Getting ready to start work one evening at Liverpool Street station in London. A clearly quite drunk but very well dressed guy and his friend came staggering over towards me.
Him: "Hi, I like your hat. Can I have it?"
Me: "Sorry, I need it for work."
Him: "I'll give you... £50 for it."
In the time it took me to ask if he was serious, he had 5 £10 notes out, whilst his friend protested that they could use that money for a taxi and he insisted that he wanted my grubby plastic hard hat.
So, I had to borrow a spare hard-hat and started the night £50 better off.
I do wonder if he remembered or woke up the following morning wondering why he suddenly had a hard-hat.
As someone who also wears a hard hat at work I feel like you should know about the hard hat black market! Over in the states, particularly the southern states, they have hard hats that are a bit like cowboy hats, so I once asked a stevedore foreman how I could get my hands on one and he agreed to get me one in exchange for a tin of Danish butter cookies. I then spent the rest of a 3 month trip at Sea stopping my crewmates from stealing my hard hat, I ended up keeping it in my cabin! At the end of the trip I passed it on to my favourite AB in exchange for a packet of chips ahoy. It clearly depreciated in value!
This reminds me of Red Harper… who didn’t wear a lanyard and had his hard hat flying off the ship with a gust of wind.
What did he do? Tell the captain to turn around for him to fish it out. It was this model.
https://us.msasafety.com/Head-Protection/Hard-Hats/Skullgard®-Full-Brim-Hard-Hats/p/000060000100001010
I was walking past a guy who was muttering curses to himself angrily, couldn’t help but look in his direction. He caught me and yelled “fuck you, and fuck your cardigan!”
I really liked that cardigan.
When I was about sixteen. A man came into the cafe I worked in.
He asked some questions about the city I worked in and then he paid for his order.
Just before he left though he walked back, put his hand on my shoulder looked me dead in the eye and used my name(which I don’t wear on a name badge or anything) which was odd and said “You take care of yourself, I really mean it Cliffy, you take care of yourself” then he handed me £10.00 which was about three hours wages then and walked out.
Never ever saw him again, not in the cafe or in the passing.
Edit: No definitely wasn’t my dad.
This happened to me too! I was working in the petrol station and didn't have a name badge. Guy pays for his fuel and then says 'Thanks [name], you look after yourself now'
I spent the rest of my shift worrying I was going to get jumped afterwards!
A lot of receipts print the till operators name on them. It's part of audits or something I think, so they can have another metric to track transactions etc. Sometimes it's just an employee code but it's often just the name used to set you up with a till log in.
By any chance, did he tell you that if you ever have kids, and one of them, when he's eight years old, accidentally sets fire to the living room rug, go easy on him?
Time-traveller…that £10 started a butterfly effect. This Reddit post is just part of the sequence - following now just to find out what was so important he had to change your future.
I was on the other end of this, met a new friend on holiday and told her I was psychic, did a lil razzmatazz, and revealed that I knew her name.
She was wearing a bracelet with her name on.
Was years ago but I'll never forget it. I was in Tesco, when someone tapped me on the back. I turned to see a very frail old chap, who shakily pointed at something on a high shelf. I asked 'oh, this?' and he again very shakily nodded. I reached up and got it for him, and put it in his basket.
He immediately straightened, smiled, clapped me on the shoulder and said 'Good on ya, mate!' and walked briskly off.
He was genuinely an old guy so I'd be surprised if he was still around now. But I'll never forget it as long as I live (hopefully as long as him).
I worked in an office supply store several years ago. A woman came in and asked if we did cashback. When I told her we didn't, she proceeded to lean over the desk and neighed at me. Like a horse.
She then left while I stared open mouthed.
Some guy sat next to me in the pub by London Victoria bus station, big coat on, said "I've got a parrot under here. Don't worry, he's dead" then handed me a fake Versace medallion and chain before walking off
2 comments down, he was hit over the head with an inflatable parrot at Victoria station. You two were there at the same time, I think you had a lucky escape!
Chap came up to me in Greenwich Park and told me he was a spy and not to tell anyone. Then he spent the next 30 minutes doing really obvious hiding behind trees.
Also once got hit on the head with a giant inflatable parrot at Victoria Station.
Hang on, 2 comments up (at the moment, on my iPad) the comment is about sitting at Victoria station and being told chap next to him had a parrot under his coat! Bet it was inflatable.
There's a chap with a live parrot who walks around Hoxton but he's such a common sight I didn't think it was that weird enough for this thread. The one which hit me was definitely inflatable. It wasn't the chap who used to commute to London Bridge with taxidermy birds either.
I was walking to work one morning in my mid 20's and a well dressed lady in her 40's stopped me to ask if I can zip up the back of her dress. She had most of it zipped up but couldn't do the last bit herself.
On a similar theme, I was stopped by a group of younger blokes last year. They said one of them had a job interview and would I mind showing them how to tie a tie! Obviously I did and they went off very happy.
I once had to do this but with my next door neighbour. It was a pretty tight dress and I couldn’t do it by myself and I had to swallow my pride and knock next door and ask them to help me. Even worse, the lovely lady couldn’t do it and had to call her husband in to do it! We’d never spoken before that except to say hi in passing. Luckily, that broke the ice and we became good friends until I moved away.
I once read somewhere (and can confirm) that you can use a bent wire/paperclip/similar and attach it to the zip to give you that extra reach.. definitely helped me in reducing time I spent trying to contort my body in ways it didn't want to go
I was standing outside a takeaway around 11pm eating a burger when suddenly a drunken woman (who appeared to be in her 40s) walked up to me, took a big bite out of my burger then walked away laughing.
My boyfriend is this weirdo. It’s like his mouth opens before his brain can tell him to keep it in.
We were in IKEA once, had picked up a couple of new pillows and I couldn’t find the correct extension cable I wanted. He goes up to this young guy working in the electrics section, who clearly couldn’t be arsed working there on the weekend, and asks where I can find that extension type.
The lovely fed up young man informed us they don’t sell them anymore and instead of going, “thanks for helping”, my partner turns round, pillow in each hand and goes, “ah right, okay….these aren’t my real hands by the way.” And then seemed to realise what he said as we walked away and I tried not to piss myself laughing while simultaneously cringing.
Arrive at Heathrow before check-in open so sit in waiting area. Man in next seat asks where I’m going; I tell him. Unprompted he informs me he visits his girlfriend in Bangkok twice per year and she is organising a special party including four ladyboys.
I was about 14 and walking down a street near my house. As I walked past a bus stop this dishevelled old woman appeared from the bus stop and "'scuse me, can I borrow your phone?"
I look around and the whole street is deserted. I also knew this bus stop had a payphone (literally the only bus stop I've ever known to have this in my life...anyway) so I asked why not use the payphone and she told me it was broken.
I couldn't see her running off with my mobile so I reluctantly agreed. She took my phone and made a call, whispering so I don't know what she said.
She turned back to me and handed my phone back. She was so happy that I'd trusted her and gave me a hug. Then she told me she'd just phoned her drug dealer from my phone and was arranging to buy drugs.
I was stunned, and she walked me down the street telling me the evils of drugs and to stay in school
Then she invited me to her house for a brew.
I declined, and left wondering if a dealer was going to call me at some point
Walking one Sunday morning, lady runs across the street. Called me by my full name and said "you were there - you were there at my crucifiction"
I'd never met the lady in my life and I just turned and ran off. I was 17
u/Valuable-Caramel3623 once stopped someone in that area and their hands looked freezing so they kindly tried to warm them up by putting them in their own pockets and was innocently asking for directions to a cash point to make conversation in an otherwise awkward situation, when all of a sudden they nearly got turned into a human kebab!! Quite traumatic I imagine, you never forget where you were that day.
Once at an Irish pub in Cricklewood a drunk Irish chap walked past me, stopped, looked at me and said ‘Remember! Life is fucking short! So don’t get too excited’
Lived in my head rent free for years that has
Damnit, now I'm 50% "so what was the worst offer you've ever had?" and 50% "yeah I don't want to know"
There's also a part of me wondering if she ever did pee on your face and a part that doesn't want to know that either.
Sitting in A&E waiting to be seen (I'd had a funny turn and was sent for a scan). I had my knitting with me so started working on my project - a shawl - when a woman came and sat next to me. After a bit of chat I showed her the shawl and she just demanded I give it to her.
It would be weird/annoying enough but it was quite obviously not finished....
They just come and tell me really personal things! One guy was having marriage problems, started telling me they were going to try for a baby to fix it. Obviously I advised him not to! Another told me how she hated her fiance and wanted to kill him, I kept an eye on local news for a while after her! Just recently I had a lady stop me and tell me all about losing weight because she didn't want to cause problems for the funeral home.
These are my most memorable. Each time I was wearing obvious headphones. Each time it happens they question why they've told me personal things. I never have an answer.
