People who've had bad encounters with someone they've never met shared their experiences when Redditor Jemuzu8304 asked:
"Whats the most f'ked up thing a complete stranger has done to you?"
Drivers and passengers recall their rude interactions.
The Prank
"One time I was in south Philly and a car pulled up with two guys in it. They called out to me asking for directions so I walked over. As I was explaining where to go the dude in the passenger seat spit in my face and they sped off."
– the_humbL_lion
Willing Victim
"You just reminded me of a similarly gross interaction:"
"Years ago after a doctor's appointment, I got into my car and turned it on, at which point a small child started leaning/sitting on the hood. His heavily pregnant mother stood by doing nothing, apparently distracted by her phone. I rolled down my window, and asked if she would mind getting her child off of my car, as I needed to leave, and was concerned he could get hurt."
"She asked if I had insurance. Confused, I answered '...yes?', to which she said 'Well I hope you DO hit him so I can get some MONEY!' She proceeded to lean in through my passenger window, and started spitting on me. The kid was no longer on my car, and I desperately wanted to get away from her, so I put my car in reverse. She then hurled her pregnant belly into my sideview mirror, and shrieked in such an exaggerated way, as if I had hit her."
"I eventually found a new doctor."
– TheHaydnPorter
Unwanted Car Wash
"Stopped at a red light one time. Someone from a building adjacent to the light threw a bag of ice and water on my car, from a few stories up. Dented the roof and shattered the windshield."
"Wasn't even a nice car, I was driving a Dodge neon sh*tbox."
– IAmPandaKerman
You never know the capabilities of strangers you encounter.
The Violent Thief
"I got held up at gun point 2 weeks ago in philly 10 feet from the door to my friends apartment. They stole both our watches. My watch was given to me by my dead uncle. https://imgur.com/a/V59aebW"
– xcpain93
Hit By A Hard Object
"Reminds me of something. Some a**hole tossed a lock, like the combination type out of a car at me and hit me in the knee. I had trouble walking correctly for damn near a month."
"I always thought if they'd have stopped at a light I'd have hurled that b*tch right back."
"Good thing they didn't. I wasn't in any condition for a fight."
– Ok_Relationship_705
Moving Targets
"I also have a drive-by experience but it was with a f'king paintball gun. My friend and I were in freshmen year, just walking to the park to play some ball and with no warning he suddenly recoils and shouts in pain. I had no clue what happened. He reaches at his back and when he turns around I see a bright red paint splat on his white shirt. I look up and see the car that just passed us turns around, pulls up next to us with the kid in the passenger seat hanging the gun out window saying 'Sorry bro, I’m just so surgical with this thing,' and speeds off. Pretty hilarious story in hindsight within our friend group now, but at the time we were pissed. Luckily we got their plates and the cops showed up at their house and they got in trouble. F'kers."
– zakxk
Wrong Target
"I was about 11 and me and some friends were standing on a small bridge over a lake. All of a sudden I was picked up and thrown over the railing into the lake below. I tried to grab onto anything I could as I fell and scrapped my arms up pretty good. I still have scars 30 years later. So I swim to the side and some older kid comes up to me and just say - sorry, I thought you were someone else."
– discostud1515
Attacks happen when you least expect it.
Random Attack
"Punched me, for no reason. I was standing. Waiting for the community bus. A stranger got out of the car and punched me. I filed the Police report but nothing happen."
– Hallo-Mapskollegen
Hitting The Elderly
"My grandmother was at the movies and a guy walking up the aisle punched her in the side of the head. He told the cops he was mad because he was on a bad blind date."
"Like...great excuse to wallop a 75-year-old woman minding her own business."
– BarracudaImpossible4
The Ferrari Guys
"Had a similar thing happen when I was in Downtown Los Angeles. I was crossing the street and just came up onto the sidewalk. Some dude in a Ferrari steps out of the car, walks up to me and tries to swing on me in broad daylight. I sidestepped this dude, and he then spun to try to hit me again, calling me a motherf**ker and not to dodge. I caught him with a nut shot with my foot and doubled him over."
"His buddy hops out of the car, and another of his buddies (I assume) gets up from the side of the sidewalk and both are yelling at me, and I'm like, 'ah, f'k, I'm not ready for this.'"
