r/stories

I’m typing this with shaky hands in the parking lot of my local diner, and I just really need to share this with someone.

Three years ago, I was at my absolute rock bottom. I had just moved to a new city after a brutal breakup, my bank account was completely drained, and I was working a miserable entry-level job that barely paid for my rent. Every Tuesday morning, I would treat myself to a single $3 black coffee at a small, retro diner down the street. It was my only luxury.

On my third week going there, the waitress came to my table, put down my coffee, and said, "The gentleman at the booth in the back covered it for you."

I turned around and saw an elderly man wearing a faded veteran cap. He just gave me a gentle, polite nod and went back to reading his newspaper. I was too embarrassed and shy to go over, so I just mouthed "thank you" and left.

The next Tuesday, it happened again. And the week after that.

Eventually, it became our unwritten rule. Every single Tuesday morning, my coffee was paid for. As my life slowly stabilized—I got a promotion, made some friends, and finally stopped feeling so incredibly lonely—this anonymous act of weekly kindness became the anchor of my life. I tried to pay for his breakfast a dozen times, but the staff told me he strictly forbade them from letting anyone buy him anything. He didn't want a conversation. He just wanted to buy my coffee.

Six months ago, he stopped showing up.

I kept going to the diner every Tuesday, always looking at his empty corner booth, feeling a profound sense of loss for a man whose voice I had never even heard.

Today, the usual waitress walked up to my table. She didn't bring my coffee. Instead, she handed me a worn, slightly stained envelope. My name was written on the front in elegant, cursive handwriting.

She told me his name was Arthur, and he had passed away peacefully a few weeks ago. He had left the letter with the diner staff to give to me.

This was what the note said:

>"Dear Friend,
If you are reading this, my old bones have finally given out. I apologize for breaking our Tuesday routine.
You might have wondered why an old stranger insisted on paying for your coffee. I want to tell you a short story. Fifty years ago, I lost my beautiful wife to an illness. The week after she passed, I sat in a diner very much like this one, completely broken, wondering how the world could keep spinning without her. I was crying so hard I couldn't see straight.
A young man walking past my table noticed. He didn't say a word. He just quietly paid for my breakfast, gave me a kind nod, and left. He didn't fix my grief, but that tiny spark of human warmth reminded me that I wasn't entirely invisible. It gave me the strength to survive that day. And then the next.
Three years ago, you walked into this diner. You looked exactly how I felt fifty years ago. Your shoulders were heavy, and your eyes carried a weight no young person should have to bear alone. I knew that look immediately.
I didn't want to crowd you or make you feel vulnerable by talking. I just wanted to pass on the spark. Watching you show up every week, seeing your shoulders slowly lift, and watching you start to smile at the staff has been the greatest joy of my final years. You didn't just receive kindness; you gave an old man a profound sense of purpose.
The spark is yours now. Keep it burning. - Arthur"

Attached to the back of the letter was a crisp $100 bill.

I’m sitting in my car crying my eyes out. I didn't even know his last name, but Arthur changed my life. When I go back into that diner next Tuesday, I am going to find someone sitting alone, and I am going to buy their breakfast.

Thank you for reading. Please check in on a stranger today. You never know whose world you might be saving.

When my wife and I moved into our suburban home three years ago, we immediately noticed Mr. Harrison. He was an elderly man, easily in his late 80s, who spent nearly every single day sitting on his porch in a worn-out wooden rocking chair.

At first, it was fine. We would wave, and he would give a polite nod back. But as the months went on, his presence started to feel a bit invasive. Whenever my wife was out gardening, Mr. Harrison would just stare. When I was teaching our toddler, Leo, how to ride a tricycle in the driveway, Mr. Harrison’s eyes were locked on us. If we came home late, we would see the silhouette of his rocking chair, perfectly still, watching our car pull in.

It started to bother me. I told my wife, "It feels like we live in a fishbowl. He's always tracking our every move." She told me to let it go, assuming he was just lonely, but it still made me feel uneasy.

Last week, we had a massive summer storm. The wind blew our heavy wooden patio umbrella clean across the yard, shattering a section of our wooden fence. The next afternoon, I went outside with a hammer, some nails, and a few replacement boards, completely frustrated and sweating in the heat.

As I began working, I heard the familiar creak, creak of Mr. Harrison’s screen door. I braced myself, expecting him to just sit in his chair and watch me struggle.

Instead, he slowly shuffled down his porch steps, walked across his lawn, and stopped at the property line. In his wrinkled hand, he was holding a beautifully maintained, vintage leather tool belt.

"Need a hand, son?" his voice cracked.

I wanted to say no, but he looked so eager that I nodded. "Sure, Mr. Harrison. I appreciate it."

For the next hour, we worked in relative silence. For a man his age, he was incredibly precise. He showed me a trick to angle the nails so the boards wouldn't warp in the winter. As we finished up, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and said, "Thanks, Mr. Harrison. You really know your stuff."

He smiled, looking down at his tool belt. "I built the deck on this house forty-two years ago," he said softly.

I blinked, surprised. "Oh, wow. You used to live in our house?"

"I did," he nodded, his eyes glazing over with memory. "My wife, Clara, and I raised our three boys right here. We spent thirty-five years in that house. Every dent in the hardwood floors, every scratch on the doorframe from measuring the boys' heights—we knew all of it."

He paused, looking over at our front window where my wife was holding Leo, waving out at us.

