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People Divulge The Worst Lies They Were Told As A Kid

There is significant evidence to suggest that kids become more dishonest with their parents when their parents lie to them. And kids who grow up in environments were lying is tolerated will develop more antisocial and aggressive behavior.

Kids aren't stupid–so it's pretty stunning that so many adults talk down to them or deceive them in some way, as when they tell them potentially damaging lies.


People shared their stories after Redditor nopomegranates97 asked the online community:

"What's the worst lie you were told when you were a kid?"

"My mom would always tell me..."

"My mom would always tell me I was the 'easiest physical birth out of all of the kids.' I felt proud until at the age of 18 I was told I was adopted."

femok6

That must have been an emotional rollercoaster. Hopefully you're a bit more settled now (and perhaps learned more about your birth family, too).

"That my mom would return..."

"That my mom would return the money she 'borrowed' from me. Little did i know it went straight to drugs."

FlimsyFig5951

This must have been so heartbreaking to learn so young.

"My dad always told me..."

"My dad always told me we had to be home before 9 pm because they would roll the sidewalks up and turn the traffic lights off."

thewonderred

Funny, the things we believe when we're children. As an adult, that scenario sounds like a logicial nightmare.

"My grandmother told me..."

"My grandmother told me that everytime you tell a lie or swear, your heart gets a black dot. When the heart is completely black, you end up in hell."

eldidge

This sounds like a great way to give a child anxiety over very little.

"Turns out..."

"'You are so lucky to have a parent like me, other children would do anything to have me as a mother.'"

"Turns out that was, in fact, not the truth."

Actual_grass

Heartbreaking but also freeing, once you figure that out. Our parents are not perfect people, and some of us have worse parents than others.

"I was told by a brother..."

"I was told by a brother I was adopted. It was the most hopeful year of my young life. I dreamed of another family coming to save me."

nativecrone

This saddens me. Hopefully things are better for you now.

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"She was the eldest..."

"I was the one telling the lie. My sister was very annoying as a child. She was the eldest and made the rest of us feel subservient and inferior."

"I got mad enough one day to tell her that our grandmother had told me that my older sister was adopted, that my parents had another baby first, but the baby had been dropped in a river and drowned. So they adopted her and gave her the same name as the dead baby."

"All her early baby photos were the first baby, and she had been adopted as an infant because she looked like the dead baby. I was six, she was seven, and she believed me for quite a while."

Badassnun

This is creative and it's also quite... evil. How are things between the two of you now, I wonder?

"My mom would tell me..."

"My mom would tell me while my dad was in Vietnam that when he got back he was going to beat the living daylights out of me because I was bad."

WolfThick

Well, this got dark. Why do parents say things like this to their kids?!

"It turns out the fish..."

"It turns out the fish weren't released in the local pond. They died. My dad tried to cover it up and convince me of that."

ravenpotter3

I don't know why so many parents balk at using opportunities like these to teach children about death and dying.

"Maybe it can't..."

"Money can't buy happiness. Maybe it can't but it sure does give you peace of mind."

JollyGreenGiant_8

Maybe not happiness, but money definitely gives you options, which many of us lack.

According to child psychologist Gwen Dewar, our children are "better off if adults avoid telling them manipulative lies," noting that to do so has both short term and long term effects, ultimately harming a child's relationship with the adults around them.

To do so anyway? Sounds like an easy way to create a lifetime of resentment.

Have some stories of your own to share? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!

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Men Break Down The Weirdest Things Someone's Ever Said To Them After Sex

"Reddit user ella-es-julia asked: 'Men Break Down The Weirdest Things Someone's Ever Said To Them After Sex'"

People say the darndest things after -- and sometimes during -- lovemaking.

Maybe it's the euphoria.

Maybe it's the adrenaline.

Maybe it's the tequila.

It's always good to have a kind-hearted joke on hand or a generic compliment.

Or maybe just grab your belongings and skedaddle.