"These absolute legends who had been watching all this sh*t go down just appear out of nowhere and jump these guys for me. Like, six different people from out of the woodwork. Nutshot and Scrub (Ferrari guys) hop in the car and just take off, scraping the car and taking the right side view mirror off. Their (assumedly) other homeboy gets left behind, but he tries to stumblef'k his a** away after having taken a couple of hits to the head. One of the guys who helped me jogs up and punts this dude in the side right after he falls over, doubling him up. Meanwhile, everybody else is checking on me and making sure I'm good."
"Cops show up, detain us, figure out what's going on, let us go, and arrest homie that couldn't get away. Come to find out, these guys have been doing this for weeks, and the people who helped me were local residents who had been on the lookout for Nutshot. Arrested homie later squealed, and all the guys involved got a couple of years for aggravated assault."
– feronen
My bad interactions with strangers were all random but definitely premeditated assaults.
I was mugged twice in New York City while I was typically minding my own business.
Also, while I was in Barcelona, I had a team of youths pick-pocket me and run off with my wallet containing my passport and credit cards. Fortunately, the friend I was with saw what happened and ran off after them. She sucker-punched the young lady who had my wallet, causing her to drop it.
Be careful out there, folks!
A scorned lover chasing down his ex-girlfriend with an ax, or a jealous classmate enacting revenge by offing those closest to them one by one until the climactic confrontation, are all elements torturous moviegoers are used to seeing out of pure entertainment.
But anyone witnessing acts of violence in real life can tell you, it's a lot more traumatic than anything that was ever depicted on the screen–especially when it involves someone they know really well.
Redditors shared their accounts of horrific incidences close to them when frog_without_a_cause asked:
"What's the most horrific act committed by someone you know personally?"
You think you know someone...
The Violent Co-Worker
"Worked with a guy who got done for manslaughter, he bashed someone's head in with a table in a pub, this was after he stabbed a guy in the chest with darts, this was over a darts game. He also served time for beating a policeman into a coma with the policeman's own truncheon after the policeman caught him breaking into a car."
– godca_grema
The Friend With The Rifle
"Guy I considered a close personal friend hunted down his ex, shot her with a rifle and then turned the gun on himself."
"Neighbors reported hearing him say 'You knew this was going to happen.'”
– hurrydeath
Brought To Justice
"A former coworker murdered his friend when the friend agreed to work with the police to bring down my coworker for stealing a shipment of human growth hormone. Apparently it was a vicious murder. They burned the body, iirc, but it's been a while."
"My coworker ended up being on the run for many years, and was eventually turned in after his story ran on America's Most Wanted, his fiancee saw it, and he confessed who he was to her. She waited until he was asleep and went to a pay phone to turn him in."
– -aged-like-wine-
Dark Web User
"Someone I was close friends with till college was raping his wife's daughters from her first marriage for years. He was also filming it and distributed the material, and was teaching other pedos internet security and how to use the dark web. A laptop involved in a sting in the UK undid all his careful trail covering. The investigation revealed over a decade of traceable data of his activities building a CP criminal network."
"I don't like to think about it."
– tacohexadecimal
Growing Up Fast
"One day while we were in school, an acquaintance's father killed their mother and then himself and set their house on fire. Their father was somewhat abusive, and their mother was thinking of leaving him. It completely changed the acquaintance, he was only 13, but had to basically grow up and mature overnight. He and his siblings had to move in with their grandmother with basically nothing but the clothes on their backs. He was able to get a driver's license at 13 because their grandma couldn't drive, so he could help. Somehow, against all odds, he and his siblings are all perfectly normal people."
– powerlesshero111
"Violent Horrible Person"
"I lived down the road from Terry Joe Volner. He rode my bus everyday, and was also a violent horrible person."
"He murdered a 5 year old because he had feelings for the kids mom and I guess she didn't feel the same. So he murdered one of her kids, took a picture of the child's body and sent it to the child's mom and told her he was going to kill her other kids that he was babysitting if she didn't come home right now."
"He got life."
"Then he beat his cellmate to death with his bare hands so brutally they considered the death penalty."
"He got life again."