"When Clara passed away four years ago, the house became too big, and my knees couldn't handle the stairs anymore," Mr. Harrison continued, his voice shaking slightly. "So, I moved into the small bungalow next door. To be honest, I was heartbroken to sell it. I was terrified someone would buy it, tear it down, or flip it into something unrecognizable."

He looked directly at me, and I saw his eyes glistening with tears.

"I know I stare a lot," he whispered. "I’m sorry if I’ve made you folks uncomfortable. It's just... when I see your wife tending to the rose bushes Clara planted, and when I hear your little boy laughing in the driveway exactly where my boys used to play hockey... it makes me feel like my life is still echoing. I’m not trying to spy on you. I’m just watching the house be alive again. Thank you for taking such good care of our memories."

I stood there, completely paralyzed by a wave of shame for how I had misjudged him, mixed with a sudden, overwhelming rush of empathy.

I took off my work gloves, stepped over the property line, and shook his hand. Then, acting on pure instinct, I asked, "Mr. Harrison, we're actually firing up the grill for dinner in about an hour. Would you like to come over and show Leo where your boys used to hide their toy cars?"

The smile that broke across his face was the brightest thing I’ve ever seen.

He came over for dinner that night. He ate burgers with us, let Leo play with his old tool belt, and told us stories about our house that made the walls feel warmer than they ever had before.

He’s not a stranger spying on us anymore. He’s Mr. Harrison, our neighbor, and he’s coming over this Saturday to help me build a sandbox for Leo.

Me and my wife have been exploring our kinkier sides, and my wife said she has always liked the idea of being watched. So she invited one of her close friends over who agreed to watch (we'll call her Lexie). I was skeptical at first, but wanted to keep an open mind for my wife, and I am glad I did.

Lexie came over and we wanted it to be casual, as if it was just any other ordinary night having a friend over for some drinks. We weren't sure how to initiate it though. Me and my wife keep giving eachother "the look", like we're mentally arguing over who's gonna break the ice. So I say fuck it and decide to pull the trigger.

I pull my cock out of my pants right in front of Lexie. She looks surprised, then aroused. My wife doesn't miss a beat and goes straight down and starts sucking my dick like a pornstar, stroking it with 2 hands, drool dripping down her chin, blowing spit bubbles and deepthroating, and keeping intense eye contact with Lexie the whole time. It was so hot.

After about 10 minutes of that, I pick her up and throw her on the couch. Now it's my turn. I grab her ankles and pin her feet behind her ears, and start eating her pussy like it was my last meal. My wife tells Lexie to stop being shy and come sit next to us on the couch. So now Lexie is seated next to us with her pants around her ankles, rubbing her pussy while I suck on my wife's clit.

By now, my dick is throbbing so hard it feels like its gonna explode. I need her pussy. So we start going at it, switching positions and at one point she's riding me and Lexie starts getting lightly involved, spreading my wife's ass apart and helping her bounce on my dick. My wife is so turned on by it, she screams, "I'm cumming!" and gushes all down my dick and balls.

She hops off and goes back to sucking my dick until I cum in her mouth. Then her and Lexie start making out and swapping my cum back and forth!! And to think we were having boring, vanilla, missionary sex last week and now my wife is swapping my nut with her best friend! I'm so glad we decided to explore our kinks. And my wife just told me she wants me to fuck Lexie next week while she watches! I can't wait

Earlier today, I was scrolling down my home page, and a post from AmITheAngel finds its way into my eyeballs. I don’t even remember what it was titled, barely looked at that part as it contained a cross-post link for someone who posted to OUTFITS. The outfit was quite eccentric but also HELLA cute, so naturally I click on it to go read the ACTUAL post itself instead of the goobers poking fun at it.

Once I’m there, I see that OP had some mild drama with a friend regarding her sense of style mentioned in the fill title, and after seeing the picture of this cool fit and reading the vaguely rude text message screencap that went with it, I begin reading the actual post itself… big mistake. This girl proceeds to go on one of the longest shaggy dog stories I’ve ever seen, and it was bad-bad.

There are like five named people (only one of whom is actually relevant to her problem), a section about how long a commute somewhere is via bus versus car, a section talking about helping her friend move, a bit about hitting up a clearance section in a Macy’s and using the bathroom, it just goes and goes and goes. Eventually, after what I estimate was about two bananas worth of reading, the actual problem is introduced, and it’s simply that her friend thought the outfit was too extra and left a hangout very early because of it.

After reading so many words that say so little, I comment something supportive of the questioned outfit and a dash of advice about the unsupportive friend, while also mentioning how all the extra details made it confusing to understand when all put together. Comment dropped, I return to the crossposted discussion, and see that practically all the comments are about how convoluted and bizarre the entire story was. No one hating on the girl herself or the outfit, no one being mean or ugly about it, just a lot of “OMG WHY DID I READ ALL THAT.” Normal stuff, I think to myself, so I leave a couple of lighthearted comments about the sea of words I just drowned in and move on with my day.

Fast forward a few hours, I get a mod-mail from the OUTFITS team— uh-oh, I got PERMABANNED for, in their words, “participation in posts that take photos from other redditors without consent for the purpose of harassment.” Naturally baffled and alarmed, I ask the mods to clarify, and they just kept rephrasing the same thing. Even after reviewing their rules, there’s nothing stated that directly would lead to this ban. Apparently, even being a member of AmITheAngel or the various circlejerk communities is bannable there, and that seems completely bonkers to me. Like, how are these communities even open if they’re allegedly so against TOS and Reddit rules?

