surprisingly put off by being asked in the first place. They couldn't believe how repulsed a person could be by a pretty innocent interaction.
There's a Better Way
"When the person acts like he/she just saw something disgusting."
"Come on, first you just say 'no.' If they insist, then you can do whatever you want, but let us have the chance to walk away with just a 'no.' "
-- sormatador
A Setup
"Being told to wait until recess for an answer to the 'do you like me' question, waiting, then being told "hell no" on the playground with a gaggle of sixth grade girls behind her."
"I still carry the scar, thirty years later."
-- JaeCryme
Middle School
"I was 12. All my classmates pushed me to confess to my crush, who was standing on the stairs. Everyone was staring at me as I, in my prepubescent anxiety, managed to blurt out 'I love you' while holding my arms up."
"She put on the deepest expression of disgust I've ever seen, and I run away. Fun times"
I'd like to think this was the last horrible encounter before a long life of successful love for all of these people. Of course, if we know the real world--and real people--at all, that's almost definitely not true.
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People Break Down Which Things They Desperately Want To Know The Truth About
"The truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off"
Have truer words ever been spoken? Especially at the beginning of a song? Probably not. But the thing about truth is that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, it's just not something we can ever really know.
One Reddit user asked:
What is something you desperately want to know the truth about?
And honestly we were expecting the answers to be full of conspiracy theories and aliens. Some people wanted to know about that, of course, but it seems like a lot more people are interested in more mundane personal truths.
Missing heirlooms, sketchy incidents, and friends who just vanished into thin air all pop up in people's answers right alongside those aliens we mentioned.
So have a read through and then tell us what truths you really want in life.
Where's The Ring?
I had a 200 year old ring stolen out of my house, handed down from my great-great grandmother and grandmother (every other generation) who are also my namesakes. I was at a low point in life when my grandmother gave it to me, and it kind of felt like - "I still believe in you. You CAN still live up to the name," and it meant SO much to me.
Just after moving into a house for the first time, someone broke in and stole it. There is almost no chance it would be recognized for its true worth or age, or history. And obviously, it could never have that sentimental value. I'm terrified it will have been dismantled.
I'd give anything to know where it is / get it back.
Alone
ancient aliens GIFGiphyAre we alone in the universe?
The universe is enormous. The chances that life exists in other places is not only likely but might even be fairly common. But the universe is enormous. If there was life on the nearest star to ours it would take a generational ship to get there and explore. And that is the very closest star.
Even if we just wanted to send a message with a radio wave and see if anything in that stat system had the intelligence to intercept the radio wave and interpret it as different from background radiation it would still take years for that radio wave to get there, and years for that system to respond back. In summation it is virtually guaranteed that earth is not the only planet with life on it, but the chances of ever meeting aliens is almost zero. Space is just too big. Even if you could travel at the speed of light (which we cant and physics seems to say we never can) we still wouldn't be able to travel far enough to explore space for other life
- Maharog
That's just space. Don't neglect how huge time is. That nearest star could have fully-realized spacefaring civilization, but it exists two billion years in the past - - or the future.
We're ships passing in the night in a sea of time as well.
Indus Valley
Maybe not as exciting as some of the other historical mysteries, but I've always wanted to know more about the Indus Valley Civilization.
They were one of the earliest civilizations on the planet and built complex cities with extensive planning, including efficient sewage systems! And yet their writing script remains undeciphered to this day and thus a lot of what we know about their culture and society is mere speculation.
There's just so much about them I'd love to understand- What was the language they spoke and what family it belonged to? How extensive were their trade networks? What were their cultural practices and religious beliefs and what relation, if any, did these have to those of later societies in the Indian subcontinent?
Consciousness
What actually happens to our consciousness when we die?
Yes this! And how does it originate when we are born?