– PwrtopUltimate
Felon In Service
"I knew a guy in the Marines, he was already a sh*thead, but one day he suddenly got orders back to the US. He was just gone, turned out that the FBI had been monitoring him trying to groom little girls online and sending nudes. The FBI arrested him when his plane landed."
– poopbutt42069yeehaw
You never know the things people are capable of until they snap.
Targeted For Wealth
"I had an acquaintance who owned a iron working shop."
"Some employee of his thought he was fabulously wealthy because he was well off."
"The Dirtball employee went to their house and tortured four of them to death to get their fabulous wealth ( $40,000) Unfortunately the housekeeper was there as well and they tortured her too."
"The junkies ordered pizza and left their DNA to be found. Burned the house. Really very sad, this guy was known to hire guys who had criminal records and give them a second chance. His son was 10 years old."
– KaiserSozes-brother
Why Mum Was Terrified
"I only met him once as a kid, but my grandads brother in law. He approached me and my mum in a cafe, I was 8, and tried starting normal conversational small talk. My mum panicked and asked him what the hell he was doing out of prison, he brushed her question off and he knelt down to talk to me, which made my mum pick me up, sling me over her shoulder, and run back to the car. I just remember being so scared by her sudden moves I quietly burst into tears in the car and we drove half way home. Mum then stopped in a supermarket car park, got in the back, unbuckled me, and we cuddled in the back for what felt like days (most likely an hour tops) whilst we both cried. I had no clue what was happening but mum calmed me down and she kept saying "youre safe. I love you" over and over."
"I found out years later he slit my Grandad's Sister (his wifes) throat and brutally beat her to death. Hence my mums fear."
– Mikatsurie
Gentle Classmate
"Guy I went to school with was real calm, very smart, and everyone loved him. He was a gentle person from what I remember. He had lost his mom a couple years before this, she was a nurse and they found her dead in a hospital room during her shift. Unknown causes."
"Our senior year of highschool, dude is a championship wrestler, dominating his grades, and just doing good. He lived with his dad who was a police officer for years and years. At lunch one day he left school and came back. Everything was normal and the day was finished out. His dad did not show up for work that evening, and the police dept sent someone to go knock on his door. They found the house ransacked and his dad lying in bed with a single gun shot wound to the head, deceased."
"Later that night they called my grandmother in for questioning because she cleaned their house once a week. Not much later than that, the guy I went to school with broke down and confessed they he had come home on lunch to ask for money, and he and his dad got in an argument, his dad laid down like normal for his shift, and he took his dad's service pistol, and shot him, and after realizing what he'd done, he'd freaked out and turned the house upside down to make it look like a robbery, then went and finished the day at school to try to make it seem like he had no clue what had happened. Shocked everyone."
– optiplexiss
Family dysfunction ran deep with these disturbing cases.
Attacking Mother
"Someone I sorta knew from school hid behind his front door, waited for his mother to come home and hit her on the head with an axe when he was around 14. He probably instantly regretted it and called an ambulance. Luckily, she survived and suffered no permanent damage. I think he went to a mental facility after."
– heyguysitsjustin
The Drownings
"Her 2 year old daughter drowned under suspicious circumstances, nothing could be proved. About 3 years or so later, she had another kid. Also drowned under suspicious circumstances. She was investigated but found nothing, attributed to sh*tty coincidence. Couple more years later, she had a 3rd kid with her man. Father came home early to find that she wasn't in the house, but his son was left alone in the bath tub. He was dead by that point."
"She got slapped with 3 murder charges and life."
– halosos
False Prophet
"Burn a baby alive."
"The story:"
"I knew someone at a music school. She then left, and one day she showed up at the school again because she was stopping music and wanted to sell her instrument. She told me she was living in an isolated community in the middle of the mountains, and looked so happy and radiant that I felt jealous."
"A couple of months later I turn the TV on and there she was. The community was actually a sect commanded by a guy who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus. He had impregnated a woman from the sect and said the baby was the Antichrist and had to die. They burned the baby alive when he was only two days old."
– needtogetcreative
Abusive Dad
"My father beat the sh*t out of my mother and myself when I was a toddler. I have an uneven skull because of it. Until I found out, I thought it was a birth defect. I didn’t find this out from my mother until I was an adult when I had to take him to court because he had opened numerous credit cards with my social security number when I was a kid and had tanked my credit by the time I was 18."
