You can tell a lot about somebody by the indiscriminately revealing and dark personal detail they share with you moments after meeting for the first time. Has that never happened to you? Well, it sure happened to these people and they have never been the same since.
The following stories come from Redditors who shared the most messed up thing somebody said to after having on _just _met.
TRIGGER WARNING: of what, exactly? Pick one. They are all here.
What A Pleasant Old Lady
“My neighbor, five minutes into meeting for the first time, told me about how she lives with her son and he owns the house next door because her husband had died recently. The husband also used to take advantage of her son. But, since he was dead, the son agreed to take her in.
Also, her tomatoes were doing really well because she got her fertilizer from her pot shop. She is 70.”
Who Invited This Guy To The Party?
“I was at a family friend’s Christmas party when I was a teenager with a couple of friends who were also from the area. This middle-aged guy whom none of us knew started talking to us. He was a dead cheerful guy, very chatty. He seemed interested in what we were going to college for and all that. He turned to one of my friends and told her she reminded him of a girl he used to go out with.
‘OK, thanks,’ my friend replied.
We glanced at each other because it was a bit of a weird thing to say to a teenage girl.
‘She’s dead now,’ he said suddenly.
Well, that was a conversation stopper.
There was a pause before he added, ‘Fell off a bridge.’
_What?! _He wasn’t kidding, as far as I could tell. He was a bit unhinged. He went into more detail afterward. She’d been on a narrow railway bridge in New Zealand or Australia and had tried to avoid an oncoming train. The train had knocked her over the edge. He was either genuine or a brilliant actor .”
Talk About A FIRE-Man
“I used to do stand-up and was hosting a show at Stand-up Live, a venue in Scottsdale. I had a bit about weird fetishes that I was into. After my set, I introduced the feature and headed out to the bar. I was just sitting down when this guy comes up to me.
‘Hey, great set,’ he said. ‘You know what’s crazy? I’m attracted to fire.’
He peaked my interest, so I asked him to clarify. He said that he didn’t realize it until recently, but when his neighbor’s house was burning down, he was outside, just watching. Then, he suddenly ejaculated… just from watching this house fire.
‘Cool,’ I said.
I immediately went back to the green room to tell the headliner about this freaking weirdo. I flew out the next day, but I still think about that guy a lot. If he hasn’t started a fire yet, I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time until he does.”
This Man Said The Last Thing They Needed To Hear That Day
“This old guy in a mobility scooter rolled up to a friend and I as we were grocery shopping. This freaking guy stopped in front of us and asked, ‘You boys are circumcised, right? I am and it’s great! I think it’s god darn awful when people don’t circumcise their children.’
I ignored him.”
“I Hope She Manages To Get Her Act Together”
“My neighbor asked me if his daughter and her son could come over and see my fish tank. I obliged. Later that day, his daughter, who I assumed was around 25, and her son, who was 6, arrived at my door. About 15 minutes into the visit, she pointed out that she is missing teeth because of crystal and fighting. She then moved on to telling me how her substance abuse problem meant she did not have custody of her kid. This was the first time she had seen him in three months.
Next came her detailed description of her jail time… for theft. And illicit substances. And assault. After that came the bit about her outstanding warrant that she hoped to get cleared before her next court appearance. I hope she manages to get her act together for her kid.”
Please, Tell Me More About Your Money
“I drove into New York City so my girlfriend could meet up with some old friends she had not seen in awhile. Of course, I was going to be paired up with the other significant others in this group, but that was not a big deal for me.
I get to talking to this one guy – my age, worked in marketing. He seemed like a fine dude whom I could talk about football or some crap with. Early on in the conversation, he said something like, ‘Blah blah blah…. you know, I make six figures.’
At first I shrugged this off as a weird flex. As the night moved on, he kept interjecting this line when the conversation turned towards work. It was getting really strange. Toward the end of the night, and we ended up at this loud bar that was not really my scene.
‘WOW, it’s really loud in here!’ I said to him.
The crap bag then said, ‘I make six figures, so I guess I’m used to it.’
A New Kind Of Attraction At Sea World
“I was sitting on a park bench at SeaWorld. A girl sat down next to me.
‘I saw a pterodactyl adult movie once,’ she said, suddenly.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘A pterodactyl adult movie. Well, technically the guy was a pterodactyl and women were human, so I guess it was more of an interspecies thing. He cawed and flapped a bunch. Kinda felt sorry for the girls.’