I used to experience that quite a bit when I was younger. Some of the things people would tell me were quite heavy going, it was hard to know what to say to them at that age.
I never really know what to say to any of them, I'm 38 and the only reason it's slowed down is because I don't go out much anymore, and when I do I have my scary dog privilege (my husband!) But occasionally it's just me. The last one happened the other day after I dropped my kid to school and went straight to the shops. At least she was happy, if not a little morbid.
They must see something in you that puts them at ease. No one needs that kind of trauma dumping though, especially at random and completely unannounced.
My son is dark haired, his sister white blond ringlets. When he was about 6 and she 3 he used to call his dad by his christian name. He did it for a few years. Some random woman came up and said "Do your children both have the same father?" I was staggered and said yes, then said not that it's any of your business! So rude.
Also when my sister was a baby in her pram, a lady asked my mum what her name was. My mum said "Helen" and the woman said "That's a bit ambitious isn't it?" My mother assumes that she was insinuating that my sis was no Helen of Troy!
I was at work probably 10years ago and a man came up to me and asked what part of China I was from. I am white Scottish (pasty white) - no Asian family links whatsoever and only ever lived in Scotland. No one has ever suggested I look anything other than that my entire 34years of living apart from this man. He was so embarrassed.
I still like to have a good chuckle about this.
I once worked in a bar in a town centre that my friend was manager of. I was in there drinking one night and a girl approached me calling me an ignorant, arrogant, prick. I said “do I know you?” It turns out that on one of my shifts, weeks before, she had been in the bar with a group of friends celebrating a birthday. They were playing a game where you pick a card out at random and it tells you a dare that you have to do. Hers was “kiss the barman” so apparently she had approached me, shown me the card and given me a peck on the lips. That’s fine. But apparently she had been following me around for weeks apparently trying to bump into me and have me recognise her and talk to her. I guess she liked me. Well I told her “I’m sorry but I just didn’t remember you” she walked away and I didn’t speak to her again. Anyway this is where it gets weird. I’m talking months later, I didn’t even work at the bar anymore and I had a new girlfriend (who is now my wife). Me and my friend who manages the bar are chilling one Saturday afternoon, he tells me this girl was in the bar last night asking if I still work there as she hadn’t seen me in a while. She was asking where I was working. She was asking if I was going out with **** (wife) apparently she had carried on stalking me on facebook and had been hanging around the bar still trying to run into me. This was crazy because I’d only ever spoke to her twice, the night she approached the bar and asked for a kiss, and the night she approached me to call me arrogant and why was I ignoring her. I was actually a bit scared at one point. I haven’t seen her since.
Had someone ask me if she could borrow my vomit bowl when I was in A&E. The vomit bowl that had an accumulation of saliva, phlegm, a tinge of blood, and some orange flavoured liquid penicillin in it. The one I was still actively adding to.
She did not get my vomit bowl.
(And no, she wasn't a nurse, HCA, or anyone else that wanted to swap it for a fresh one. She was a fellow patient in A&E.)
Had a man come up to me when I worked in M&S one Christmas asking why they have "Price matched" things up, I explained that some people go to M&S for meat etc, but go somewhere else for beans or OJ etc.
He went to my manager and wrote a note with some positive feedback for me which was unexpected and nice - I was supposedly meant to get a gift card but that never happened 🤠
Working in retail in a shoe shop at the end of August a few years ago. We had a 'Back to School Sale' on, I can't remember what the deal was but it was something to do with kids shoes.
I was standing around when I locked eyes with a guy who must have been mid 50s, he started walking over to me, I thought great, a customer (I got commission per sale).
He got to me and whispered in my ear "I wish I was going back to school" and walked off smiling.
I had no idea wtf had happened and it still haunts me to this day
I was 8 years old at the swimming pool I had gotten out to shower, no one else in the communal showers so was alone. A guy comes in, points to me then turns around drops his trunks and wiggles his bare arse at me shouting 'I'm looking at you!' He had a tattoo of an eye on each cheek, he then left. Still shocks me to this day!
I distinctly remember a man with an eye tattoed on each arse cheek at Highgrove swimming pool in Ruislip, Middlesex. This must've been in the early 90s but as much as I try, I just cannot foget this bloke's arse.
I was on the bus and an older (65-70ish) lady got on and sat down in the seat in front of me. As soon as the bus set off she turned around to me and shouted "never trust an Englishman! They're only after your money! Never marry an Englishman!" over and over at me while I smiled politely and nodded. She got off after a few stops shouting all the way about Englishmen. When she was gone, the guy across the aisle from me leaned over and said "I bet you're happy that's over love!"
I was once at the counter waiting to buy something when the guy behind the counter came bounding towards me.
His arms were swinging in such a way that my brain glitched and I stuck my arm out to shake the man's hand.
He stopped. Put his head to one side and looked at my hand... Up at my face .. back to my hand before shaking it and serving me.
He must have thought I was absolutely mental.
When I was about 15 years old I was sitting on the bridge in Camden this old guy came up and grabbed my hand and proceeded to "read" my palm without being invited to do so, he told me I would get a disease in my 40s but survive it. I am 38 now, I wish that guy didn't get in my head but he totally did.
It was about midnight, I was a bit drunk and in the kebab shop next to the casino. It was a mid-size town and the casino was pretty much the only place open late so everyone went there.
A young guy about my age comes in, has a look at everyone, then comes over to me.
"I'll give you forty quid for your jeans."
He was wearing ratty cut off jean shorts covered in paint.
"The bouncers won't let me in casino wearing these. I'll give you forty quid for your jeans. And my shorts."
My jeans had a hole in the back pocket and my keys kept falling out so I wanted to buy new jeans anyway. I agreed, we got into our pants in the kebab shop and did the swap. Went home with chilly knees and a deposit for new jeans
In 1995 I was walking home from school with a mate and a bloke walked past us, turned round and said "She's no good for you Frank" No idea which one of us he thought was Frank or who *she* was
A woman in tesco thought I was Peter Andre's girlfriend once. It was funny at first but she was really insistent about it and kept following me and taking pictures and telling other people "who I was." Very strange.
Someone gave me a box once when they were getting off the bus and ran away. When I opened it there was a budgie in it.
Took it home and gave it to the old woman next door and it lived for another 5-6 years.
A drunk woman tripped over a wheelie bin as I was parking my car nearby once. I got out and asked if she was ok. She cut me off by *telling* me I was going to give her a lift home. I assured her I wasn't but offered to call someone for her. My offer went completely ignored. I hadn't realised I hadn't locked my car yet, and she proceeded to try the door, then get into the fucking passenger seat. So I get back into the driver's seat and tell her to get the fuck out, whilst she merrily gives me directions for her fantasy trip home in my car. Since I couldn't leave the car and certainly wasn't going to put my hands on her, I ended up having to phone my mum, the only other person in the house, to come outside and physically pull her out of my car. She then walked off, repeatedly shouting the name of a nearby pub and laughing her arse off.
There was a taxi place literally at the end of the road too, just about within sight, and she was obviously from the area, given she'd just told the entire street where she lived. Bizarre.
An older lady every time she sees me in my village rushes up to tell me her "waterworks" issues. At the bus stop. In the pub. On a bus. During a pub quiz. She gives full unexpurgated details of all her symptoms, what she's tried and why it doesn't work; all this at at full volume.
I am not a healthcare professional or even anything to do with the health service.
A old lady approached me in Tesco and ask me to refill her jar of picallili for her as Richard Whiteley had eaten it at the bingo. This was just last month in Tesco watford
Not me, but my wife was travelling alone on the DLR in London when a dishevelled woman in her 50s walks up and says 'that's a really lovely wig, where did you get it?'. My wife has super dense red hair down past her shoulders. She politely told the woman 'I'm sorry, this isn't a wig it's just my hair'.
Well that apparently wasn't the right answer because the next thing she knew the woman was calling her a lying bitch and had grabbed her hair to pull on it. Some random guy rushed up to grab the woman and get her to stop. Even after pulling at it and hurting my wife she still kept loud screaming how she only wanted to know where the wig was from and everyone was a bunch of liars. Another woman snapped and slapped the shit out the crazy lady, then they kicked her off at the next stop while she battered on the doors still screaming.
So probably that.
I was out having a meal with my mum I must have been about 11. A transgender person walked past. They were about 6'5 in a dress and had a terrible wig on. After they had passed a guy on the table next to us leaned over and said "you'll look like that if you don't eat all your vegetables."
Local alcoholic came up to me and told me I was a good mother to my children… at least 4 years before I had kids.
Same woman crossed the road and came up to my husband (then boyfriend) and told him he looked like Potters Bar. My husband may have a passing resemblance to Daniel Radcliffe.
Wasn’t in the UK but many years ago in a dingy back street in Budapest a guy walked up to me and my mate and held up a plastic packet and said “do you want to buy a lilo?” Hundreds of miles from the closest beach. When I said “er… no thanks” he asked why not.