– FutureMarcus
Water Under The Bridge
"A guy I knew killed his father in front of his mother and younger brother trying to protect his mum from severe abuse. After he served his sentence, the family accepted him back and they’ve been living a normal life to this day."
– HectorVK
Selective Hearing
"I have a family member try to go off their meds, they said it was because one of us yelled at them down the stairs to stop taking their meds. We never said that but they thought we did. Pretty f'ked up."
– Snugg_Bugg
These disturbing accounts really go to show that you really don't know what people are capable of when they're under pressure.
In the heat of a moment, most of us have made conscious decisions not to do something completely irrational.
But not everyone has the wherewithal to really think about the consequences of causing violence on another person when they have snapped.
And when that person who did something regrettable–or disturbingly, not at all remorseful–is someone you know, it's all the more tragic.
Redditor Yaboi2tall wanted to hear about how bullies can be stopped.
"How did you get a high school bully to never mess with you again?"
I swung on my bully, with a pencil. Never had an issue again.
Pea Soup?
"Vomited all over him. After that he never messed with me again."
Linklee2
Throw Up Season 2 GIF by Amazon Prime VideoGiphyTRAUMA
"A group of sociopaths from my school that always tormented us followed me and my friends to my house one day in a pick up truck. They stole my friends shoes, pushed one of them until she fell, and took my sketchpad and threw it in a puddle. My stepbrother came outside, beat one of them badly, stole his pants, and threw his keys into a sewer grave before hitting him with an empty vodka bottle. It was traumatizing for me on both ends, but that group of kids never even looked at us again."
LittleKaty_E
"Watch it!"
"He tried to shove me down an embankment while on a field trip. Had I fallen, I would have broken my leg or worse, because the embankment ended about 25 feet down, then dropped off into some deep brush and trees. Anyhow, my best friend was next to me, and said 'Watch it!' as he came at me."
"I side-stepped him, and he tumbled down the embankment and over the edge into the brush. Fractured several ribs, dislocated his shoulder and broke his ankle. He never did anything to me again. F**k you Darren! You b**ch!"
Darklord_Bravo
Trash
"She told me, my face made her want to kill herself. So I told the school counselor that she had confided in me she wanted to kill herself. She had to explain to the everyone what she really said. She would call me fat, and ugly everyday. She also would tell me I was trash because I was adopted. 'Your own mother thought you were so ugly she didn't want you.'"
JustJessJ_Art
Think Twice
"Made friends in the football team. Bullies think twice when you are buddies with a 6'2 250 pound Samoan. Crazy how nice so many Samoans are."
Large-Statistician-3
serie a football GIF by U.S. Sassuolo CalcioGiphyI do like Football players. I knew they'd good for something.
Wheeled
"I was bullied for my wheelchair, so I ran their feet over."
puthypanther
"Fast and furious."
Sigmr
paul walker family GIFGiphyThe End
"A bully was harassing my daughter on the bus. Instead of calling his folks, or jumping on him, I did this…"
"I pulled him aside at the bus stop one day and asked for his help. “Hey Danny. I was hoping you could help me out. I guess there’s a kid on the bus who is picking on my daughter. She’s a girl and small and I’d like for you to help protect her. If you see anything like that, could you stick up for her please and let me know about it.'" That was the end of the bullying."
Relax-Enjoy
Farewell
"Graduated."
Bjarki56
"Pretty much the same. Stopped associating with our mutual friends when I realized they're not my friends if they're friends with a bully like this person and ever since we graduated, and I've been out of that social bubble, it's just was over."
Independent-Clerk310
My Chair
"Not a bully per se, but a d**k." In my French class a guy who sat behind me would always kick my chair repeatedly, and I was at the point where I was visibly infuriated by this happening every lesson. The girl who sat next to me turned to him and said 'Hey, you should probably stop doing that, he looks like he's about to hit you.'"
"Guy laughed it off and said I wouldn't. I didn't, but I turned around and cocked my arm back. He was leaning back on the hind legs of his chair with his feet on mine, so when I did this, he flinched, fell backwards off his chair, and got a few laughs from the people behind us. He never kicked my chair after that."