Now, this story has been booted off BOTH main “Am I the AH” subreddits before I could even get any answers, which I guess pretty conclusively mean I am in fact the a-hole. At this point, nobody has really clarified what exact rule got broken so I can like, you know, not do it again? So now I’m sitting here, just wondering how this weird little pocket of the internet stays even remotely functional with such convoluted and unclear rules… whatever, I’ll just stick to passionately discussing imaginary things and pointless memes from now on, happier with all my fellow weirdos anyway.

I used to have a girlfriend in 2012, let's call her Doris for the purposes of this story. She would often times leave articles of clothing at my house and I lived in a "frattish" house with 4 other bro dudes. When we broke up these said articles of clothing would circulate through the laundry and nobody ever knew what to do with them so I think they just went back into the laundry like 10 thousand times. Cleanest pairs of panties on earth. Eventually I moved out of this house and went into an apartment with one other bro dudes and by this time I had another girlfriend (for around 8 months if I remember right.) Let's call her Caitlyn.

At this time in my life I was a monster pot head. Like wake and bake, you know the type. I was doing laundry one day and these pink panties were mixed in with my laundry. They were Doris's. I didn't even think anything of it because I'd seen them a million times. So I tossed them on my dresser but they slid to the other side of the dresser and went behind it. I didn't care and just played Overwatch or whatever I was doing at the time. Smash cut to 3 months later. Caitlyn had gotten me a new lamp and all the plugs on my surge protector were taken. I knew there was an outlet behind my dresser so we pulled my dresser away from the wall and a pair of bright pink panties are laying there staring at us. I don't think anything about it because, again, I'd seen these more times than I could even count. Then I hear "what the fuck are these?" I had just done a dab for the first time like 30 minutes before she came over and wasn't expecting it to hit that hard so when she came at me with this aggressive energy I was too high to even defend myself. I think I said "Wait. No. That's not a thing." She asked me whose those were and I said "No, those are Doris's." She replied with "So you're fucking Doris again?" At this point she is working herself up into a really angry and aggressive attitude and I am not ready to deal with any of this because my brain is exploded. I told her that they were Doris's but from a long time ago. She asks why I kept them and I tried to explain the frat house circulation but it just sounded kind of dumb and made up, especially because it looked exactly like I had intentionally hid these panties behind my dresser.

At this point I tell her that I can explain all of it but she needs to give me like 10 minutes, which also doesn't sound good. But everyone calmed down and after a bit I explained the whole thing, I let her go through my phone, let her know there wasn't anything going on. We had a good night. Two days later I get a text from Doris and it says "why is this girl asking me about my underwear?" So apparently when Caitlyn went through my phone she got Doris's number (yes, I still had it in my phone. Again, I'm just lazy and dumb) and texted her a picture of the panties and asked if they were hers and when she lost them. At this point I am stunned at this stupid situation I got myself in. I call Doris, who I have not talked to in years, I explain the situation and explain that I didn't keep her panties on purpose, they just kind of stuck around. She said something like it's ok that sounds exactly like you. Doris texts Caitlyn and smooths everything over but apparently never mentions that we talked. Caitlyn comes over that night and apologizes. I say it's not a big deal and honestly it was my fault. I go to the bathroom and when I come out Caitlyn has my phone and says "Why the fuck did you call Doris today? How am I supposed to believe anything you say?" At this point while I'm sympathetic to her perspective, I am just over this whole situation. I grab my phone, call Doris on speaker phone and we all hash it out.

Caitlyn and I broke up maybe a year or so after that. Not for anything she did really, just didn't work out. But that's how I got accused of cheating because I was a huge lazy pot smoking moron with bad communication skills.

Just for some context, I made multiple posts a few days ago, asking for advice on how to catch my loose hammy on the hamster subreddit. I ended up hearing scratching in my kitchen wall at night and found the hole the noise was coming from. My dog actually directed me to the hole after I told her to sniff the hamster out. My dad was very against cutting a hole in the wall to get him out because he didn't believe that the noise was him and said it was just the pipes making noise, but I was certain it was.

IT'S CURRENTLY 12AM AND I JUST PROVED HIM WRONG!

I decided I had enough and went and bought a "borescope" (snake camera) to snake down the hole the noise was coming from, AND ACTUALLY SAW HIM! For context, my house has 2 floors and the hole went from the top floor of our guest bedroom, straight down into our kitchen wall. It was all copper piping and no insulation. It was clear to me that he wouldn't be able to climb back out. I had attempted to put a rope down the hole for him but as I watched him on the camera, it seemed he was trying VERY hard to climb it but just couldn't get a grip and kept falling back down. He actually tried to grab on to the camera and climb it up like he knew I was trying to help him. He was CLEARLY stuck and wanted out very badly.

When my dad came home, I ended up showing him proof and he got upset and started screaming at me. Me and my mom think he just got heated because he was proven wrong (he has an ego problem). He wanted proof that my hammy was actually in there to cut a hole in the wall. He was super pissed off about it but ended up drilling holes around where we heard him moving. I snaked the camera in the hole we made and he ended up following my camera out of the hole. I'm not sure if the light from the camera actually guided him out or not but he walked right out like nothing happened and didn't seem scared at all. Naturally I was scared of losing him and having him run back in so I grabbed a basket and threw it over him, and covered the holes.