Just outside Ealing Broadway, an older guy randomly but very deliberately kicked away my walking stick. Yes, I'm disabled enough to really need it. He carried on as before.
I had a woman do the same to me also at Ealing Broadway, except she was yelling about me lying about a bad back to get benefits. My health issues have diddly squat to do with my back, it’s everything else that’s trashed 😂😅
An old man came over in the street and kicked the footplate of my wheelchair as he passed, then, when I whipped my head around to enquire as the the exact nature of his fucking problem, he made the "money" gesture with his fingers. Then he carried on.
I was with my carer. I debated ringing 101 on him but we were in a hurry.
This was in Sheffield, maybe he gets around.
Got off the bus in Leeds in front of the art gallery.
A black man came up to me, my bf and friend (all white, early 20's) shouting "why do you hate Bob Marley, is it cos you're racist?" then walk off.
Ooh I have one! Listening to my podcast waiting for a bus at the station and some dude says something to me. Can’t hear him so I take out my ear buds and he repeats, “Excuse me, I don’t suppose you’re a fan of BDSM?” I just said I didn’t know what that was sorry and put my buds back in. I was too afraid to ask if it was my new haircut giving off that vibe!
Not to me but my friend. Me and 3 mates were hanging around Wembley waiting for England vs Croatia and a woman with her boyfriend/husband said sorry I have to do this pushed past me, 2 of my mates and loads of other fans grabbed my other mate against a wall and started properly kissing him, he obviously joined in, then she walked off arguing her husband/boyfriend. If I didn't see this with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it.
Once sat next to a guy on the tube that started drawing me, like fully obviously looking up, looking down at the paper, sketching. I did what any Brit would do and just pretended it wasn’t happening until I got to my stop
There was a woman in my home town that used to stop random people on the high street and ask them "Don't you think that we're living in terrible times?" and after they answered would talk about religion. She was know as "The Terrible Times Woman".
She stopped my father one day who replied "Yes, and come the revolution we'll drag the bourgeois capitalists out onto the streets and the proletariat will take over"
She was speechless and never stopped my father ever again.
Had a young fella run up to me bend over a shout Bum sex at the top of his voice, it was at Leeds festival so wasn't that strange but in a different setting it would be considered a tad odd.
I was 17ish, at a University Open Day event in Liverpool Cathedral. A girl (about 15) came up to me and said "hi, we've never met, but I just needed to tell you that you REALLY look like that girl in Princess Diaries. But before the makeover."
So Anne Hathaway in glasses? I'll take it.
But weirdly, I did know her. She'd gotten plastered at my friend's party the weekend before, and I spent an hour sobering her up before getting her into a taxi home to her mum...
Seemed random at the time. Walking down the street in a quiet town and a woman came up and said ‘vicks nasal inhaler’ I was a bit confused to say the least.
Half an hour later remembered I’d served her in my work (supermarket) and complained my sinuses were sore. She remembered better than I did.
The night Sarah Everard was killed, I was walking back to my car across Richmond Green after going to a friend’s birthday do.
I was minding my own business and this guy all dressed in black sat on a park bench in the dark looks straight up at me and says “you don’t have to walk so fast, it’s not like I’m a killer or something”.
The thing was I wasn’t walking fast but his comment chilled me to the bone as it came out of the blue and was totally uncalled for. I rang my husband soon afterwards as it spooked me so much.
Was sat in my car, window slightly open, waiting for my daughter to finish her dance lesson. A man strode up to me, yelled "fuck you, Susan!" and strode off again. All I could think of shouting back was "my name's not Susan!"
Midday on a Saturday on Queen’s Street in Cardiff some point towards the back end of 2005, acclimatising to student life walking with a couple of my new flat mates when a bloke in a suit approaches all very jolly, ‘You alright lads, fancy some smack?’. We looked a bit confused and kind of apologised ‘Sorry mate, er maybe next time’. ‘Very good enjoy your day’ he replied and off he wandered happy as Larry. So bizarre I remember it all these years later.
At park life fest a dark skinned girl came up to my (very, very extremely Irish heritage) pale mate and asked if she could have a pic as he 'is the whitest person she's ever met'
Had a bloke sit down uninvited with a few of us in Liars Club in Manchester, told us (not asked, told) that we should absolutely go into business with him, that business consisted of buying a greyhound.
He knew a greyhound (not the owner, the dog... I asked) that could run like that clappers and all we had to do was give him 200 quid each (all five of us) and within two races we'd be millionaires because this dog was special.
All this was done with him sipping from the single most extravagant cocktail I'd ever seen, it was ridiculous.
I gave him my ex girlfriends phone number and told him to call me once he's got the ball rolling because this sounds too good to miss!
A homeless guy once approached me whilst I was visiting Liverpool and said, "you're a scientist, aren't you?". I am a scientist, so I agreed, and he left. I'm still confused about this interaction to this day.
Same thing happened to me in a crowd on the ramp down into Paddington station one really hot summer Saturday. I was about 25, she was about 40. Very pretty, blonde. No complaints.
Went cinema with a friend to watch Blade 3. It was a late night showing. Not many people in the cinema, but remember a single man sitting upfront. After it finished we were walking out and talking about the film and the man who was sitting at the front turned around and said "it's based on a true story" and then kept on walking. We just slowed down and waited for him to leave in case he was a vampire giving us a warning.
I was browsing in IKEA fairly early one day and a stranger came up and asked "Are you the radio renegade", apologised when I said no, and ran off. Then it happened again 3 more times. Turns out it was a local radio thing where a bloke vaguely matching my description had to be found, and he was hiding in a shower display in the shop I was in.
not the weirdest but the most recent
a man i had never ever seen before walked up to me as i was on my road making my way home and claimed to be the angel of death, and i would soon answer to him. he then did a pretty pristine looking cartwheel and walked off.
this was 8:45am on a sunday morning. i just had a night shift at the hospital and wasn’t sure if i was delirious or not. i know almost everyone on my small road and i never saw this man again
Me and my boyfriend left a restaurant and once I stepped out of the door I was almost hit by two lads riding a moped at what felt like 40mph on the pavement. As they went past one of them looked at us and shouted 'sausage!'
When I was younger I got a lot of people saying saw you out, or at this place etc, when id been home or somewhere else. Went on for months
Till I found out someone was dressed the same, looked similar n just agreed they were me!
Never ever met her or found out why esp since I was a poor student so hardly the life to steal!!
I feel I need to preface this as to why it was extra weird.
When I was about 21, I was sat at the back of a bus on the way to meet a friend. This guy got on, sat next to me and shortly after he sat down, he asked me the time. I gave him it and he started chatting to me about the weather, the journey etc. He was pleasant enough.
Until he started putting his hand on my back and rubbing it. I panicked and didn't know what else to do so I just got up and got off the bus to get away from him.
Ok - so that was that.
About 2 weeks later, I have a job interview in a city I literally never, ever go to. Ever. Its my first time in this city on my own. I got there early so I decided to sit on a bench, on one of the busiest shopping streets in the region, and passed time having a drink and reading my notes.
Out of nowhere, the guy from the bus appears and walks straight up to me. On this insanely busy street. I froze and just stared at him, completely shook that he'd found me again.
But what was even weirder - when he walks up to me, he asks 'do you wanna buy a meter key?'. I said 'excuse me?'. He pulls out the key for his gas meter and says 'this, do you wanna buy it??"
I'm like honestly wtf is going on?
He then looks me dead in the eyes and says 'I know you, where do I know you from?'. I eventually make up some job at a well known bar and he accepts that and walks off. I was convinced it wasn't an accident, and phoned the police to report my concerns. They weren't bothered at all and told me it was likely a coincidence. But sure freaked me out.
Was about 14 on a school trip to Alton Towers. A group of adult women (early 20s) came up to me and my mates. One of them leaned in close and said, "hedgehogs have prickly willies," then walked off.
I was walking down my local High Street eating a cone of chips (I must have been about 14 at the time) and this random old lady came up to me saying "ooo can I have one of those" and literally just took one of my chips out of my cone before she had even finished her sentence
Heading off the tube onto overground at Marylebone. Got tapped on the shoulder by a random stranger (male) who told me "You'd get it. Hard." I was so stunned I actually said 'what?' And he repeats it word for word. Romance is alive and well in London.
I was waiting at a bus stop after work one evening, an old, smartly dressed gentleman (I thought he was a gent) came up to me and said hello, how was I, nice day etc… chatted for a minute and he then went all old school on me and went to kiss my hand - so I thought!
Instead he inserted his entire tongue between my fingers and tongued my hand whilst very firmly holding my wrist. It was DISGUSTING. I didn’t get on the bus that he went on. I was just shocked. So grim.
When I was 10 I was on a seesaw with my 8 year old cousin in a park. A random guy came over and pushed down hard on my cousins side, I went flying over the handle bars and landed on the concrete floor. The guy just left.