Pm_me_yo_nudes_
Duel
"Challenged him to a fight at lunch, left during the period before lunch to move 800 miles away."
undercoverhippie
Josh Whitehouse Duel GIF by PoldarkGiphyI Love U... Not!
"I knew a girl like that in middle school. She made my bus rides to school and back miserable. Constantly abused me physically the whole school year. Stole my sweater to wear it herself. On the last day of school her friend handed me my sweater and a note that explained how she had a huge crush on me, asking me out, etc. On my walk home I crumpled that shit up and threw it as far as I could. Some girls have some f**ked up ways of showing affection, lol."
latex22
Never Again
"It wasn't high school, but it was summer camp and I was about 8 or 9 years old. This slightly older kid was always a huge bully, just total dbag for nothing. I went home and told my dad about it and he said 'next time he does something, punch him i the face, and if you do, I'll take you to a baseball game.'"
"Next day at camp I was minding my own business on the 4 square line, he came up and said something and I punched this fool right in the face. He was shocked, never said one bad thing to me ever again, and let me cut him in the 4 square line in my next turn."
"It was actually a great life lesson on how to stand up for yourself. I didn't start going around picking on kids or needlessly beating people up, but I never was bullied again. And yes, my dad took me to a ballgame."
Armadillo19
Full Force
"Hit him in the face with a water bottle. For some reason I couldn't stand up for myself, but he started bugging my friend. It was during after school band practice (which my mom forced me into anyway, I already didn't want to be there). For some reason him teasing my friend just made me slug him full force in the face with said (plastic) water bottle. That got other students and the teacher involved. He didn't bug us again."
LastPhoenixFeather
Jason?
"Middle school. The bully challenged me to a fight after school. I told him to meet me on the soccer field which happened to be visible from where my bus home would park."
Big Brother Fight GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"I made sure to get out of school as quickly as possible and sat on the bus so I could clearly see the field. As I expected, he never showed up. The next day at school I announced loudly so several classmates could hear 'Jason, you never showed up for our fight. I waited there after school and you never showed up. You are a f**king chicken. That was the end of the bullying."
SafetyMan35
Grade 11
"Started rugby in grade 10. Stood up to him in grade 11 and he got mad and he tried to kick me. I was almost 6 foot by then but always tall and weak, well training for rugby sort of fixed that a little so when he kicked me I caught his foot and whew I let it go it was a above my head... he fell backwards and landed on the back of his head, he never talked to me again."
Basil*itch
One Day
"I didn't lol. I fought back, I got my a** kicked. I ran... he'd wait for me somewhere else and get my a** kicked. I fought back successfully once and it just made him and his friends jump me and my friends. Now he takes my sweaty towels from me at the gym so I make sure to make them as gross as I can."
GilakiGuy
Everyday
"A friend of mine was being bullied at school decades ago, and after a few days of it, he stood up to the bully and said, 'Listen. If you keep doing this, we're gonna fight. And you may beat me, but we're gonna fight again, and again, and you're going to have to fight me every day until you leave me alone.' The kid left him alone."
AuburnElvis
Fancy Moves
"Headbutt, broke his nose. Got expelled 2 day, but i'm really happy I did. I don't remember him bullying anyone else after this :) "
elyroc
Quieres Video Games GIF by MinecraftGiphySometimes all it takes is one good punch. Not that I'm advocating violence. But most bullies are just cowards.
Reddit user, Elixir_Jx, wanted to know when a movie was just too much when they asked:
"What’s film is so brutal to watch you had to stop watching it?"
What reason would you have for stopping a movie before it finishes? The cinematography making you dizzy? The subject matter is too much for your to consider?
It'll vary, that's for sure.
"Animals Don't Behave Like Men"
"Watership Down."
"Hey, it's a cartoon, and it has bunnies!"
"Oh dear god..." eddyathome
Let's Climb High
"Not brutal, but I had to stop watching the doc Free Solo bc my blood pressure couldn’t handle the stress. This was early on when I had no knowledge of the climber and outcome."- NoCanadianCoins
Don't Listen To The Internet. It's Bad.
"Batman and Robin(1997)"- skippedad404
arnold schwarzenegger batman GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphyPerhaps it's the gore that forces you to turn it off, because watching someone being disemboweled for the umpteenth time in a film is not what you consider "entertainment."