Redditor ella-es-julia wanted to hear about the craziest pillow talk stories, so they asked:

"Men of Reddit: What's the weirdest thing a girl said to you after sex?"

The weirdest I ever got was... "What city am I in again?"

Geography matters.

Morbid Much?

In Bed Home GIFGiphy

"Met girl, went on date, brought girl home, had the sex, finished the sex, laying there she says 'What would you do if I died right now?' and demanded an actual answer."

Vixxay

Meow

"Not to me, but as she walked over to the bathroom after the deed, she said 'I just did your owner' to my cat. Sexiest thing that ever happened to me."

shlanky369

"My Fiancé and I were about to start going at it when the cat appeared from under the bed and stared at me. I went, 'Babe the cat is here. I don't like how he's staring at my boobs."

"Fiancé grabbed the cat and yeeted him into the hallway with the phrase, 'Get out you weird pervert.'"

"The cat proceeded to (without his claws) smack the door over and over again while screaming for a few minutes straight. Pervert."

Trumpet6789

POP!

"'I need you to take me to the hospital. Something is now bleeding and hurts.'"

"Turns out her ovarian cyst popped. We're still together with the running joke of sex so good it put her in the ER."

DasBatt

"Ah ah ah, 2 hemorrhagic cysts ruptured, I was bleeding internally, but only a little bit. I'm still impressed by how quickly you went from a naked sex stupor to being ready and carrying me to the car. Good times."

"In the ER when they asked me what happened all I could do was shout 'we were f**kin!' through my tears. That memory still makes me laugh."

Straystar-626

Damn it's Good

"We were going at it for some time then her face went instantly from 'damn it's good' to full-on crying. I stop, ask her what's wrong and she tells me 'I can't cheat on my boyfriend, it is wrong.'"

"So this is when I learned that the girl that I met on a dating website and that I started seeing 3 weeks before and that she told me she was single had a boyfriend for over 5 years. Got her to talk more, and she told me she was on the dating website to see if there were guys better than her boyfriend so she could end up with someone better."

"This was like 20 years ago, a coworker I have right now knows her (his girlfriend is like a distant relative of hers) and I learned she had 5 different boyfriends since then, cheated on all of them except the last one (for now). She was also a cam model in secret, one of the boyfriends was a high-paying customer."

draftstone

A Binding Contract

"'Pleasure doing sex business with ya.' We then shook hands."

"Still together 5 years later!"

Tatarstan

It's nice when people who have great sex make great partners.

And it all starts with a handshake.

Sleep on It

“'I don’t usually say this but, yeah, you can stay.'"

lennyukdeejay

"Did you high-five after that? Seems like that statement called for it."

EvilNinjaX24

"This is the best one."

TomKhatacourtmayfind

Tiny Dancer

"Not really weird but I slept with this girl while backpacking Asia, she was also a backpacker. After a bit of chillin'/talking, I got up to get dressed, she looked at my flaccid manhood and said 'You're quite shy when you're not excited.' I thought it was hilarious."

fleetwoodsackk

"That's a much better way to put it. My wife, when we were just dating and had moved in together and eventually saw it flaccid just said 'Aww, it's so little.' Thanks, hun, exactly what every guy wants to hear."

striker180

Fine!

"She said 'If I get pregnant I'm keeping it.' I was dumbfounded and when I didn't respond quickly enough she got really agitated like I had hurt her feelings and yelled 'Fine! You don't have to be involved if you don't want to!'"

"We had just met that night. My condom use skyrocketed after that night."

Fullyme

"When I was a poverty-stricken college student I was banging a girl who said, 'If you get me pregnant I’ll take you for everything you own.' I said, 'All I own is my bicycle. You want that?'”

OrwellWasRight101

Amen

"Best weird compliment I ever got was 'Damn boy, you f**k like the Devil!'"

"I married her, we still goin' at it."

BeBearAwareOK

Well, these certainly created some lasting relationships... or hilarious tales to tell their friends.

Do you have any stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.

woman in black pants and red tank top
Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

Giving compliments is pretty easy, although most of us don't do it often enough.