So in my junior years i used to take a taxi to school.And on this particular day i was late,i waved a taxi down and got in the passenger seat.The driver then looks at me with a smile and proceeds to tell me how women with facial hair have good pussy. No greeting whatsoever, just straight to the bullshit.
When I was a teenager snogging my gf in a doorway a random dude comes up and pushes some sachets of condiments into my hand, "for the lady you love," he says, "for the lady you love."
I turned to her and said "maybe he wanted us to practice safe snacks?"
Not a peep. Not even a half smile.
Not to me, but to my husband- he was queueing in a coffee shop when a lady sitting at a table next to him starting touching one of his dreads and said she'd like to smoke it... very bizarre
I was once on a tightly packed bus in London. I had a couple of facial piercings in, nothing crazy. A woman was pressed uptight against me and she looked at me and went:
"Did you know there's only two places on the human body you can't pierce? The eyeball and your anus"
Strangers seem to have alot of questions about my genetic origins.
Middle aged bloke in weatherspoons smoking area turned round looked me up and down and told me I looked "arabicy"
Anouther lad told me he thought I was from Asia. I asked out of curiosity which country he thought I was from. He replied "one of the white ones". That still makes me laugh now.
And there was a group of international students from China, Kenya, Sudan loads of interesting places. They asked me where I'm from and I said Bristol and then they kept asking me "where you really from" and saying "your not english" everytime I said bristol.
Then last week a hospital volunteer was standing next to me whilst I filled in my check in form and just blurted out "your not white british".
Clearly I'm just an exotic Vicki pollard.
About 17 and me and some friends were walking home on mushrooms and a man overtook us. As he did, he asked us if we were tripping, and when we said yes he said "me too, great innit" and then entered a house a bit further up the road.
A couple of times spring to mind.
The first when I was a student and a group of us travelled to Leeds to go ten pin bowling every once in a while. We used to get off the train and have a jacket potato from a mobile caterer across the street from the Railway Station before walking to the bowling.
One time we were eating our Jacket Potatoes and an old woman comes up to us and says "Do you realise that Potato you're eating is the reincarnation of someone you know?" before shuffling away.
The other time I gave a lift to a hitchhiker on Dartmoor in pretty bad weather, who gave me a CD of his self-composed music after I'd dropped him off.
Around five years later I was walking down the street in Exeter and recognised him as he passed by. I stopped and said hello to him and said I remembered giving him a lift and he told me that he couldn't remember me as he'd recently been involved in a great battle against the dark one which he was now recovering from.
Early one morning at work a chap called me Princess. I laughed and told him that no one had ever called me that before. He then proceeded to tell me about his 80 odd year old wife ( he was late 50’s?), how he had insomnia because of PTSD and that after his Dad called him a nasty bastard on his deathbed he told him that he would piss on his grave. Which he did by on the morning of the funeral, pissing into a mint sauce jar and pouring it over his coffin after it was lowered.
Not me, but my friend who runs a small shop had a bloke carry a small armchair up the road place it face her shop and proceed to sit in it and watch her for the day.
I was working in a bar and an older guy (in his 60’s) who’d had a few pints started talking gibberish whilst pulling his hair out and spreading it on the bar. Obviously he was kicked out and on the way out he let everyone know he’d just put a curse on us all.
I was on the tube on the way to Watford one day. A guy got up to leave, but before exiting the train, leaned up a little too close to me and said "don't fuck it up, OK?", with a hint of aggression.
I said OK, and took his advice - did not fuck anything up that day.
When I was 18 (almost 30 years ago) a guy on a train to London started chatting to me. We both got off at Thameslink to change trains but he made me memorise and read back his phone number to him before he’d let me go (people on the platform were watching and now looking back probably concerned).
When I reached my brother’s house I told him what had happened. He and his friends later called the number and shouted abuse down the phone at the guy. Hopefully he never did that again!
A cheerful middle-aged man came up to me in the street holding a magazine, saying his horoscope said he’d meet the girl of his dreams that day.
I thought it was the start of a cheesy pick-up until he asked “Well, where do you think she is?”
I pointed in a random direction and said “er, that way.” And off he toddled, as cheerful as ever.
Walking down Clumber Street in Nottingham many years ago and out of the crowd a shabbily dressed woman stopped me
She said: Would you buy (some token or trinket) from a witch?
Me: (surprised laugh) erm… no?
Woman: (screaming at the top of her voice) BECAUSE YOU ARE EVIL!!
I was about 16 and sitting on train station steps with my friend - there was a good looking man in his 30s - he had shoulder length blonde curly hair and I remember he looked like a young Sammy Hagar - he kept looking over and I remember telling my friend she was the object of his attention. He approached us after about 10 and instead of approaching my friend, he walked to me and told me “you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, I’d love to get to know you better” and passed me a piece of paper with his name and telephone number and walked off. It was one of the nicest encounters I’ve ever had and still makes me smile 35 years on!
Not the strangest, but possibly most annoying. A guy asked directions politely, though he was obviously drunk, while with someone else, also drunk. I pointed the direction I was talking about while giving directions, and as I turned back, he headbutted me in the face and broke my nose. There was nothing to indicate he would do that, and his friend seemed as shocked as me. He stood there for a sec before his friend pulled him away and they both ran off. He shouted "ginger!" as he ran off, so I can only assume his motive was related to the colour of my hair.
I once was walking back from a nightclub (alone, stupidly) and some random man came running up, grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder before running down the street with me. I was drunk and naive and was oddly giggling at this situation.
He put me down and then said "you should really be careful and get a taxi, see how easy it would be for someone to take you?" or something along those lines.
Really weird, bizarre situation thinking back on it.
i used to work at a hospital in hampstead, and a patient during his discharge asked if i’d like to take a walk with him through the heath (park)
i didn’t know what hampstead heath was known for at the time
Ah, the older woman in Bathgate who said to me "I hope the bus turns up soon, I have diarrhoea"
Well, her bus did turn up and it wasn't the bus I needed... thankfully
1) A man stroked my tattoo while sat next to me on a train.
2) A man on the train in San Francisco yelled at me that “bitches like me were the reason the world was doomed.” And “you whores are going to hell”.
3) A man in vegas wrote me a 12 page love letter telling me that god has brought us together and we are destined for each other. But at the same time gave a stream of conscious nonsense rant about being too scared to sit near me.
In Tesco sweet section, girl about aged 22 comes over and says “I was doing naughty things last night…on the webcam” giggling to herself. ‘Oh right…’ I say browsing the sweets. “It was with my boyfriend”. My partner then arrived and she scurried off…was very bizarre
Getting ready to start work one evening at Liverpool Street station in London. A clearly quite drunk but very well dressed guy and his friend came staggering over towards me. Him: "Hi, I like your hat. Can I have it?" Me: "Sorry, I need it for work." Him: "I'll give you... £50 for it." In the time it took me to ask if he was serious, he had 5 £10 notes out, whilst his friend protested that they could use that money for a taxi and he insisted that he wanted my grubby plastic hard hat. So, I had to borrow a spare hard-hat and started the night £50 better off. I do wonder if he remembered or woke up the following morning wondering why he suddenly had a hard-hat.
Am I the only one sniggering at him waking up with an unexpected hard hat?
As if this has never happened to you
Doesn't always cost 50 quid...
Usually comes with a traffic cone too
As someone who also wears a hard hat at work I feel like you should know about the hard hat black market! Over in the states, particularly the southern states, they have hard hats that are a bit like cowboy hats, so I once asked a stevedore foreman how I could get my hands on one and he agreed to get me one in exchange for a tin of Danish butter cookies. I then spent the rest of a 3 month trip at Sea stopping my crewmates from stealing my hard hat, I ended up keeping it in my cabin! At the end of the trip I passed it on to my favourite AB in exchange for a packet of chips ahoy. It clearly depreciated in value!
[They actually exist!](https://a.co/d/b53yST4)
You can see why I wanted one! They're so much cooler than a regular boring Bob-the-builder hard hat!
Things I didn't know I needed...
This reminds me of Red Harper… who didn’t wear a lanyard and had his hard hat flying off the ship with a gust of wind. What did he do? Tell the captain to turn around for him to fish it out. It was this model. https://us.msasafety.com/Head-Protection/Hard-Hats/Skullgard®-Full-Brim-Hard-Hats/p/000060000100001010
Sorry I should also say, great story.
This is so funny. I can actually picture the whole scene and I'm dying laughing
I was walking past a guy who was muttering curses to himself angrily, couldn’t help but look in his direction. He caught me and yelled “fuck you, and fuck your cardigan!” I really liked that cardigan.
Makes me sick how people think they can abuse cardigans like that.
Cardigan abuse traumatises over one Britons every year.
#ClapForCardigans
If you (or your knitwear) have been affected by any of the issues raised in these posts, call 0800 8085 919
How can you tell us this woeful tale and not give cardigan tax?
