My recent ones aren’t very serious but they’ve been living rent free.
Coworker called me a tech racoon because I don’t throw computer shit away.
Other was another coworker mentioning that people that like purple really like it. Making me go “fuck” everytime I find a new purple thing in my home. Think I’m up to 30+ 🙃
What about you?
10 years ago, a Black woman told me that, while it’s perfectly valid to disagree with other people’s opinions, I should rethink the level of confidence that I depict when discussing a topic that I don’t know all that much about.
She probably saved quite a few others and myself from a fair bit of trouble.
What a hero, such a classy way to say “Shut your mouth about shit you don’t know shit about.”
I was really hurt about something a friend had done, and was talking to a mutual friend about it. She stopped me and said, “I feel like you are being manipulative right now and I don’t like it.”
She was right. I stopped and apologized, she reassured me that she wasn’t mad and understood I was hurting. Since then I’m a lot more aware of when I’m falling into that pattern. So grateful she told me instead of just deciding I was a piece of shit and doing a friendship fade-out.
My parents were (and still are) toxic people. So when I got married, I was bitching about my spouse because that’s what I knew how to do. This went on for a while until my friend stopped me and said, “Hey, do you even like this person?”
It felt like being splashed with ice water, but he was so right. I stopped dissing my friends and my partner behind their backs and tried to stop that toxic ‘ball and chain’ sort of humor as soon as I possibly could.
Thanks, Marcos. You started a very long and necessary process of self discovery and healing. I’m so glad you said something that day.
I had a similar but in reverse. I was at the bar with some coworkers, 4 of them or so, and they were all bitching about their wives. They turned to me and I didn’t have anything. I literally made something up, I was so on the spot. They laughed and the conversation moved on. It hit me though because it was like this cannot be healthy, is this what you actually think?
10 years later, 3 of them are divorced.
This was 15+ years ago. I was driving with several friends. Among them was Jane (not actual names) who used to date another friend, John. Who was not present. This friend group in the car, while fairly mutual, was more Jane’s clique than John’s. Except me, who was closer to John. It occurs to me after writing that introduction to mention I had no romantic interest in Jane, not that kind of story.
Anyway, we started talking shit about and making fun of John in the car. I don’t remember how that got started or why I participated. I liked John and bore him no animosity at all. I guess just young and dumb and wanted to fit in.
Someone who was in the car told him about this and he called me out on it. I remember him being particularly bothered that I’d talk like that about him with his ex around others. Which, pretty understandable. I saw the wrong of it and felt like a real piece of shit. And that friendship never really recovered.
I don’t talk about people behind their back anymore or engage in any other kind of gossip.
Edit: couple changes for clarity.
Circa 1991 I stole my classmate’s pen and he noticed and confronted me immediately. A few kids were circled around, watching it go down. I tried to lie and say it was mine and he said “Oh yeah, what special feature does it have, then?” And I, scrambling, said “It has… purple ink!” That was true, but he was the pen’s true owner and not buying that shit. He snatched it out of my hand and did… something with it that I didn’t quite understand. He slammed the butt end of it down into the palm of his hand and it clicked or something. I dunno. Either way, case closed.
If your name is Corey and you went to Pond Springs Elementary and had Mrs. Olsen as a 5th grade teacher, I’m sorry I tried to steal your pen.
I had a similar thing with a pen, the very same year I think… I had a mildly special pen which one day I lost. Went looking for it and found it sitting on a (slightly older) classmate’s desk, so i grabbed it and said “hey, that’s mine”. He tried to pretend that no, it was his, and he sounded very convincing about it, and even got the teacher involved. They both looked at me with infuriatingly condescending expressions as I explained how it was mine.
The teacher suggested “just let him have it” to the classmate, who conceded.
I went back to my desk fuming and scratched my initials into it before returning to show them, "look, see, it was mine! The classmate immediately pointed out “you scratched those in just now” and I think I mumbled something incoherent before going back to my desk, to the teacher’s mortification with the whole situation.
It had already begun dawning on me at this point that the classmate was right… That wasn’t my pen. It was his and just looked like mine. But it was too late at this point and I didn’t know how to handle it other than to keep quiet and try to forget about it.
Haha, your poor teacher is the real victim here.
The initials scratching play was gutsy considering how utterly unnecessary it was.
Ugh I was the other person in both of your scenarios. I had a scintillating shiny rainbow pencil that this dickhead in my class took one day. I saw him writing with it and said “hey, that’s mine!” He protested and said it was his.
It literally had my name on it, embossed in gold lettering.
I called our teacher over, and by then he had scraped my name off by rubbing it against the desk. I told the teacher that my name USED to be there, but he had scraped it off.