‘Oh. OK,’ I replied
‘Pterodactyl starts with a “P,” by the way – for when you look it up,’ she continued.
‘Thanks, but I won’t.’
But I totally did.”
This Man Was Looking To Make Headlines
“A guy stormed into our newspaper office and shouted about wanting an interview. My editor caved like wet cardboard and assigned the least senior reporter to interview him for a human-interest-type story.
I was shut in a room with this person for 45 minutes and learned that his wife died alone in the hospital while he was on another floor evangelizing to a young, female crystal addict. He described how beautiful this woman was and how he saved her soul, mentioning his dying wife in passing. He also shared that a distinctive scar on his forehead was from a chainsaw.
I should note that I wrote the freaking story. The editor had to run it or else admit she had put me in danger for no reason. I included the bits about the hospital and chainsaw, too.”
A Perfect Time To Just Say “No”
“I was talking to this guy at a party. He had not been drinking and seemed completely normal. When I had to leave, he kinda blocked the door and said, ‘Hey, can we do it? I never have before.'”
“Everyone Makes Mistakes”
“A few years ago, I had to travel about six hours to watch my sister walk at her college graduation. I traveled with my parents and we ended up sharing a hotel room. At around 9 pm, my parents went to bed early and I was wide awake. I decided to walk across the parking lot to a store. I figured I was bored and there was nothing to do, so why not get a six-pack since I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon?
After my purchase, I sat down at a bench in the back lot of the hotel to have said drinks and generally reflect on how the day had gone. I had drunk one when I noticed someone coming out of the hotel. It was an older man who immediately asked me if I wanted some company while I drank. He told me he had some Captain and Coke in his McDonald’s cup. I like meeting new people, so I figured, Why not?
We sat for a while and talked about a slew of stuff – life, politics, music, etc. I generally love one-time interactions with people, as they tend to not hold back since we likely would not have any future interactions. He asked me what I was in town for. For some reason, we hadn’t talked about it up until that point. I told him that my sister had just graduated from the local university and, surprisingly, he told me that he was also in town for the same ceremony! He told me that his daughter had just graduated from the same college and he had come to town to celebrate her achievement.
This all seems innocent enough, right?
We swapped stories about our beloved family members and talked about fond memories with them, generally commiserate over how ‘time really flies,’ yada yada. He asked me what degree my sister had graduated with and I told him. Surprisingly, again, his daughter graduated with the same degree as my sister! They walked together in the same group! Being polite I asked him which girl was his daughter, to which he responded, ‘She was the one in the wheelchair.’
I congratulated him on being the father of a graduate, as I noticed his face had gone blank. Suddenly, I was dealing with a heavy dose of anxiety. I wasn’t sure if he was actually upset or if it was just me being ‘paranoid.’ I asked my newfound friend if everything was alright. He began to tell me that he was his daughter’s gymnastics coach when she was in elementary school. Her love for the sport would eventually give her the drive to pursue a career in physical therapy.
‘That’s great!’ I said. ‘You helped motivate her to find her passion, as any father should!’
He replied, ‘No. I dropped her.’
He. Dropped. Her.
I knew this was heading south real fast. He continued to tell me that she had been practicing a routine while he was spotting her and he dropped her as she landed, paralyzing her. Obviously, this is why she was in a wheelchair. Tears began to run down his face.
There I was, 24 years old, slightly inebriated, with a full-grown man whom I do not know, standing in a dark parking lot, and bearing witness to what was this man’s largest guilt in life. I was speechless. All I could do was offer him the last two drinks from my six-pack, give him the most painfully awkward half-hug and say, ‘We all make mistakes.’
‘I know, man,’ he said. ‘I know.’
I very quickly dismissed myself from the situation and hurried back into the hotel, on the premise of the night getting late. To this day, I am shook over this interaction. I didn’t even get the guy’s name. I hope he has forgiven himself. Everyone DOES make mistakes.”
What A Unique Way To Honor Your Dog’s Passing
“I was talking to this older guy at a bar. He kind of trapped me into talking to him because I was too polite to get out of the conversation. Suddenly, he told me his dog died.
‘OK, that sucks,’ I said.
Then, he told me he had one of his legs taxidermied and uses it as a back scratcher when he’s missing him.”