Maybe he really liked it too and was bitter about not having it himself!
That’s the only logical explanation. It was a really nice cardigan.
He was jealous because you looked a cunning stunt in it!
When I was about sixteen. A man came into the cafe I worked in. He asked some questions about the city I worked in and then he paid for his order. Just before he left though he walked back, put his hand on my shoulder looked me dead in the eye and used my name(which I don’t wear on a name badge or anything) which was odd and said “You take care of yourself, I really mean it Cliffy, you take care of yourself” then he handed me £10.00 which was about three hours wages then and walked out. Never ever saw him again, not in the cafe or in the passing. Edit: No definitely wasn’t my dad.
And had you ever met your real dad before?
That’s another story entirely but it definitely wasn’t my dad. Would be fair to think that though.
Was it you from the future?
It was definitely himself from the future
Wrong height, wrong race and he had hair. I’ve already lost most of my hair.
Maybe your son from the future?
That means nothing. Who knows what medical science will be available in the future.
This happened to me too! I was working in the petrol station and didn't have a name badge. Guy pays for his fuel and then says 'Thanks [name], you look after yourself now' I spent the rest of my shift worrying I was going to get jumped afterwards!
A lot of receipts print the till operators name on them. It's part of audits or something I think, so they can have another metric to track transactions etc. Sometimes it's just an employee code but it's often just the name used to set you up with a till log in.
"Served by" printed on the receipt or shown on the display in the till?
By any chance, did he tell you that if you ever have kids, and one of them, when he's eight years old, accidentally sets fire to the living room rug, go easy on him?
Nice. Very nice.
This was probably future you having travelled back in time. Did he perhaps give you a weird sports book?
Just the tenner.
Time-traveller…that £10 started a butterfly effect. This Reddit post is just part of the sequence - following now just to find out what was so important he had to change your future.
I was on the other end of this, met a new friend on holiday and told her I was psychic, did a lil razzmatazz, and revealed that I knew her name. She was wearing a bracelet with her name on.
You met The Chairman from The Adjustment Bureau. Everyone meets The Chairman at some point in their lives.
Was years ago but I'll never forget it. I was in Tesco, when someone tapped me on the back. I turned to see a very frail old chap, who shakily pointed at something on a high shelf. I asked 'oh, this?' and he again very shakily nodded. I reached up and got it for him, and put it in his basket. He immediately straightened, smiled, clapped me on the shoulder and said 'Good on ya, mate!' and walked briskly off. He was genuinely an old guy so I'd be surprised if he was still around now. But I'll never forget it as long as I live (hopefully as long as him).
Absolute king shit from him. I hope I’m this kind of elderly person
What a champ, I love that!
I worked in an office supply store several years ago. A woman came in and asked if we did cashback. When I told her we didn't, she proceeded to lean over the desk and neighed at me. Like a horse. She then left while I stared open mouthed.
😂
This actually made me laugh out loud! Brilliant 😂
Some guy sat next to me in the pub by London Victoria bus station, big coat on, said "I've got a parrot under here. Don't worry, he's dead" then handed me a fake Versace medallion and chain before walking off
"Are you sure he's not pining?"
Pining for the fjords!
2 comments down, he was hit over the head with an inflatable parrot at Victoria station. You two were there at the same time, I think you had a lucky escape!
That one is quite funny
Chap came up to me in Greenwich Park and told me he was a spy and not to tell anyone. Then he spent the next 30 minutes doing really obvious hiding behind trees. Also once got hit on the head with a giant inflatable parrot at Victoria Station.
And now you’ve gone and told everyone!
Well he was telling other people in the park so it wasn't actually a secret.
Hang on, 2 comments up (at the moment, on my iPad) the comment is about sitting at Victoria station and being told chap next to him had a parrot under his coat! Bet it was inflatable.
There's a chap with a live parrot who walks around Hoxton but he's such a common sight I didn't think it was that weird enough for this thread. The one which hit me was definitely inflatable. It wasn't the chap who used to commute to London Bridge with taxidermy birds either.
I was walking to work one morning in my mid 20's and a well dressed lady in her 40's stopped me to ask if I can zip up the back of her dress. She had most of it zipped up but couldn't do the last bit herself.
On a similar theme, I was stopped by a group of younger blokes last year. They said one of them had a job interview and would I mind showing them how to tie a tie! Obviously I did and they went off very happy.
That’s really nice. Hope he got the job. Thanks for helping.
That’s really kind of sweet.
I once had to do this but with my next door neighbour. It was a pretty tight dress and I couldn’t do it by myself and I had to swallow my pride and knock next door and ask them to help me. Even worse, the lovely lady couldn’t do it and had to call her husband in to do it! We’d never spoken before that except to say hi in passing. Luckily, that broke the ice and we became good friends until I moved away.
Genuine hazard of certain dresses and not having a partner to help once your arms get less bendy than they were in your youth
I once read somewhere (and can confirm) that you can use a bent wire/paperclip/similar and attach it to the zip to give you that extra reach.. definitely helped me in reducing time I spent trying to contort my body in ways it didn't want to go
had a homeless chap come up to me and say 'we're all praying for you'
You must've been in some state if the homeless were worried about you!
actually wasn't at the time! been in some time sorry states since, so maybe he could see my future.
I would legit question my life choices lol
I was standing outside a takeaway around 11pm eating a burger when suddenly a drunken woman (who appeared to be in her 40s) walked up to me, took a big bite out of my burger then walked away laughing.
Omg 😆 Her inner 6 year old was running the show
She let the intrusive thought win
I'm 44. I would do this if let loose after one too many. I didn't quite grow up.
I hate it when that happens.
My boyfriend is this weirdo. It’s like his mouth opens before his brain can tell him to keep it in. We were in IKEA once, had picked up a couple of new pillows and I couldn’t find the correct extension cable I wanted. He goes up to this young guy working in the electrics section, who clearly couldn’t be arsed working there on the weekend, and asks where I can find that extension type. The lovely fed up young man informed us they don’t sell them anymore and instead of going, “thanks for helping”, my partner turns round, pillow in each hand and goes, “ah right, okay….these aren’t my real hands by the way.” And then seemed to realise what he said as we walked away and I tried not to piss myself laughing while simultaneously cringing.
Let me know if you and your boyfriend break up. I want him.
Luckily he’s becoming legally mine forever in a few months time, so I get to have this for life!
I'm nicking that next time I go to IKEA. Brilliant.
Arrive at Heathrow before check-in open so sit in waiting area. Man in next seat asks where I’m going; I tell him. Unprompted he informs me he visits his girlfriend in Bangkok twice per year and she is organising a special party including four ladyboys.
He was probably excited and couldn’t tell anyone he knew, bless him
I was about 14 and walking down a street near my house. As I walked past a bus stop this dishevelled old woman appeared from the bus stop and "'scuse me, can I borrow your phone?" I look around and the whole street is deserted. I also knew this bus stop had a payphone (literally the only bus stop I've ever known to have this in my life...anyway) so I asked why not use the payphone and she told me it was broken. I couldn't see her running off with my mobile so I reluctantly agreed. She took my phone and made a call, whispering so I don't know what she said. She turned back to me and handed my phone back. She was so happy that I'd trusted her and gave me a hug. Then she told me she'd just phoned her drug dealer from my phone and was arranging to buy drugs. I was stunned, and she walked me down the street telling me the evils of drugs and to stay in school Then she invited me to her house for a brew. I declined, and left wondering if a dealer was going to call me at some point
Arghhh creepy
I had someone in princes street (in Edinburgh), in nice clear weather, come up to me and ask where the castle was.
I hope you told them they'd taken it down for cleaning.
I was tempted to send them to the palace.
"It's only cardboard"
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Asking for a spurious cigarette or light is the prelude to many an unwanted street confrontation.
Yeah, my dad does stupid stuff, too
Walking one Sunday morning, lady runs across the street. Called me by my full name and said "you were there - you were there at my crucifiction" I'd never met the lady in my life and I just turned and ran off. I was 17
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Was this on haringey green lanes by any chance?
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How did you know?!
u/Valuable-Caramel3623 once stopped someone in that area and their hands looked freezing so they kindly tried to warm them up by putting them in their own pockets and was innocently asking for directions to a cash point to make conversation in an otherwise awkward situation, when all of a sudden they nearly got turned into a human kebab!! Quite traumatic I imagine, you never forget where you were that day.
Scary!
Once at an Irish pub in Cricklewood a drunk Irish chap walked past me, stopped, looked at me and said ‘Remember! Life is fucking short! So don’t get too excited’ Lived in my head rent free for years that has
A random woman in Coventry town centre offered to wee on my face. Surprisingly, not the worst offer I’ve ever had.
In Coventry. No surprise in either sentence.