My dad is still pissed that he had to "rip his house apart" but honestly he over exaggerates and he can easily just patch the holes back up. As for hammy, he is currently back in his tank, eating, drinking, and running on his wheel like he didn't just get stuck in the wall and fell down a million times. He seems to be perfectly fine and active. I have no idea how his body is built like a tank.

I'm also insanely tired of fighting for my side and asking people to just believe me. Especially my father. He fought with me all day saying that my hamster isn't in there and decided rage was a good option when he found out I was right. Then after yelling at me and getting the hamster out, he forced me to hug him and tell him "thank you" and "I love you" like I'm 5 with no manners. I grew up feeling like my opinion was never right or ok....but at least hammy is safe!

Get ready for a long post 😅

Hey, this has just happened and we are absolutely lost.
I (27F) have been staying at my boyfriend’s (28M) house since yesterday, and i hadn’t been here since Friday morning.
Today, around 3pm, after i got back from school, we decided to go to beach. I had no swimsuit to wear so i went to his closet to find some shorts. In front of this set of drawers he had his laundry basket and in order for me to get to the shorts drawer i had to get my head really close to the basket and that’s when the STENCH hit me. Confused that maybe he might have pissed himself or maybe it was a piece of my underwear from a day that maybe?!? I pissed myself slightly?!? I have no idea honestly. So i just told him “laundry basket smells weird af btw” but we just moved on and went on our way.
After we got back from the beach we decided to do some laundry since we used his only 2 towels to dry ourselves. He emptied the basket and came into the bathroom to tell me “yo, the basket and the clothes are actually fucking drenched in piss”
The sight was absolutely disgusting, the white clothes were GREEN from how much piss there was. We put them in the washer and washed the basket in the shower right away.

Let me go through the possible scenarios we thought of but before that a:

¡Disclaimer!
We thought some of you would probably just say it was him but let me preface this by saying he is the cleanest most hygienic person i have ever met. He deeps cleans his house once a week, airs out his mattress and bed covers and pillows everyday, leaves the windows open to his room can breathe. Washes dishes right away, deep cleans the bathroom multiple times a week and takes about 2 showers a day. So i highly doubt hed just piss in the laundry basket…

Here are the possibilities:

1. Me or him

So the piss, from the smell, has to be from between Sunday and yesterday.
Now, yesterday he didn’t sleep during the night, he was playing stardew valley until 5am, and i was asleep. I woke up at 7 to go to school and took a piss (in the toilet)
I have never had the habit of waking up during the night or to get up. I never sleepwak or do things in my sleep. Also i have a vagina, if it was me (or anyone with a vagina) piss would’ve have gone on the floor etc which was not the case, the piss was ONLY inside the basket.
I was here only monday for about a few hours, yesterday since 7pm until 8am today. And today was when i noticed the piss.
He did ask me a few time if it had been me sleepwalking or something but i have absolutely no memory of it at all lol and i have never done anything like this

2. He had friends over on Sunday night

Sunday he had people over, it was one of his friend’s birthday (they were about 4 people in total). Now, everyone who was here (i wasnt) has been here before and knows the house. Another thing is, his living room is next to the toilet and if anyone needed to go, he would notice if they went towards his room/ closet. His closet is in a part of the house where no one goes because it’s just bedrooms. Theres no reason to go there and it’s on the other side of the house. (But, everyone who was here on that day, has a penis 🤷‍♀️and they were drinking but no one ever gets that crazy)

3. He used to have flatmates and it ended poorly

This would be a long story so ill try and shorten it as much as possible.
His flatmates were a couple (both 30 i believe) and the guy (let’s call him Joe) has been his friend since he was 13 i think. They lived together for a few years and then Joe got a girlfriend and she moved in about a year ago or so. After a while of her moving in, that standard flatmate drama started, my bf couldn’t leave a plate in the sink or a pan on the stove since it would cause drama. Joe and his gf also had 2 cats who never had the habit of pissing outside their box (and the piss was definitely human so we ruled out the possibility of the cats pissing)
Earlier this year, Joe and his gf decided it was time to have their own place so they started looking for a flat and consequently became very distant and cold towards my boyfriend and me i guess.
Basically because of little shitty attitudes from Joe and some drama, their friendship got affected heavily because of it. And then they moved out. Now, they moved out between may 11th and may 13th, leaving behind their bedframe and a table and some other random minor stuff. On monday i came over to talk to ny bf since we had a fight over the weekend and i noticed the bedframe was now upright against the wall which it hadn’t been since they left, and some of the other things they left behind had been moved. My bf didnt noticed these things at all.
Suddenly and randomly, the cat’s automatic water fountain was on, which was weird. They couldn’t have come over the weekend because my bf was here and would have remembered and they didnt come monday either. The only time one of them might’ve popped in would be yesterday around 7pm when we went to the supermarket a bit far away. Note: joe and his gf work in the bar on the ground floor and still have the keys to the flat. But like?? Would joe do this?!

4. Ghost? We honestly have no idea how the things got moved
   Another thing, the day before they moved out, joe sent a text to my bf about a shopping bag he was looking for that he later found in that closet and it was full of what seems like vomit/ pukey water (this is a little fuzzy in our memory since we dont remember if joe just found the pukey bag inside one of their bags if that was was theirs??? Idk man

We have no idea what happened but thought this story was good Reddit material so now you can be as confused as we are and laugh with/ at us

Note to self: never take the elevator in a torrential rainstorm. I took the trash to the basement, got to the bottom and water rushed in from underneath the door, just like in the movies, mid-calf level.