Accepting compliments can be much harder.

Too many of us immediately shift into disclaimers to explain why we don't deserve the praise.

But we just need to say thank you—even if the compliment is a little odd.

Keep reading...Show less
Woman standing alone in the rain
Neal E. Johnson on Unsplash

We can all agree that, as fun as it's supposed to be, the dating scene can be really, really hard.

Here's the secret: as hard as the dating scene can be to navigate, some of the trouble lies with us. We may not to be able to find a long-term partner or a date at all because of something that we're doing.

But when a friend is in this situation, it can be really hard to tell them the brutal truth about their dating history.

Redditor teekzer asked:

"What is causing your friend to remain single that you don't have the heart to tell them?"

Chasing Deadends

"He keeps hanging on to the past and spending all his time hanging out with ex-girlfriends who are unavailable, or women who like him but he doesn’t romantically like."

- SqueakySnapdragon

Baby Talk

"I always wondered why she couldn't get a date because she is gorgeous until I saw her flirting with someone."

"The first night they met, flirted, and swapped numbers. Then, she was immediately clingy, talking in a baby voice to him, and making baby noises."

- robocop_robocop

Body Odor

"I can smell them. Everyone can smell them."

- not-read-gud

"You should find a way to tell them, it might hurt but they'll appreciate it."

- iciclesnbdayclothes

The Nice Guy Mindset

"He really is not as nice of a person as he thinks he is."

- Rusti3dp

"The ones who claim this rarely are."

- SummerOfMayhem

Impossible Standards

"The people they like aren’t real. They are idealized, cartoonish caricatures. Now my friend himself has a lot to offer in my opinion, but he is looking for a person who doesn’t exist. Hard to find something that’s not there."

- Sufficient-Spell9935

"I have a friend who started dating his flatmate after being really into her for a while, and then after a week or two said something like, 'Dating you doesn't feel as good as I thought it would,' TO HER."

"He basically torpedoed his own potential relationship because of his own ideal fantasy, and to be honest, I don't know if he actually realized he'd created an unrealistic standard in his own head."

"He's been single for the last decade, his mental health has only got worse in the time I've known him despite therapy, and I think he's probably so detached from 'appropriate dating behavior' at this point that he could be single for the rest of his life."

- fish993

Questionable Humor

"Brother-in-law, not friend. But he makes the same jokes about poop and farts all the time. Like, constantly."

"Yes, some women like potty humor, but they usually also want it to be funny."

"He is also very negative; finds insult or something wrong with any situation."

- EatYourCheckers

Living in Fantasy Land

"He lies to himself about almost everything. He lives in fantasy land."

"He thinks he's in the gym five days a week, eats great, climbs mountains, goes camping, and makes loads of money."

"In reality, he's at the pub five days a week, over eats like s??t, went on one hike in January, can't hold a job, and lives paycheck to paycheck..."

"If you were to confront him with this reality, it wouldn't even get through to him."

- Fit_Yogurtcloset_291

Mismatched Attraction

"The type of guys she claims she likes isn't what she's actually attracted to."

"She keeps saying how much she loves shy introverted sensitive guys but when she finds one and dates him suddenly, she's like, 'He's not outgoing enough, doesn't speak his mind enough, and is too shy!'"

"I kind of think she has this 'I can fix him' syndrome and doesn't really acknowledge it. Like, she's attracted to the idea of a typical shy guy but thinks once they're in a relationship they'll suddenly be more open and turn into the guy she actually wants. That's not how it works!"

- Disig

Poor Self-Esteem

"She is so lovely. So kind, so generous, and so beautiful. But her crippling lack of self-esteem is so huge, it's visible from space, and her anxiety (and I'm 99% sure her undiagnosed ADHD) means that when she's at all nervous, she talks at 100 miles an hour in several directions at once."

"It's like being handed eight happy Labrador puppies to try and hold in your arms. I so badly want her to be happy and feel fulfilled but even I find it tiring sometimes."

- butwhatsmyname

The Negative Attitude

"I have two of these."