She told me there’s no way to prove he didn’t bring it in, and let him keep it.
I had a big pack of them that was gifted to me, so it wasn’t REALLY that big of a deal. BUT THE PRINCIPLE OF IT ALL
Ugh, really hard to get out of there! Did you end up finding the pen?
No, never did find it… But I’m pretty sure now that pen really was his. It was just a mildly unlikely coincidence that he had one just like mine.
I felt at the time that I’d been conned out of some things in the past, and that had me set a bit too hard on “not being fooled again”, so I overdid it.
One particular case I remember is exchanging toy cars with someone, and them claiming later that day that they lost the car i just gave them. So I spent a good few minutes looking for it with them. I even insisted “no, let’s look again” when they suggested we give up. I felt bad that they’d lost out on our exchange, so I gave them back the car they’d given me, just to ease their misfortune. Only to hear the next day how they’d been bragging about fooling me. Gah.
I got onto a video chat with a friend-of-a-friend who was not from the US.
The instant I took the phone and we saw each other for the first time, he scoffed and said “Big fake American smile.”
It was 100% true. I had a big dopey bullshit “meeting people” smile on. That’s not common in other countries.
Derek Muller. Makes fantastic educational videos on his Veritaseum youtube channel. Rationalist, scientist, educator, doer of public works.
Creepiest most unsettling artificial american smile you’ll ever see.
You’re not wrong about his smile but can’t agree he’s the “most” unsettling when Mr Beast exists.
About 5-7 years ago (hard to pin down the exact date) I’ve been called out by one of my close friends for being a toxic asshole in online games. And I really was, at the time. That was a much needed wake-up call. I like to think I’m better at games today than I was then in no small part because I’ve learned to keep my mental state under control and turn around even unfavorable matches.
Glad you’re doing better.
Angers a helluva thing. Any time I’m about to react think of that Aurelius quote “how often are the results of anger worse than the cause”
Had an ex tell me “your episodes make me feel like I’m being raped again.”
That shit was world shattering.
I don’t say it to the people themselves but there has been a fair amount of, “What the fuck is that bullshit?” said while I play pvp stuff in Destiny 2, which I tend to shy from most of the time.
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One time, I was at a concert at a small-ish venue. I went to see a popular-ish band that I like, place was packed. The band started like 30-45 minutes late. When they finally got on stage, I happened to yell out during a brief pause, “Finally! We’ve been waiting forever!”
No one said anything and the show kept moving—but immediately after I yelled that the girl in front of me turned around and gave me a huge scowling look, like she was super embarrassed for me, like I had just done something really awful.
That look has stuck with me ever since.
You did a perfectly normal and understandable thing
My mother called me useless when I was 8. Dropped a bottle of soda that made the cap break, spilling all the soda on the floor. I’ve had therapy for all the trauma she caused.
8 year olds aren’t tank engines. Their worth is not in usefulness.
Had an old roommate flame me in his journal, he’d rushed out leaving the page open and I saw my name when I went in his room to drop something off.
He said some incredibly valid shit about me being condescending and it changed my outlook on my whole life. Nobody lies to their journal.
Your old roommate probably works at the CIA as a psyop now
What a genius
I had a “friend breakup” in high school with a long time friend because we were getting into some heavy shit and I knew I couldn’t keep going down that path. During the final argument he said with pain in his eyes “and you never even remembered or got me anything for my birthdays and I always made sure to do something for you!” I’m sorry Bobby, I had undiagnosed ADHD and I still have a hard time remembering anyone’s birthdays. I’ve come to expect nothing because I assume I’ve never given anything.
Once in a while, someone tells me I’m being an asshole.
They’re usually right.
I’ll then try to stay quiet until I can think of something decidedly i Un-asshole to say.
“Your breath isn’t bad”
I’m awkward.
OH YEAH WELL YOURE BEAUTIFUL
gotem
Those are both positives - you’re resourceful, creative, and recycle. When you like something, you go all in.
Friend/coworker recently told me that i don’t have a ‘game face.’ Now I’m self conscious that everyone knows what I’m really thinking.
Friend/coworker recently told me that i don’t have a ‘game face.’ Now I’m self conscious that everyone knows what I’m really thinking.
You’re confusing it with “poker face.” “Game face” is when you try to look determined in order to intimidate the other team.
Hope that helps!
Recently my stepsister replied to my half joking complaint about not getting within a second of the lap record at the kart track, that maybe this complaint explains some of the issues I’m having.
Upon rolling the thought around in my head a ton since then yeah that tracks, the question now becomes how to not aim high, and or not be disappointed by missing high aims. And why this is my Modus operandi to begin with, to aim high, not try all that hard and expect to succeed.