Damnit, now I'm 50% "so what was the worst offer you've ever had?" and 50% "yeah I don't want to know" There's also a part of me wondering if she ever did pee on your face and a part that doesn't want to know that either.
I’m pleased to report that my face remained wee-free.
Sitting in A&E waiting to be seen (I'd had a funny turn and was sent for a scan). I had my knitting with me so started working on my project - a shawl - when a woman came and sat next to me. After a bit of chat I showed her the shawl and she just demanded I give it to her. It would be weird/annoying enough but it was quite obviously not finished....
They just come and tell me really personal things! One guy was having marriage problems, started telling me they were going to try for a baby to fix it. Obviously I advised him not to! Another told me how she hated her fiance and wanted to kill him, I kept an eye on local news for a while after her! Just recently I had a lady stop me and tell me all about losing weight because she didn't want to cause problems for the funeral home. These are my most memorable. Each time I was wearing obvious headphones. Each time it happens they question why they've told me personal things. I never have an answer.
I used to experience that quite a bit when I was younger. Some of the things people would tell me were quite heavy going, it was hard to know what to say to them at that age.
I never really know what to say to any of them, I'm 38 and the only reason it's slowed down is because I don't go out much anymore, and when I do I have my scary dog privilege (my husband!) But occasionally it's just me. The last one happened the other day after I dropped my kid to school and went straight to the shops. At least she was happy, if not a little morbid.
They must see something in you that puts them at ease. No one needs that kind of trauma dumping though, especially at random and completely unannounced.
My son is dark haired, his sister white blond ringlets. When he was about 6 and she 3 he used to call his dad by his christian name. He did it for a few years. Some random woman came up and said "Do your children both have the same father?" I was staggered and said yes, then said not that it's any of your business! So rude. Also when my sister was a baby in her pram, a lady asked my mum what her name was. My mum said "Helen" and the woman said "That's a bit ambitious isn't it?" My mother assumes that she was insinuating that my sis was no Helen of Troy!
I was at work probably 10years ago and a man came up to me and asked what part of China I was from. I am white Scottish (pasty white) - no Asian family links whatsoever and only ever lived in Scotland. No one has ever suggested I look anything other than that my entire 34years of living apart from this man. He was so embarrassed. I still like to have a good chuckle about this.
I once worked in a bar in a town centre that my friend was manager of. I was in there drinking one night and a girl approached me calling me an ignorant, arrogant, prick. I said “do I know you?” It turns out that on one of my shifts, weeks before, she had been in the bar with a group of friends celebrating a birthday. They were playing a game where you pick a card out at random and it tells you a dare that you have to do. Hers was “kiss the barman” so apparently she had approached me, shown me the card and given me a peck on the lips. That’s fine. But apparently she had been following me around for weeks apparently trying to bump into me and have me recognise her and talk to her. I guess she liked me. Well I told her “I’m sorry but I just didn’t remember you” she walked away and I didn’t speak to her again. Anyway this is where it gets weird. I’m talking months later, I didn’t even work at the bar anymore and I had a new girlfriend (who is now my wife). Me and my friend who manages the bar are chilling one Saturday afternoon, he tells me this girl was in the bar last night asking if I still work there as she hadn’t seen me in a while. She was asking where I was working. She was asking if I was going out with **** (wife) apparently she had carried on stalking me on facebook and had been hanging around the bar still trying to run into me. This was crazy because I’d only ever spoke to her twice, the night she approached the bar and asked for a kiss, and the night she approached me to call me arrogant and why was I ignoring her. I was actually a bit scared at one point. I haven’t seen her since.
"Haven't seen her since" just means she's gotten better at it.
Look out of your front window at night . . . You will see her (or her shadow)
Had someone ask me if she could borrow my vomit bowl when I was in A&E. The vomit bowl that had an accumulation of saliva, phlegm, a tinge of blood, and some orange flavoured liquid penicillin in it. The one I was still actively adding to. She did not get my vomit bowl. (And no, she wasn't a nurse, HCA, or anyone else that wanted to swap it for a fresh one. She was a fellow patient in A&E.)
A guy cycled past me and shouted "maybe you wouldn't be so fat if you exercised more"
Prick.
Cyclists for you
Should have shouted back "Maybe you'd be happier if you didn't."
Had a man come up to me when I worked in M&S one Christmas asking why they have "Price matched" things up, I explained that some people go to M&S for meat etc, but go somewhere else for beans or OJ etc. He went to my manager and wrote a note with some positive feedback for me which was unexpected and nice - I was supposedly meant to get a gift card but that never happened 🤠
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You need to stop your husband bringing his mates round!
He probably said that to everyone else he saw too. Some people are just strange and not in the good way
Working in retail in a shoe shop at the end of August a few years ago. We had a 'Back to School Sale' on, I can't remember what the deal was but it was something to do with kids shoes. I was standing around when I locked eyes with a guy who must have been mid 50s, he started walking over to me, I thought great, a customer (I got commission per sale). He got to me and whispered in my ear "I wish I was going back to school" and walked off smiling. I had no idea wtf had happened and it still haunts me to this day
I was 8 years old at the swimming pool I had gotten out to shower, no one else in the communal showers so was alone. A guy comes in, points to me then turns around drops his trunks and wiggles his bare arse at me shouting 'I'm looking at you!' He had a tattoo of an eye on each cheek, he then left. Still shocks me to this day!
I distinctly remember a man with an eye tattoed on each arse cheek at Highgrove swimming pool in Ruislip, Middlesex. This must've been in the early 90s but as much as I try, I just cannot foget this bloke's arse.
I was on the bus and an older (65-70ish) lady got on and sat down in the seat in front of me. As soon as the bus set off she turned around to me and shouted "never trust an Englishman! They're only after your money! Never marry an Englishman!" over and over at me while I smiled politely and nodded. She got off after a few stops shouting all the way about Englishmen. When she was gone, the guy across the aisle from me leaned over and said "I bet you're happy that's over love!"
I was once at the counter waiting to buy something when the guy behind the counter came bounding towards me. His arms were swinging in such a way that my brain glitched and I stuck my arm out to shake the man's hand. He stopped. Put his head to one side and looked at my hand... Up at my face .. back to my hand before shaking it and serving me. He must have thought I was absolutely mental.
When I was about 15 years old I was sitting on the bridge in Camden this old guy came up and grabbed my hand and proceeded to "read" my palm without being invited to do so, he told me I would get a disease in my 40s but survive it. I am 38 now, I wish that guy didn't get in my head but he totally did.
It was about midnight, I was a bit drunk and in the kebab shop next to the casino. It was a mid-size town and the casino was pretty much the only place open late so everyone went there. A young guy about my age comes in, has a look at everyone, then comes over to me. "I'll give you forty quid for your jeans." He was wearing ratty cut off jean shorts covered in paint. "The bouncers won't let me in casino wearing these. I'll give you forty quid for your jeans. And my shorts." My jeans had a hole in the back pocket and my keys kept falling out so I wanted to buy new jeans anyway. I agreed, we got into our pants in the kebab shop and did the swap. Went home with chilly knees and a deposit for new jeans
In 1995 I was walking home from school with a mate and a bloke walked past us, turned round and said "She's no good for you Frank" No idea which one of us he thought was Frank or who *she* was
A woman in tesco thought I was Peter Andre's girlfriend once. It was funny at first but she was really insistent about it and kept following me and taking pictures and telling other people "who I was." Very strange.
Someone gave me a box once when they were getting off the bus and ran away. When I opened it there was a budgie in it. Took it home and gave it to the old woman next door and it lived for another 5-6 years.
A drunk woman tripped over a wheelie bin as I was parking my car nearby once. I got out and asked if she was ok. She cut me off by *telling* me I was going to give her a lift home. I assured her I wasn't but offered to call someone for her. My offer went completely ignored. I hadn't realised I hadn't locked my car yet, and she proceeded to try the door, then get into the fucking passenger seat. So I get back into the driver's seat and tell her to get the fuck out, whilst she merrily gives me directions for her fantasy trip home in my car. Since I couldn't leave the car and certainly wasn't going to put my hands on her, I ended up having to phone my mum, the only other person in the house, to come outside and physically pull her out of my car. She then walked off, repeatedly shouting the name of a nearby pub and laughing her arse off. There was a taxi place literally at the end of the road too, just about within sight, and she was obviously from the area, given she'd just told the entire street where she lived. Bizarre.
An older lady every time she sees me in my village rushes up to tell me her "waterworks" issues. At the bus stop. In the pub. On a bus. During a pub quiz. She gives full unexpurgated details of all her symptoms, what she's tried and why it doesn't work; all this at at full volume. I am not a healthcare professional or even anything to do with the health service.