"One is the most talented, smartest, wonderful person I know and I wish I could pull the gremlins out of their brain so they could be happy."

"The other is self-fulfilling proficiency f**king up their life. He's not unlovable, or ugly, or uncared for, but walking through the world expecting rejection at all turns and living in a fog of negativity is what makes him unattractive to be around."

"So-and-so isn't hotter than you, that's not the reason they're getting more friends and lovers, but they are more positive and interested than you, and people are attracted to that company."

- cool_username_iguess

Just Pure Arrogance

"For my husband’s friend, it’s the selfish arrogance. I want what I want, and the subtext was that he never cared about what his girlfriend wanted."

"He would only go places he wanted to go, which never included her friends or family. He wanted to spend all his money on 'collectibles' related to sci-fi movies, DVDs, figurines etc."

"Engagement rings were a waste of money, investing, or buying a house ditto, no compromises were possible, he said NO, and no discussions were entertained."

"His opinion on every topic was the correct one, and he was not interested in your opinion, or listening to extra facts he did not know that might change his mind."

"He was once young and good-looking, and he thought he could find someone else when she walked when he was 32. They had dated for close to a decade. During the relationship, he had started to stack on the weight and losing his hair and he was not able to find a replacement."

"Now he is 49 and hasn’t had a girlfriend since. He still has not bought a house and they cost double what they did when they were dating, and his rent has tripled. He does have a copy of all his favorite movies in every format: VHS, DVD, AND BlueRay, a whole bedroom is dedicated to storing them, if you can get in there. His house is a hoarder's paradise."

"He says the reason no one wants him is because he is fat and bald, and it does not help, but it’s not the major turnoff."

"As for his ex, I don't really know what happened to her. She left all of us behind when they broke up. I did hear she got married, but no updates after that. She is a sweetheart, I wish all the good things for her."

- vicki153

Impossible to Move Forward

"Summarizing two types of my single friends:"

"Super successful, smart, funny, and good-looking. They also tend to go for folks who leave them on read for days. Their insecurities are their worst enemies and I think are the biggest factor of them chasing after partners who don’t want to be partners."

"Other friends don’t know how to commit to anything, including a job. It almost feels like a 'it’ll happen when it happens' type of ideology and so they don’t even try to make things happen? They act like things will happen on their own? So they’ll meet a person and then that’s it. Meet cute dead in the water."

- thunderkitty_

Too Desperate

"Desperation. From laughing way too hard at mediocre jokes to bringing up marriage on the first date, she reeks of it."

"We have all tried talking to her about it to no avail. The sad thing is that if she was just her regular funny, smart, relaxed self, then men would be falling over themselves trying to get her number."

- Julia_Sugarbaker123

A Want List

"Her standards are excessively too high. She brings nothing to a relationship. She's a walking contradiction, all of which is why she is single."

"I think it's great to have standards and high standards but hers is just a checklist of wants."

- Theunpolitical

Height Insecurities

"He’s convinced women won’t like him because he’s short. I keep telling him I know plenty of guys just as short as him in great relationships, I’ve dated guys as short as him in the past. He just refuses to believe it."

- MichaSound

"I dated a guy who was four feet, nine inches, and I'm five feet, four inches. He had such an amazing strong personality that you never noticed his height."

"I did find kissing standing up weird; the motions are so different when it's swapped."

"The relationship ended for other reasons than his height."

- lonelyronin1

Alternatively, Open to Feedback

"I had a friend who finally did just ask. He came up to the girls in our group and just let us have an open conversation. I'm sure it was awkward and uncomfortable for him, but we gently laid out some issues. He cut his hair, got some new clothes, and (the big one) started therapy."

"A couple of years later, guess who's got a wife and a wonderful child?"

- Stars-in-the-night

It's so disheartening to see the people we care about unable to have something that they would find so fulfilling like a long-term relationship.

But it's even worse when the reasons behind it are things they could work on, if we only had the guts to tell them or if they were open to hearing it.