About 3 seconds of panic turned into "Really, is this how I'm gonna go?" Then I thought about how the 50 students I teach college statistics to would get incompletes for the semester since their final exam is tomorrow. Finally, I thought of how my wife was going to be super annoyed with my decision to ride the elevator in a downpour.

The doors wouldn't open and the buttons did nothing. I couldn't go to another floor. I was stuck, bathing in backed up sewage.

About a minute later the water stabilized and started to subside. I tried the elevator call button and it didn't work. So, I rang the buzzer hoping the maintenance man would hear it. No luck yet.

I balanced my trash in one hand and carefully withdrew my phone from my pocket, mildly anxious about dropping it in the water.

Good thing I had it. I often leave it at home for short trash runs. I dialed 911. After several rings I got a recording that repeated for 2 minutes straight. Fortunately I was only trapped in a hot box with sewer water irritating my feet, and not the victim of a violent crime. Someone picked up and took directions for the fire department.

My wife got home from work, texted and asked if I was the person in the elevator. Yup. I was now the subject of several neighbors and my wife, all seeking to have me rescued.

It was getting hot and stinky in the elevator. I felt glad that I could stop ringing the buzzer, and that I didn't get electrocuted standing in all that water. Small favors.

Neighbors yelled down the shaft to tell me help was on the way. I learned later they were trying to keep me calm. I wasn't panicked at that point though. The water mostly drained and it was just a waiting game. Though, the thought did cross my mind that I could run out of air or pass out if it got too hot. I stopped yelling in response to their queries.

Several calls to fire, and to building security, and several people on standby. I wished I got video of the water rushing in instead of the pic you see in this post where most water had already drained. Content is king.

Finally after some time I was let out. But suffice it to say, I was thankful that people were around and available to help. Plus, I have an entertaining story to tell when I administer tomorrow's exam.

Context: I was out in my city, and I was taking a walk around with my roommate.

While passing through the main square of the city, we both witnessed a movie-like chase where three police officers managed to corner a guy who was probably dealing nearby.

I had never seen anything like that involving law enforcement before, so I decided to tell my girlfriend about it live by sending her a WhatsApp voice message.

So I raised my phone to record the voice message, but then something happened.

On the other side of the street, exactly where they had cornered the guy, a young policeman noticed I had my phone in my hand and shouted at me: “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I froze, confused. I didn’t process it. I just stood there, looking at him, thinking he couldn’t possibly be talking to me. After three seconds, I saw him running toward me, still shouting: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I got seriously scared, so I stretched my arms out toward him, without touching him, and went: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!”

From that moment on, the conversation went more or less like this. The police officer starts, I’m the second person. The dialogue alternates.

“What are you doing? Did you make a video?”

“I didn’t make any video. I was sending a voice message to my girlfriend.”

“Go to your gallery immediately and delete the video. In front of me.”

At that moment, I got embarrassed. “Why?” you may ask. Well, I remembered perfectly well that the last photo I had taken was a photo of my di*k that I had sent to my girlfriend.

I wasn’t afraid. I don’t mince words. If there’s something embarrassing to say, I say it. The damage was already done.

“Look, I’m not joking, but the last photo is a photo of my d**k.”

“I don’t care! Delete that video immediately!”

He didn’t hesitate. For him, in that gallery, there was THAT video. Except THAT video didn’t exist. A non-video.

So I humored him. I opened the Gallery. I showed him the latest media. I opened it. He saw it. He stood there for about two or three seconds, maybe to process what he was seeing. Then he closed his eyes and looked away from the phone.

“Get out of here!”

So we left.

I was crying with laughter. My roommate was too.

All in all, it was a pretty great evening.

Back in October during some random late night conversation, I told my girlfriend that I like when people play with my hair when I’m stressed. It wasn’t even some deep moment, I just said it casually and she replied with “noted” like she was saving it somewhere 😭

Fast forward to yesterday.

We were arguing properly for the first time in a while. Not cute fake fighting. Actual irritation. Dry replies. That awkward tension where both people are talking normally but you can tell nobody’s really okay.

The fight itself was dumb honestly. I told her I’d call her after reaching home from college and then accidentally slept for like 4 hours. When I woke up my phone looked like a missing person investigation.

So now we’re sitting outside campus and she’s giving me a lecture in the calmest tone possible which somehow feels worse than shouting.

She goes: “You know what your problem is? ” And while saying that she randomly fixed my hair because the wind messed it up, then scratched the back of my head for like two seconds.

Then continued arguing like nothing happened.

BRO, I swear my entire thought process disappeared instantly.

Like one second I was ready to defend myself and the next I was just sitting there relaxed for no reasonnnnnn 😭

And the worst part is she noticed IMMEDIATELY.

She literally stopped talking, looked at me for a second and went , See? This is why you never survive arguments with me. I asked “what does that even mean?”

She said: “You get distracted too easily.”

I was trying so hard not to laugh😭 because she was completely right.

Then I tried acting serious again and said “Can we focus on the actual issue?”

And she goes: “No because now you look too calm.”

WHO FIGHTS LIKE THIS 😭

After that the argument kinda died on its own. We just sat there quietly for a bit.

Then she leaned on my shoulder and said:

“Just text me next time so I know you’re alive, idiot.”

And suddenly I realized she wasn’t really angry about the missed call. She was angry because she actually cares.