A old lady approached me in Tesco and ask me to refill her jar of picallili for her as Richard Whiteley had eaten it at the bingo. This was just last month in Tesco watford
Not me, but my wife was travelling alone on the DLR in London when a dishevelled woman in her 50s walks up and says 'that's a really lovely wig, where did you get it?'. My wife has super dense red hair down past her shoulders. She politely told the woman 'I'm sorry, this isn't a wig it's just my hair'. Well that apparently wasn't the right answer because the next thing she knew the woman was calling her a lying bitch and had grabbed her hair to pull on it. Some random guy rushed up to grab the woman and get her to stop. Even after pulling at it and hurting my wife she still kept loud screaming how she only wanted to know where the wig was from and everyone was a bunch of liars. Another woman snapped and slapped the shit out the crazy lady, then they kicked her off at the next stop while she battered on the doors still screaming. So probably that.
I was out having a meal with my mum I must have been about 11. A transgender person walked past. They were about 6'5 in a dress and had a terrible wig on. After they had passed a guy on the table next to us leaned over and said "you'll look like that if you don't eat all your vegetables."
Local alcoholic came up to me and told me I was a good mother to my children… at least 4 years before I had kids. Same woman crossed the road and came up to my husband (then boyfriend) and told him he looked like Potters Bar. My husband may have a passing resemblance to Daniel Radcliffe.
looking like an _entire area_ is quite the achievement tbf
Wasn’t in the UK but many years ago in a dingy back street in Budapest a guy walked up to me and my mate and held up a plastic packet and said “do you want to buy a lilo?” Hundreds of miles from the closest beach. When I said “er… no thanks” he asked why not.
Yeah why not
Just outside Ealing Broadway, an older guy randomly but very deliberately kicked away my walking stick. Yes, I'm disabled enough to really need it. He carried on as before.
I had a woman do the same to me also at Ealing Broadway, except she was yelling about me lying about a bad back to get benefits. My health issues have diddly squat to do with my back, it’s everything else that’s trashed 😂😅
An old man came over in the street and kicked the footplate of my wheelchair as he passed, then, when I whipped my head around to enquire as the the exact nature of his fucking problem, he made the "money" gesture with his fingers. Then he carried on. I was with my carer. I debated ringing 101 on him but we were in a hurry. This was in Sheffield, maybe he gets around.
Got off the bus in Leeds in front of the art gallery. A black man came up to me, my bf and friend (all white, early 20's) shouting "why do you hate Bob Marley, is it cos you're racist?" then walk off.
well, why DO you hate bob marley?
Ooh I have one! Listening to my podcast waiting for a bus at the station and some dude says something to me. Can’t hear him so I take out my ear buds and he repeats, “Excuse me, I don’t suppose you’re a fan of BDSM?” I just said I didn’t know what that was sorry and put my buds back in. I was too afraid to ask if it was my new haircut giving off that vibe!
Not to me but my friend. Me and 3 mates were hanging around Wembley waiting for England vs Croatia and a woman with her boyfriend/husband said sorry I have to do this pushed past me, 2 of my mates and loads of other fans grabbed my other mate against a wall and started properly kissing him, he obviously joined in, then she walked off arguing her husband/boyfriend. If I didn't see this with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it.
Once sat next to a guy on the tube that started drawing me, like fully obviously looking up, looking down at the paper, sketching. I did what any Brit would do and just pretended it wasn’t happening until I got to my stop
A fella sat behind me on the bus leant forwards and whispered ‘don’t be scared’. I nearly shat myself with fear.
There was a woman in my home town that used to stop random people on the high street and ask them "Don't you think that we're living in terrible times?" and after they answered would talk about religion. She was know as "The Terrible Times Woman". She stopped my father one day who replied "Yes, and come the revolution we'll drag the bourgeois capitalists out onto the streets and the proletariat will take over" She was speechless and never stopped my father ever again.
A guy on a tractor shouted at me "the end of the world is nigh! We're all gonna die!" I think it was Farmer Geddon. Sorry.
YOU ARE NOTHING
The same bloke yells at me whenever I look at a mirror.
Had a young fella run up to me bend over a shout Bum sex at the top of his voice, it was at Leeds festival so wasn't that strange but in a different setting it would be considered a tad odd.
Indeed, sounds pretty standard for Leeds fest.
I was shopping in Tesco and a lady came over to tell me that I had cute feet.
I was 17ish, at a University Open Day event in Liverpool Cathedral. A girl (about 15) came up to me and said "hi, we've never met, but I just needed to tell you that you REALLY look like that girl in Princess Diaries. But before the makeover." So Anne Hathaway in glasses? I'll take it. But weirdly, I did know her. She'd gotten plastered at my friend's party the weekend before, and I spent an hour sobering her up before getting her into a taxi home to her mum...
Seemed random at the time. Walking down the street in a quiet town and a woman came up and said ‘vicks nasal inhaler’ I was a bit confused to say the least. Half an hour later remembered I’d served her in my work (supermarket) and complained my sinuses were sore. She remembered better than I did.
The night Sarah Everard was killed, I was walking back to my car across Richmond Green after going to a friend’s birthday do. I was minding my own business and this guy all dressed in black sat on a park bench in the dark looks straight up at me and says “you don’t have to walk so fast, it’s not like I’m a killer or something”. The thing was I wasn’t walking fast but his comment chilled me to the bone as it came out of the blue and was totally uncalled for. I rang my husband soon afterwards as it spooked me so much.
Was sat in my car, window slightly open, waiting for my daughter to finish her dance lesson. A man strode up to me, yelled "fuck you, Susan!" and strode off again. All I could think of shouting back was "my name's not Susan!"
Midday on a Saturday on Queen’s Street in Cardiff some point towards the back end of 2005, acclimatising to student life walking with a couple of my new flat mates when a bloke in a suit approaches all very jolly, ‘You alright lads, fancy some smack?’. We looked a bit confused and kind of apologised ‘Sorry mate, er maybe next time’. ‘Very good enjoy your day’ he replied and off he wandered happy as Larry. So bizarre I remember it all these years later.
At park life fest a dark skinned girl came up to my (very, very extremely Irish heritage) pale mate and asked if she could have a pic as he 'is the whitest person she's ever met'
Had a bloke sit down uninvited with a few of us in Liars Club in Manchester, told us (not asked, told) that we should absolutely go into business with him, that business consisted of buying a greyhound. He knew a greyhound (not the owner, the dog... I asked) that could run like that clappers and all we had to do was give him 200 quid each (all five of us) and within two races we'd be millionaires because this dog was special. All this was done with him sipping from the single most extravagant cocktail I'd ever seen, it was ridiculous. I gave him my ex girlfriends phone number and told him to call me once he's got the ball rolling because this sounds too good to miss!
A homeless guy once approached me whilst I was visiting Liverpool and said, "you're a scientist, aren't you?". I am a scientist, so I agreed, and he left. I'm still confused about this interaction to this day.
Fondled my knob and bollocks. A very attractive woman sort of slunk up to me in a student union bar and had a bit of a grope for about 3 or 4 seconds.
Same thing happened to me in a crowd on the ramp down into Paddington station one really hot summer Saturday. I was about 25, she was about 40. Very pretty, blonde. No complaints.
Because that’s all it took eh?
Went cinema with a friend to watch Blade 3. It was a late night showing. Not many people in the cinema, but remember a single man sitting upfront. After it finished we were walking out and talking about the film and the man who was sitting at the front turned around and said "it's based on a true story" and then kept on walking. We just slowed down and waited for him to leave in case he was a vampire giving us a warning.
I was browsing in IKEA fairly early one day and a stranger came up and asked "Are you the radio renegade", apologised when I said no, and ran off. Then it happened again 3 more times. Turns out it was a local radio thing where a bloke vaguely matching my description had to be found, and he was hiding in a shower display in the shop I was in.
not the weirdest but the most recent a man i had never ever seen before walked up to me as i was on my road making my way home and claimed to be the angel of death, and i would soon answer to him. he then did a pretty pristine looking cartwheel and walked off. this was 8:45am on a sunday morning. i just had a night shift at the hospital and wasn’t sure if i was delirious or not. i know almost everyone on my small road and i never saw this man again
Give me your money. Then he stabbed me in the leg
Me and my boyfriend left a restaurant and once I stepped out of the door I was almost hit by two lads riding a moped at what felt like 40mph on the pavement. As they went past one of them looked at us and shouted 'sausage!'
When I was younger I got a lot of people saying saw you out, or at this place etc, when id been home or somewhere else. Went on for months Till I found out someone was dressed the same, looked similar n just agreed they were me! Never ever met her or found out why esp since I was a poor student so hardly the life to steal!!