Way To Make A First Impression
“I was meeting one of my best friend’s roommates for the first time. Directly after meeting her, she began scratching her skin a lot. Soon after, she confessed to me that she did crystal. Then, she sat on the ground and pulled out a banjo seemingly from nowhere and began playing. After that, she told me about how her brother had taken advantage of her when she was little.
She also told me about how she used to skip school and get high in public bathrooms, followed by a rundown on how to tell if a mushroom is a psychedelic or not. She followed that up with a story about how her father had assaulted three women. That was where five of her siblings came from.
Then, she introduced me to her fiancé, who I immediately knew had a problem with crystal too. She then told me that he was a recovering addict.
Later on, she told me about how one time she got locked in a closet and all she did for three hours was bang her forehead against a wall. At one point in the night, she head butted my best friend, which left a humongous bruise for some time. At another point, she licked both of her cats while holding them under her arms standing on the back of the couch.
To top it all off, she and her fiancé went in their room. She came out about an hour and a half later, completely naked, followed by her fiancé, who was also completely naked. They were surprised to see that I was still there and just went about their lives as if being naked in front of a total stranger was socially acceptable.”
Don’t Let The Scouts Hear About This
“I was at a Blue and Gold Banquet night. It’s an annual dinner in which the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of the local troop get their badges. It is usually a potluck and it’s all fun & games.
I was in a bad mood; I had a bad day at work. I threw my back out moving desks so I was just all around cranky. While waiting for my husband and hiding in a corner giving off bad vibes, a woman walked up to me and started talking. After the standard, ‘Hi, and you are?…,’ she asked me how I was doing. I let her know I wasn’t doing so hot.
That was when she let me know, in explicit detail, how her uterus prolapsed that day, how she had to hold it in with one finger while she called her doctor, and everything else that she had gone through as her UTERUS FREAKING FELL OUT. When my husband showed up, I excused myself and pointed her out to him.
‘WHO THE HECK IS THAT?’ I asked him.
Husband: ‘Oh, that’s the Scoutmaster’s wife,’ my husband replied. ‘Why?’
Me: ‘Her uterus fell out today.’
Husband: ‘Wait… aren’t those attached? And how the heck do you know?’
Me: ‘Yes, they are normally attached, and I know because she just told me all about it, right after introducing herself. I’m never coming to another Scout event again because all these people are just too darn weird.’
On the lighter side, it really did turn into the big joke among the Scouts. After that and another Scout mom telling me how her sons were assaulted by their babysitter (who was also having an affair with her husband) at someone else’s birthday party, I really avoided Scout events like a case of the plague.
A couple of years later, my son was a Den Chief, which is like a Boy Scout Troop recruiter/babysitter for a Cub Scout pack, at a different pack. One of the moms walked up to me and let me know how awesome my kid was, how much they appreciated all the help he gave them, how much all the rest of the kids liked him, yada, yada, yada. Right as she could tell I was starting to feel comfortable, she finished with, ‘Oh, and FYI – my uterus is fine.’
Darn it.“
No Amount Of Drinks Could Get Him Prepared For What She Told Him
“I was drinking with a girl I had never met before. She told me about how she got pregnant when she was 16 and the guy who got her pregnant pushed her down the stairs to make her miscarriage. She also mentioned that she felt like she could sometimes feel her ‘kid’ close by.
Inebriated me was not prepared.”
Please, Spare Me The Details
“My neighbors have a kid and his wife is still living with them. I am friends with the kid’s mom and even worked for her for a short while when we first met. Within the first month of knowing her, I learned that her son had a botched circumcision and he had lost one of his balls.
The kid then proceeded to tell me, one day, about how he lost it. I had not known him very long and I was stoned out of my mind. It was super awkward and my anxiety riddled, stoned self could not stop the conversation. I even tried going on my phone but he kept. On. Talking.”
He Gave Him Some Great Ideas For A Crime Novel
“I visited a friend in his crappy apartment. His neighbor came over to visit, talked about how he recently got out of prison, and how us kids needed to be smarter than he was.
That’s all well and good.
He seemed nice. He showed us a tattoo after a few drinks that memorialized his granddaughter, who apparently was killed by his daughter’s boyfriend.
Ah, that’s sad.
Then, he told us he cut his daughter’s boyfriend’s head off, but was never caught for it.
Oh… Well, I suppose he had it coming.
This had all happened a long time ago and was unrelated to why he had gone to prison. He stole a car or something.”