- poorees
From a technical point a consciousness is an evolutionary trait that develops as an infant matures and it has 3 stages
- non active from 1-2
- passive from 2-8 (when it acquires all of the societal values and is able to think however will follow what its environment mandates)
- active, post 8, once all societal values are accepted and critical thinking becomes much more accessible
Babies dont have a consciousness as it hasnt developped yet and this trait is only found among few animals as an evolutionary trait that allowed us to survive.
This said, in theory we should cease to be once we die , the very same way we came into the picture
So the consciousness would be the same as pre-birth, nothingness once the brain ceases all activity. I would find it much more disturbing and horrifying if a consciousness doesnt fade away and makes you spend an eternity trapped in a void similar to when you re half awake after you passout
Now that would be horrifying.
Ceasing to exist, however, is just something that will happen and I don't think anyone should be afraid of what will happen as it would be the same as pre-birth
Solicitors
I wanna know why these people keep ringing my doorbell while the baby is sleeping trying to sell me pest control or a new roof.
Motherf*cker it's 2020. If I need some bugs killed or a new roof, I'm not sitting on my @ss waiting for somebody to ring my doorbell to give me a sales pitch.
I put a sign on the front door that said please do not knock or ring the bell. And it worked wonders! Never had a knock or bell ring even when I ordered take out and forgot about it haha but I was waiting patiently for my take out of course lol.
Gundam
gundam GIFGiphyThis is going to sound petty, but to me it's more important then anything political, I want to know what happened to the Victory Gundam Toy I leant to my friend when I was in the first grade. It was the MS in Pocket V- Dash.
My grandmother got it for me for my birthday, which means my parent's actually got it for me and wrapped it and put her name on it but she pretended to know what it was and I appreciate that to this day.
My parents probably got it from a store in Springfield Mall called "Another Universe". It was a one stop sci-fi novelty shop and after my dad took me in there one day I fell in love with the "Japanese Robots" because I grew up watching Robotech, and Ronin Warriors.
I was super stoked to get this, and loved it dearly. And because I loved my best friend and sharing is caring etc, when he asked to borrow it one night, maybe a week after I got it, I let him. I never saw it again. We stayed friend's up until high-school when we started to drift apart, and it legitimately bothers me to this day that I never found out the truth.
Elisa
What ACTUALLY happened to Elisa Lam. Like, come on. She couldn't have dropped herself into that tank. She didn't have keys to the roof, and she was too tiny to lift the hatch anyway. So, what? Did an employee kill her?
Your average hotel employee couldn't haul a sober young woman to the roof, restrain her, open that heavy-ass hatch, and throw her inside. Not without somebody noticing. There's no surveillance footage either. Besides all that, there's no evidence that Elisa was raped or assaulted, so what would be the motive for murder?
And she wasn't intoxicated. No drugs, no alcohol. But... why the weird behavior in that elevator, then? Why the imaginary conversation? Why hide from nothing?
Yes, she was bipolar, which could attribute to the strange behavior. Elisa was mentally ill, but that doesn't explain everything.
I lived down the street from that hotel when she went missing, I remember the posters going up around the neighborhood. What happened was a terrible, unfortunate accident and nothing more. In fact I wish the internet would stop trying to turn it into a "spooky mystery" because I can't imagine what the family must be going through.
The main thing you have to remember about the hotel she was staying at is it wasn't a normal Holiday Inn kinda place you're used to seeing. It was a run down building over 100 years old that was being used for low income housing that had started renting out rooms to tourists. I lived in one similar when I was really poor.
They're not well maintained, they're not well staffed (maybe some kid working security), and you can pretty much have your run of the place without anyone messing with you because no one who works there cares. Security cameras? LOL. I'm impressed the ones they had were actually working, most of the time they're just there to warn off people. The most mysterious part about the hotel is why anyone would chose to stay there on purpose.
Now imagine a girl off her meds having a breakdown (which is what authorities and her family have said is what happened). I talked to employees at local shops who saw her and told me she was acting crazy. She's in this beat up hotel, can't get the elevator to work, can't figure out what's going on. She ends up on the roof wandering around and takes a dive into the water tank and can't get out. That's it. Nothing mysterious. Just a tragic accident.