Anyway yeah. I think the scariest people to date are the ones who remember tiny random things you said months ago because one day they’ll use it against you emotionally.

In this new house, my younger brother tied a rope to the roof with a ball attached to it that hangs there constantly. He hits it with his bat and plays all day because he has no friends in this new place, and I never feel like playing with him. Because of the noise of his cricket, I can't even study; he never gets tired and keeps at it the whole day. On top of that, a cat has started coming to our house lately, and he has kept it inside. Now, more than the clicking of cricket, a heavy meowing echoes through the house.

​One day, I was getting ready for college with my books when it suddenly clung to my leg. I jerked my leg away—not that I wanted to do it, but it just happened. The cat went flying and hit the wall, then sat there looking stunned. When I went near it, it ran away. For many days after that, it stayed afraid of me.

I was sitting up at midnight studying. I felt thirsty and went toward the kitchen to get water; on my way back, I found that tiger-like cat sitting there. It was sitting there without moving, just watching me, as if it were reading me. I stroked its head, and it wasn't afraid of me. I made a ball out of paper and threw it toward the cat, and it started picking it up in its mouth and bringing it back to me. It’s strange, I noticed today that it doesn’t seem to walk right; it moves with its hips hunched up. After a while, I went back to my studies.

​The next day, when I returned from my college, the cat started clinging to my feet as if welcoming me home. I petted him and gave him some milk to drink.

After dinner, I was heading to my room when the cat stopped me; he had a paper ball in his mouth. I took it and started throwing it hard, back and forth. I watched as I threw it, but he couldn't seem to catch it. My mother, sitting behind me knitting clothes, was laughing at all this. "Mom, look at how he’s walking," I said. "Yes, just like you used to walk as a baby, before you had learned how to walk," she replied. I began to laugh, then I started throwing even harder, all around the house; he just couldn't catch it.

​"I have to go study now, here is the last ball!" I shouted, "Catch it!" as I threw the ball straight at him. To catch it, he stood up on his hind legs, but the ball passed right in front of him. I turned back to laugh with my mother, but she had stopped knitting. Her hands were trembling; her eyes were wide with terror and her mouth hung open. "What happened to you?" I asked. The needle slipped from her hands and she screamed at the top of her lungs, "Get it out! Get it out of here!"

I turned around to look, and that cat was standing on both its legs. He turned back and picked up the ball with both his hands. Before I could even process what was happening, he dropped the ball, fell onto his back, and began to laugh loudly while clutching his stomach. His voice was bizarre—like a mixture of a lion's roar and a human's laugh. The lights in the hall began to flicker and surge.

​"This is not a cat," my mother said, looking at me. As I slowly started walking toward it, all the lights went out and a total, dead silence fell over the house. I switched on my torch, and the cat was gone. I shone the torch behind me—my mom had vanished from her chair. I flashed my torch wildly, screaming, "Mom! Mom!"

Just then, I heard someone's voice; I turned and shone the torch, only to see that my brother had been dragged there, his neck tied with the same rope he had used to attach the ball. The torch slipped from my hands, and I rushed to save my brother. I lifted him with all my strength and screamed for him to untie the knot, but his weight kept dragging him down; the rope wouldn't open either. I began looking around for a chair, but my brother was thrashing his arms and legs, and I was breaking into a cold sweat. Just then, the sound of the rope tightening even further echoed. Warm drops began falling onto my hands, and then he stopped struggling.

Right then, I heard my mom's scream. "Mom!" I screamed, running downstairs and then back up, but my mother was nowhere to be found.

Then suddenly I remembered, the house had a basement we had never explored. I went there and found that the lock—the one we had put on ourselves—was missing. I slowly opened the heavy door; the wind and dust swirled so violently that it was hard to see anything. I brushed away the spiderwebs and began to descend the wooden stairs, which felt like they would snap at any moment. A foul, terrible stench was rising from below.

Just then, a ball hit me in the face—it was made of paper. I shone my torch, and there sat that cat, staring intensely at me.

​My heart hammered against my ribs; my fingers refused to stay steady. Still, gathering my courage, I asked hesitantly, "Where is my mother?"

​He leapt down, and as he stood up on his legs, he grew to the size of a full-grown man until he was standing right in front of me. “He played. He called. I came,” he said.

​"But my m—mom..."

​He placed his hand on his bloated stomach and began to laugh loudly. Something shifted inside him… as if trying to move. I looked down, my mother’s clothes and glasses lay at his feet.

Thus will be hated plz don't remove I want answers

My little sister got invited to her first sleepover this weekend for her friend’s birthday, and honestly the whole thing has been making me emotional. It’s just me, my mom, and my little sister at home, and money has been really tight lately. We’ve been stressing for days because all the other girls were talking about the gifts they got. One bought the birthday girl a cute dress, another got her a gift card, and someone else ordered one of those skincare sets girls are obsessed with right now. Meanwhile my sister kept pretending she didn’t care about bringing anything. Last night she quietly asked me, do you think it’s weird if I go empty handed? and I swear that question broke me a little. You could tell she was embarrassed but trying not to make our mom feel bad. Then my boyfriend overheard us talking about it and disappeared into the other room for a minute. He came back holding a pair of airpods he had literally just gotten for himself and said, just let her give these. It’s okay. I told him he didn’t have to do that, but he just shrugged and said his friend had actually gotten them for him from galaxybids anyway, so he wasn’t worried about it. My little sister’s face completely changed when he handed them to her. She went from trying not to cry to being genuinely excited for the sleepover again. I know they’re just airpods, but to her it meant she got to walk in feeling included like everyone else. And honestly I don’t think my boyfriend realizes how much that meant to me too.