Here Comes The Bride, Tears In Her Eyes
“I play the violin for weddings, as well as own a small business managing my string quartet for weddings and events. I see MANY brides. Our interactions are often via email, text, etc. I certainly do not mind meeting the bride in person if that’s what makes them comfortable.
A lovely woman contacted me and asked me if we could have a face to face meeting over a cup of coffee. She lived close by so we met at a Starbucks. She was smart, beautiful, and very well spoken. She was head of pediatrics at a hospital somewhere in Australia. She moved to the US, got ANOTHER medical degree at Johns Hopkins, and met her boyfriend here in the States.
The first 20 minutes was standard wedding talk – songs she wanted to walk down to, the ‘do not play’ list, etc. I felt the meeting was starting to wrap up, so I gathered my things. Then, I noticed she was upset. I immediately stopped and asked her if she was OK. I will never forget the next hour.
‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’ she asked.
She looked at me with huge tears. I remember sitting down feeling so heavy.
‘I feel like if you’re asking someone that, you know if you are or not,’ I replied, honestly.
She launched in about how her new in-laws were forcing her to quit medicine to become a full-time wife. The husband-to-be did not work, played video games all day, and was living off of some sort of lawsuit. He was some sort of athlete before. Get this: her own mother was not allowed to walk her down the aisle.
When she told me about her in-laws, my red light went on and I just listened. She was 100% distraught. She did not want to go through with it, but felt bad because so many people were coming from out of town for their wedding. I told her that was not important and that she needed to find someone she was close to and talk to them. We talked, she cried. I fully expected to get a call that the wedding was cancelled. Nope.
The wedding went on as scheduled. It was the most uncomfortable wedding I have ever worked. The bride was almost an hour late. We just sat there while people were tracking her down. She came in with barely any make-up on, obviously crying. I sat next to where she came out and a part of me died. I still regret not doing more.”
An Uber Driver’s Favorite “Too Much, Too Soon” Story
“I used to be an Uber driver, so I got my fair share of ‘too much, too soon’ stories. The one that takes the cake for me was when I picked up this woman from, what turned out to be, a doctor’s office. She hopped in the car, smells of smoke, and venting on the phone to someone. At the end of her call, we exchanged some pleasantries – ‘Traffic sucks,’ ‘Doctor’s office waiting times are crap,’ yada, yada.
We segued into her having sickle cell, the volley of issues that disease brings to someones life, and how she, THAT WEEKEND, had her boyfriend, son, and some friends over for a shindig with food, drinks, some recreational substances. It was a going away party… for her.
She was planning on overdosing that night and almost succeeded. She ended up throwing up involuntarily, so she survived. After saying goodbye to everyone and being ready to go out on her terms, biology stepped in and this woman ended up surviving to visit another doctor’s office. She ended up being a nice lady. She even bought some of my photography prints when she found out what I do when I’m not driving people about. Hopefully, she’s still kickin’ and living a decent life.”
She, At Least, Gave Her A Vacation Memory She Would Not Forget
“I was on holidays in the Canary Islands. I went alone because most of my close friends could not escape work. I was chilling, eating and drinking in some random small town restaurant. I met a random guy whom I, very quickly, learned was basically the main dealer for the whole town. Anything you wanted, he would have. We got to know each other a bit. Since he knew I was alone in town, he invited me to a small gathering he had going at his house in the night.
There I went, all alone into unknown territory. Within, let’s say, 15 minutes of being there, one of the girls, who appeared to be Colombian, started telling me how she was kidnapped by the cartel over there around the age of 15. She became a child slave for the cartel folks. Later on, she was sold and violated until her little brother (who was there) came to the rescue. After a while, they managed to leave the country. She said this in the most nonchalant way possible.
Oh, yeah? You are having fun in the islands? Pretty cool. You know, I was a child slave, my little brother rescued me, and took me over here.
It was quite a big What the heck? moment.”
Thank You For Showing Me This
“A woman I had just met told she had a stillborn baby. It was not like, ‘Oh yeah. Sadly, this one time I had a stillborn baby.’ I would have been fine with that.
Rather it was, ‘Here’s photos of me, post-delivery, with my stillborn baby,’ and, ‘Here is a photo of my no-older-than-6 year old daughter holding my stillborn baby.’
There was no warning, no, ‘Would you like to see?’ It was just, ‘Here! Look! Dead, pale baby!'”