Seems Like A Breach Of The Hippocratic Oath...
"I saw some French horror film about a nurse who went to some pregnant ladies house, tormented her, tortured her, then proceeded to cut open her belly with scissors to get the baby out."- DioramaDad
You Need To Pick Better "Family" Movies
"The Last House On The Left'."
"The rape scene in that movie was way too brutal for me to get through it."
"I can still picture scenes of it for some reason, that's how real and violent it felt."
"Didn't help that it was a movie that my family decided to watch together either."
"That said, we still tease my mom for picking that movie out as some weird shared trauma bonding experience all these years later."
"So maybe it wasn't a bad family movie after all????"- lastcallcarrot
darren aronofsky GIF by MauditSound Makes Everything
"While I didn't stop watching, Bone Tomahawk was just..... jaezus"- wolf_of_thorns
Romantic Revenge With Pretty Dresses
"Midsommar - I think it's a psychological horror, I didn't stop watching but it was the most uncomfortable I have ever felt while watching a movie."
"The movie itself is very trippy and honestly disturbing."- Balderino
Whatever your reason for turning it off, trust your gut. If it's not giving you a good feeling, then maybe it's not the film for you.
There's A Message Buried Under All The Blegh
"a serbian film. awful sh-t"- tlep
A Movie About Kids. What Could Go Wrong?
"'Grave of the Fireflies'."
"One of the only movies I've ever stopped watching partway through."- Janube
A Grim View Of Our World
"Threads."
"The most terrifying movie I've ever seen about nuclear disaster."
"tl;dr it's not something you want to survive"- standrightwalkleft
The Good Guys Will Never Win
"Funny Games"- AVBforPrez
michael pitt yeah fun in the sun GIF by MauditGiphyNot for the audience the title might suggest
"Kids (1995)"
"Poor Jenny."- LETS_RETRO_TIME
Wrong Avatar film...
"'Avatar: The Last Airbender', the live action movie, it was horrible."- elnacrested
Liked what I saw, before I stopped watching...
"The Mummy."
"Disgusting movie in some parts, other than that it’s a lovely movie."- Standard_Zero_3152
The Mummy Jump Scare GIF by PeacockTVGiphyAs If I could actually sleep after watching it...
"This German or Austrian horror film…"
"I believe it was called 'Good Night, Mommy'."- Maester_Maetthieux
Way more than '13 reasons why' I couldn't keep watching it!
"13 reasons why."
"That sh*t had me in deep mental sh*t."- Environmental_Net672
Just too real
"Sleepers (1996)."
"It's not brutal in a gore/horror type way, but more in the way that the content itself is brutal."
"There's a lot of sexual assault and rape involving young boys, both implied and dramatized graphic depictions, physical abuse, etc."
"That was the first film I ever watched that made me physically ill and had night terrors over."
"I had to turn it off midway through because I couldn't handle it."- ohstrange
A classic the whole family can enjoy... or is it?
"At end of the year in first grade, my teacher brought in 'Labyrinth' as a treat."
"As a pretty sensitive 6 year-old, I freaked out in the first ten minutes when they steal the baby."
"I remember my teacher told me she needed help with something, and just sobbing and cutting construction paper into squares, obviously for no reason."
"I still haven't seen the movie."- madreburguesa
David Bowie GIFGiphySeriously, Who watches this stuff?
"'Martyrs'."
"It was just torture porn."- DukeMaximum
25 minutes is longer than many others made it...
"'The Human Centipede (2011)'."
"I was 25 minutes in."
"That was enough."
"'The Human Centipede'."
" 'THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE!...'"
"Yeah, not for me."- TheAlbeOne
Loved the first one, the sequel on the other hand...
"Not exactly brutal but I loved the first 'Maze Runner' movie."
"When the second one came out on DVD I was excited to watch it, however during the movie I got absolutely terrified of the zombie-like people with that disease."
"I had nightmares for days and now I refuse to watch it and the last one and even my family never watch it when I'm around."- Srosie18
Maze Runner Run GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphySummaries are there for a reason, people. Let's start reading them before we press play, especially when our families are in the room.
Was there a movie you turned off partway through? Tell us about it in the comments!