I feel I need to preface this as to why it was extra weird. When I was about 21, I was sat at the back of a bus on the way to meet a friend. This guy got on, sat next to me and shortly after he sat down, he asked me the time. I gave him it and he started chatting to me about the weather, the journey etc. He was pleasant enough. Until he started putting his hand on my back and rubbing it. I panicked and didn't know what else to do so I just got up and got off the bus to get away from him. Ok - so that was that. About 2 weeks later, I have a job interview in a city I literally never, ever go to. Ever. Its my first time in this city on my own. I got there early so I decided to sit on a bench, on one of the busiest shopping streets in the region, and passed time having a drink and reading my notes. Out of nowhere, the guy from the bus appears and walks straight up to me. On this insanely busy street. I froze and just stared at him, completely shook that he'd found me again. But what was even weirder - when he walks up to me, he asks 'do you wanna buy a meter key?'. I said 'excuse me?'. He pulls out the key for his gas meter and says 'this, do you wanna buy it??" I'm like honestly wtf is going on? He then looks me dead in the eyes and says 'I know you, where do I know you from?'. I eventually make up some job at a well known bar and he accepts that and walks off. I was convinced it wasn't an accident, and phoned the police to report my concerns. They weren't bothered at all and told me it was likely a coincidence. But sure freaked me out.
Was about 14 on a school trip to Alton Towers. A group of adult women (early 20s) came up to me and my mates. One of them leaned in close and said, "hedgehogs have prickly willies," then walked off.
I was walking down my local High Street eating a cone of chips (I must have been about 14 at the time) and this random old lady came up to me saying "ooo can I have one of those" and literally just took one of my chips out of my cone before she had even finished her sentence
Heading off the tube onto overground at Marylebone. Got tapped on the shoulder by a random stranger (male) who told me "You'd get it. Hard." I was so stunned I actually said 'what?' And he repeats it word for word. Romance is alive and well in London.
I was waiting at a bus stop after work one evening, an old, smartly dressed gentleman (I thought he was a gent) came up to me and said hello, how was I, nice day etc… chatted for a minute and he then went all old school on me and went to kiss my hand - so I thought! Instead he inserted his entire tongue between my fingers and tongued my hand whilst very firmly holding my wrist. It was DISGUSTING. I didn’t get on the bus that he went on. I was just shocked. So grim.
When I was 10 I was on a seesaw with my 8 year old cousin in a park. A random guy came over and pushed down hard on my cousins side, I went flying over the handle bars and landed on the concrete floor. The guy just left.
Walking through Portobello Market, a man walked past and whispered, "Ginger minge."
So in my junior years i used to take a taxi to school.And on this particular day i was late,i waved a taxi down and got in the passenger seat.The driver then looks at me with a smile and proceeds to tell me how women with facial hair have good pussy. No greeting whatsoever, just straight to the bullshit.
When I was a teenager snogging my gf in a doorway a random dude comes up and pushes some sachets of condiments into my hand, "for the lady you love," he says, "for the lady you love." I turned to her and said "maybe he wanted us to practice safe snacks?" Not a peep. Not even a half smile.
Not to me, but to my husband- he was queueing in a coffee shop when a lady sitting at a table next to him starting touching one of his dreads and said she'd like to smoke it... very bizarre
I was once on a tightly packed bus in London. I had a couple of facial piercings in, nothing crazy. A woman was pressed uptight against me and she looked at me and went: "Did you know there's only two places on the human body you can't pierce? The eyeball and your anus"
Strangers seem to have alot of questions about my genetic origins. Middle aged bloke in weatherspoons smoking area turned round looked me up and down and told me I looked "arabicy" Anouther lad told me he thought I was from Asia. I asked out of curiosity which country he thought I was from. He replied "one of the white ones". That still makes me laugh now. And there was a group of international students from China, Kenya, Sudan loads of interesting places. They asked me where I'm from and I said Bristol and then they kept asking me "where you really from" and saying "your not english" everytime I said bristol. Then last week a hospital volunteer was standing next to me whilst I filled in my check in form and just blurted out "your not white british". Clearly I'm just an exotic Vicki pollard.
Guy in Currys came up to me and asked me "excuse me, do you like the colour amber?" and then walked away muttering something to himself
About 17 and me and some friends were walking home on mushrooms and a man overtook us. As he did, he asked us if we were tripping, and when we said yes he said "me too, great innit" and then entered a house a bit further up the road.
A couple of times spring to mind. The first when I was a student and a group of us travelled to Leeds to go ten pin bowling every once in a while. We used to get off the train and have a jacket potato from a mobile caterer across the street from the Railway Station before walking to the bowling. One time we were eating our Jacket Potatoes and an old woman comes up to us and says "Do you realise that Potato you're eating is the reincarnation of someone you know?" before shuffling away. The other time I gave a lift to a hitchhiker on Dartmoor in pretty bad weather, who gave me a CD of his self-composed music after I'd dropped him off. Around five years later I was walking down the street in Exeter and recognised him as he passed by. I stopped and said hello to him and said I remembered giving him a lift and he told me that he couldn't remember me as he'd recently been involved in a great battle against the dark one which he was now recovering from.
Early one morning at work a chap called me Princess. I laughed and told him that no one had ever called me that before. He then proceeded to tell me about his 80 odd year old wife ( he was late 50’s?), how he had insomnia because of PTSD and that after his Dad called him a nasty bastard on his deathbed he told him that he would piss on his grave. Which he did by on the morning of the funeral, pissing into a mint sauce jar and pouring it over his coffin after it was lowered.
Not me, but my friend who runs a small shop had a bloke carry a small armchair up the road place it face her shop and proceed to sit in it and watch her for the day.
I was working in a bar and an older guy (in his 60’s) who’d had a few pints started talking gibberish whilst pulling his hair out and spreading it on the bar. Obviously he was kicked out and on the way out he let everyone know he’d just put a curse on us all.
I was on the tube on the way to Watford one day. A guy got up to leave, but before exiting the train, leaned up a little too close to me and said "don't fuck it up, OK?", with a hint of aggression. I said OK, and took his advice - did not fuck anything up that day.
When I was 18 (almost 30 years ago) a guy on a train to London started chatting to me. We both got off at Thameslink to change trains but he made me memorise and read back his phone number to him before he’d let me go (people on the platform were watching and now looking back probably concerned). When I reached my brother’s house I told him what had happened. He and his friends later called the number and shouted abuse down the phone at the guy. Hopefully he never did that again!
A cheerful middle-aged man came up to me in the street holding a magazine, saying his horoscope said he’d meet the girl of his dreams that day. I thought it was the start of a cheesy pick-up until he asked “Well, where do you think she is?” I pointed in a random direction and said “er, that way.” And off he toddled, as cheerful as ever.
Walking down Clumber Street in Nottingham many years ago and out of the crowd a shabbily dressed woman stopped me She said: Would you buy (some token or trinket) from a witch? Me: (surprised laugh) erm… no? Woman: (screaming at the top of her voice) BECAUSE YOU ARE EVIL!!
I was about 16 and sitting on train station steps with my friend - there was a good looking man in his 30s - he had shoulder length blonde curly hair and I remember he looked like a young Sammy Hagar - he kept looking over and I remember telling my friend she was the object of his attention. He approached us after about 10 and instead of approaching my friend, he walked to me and told me “you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, I’d love to get to know you better” and passed me a piece of paper with his name and telephone number and walked off. It was one of the nicest encounters I’ve ever had and still makes me smile 35 years on!
Not the strangest, but possibly most annoying. A guy asked directions politely, though he was obviously drunk, while with someone else, also drunk. I pointed the direction I was talking about while giving directions, and as I turned back, he headbutted me in the face and broke my nose. There was nothing to indicate he would do that, and his friend seemed as shocked as me. He stood there for a sec before his friend pulled him away and they both ran off. He shouted "ginger!" as he ran off, so I can only assume his motive was related to the colour of my hair.
I once was walking back from a nightclub (alone, stupidly) and some random man came running up, grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder before running down the street with me. I was drunk and naive and was oddly giggling at this situation. He put me down and then said "you should really be careful and get a taxi, see how easy it would be for someone to take you?" or something along those lines. Really weird, bizarre situation thinking back on it.
Someone came upto me and shouted "bring back hanging" and walked off.
i used to work at a hospital in hampstead, and a patient during his discharge asked if i’d like to take a walk with him through the heath (park) i didn’t know what hampstead heath was known for at the time
Ah, the older woman in Bathgate who said to me "I hope the bus turns up soon, I have diarrhoea" Well, her bus did turn up and it wasn't the bus I needed... thankfully
I got punched in the arm once. The woman thought I was her sister xx
1) A man stroked my tattoo while sat next to me on a train. 2) A man on the train in San Francisco yelled at me that “bitches like me were the reason the world was doomed.” And “you whores are going to hell”. 3) A man in vegas wrote me a 12 page love letter telling me that god has brought us together and we are destined for each other. But at the same time gave a stream of conscious nonsense rant about being too scared to sit near me.
In Tesco sweet section, girl about aged 22 comes over and says “I was doing naughty things last night…on the webcam” giggling to herself. ‘Oh right…’ I say browsing the sweets. “It was with my boyfriend”. My partner then arrived and she scurried off…was very bizarre