Edit: She said she had a fantastic time and had a lot of fun, when I asked her about the gift she told me all the kids went nuts about it and the birthday girl had them one all night even though she had nothing playing on them because she still doesn't have a phone lol. But I also want to take this time to thank all of you guys for the positive comments and especially the comments for my boyfriend.

I’m too exhausted to even format this properly right now but you know me. The annoying Greek girl who won’t shut up about conscription. Fine. Here’s another one, if I'm that much of pain in the ass, just block me or something.

I remember how all these fucking officers would check in Like, to make sure we'd called out families or partners everyday. All sweet concern, while they were the okay with us being in a shithole near the border with three days of leave every two months, paid 8 euro a month, I'm there genuinely deteriorating. Like, every fucking evening! Like making sure I performed emotional maintenance from inside a cage somehow absolved them.

It wasn’t care. And it made it worse. Because then I couldn’t even grieve properly, I had to perform being okay for everyone, so no one would say, “See? She’s handling it fine.” Well, he, I'm trans, I always looked like a fucking girl but back then I wasn't out. Gender aside, conscription is just dehumanizing as fuck. Like… if you really cared whether I spoke to my partner, maybe don’t force me to be there. The fact that most officers were nice was WORSE. With the few genuinely nasty ones, I knew where they stood. These freaks? No, no, people wonder why I hate them... Maybe don’t separate people from their lifelines and then pat yourself on the back for letting them whisper into a phone for ten minutes in the evening. Hate them.

And don’t tell me “everyone else managed fine", I know I feel like a broken record but the reason I mention how both my parents spent a few years there, and both of them really didn't want me to go and tried talking me out of it is because they fucking knew! And THEN, because of all these bullshit myths like, oh, if I don't go, I won't be able to get a job or driver's license, so I went, if I called them we'd just cry, they eventually made me leave, bless them...

I want accountability that hurts the way it hurt me. Not therapy speak. Not “move on.” Not “it made you stronger.” I want the people who designed this to feel, just once, what it’s like to have your fucking life monitored as a privilege instead of a right, and to watch someone you adore break down because you’re trapped, they feel guilt, my mom has drinking issues now because she feels she didn't do enough to get me out, so my brother is banned from joining... I hate those fucking officers, asking if I remembered to call them each night. They were fucking groomers.

I got no reward. No fucking closure. Just performance.

Yo, hallo zusammen.
Ich (34, m) bin seit 7 Jahren mit meiner Frau Lisa (32) verheiratet. Wir haben zwei kleine Kinder, Haus, Hund, das volle Programm. Auf dem Papier waren wir das perfekte Paar. In echt… naja, hört zu.
Vor ungefähr 8 Monaten hab ich angefangen, was zu merken.
Sie war plötzlich ständig „mit den Mädels“ unterwegs, ihr Handy war immer mit Passwort gesperrt (vorher nie), und sie hat mich angefangen, wie Luft zu behandeln. Sex? Fehlanzeige. Wenn ich gefragt hab, kam nur „Ich bin einfach müde von den Kindern“.
Ich bin kein dummer Typ, aber ich wollte erstmal nicht das Schlimmste denken. Bis ich eines Abends ihren Zweit-Account auf Instagram gefunden hab.
Nicht über irgendwelche Hacker-Tricks. Sie hat einfach vergessen, sich aus ihrem Browser auszuloggen, als sie kurz auf Toilette war.
Und da war alles.
Die ganzen Nachrichten. Die Nacktfotos. Die Sprachnachrichten, in denen sie dem Typen sagt, wie sehr sie ihn will und wie langweilig ich geworden bin. Der Typ? Ihr verdammter Fitness-Trainer aus dem Studio, in das sie „für ihre mentale Gesundheit“ geht.
Ich hab nicht sofort eskaliert.
Ich hab mir Zeit genommen. Drei Monate lang hab ich alles gesammelt. Screenshots, Sprachnachrichten, Hotelbuchungen über ihre Kreditkarte, die sie dachte, ich check nicht. Ich hab sogar eine App installiert, die mir zeigt, wo ihr Handy ist (ja, ich weiß, grenzwertig, aber in dem Moment war mir alles egal).
Dann kam der Tag.
Ich hab unsere beiden Kinder zu meinen Eltern gebracht, hab den Babysitter für den Hund organisiert und hab sie zum „romantischen Abendessen“ eingeladen. Kerzen, ihr Lieblingswein, das ganze Programm.
Sie kam runter, hat sich gefreut wie lange nicht mehr.
Mitten im Hauptgang hab ich dann mein Handy genommen, den Beamer angeschmissen (den wir im Esszimmer haben) und hab die komplette Präsentation gestartet.
Titel der Präsentation:
„7 Jahre Ehe – Eine Dokumentation“
Da waren alle Chat-Verläufe. Alle Fotos. Die Hotelrechnungen. Sogar die Sprachnachricht, in der sie sagt: „Mit ihm fühl ich mich wieder lebendig, nicht so wie mit [meinem Namen].“
Sie ist kreidebleich geworden. Hat angefangen zu heulen und zu schreien, ich wäre ein kranker Stalker.
Ich bin ganz ruhig geblieben und hab nur gesagt:
„Du hast recht. Ich bin fertig mit dir. Die Scheidungspapiere liegen schon beim Anwalt. Das Haus gehört mir, die Kinder bleiben bei mir. Und bevor du fragst – ja, ich hab auch schon mit deinem Vater, deiner Mutter und deiner Schwester gesprochen. Die wissen jetzt auch alles.“
Sie hat versucht, alles zu leugnen. Hat gesagt, das wäre alles „aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen“.
Bis ich die Sprachnachricht abgespielt hab, in der sie dem Trainer sagt, sie würde mich am liebsten verlassen, aber „wegen der Kinder und dem Geld“ noch bleiben.
Danach ist sie zusammengebrochen.
Jetzt sitzt sie bei ihrer Schwester. Ihre Familie hat sich größtenteils auf meine Seite gestellt. Der Trainer hat übrigens direkt seinen Job verloren, weil ich auch dem Studio-Besitzer alles geschickt hab (der war zufällig ein Kumpel von mir aus der Schule).
Die Leute hier schreiben jetzt bestimmt „Du bist ein Psycho“ oder „Du hättest einfach gehen sollen“.
Aber nach 7 Jahren, zwei Kindern und dem Gefühl, komplett verarscht und weggeworfen worden zu sein… ich bereue nichts.
AITA?