Poisoned Pooch
Who killed my dog with poison. My dad knows but he doesn't want to tell me because he said it's going to be troublesome. Don't get me wrong he loved that dog but he got reasons to hide that from me. We live in a dangerous neighborhood.
Tumblr Trouble
I had an internet friend who suddenly stopped posting on Tumblr at around 2014. I didn't realize it at first because I had multiple friends who would leave for a few days and come back again, but after a few weeks with no activity I started to worry. I think I even assumed that she wanted nothing to do with ME specifically because she wouldn't reply to my messages until a mutual internet friend of ours messaged me to ask me if I knew where she went.
She never came back. She wasn't sick, she wasn't going through anything, she never said she was going to switch accounts (she had multiple accounts dedicated for some core things she liked. When she stopped posting on her main blog, I checked to see if there were any activities on the others. Nothing.), etc. She was just there one day and then she suddenly wasn't. I guess I'd just like to know what happened to her.
Maybe A Little Too Great
The Great Pyramid.
Either the truth about how long it took and how Egyptians built it, or who actually did it.
History books say it took 20 years to build, which is just ridiculous to believe. 20 years was definitely not enough to build it, but that's only one of many facts that make me raise an eyebrow:
"Pharaoh Khufu began the first Giza pyramid project, circa 2550 B.C."
Egypt was founded around 3000 B.C. so the Pyramid was built pretty much at the beginning of their civilization, and I believe they claim the Sphynx is even older than that.
So these people had the skill and knowledge to build a monument that would last through eternity, featuring some of the most astonishing mathematical and physical properties but could never better themselves? Never in the history of our species, we have witnessed a civilization reach their engineering peak at the very beginning and then get progressively worse. It just doesn't make sense.
For reference, the Great Wall of China is 25ft tall, has roughly 4M blocks and it took several centuries to finish with the help of millions of workers. The Great Pyramid (just one of the 3) is nearly 500ft tall, made of over 2M blocks of stone, and only took 20 years???
In 2550 B.C humans could build at amazing speed with unmatched precision and a few millenniums later we lost all that skill?
If we wanted to, nowadays we could replicate any building or construction that's ever been made with the help of machines. But not the pyramid. Modern engineers admitted that even with our best technology, we would struggle to replicate a 4 faced pyramid of that size. Imagine building an 8 faced one that has VERY PRECISE astronomical and mathematical properties; the amount of resources and hassle required for such a feature would be ridiculous even for today's standards.
"The Great Pyramid embodies an advanced knowledge of geometry, geodesy (the science of earth measurement), and astronomy. It incorporates not only the value of pi but also the golden section, phi, found in the growth patterns of living things.
The Pyramid stands at the center of the earth's landmass and represents the earth's northern hemisphere on a scale of 1:43,200."
When scientists presented these and a million other facts just as mind-blowing, Egyptologists said it was all a coincidence and claim that to this day.
Imagine making a tomb for your king and, just by pure chance and a bit of luck, recreate a replica of our planet that gives exact data of its dimentions and movement in space LMAO
I have been to the Plateau, Karnak and Luxor (Valley of Kings) and let me tell you, by the end of the trip my eyebrow had raised so much it became one with my hairline.
Human Relationships
I wanted to know the truth about human relationships. Now there is nothing else I want to know desperately..
There is no want anymore about anything in life. The truth is,"Human relationships are need based. They are never absolute and hence keep changing. It takes enormous energy to keep a married relationship going."
So choose wisely. Choose somebody for whom it's very easy to love himself and you. And not somebody who talks about leaving you or breakup at the drop of hat!
Death Night
grim reaper death GIFGiphyWhat the fck exactly happened in Stammheim prison on the 'Death Night' of Oct 18 1977 at the height of the German autumn.