Yesterday I was sitting in a small café, pretending to study but mostly watching people and drinking coffee. Then this guy walked in, looked around for like two minutes, clearly trying to build confidence to talk to a girl sitting near the window.
Finally he walks up to her and says:
“Are you Wi-Fi? Because I’m really feeling a connection.”
I honestly expected the biggest awkward silence ever. But she didn’t even smile at first. She looked at him very seriously and replied:
“Maybe. But the signal is weak. Try standing closer.”
The guy actually took one step closer like an NPC in a video game.
At that moment even the barista started laughing. The funniest part is that instead of dying from embarrassment, the guy continued the joke and said:
“Okay, now I have full bars. Do I get unlimited access too?”
And somehow… it worked.
They ended up talking for almost an hour like they already knew each other. Meanwhile I was sitting there thinking that if I tried the same line, I’d probably get blocked in real life.
Still one of the smoothest and funniest interactions I’ve ever seen. Sometimes confidence really carries the whole conversation.

As a business owner (window and power washing company) and my experiences with meeting other business owners it’s definitely a real pattern.

I went to college for mechanical engineering , I got my degree but my grades were terrible and no internships. It wasn’t because I was lazy but I had a very hard time with course material and barely passed all my classes.

Nevertheless I didn’t get a job.

After graduation I promised myself I’ll wait 6 months for a engineering job and if I don’t get one I’ll do my own thing and in the mean time work landscaping.

So 6 months went by , no job. Started my business and now life is pretty good for me I’m fine.

When people mention that “saying” you have a ton of different reactions , some agree some don’t. Some bring up how the big shots like bill gates dropped out of Harvard to combat the C-D student thing etc.

But the legitimate truth is choice, a lot of business owners were bad students and became business owners because they didn’t have a choice.

It’s either start your own thing or shitty jobs - unemployment. Even if I did get lucky and landed an engineering job I wouldn’t progress like everyone else. I more likely than not would be stuck at a dead end position because I can’t retain information as fast as I need to.

Now some business owners were obviously very good students , some bad and every other scenario. But if you surround yourself in a room that had money, I bet you most were likely shitty students.

This is quite tame compared to most on here. Years ago I went out with an older woman, I was 25 and she was 8 years older than me. She was incredibly hot and had a body to die for, with an amazing figure and perfect pert breasts, not massive but large enough. I could not believe my luck when she asked me to take her on holiday. We booked a week in the Canary Islands.

All was well when we got there. She loved to sunbathe and spent each day soaking up the rays. After a couple of days she asked me if I minded her going topless, to which I replied she should go topless if she wanted. I then observed her showing off her body in nothing but a thong bikini each day with me turned on beyond belief. When we got back to the apartment each evening we would have sex before going out to dinner.

One evening we shared a taxi into town with an older couple in their 50s who were also from England like us. They were ordering a cab at reception at the same time of us so it made sense to share. When we got there we insisted that we paid and we went our separate ways.

The following morning we were just settling in on the sun loungers by the pool for the day when the guy from the couple we shared a taxi with the night before walked past. My girlfriend had just removed her bikini top but she was sitting and had her back to him. He saw us and stopped and said hello not realising she was topless. She turned around whilst sat on the sun lounger revealing her perfect breasts in all their glory, standing pert as always defying gravity. We then had the most bizarre conversation for 5 minutes exchanging polite chit chat about where we had gone for dinner etc, she was sat on the sun lounger topless in her thong bikini and he was stood 3 feet away looking down at her. The fact she was virtually naked not more than 3 feet in front of him was not mentioned. The poor guy did an excellent job of not staring at her tits, I could see him struggling looking her in the eye as she talked. Every part of him must of wanted to lower his eyes to her beautiful breasts. I was sat there thinking that the guy was getting one hell of a show. After 5 mins he says goodbye clearly red faced.

That evening I could not wait to get back to the apartment where I gave her a good seeing to whilst replaying the incident over in my head. I bet the older guy has replayed the images in his mind a million times over the past 20 years since.

We split up after we got back, I was a bit too young for her but the memory of that 5 minute conversation will stay with me forever.