Three prisoners of German far left-wing terror group RAF were found dead in their cells. The story goes that they killed themselves and other members of the group tried to frame it as murder by the state
But official reports have some holes and some things don't quite line up. Were they actually murdered by the secret service? Did the sercret service know about what they were planning but didn't intervene? Why was there a power loss in that prison block right around the time they killed themselves and why was the officer that was assigned to watch the cell block called away from his position by an unknown person right around the same time? One inmate killed himself with a gun, how did no one hear that?
- enderlux
After The Crisis
I work in a suicide/crisis line. We never know what happens after the call ends. And there is this one call that still haunts me, and all I desperately want to know is what happened to the caller after they hung up. I just want to know the truth.
Catfished
I talked with a girl for years. Started on a chat room, we talked with letters, Facebook, on a phone (our record was 9 hours straight), we became "a couple" at some point. We never saw each other, shared only few photos, but we had fun talking so it didn't bother me. Webcam wasn't a common thing back in 2009 and 2010 when this started and since we were young, we couldn't travel and see each other.
(Yes, this is starting to sound like a Catfish episode)
In 2011 things changed tho. I went to army for 9 months and during that time I learned that she had leukemia and she had few months to live. We talked on a phone, cried together and she told me she wanted to do the things she always wanted to do, travel to other countries. She went to USA, UK, Brazil, sent me letters and postcards. One day she was dead, just like that. We had one common internet friend who told me the news and later I saw her face to face and she gave some stuff so I could remember her.
Later Google came out with image search, where you can search images and see if that picture is on internet. I think like a year had passed at this point. I tried it, and voila, her pictures came out with some hits. She was a fake? I immediately asked her friend, what is this. She came clean that yes, she was fake and no, she didn't die. She said "I don't want to become between this, so she can tell the truth, if she wants to". Never got the truth, never heard from her again, she never explained anything.
I just want to know, why.
Just Want To Plan
When am I going to die? I have stage 4 breast cancer. I've seen and heard prognoses from two years to ten years to it can actually go away.
Obviously, I'd like it to go away, but if I only have two (or five, or ten) years left, I need to know that. That will determine how I spend my time and money.
If I refuse to entertain death as a possibility and live like I'll have the chance to become elderly, I may not do all the travel I want because "I can do it later" or "I'm paying off this new car that I need."
If I assume that I'll be dead in three years, I could be caught with my pants down in 2024, having spent all my money on my bucket list and being unable to buy a car. (Mine is a 2002, 232k+ miles)
I assume I'll know more as my death gets closer, but I'd like at least a year or so of being mentally with it before I die so I can wrap up all my loose ends.
A Detailed Catalog
I wish archeological sites hadn't been looted for centuries before the scientific method was developed. The amount of historical knowledge that has been lost to human ignorance and greed is tragic.
I also wish some angelic being would descend from the heavens and gift us a fully detailed catalog of all the creatures that have walked the Earth. I'd spend the rest of my life poring over the information on animals that evolved, thrived, and went extinct millions of years ago.
Brother Allen
What happened to Brother Allen.
20 years ago, there was a man in my church who went to Texas for work and was found bound and gagged and dead in his room. He was an FAA investigator, there was no sign of a break in at the hotel, and reportedly guests heard nothing. I was friendly with two of his daughters (we were Mormons, he had like 7 kids) and both he and his wife had served in youth leadership and education positions together. I keep thinking at some point I'll watch an episode of Forensic Files and find out the truth...
Hoping For Nightmares
Who killed my brother (happened in the 90s). My parents refuse to tell me or my siblings anything besides a few details. Pretty much, all I know is that the driver of the vehicle was a friend of his who had too much to drink.
I don't know what I would do with the knowledge if I had it.
Maybe visit him in jail if he is still there. I'm told I look eerily like my brother. So I'd go in for a visit using my brother's old clothes. Say nothing, then after a few seconds, get up and leave. Hopefully give him nightmares for the next decade, make sure he never forgets what he did.