No one likes to believe that they’re the bad guy in the story. Even the villain in every story has perfect good reasons for doing whatever it is that he or she is up to. We went to askReddit to find out people’s best, “Oh, I’m actually the bad guy here,” moments.
Comments have been edited for clarity. The source can be found the end of the article.
I used to work security at a college bar and we would typically ask people to leave who were too intoxicated. One night I was posted up in the DJ booth because it was our normal shoulder to shoulder level of busy and I watched this guy start stumbling and drinking in a really weird way. I make my way over to him and tell him he has to leave because he is too out of it. He tries to tell me something but I can’t understand what he said because the music is so loud and he’s slurring his words. We get outside and he tells me that he has cerebral palsy which was pretty obvious after the fact… He was cool about it and I let him back in but I don’t think I have ever felt like a bigger jerk than that night.
effectsalary
On about 66% of the trains I get from Dublin to Cork, someone is sitting in a pre-booked seat that doesn’t belong to them, whether it’s been mine or another person. These people have all been cantankerous old farts who have no desire whatsoever to shift themselves from a seat they didn’t reserve.
I had a man who was probably in his 80s stand up to his full height, a foot shorter than me, and practically bellow in my face that he didn’t care that I’d booked the seat, he wasn’t moving, while his shrew wife looked on with an air of proprietorial approval.
It’s pretty rotten. Finally, however, last month when I boarded a train and someone was sitting in my seat with his partner, I was just the right combination of tired and stressed to let him have it.
I’d been waiting for months for this moment. I showed my ticket, told them it was my seat, insisted they move, channeled Seinfeld for the first and hopefully last time in my life, and finally stormed off up the train when they continued to sit in my seat, full of righteous vindication that I was going to get my way.
Finally! I was going to get one over the train! No longer shall I back down to the whims of rude commuters; now it is they who shall yield, to the righteous powers of a Reservation!
I went up to the staff cabin, asked for an administrator, told him the situation, and presented him with my ticket. This was met with:
“Ah, I see the problem here sir. You’ve reserved a seat on the 18:00 train, this is the 16:00 train.”
I’d booked the ticket for 6pm and become mixed up with the 6 in 16:00 (4pm). I was mortified. I meekly took a seat near the opposite end of the train and didn’t say a word to anyone else for the next 3 hours.
In my quest to defeat Rude Commuter, I had become him.
BrooksConrad
I was at a restaurant doing a co-worker dinner thing when I noticed the woman at the next table was staring me down. Like barely blinking, full-blown eye contact. After a while, I started getting pretty agitated when my subtle social cues to stop staring at me went wholly ignored. After about 20 minutes of this, I had enough of this lady’s unsolicited rudeness, and I did the whole “come at me, bro” arms in the air move, thinking surely THAT would get my point across. I made a fairly big production of it. Only then did I realize that the lady was completely blind.
-VelvetBat-
Two weeks ago, I was dropping someone off at Union Station. As I was exiting the parking lot, there was one of those gate things where you insert your ticket.
I inserted my ticket and the person behind me began honking. The gate was literally in the process of lifting up. I laid on the horn, screaming, “OKAY OKAY I’M GOING,” but they kept honking. I hit the accelerator and zoomed off, waving at them with my middle finger (I drive a convertible so I put my hand right out the top), furious at them for honking at me to go when there was no way I could have gone any faster.
I exited and turned left. A few moments later, the same car exited and also turned left, and pulled up to me.
They put down their window, and I put down mine and was like, “What do you want, huh?!“
The lady in the other car said, “You left your coffee mug on the back of your car.”
She wasn’t even mad.
I was totally shocked. I looked behind me and sure enough, I had set my tumbler on the top of the trunk, and she had been honking to try to let me know.
I turned red, burst out laughing, told her I was so sorry for being a jerk, pulled over, and got my cup. Could not BELIEVE what a cretin I had been and how coolly she responded to the whole thing.
IAlbatross
I was driving around and stopped at a stop sign at the same exact time as a cop on the other side. Now, I’m nervous around cops which is bad because I’m already a very nervous person even though I don’t look it. So, in my nervousness, I decided to be friendly and wave at the cop because what’s more normal than a friendly citizen?
Well. He pulls me over and asks “You know why I’m pulling you over sir?”
“No, sir I don’t.”
“Well you… You ran that stop sign. I was right there. You waved at me.”
Got a warning because apparently I was so focused at suppressing my nerves and being friendly and nice to the cop that I had forgotten to actually stop… At the stop sign.
Avinan
It wasn’t me, but it was amazing to see. I was at a Starbucks, sitting outside, along with a number of other people.
A gym-rat looking guy starts drawing attention to himself and pointing at people saying: ‘Is that white Chevy over there your car?!’ After a couple of these a guy sitting near me says, ‘Yeah, that is my car.’
Gym rat (righteously): ‘You are a royal jerk for parking in a handicapped spot! How can you be so selfish when someone who needs that spot might show up at any time? For all you know, he already drove through the parking lot, couldn’t find a space, so he headed back home empty handed.’ Blah blah.
Car owner: Sorry. I’m handicapped, but I forgot to hang the tag when I left the car.
Gym rat: Oh, really?
At this point the car owner, who had been sitting down and showed no signs of handicap, stands up. The guy is bent in half, like his spine is fused in a 90 degree angle. He looked perfectly normal sitting down. ‘OK, OK, I’ll go to the car and hang the tag.’
Gym rat, upon seeing him stand: ‘Oh, ah, sorry. You don’t have to do that.’
The car owner slowly and uncomfortably walks the 40 feet to his car, opens the door, fumbles to hang the tag, then ambles his way back to his seat, rigidly bent the entire time.
typeObloodsausage
My best friends younger sister had a weird headband on one day. We were in high school at the time so she was in middle school. She and my friend didnt really get along, and she was kinda mean to me too, so I saw an opportunity to tease her and said, Nice headband.
Turns out she had had cosmetic surgery of some kind to make her ears stick out less, and the headband was there to cover her surgical wounds. I sure did feel like an jerk.
h0b0gl0ves
In first grade, I was making fun of a short boy without realizing I was hurting his feelings. It got to the point where I had upset him so much, he buried his tiny first-grade fist right into my stomach.
I was left lying on the playground trying to catch my breath.
Sort of an eye opener then and there to treat people the way I wanted to be treated.
misspence
My dog was barking for no reason and wouldn’t stop after I yelled at him 3 times. I turn around and he’s at the door looking at me with his derpy face while the neighbor’s dog continues to bark. Sorry bud.
OOTPDA
Guy kept bumping into me in line at a theme park. I kindly asked him twice to back up a bit and give me some room. Third time I turned right around and raised my voice a little and started to show some irritation….
Guy was clearly autistic. Parents/family shuffled him back a few steps and apologized to me. I about cried from embarrassment.
Boomer1717
When I watched The Lego Movie. My daughter has a whole world of Lego Friends and it drives me insane that all these perfect sets are broken down into random pieces instead of assembled as intended. Then at the end of The Lego Movie it turns out the actual bad guy is the dad who super glued all the Lego sets perfectly together and I’d thought that was a great idea.
Spazmer
I was in a right turn lane and this SUV would not make the turn even though the light was green. Naturally I leaned on my horn in rage. Turns out the SUV was simply waiting to let a guy in a wheelchair cross the street. I saw the SUV driver’s face in his side view mirror. He shook his head and looked very disappointed. In my embarrassment, I doubled down and drove around the SUV angrily and aggressively. I certainly was the bad guy that day.
voightslebaron
My friend is disabled, she has cerebral palsy. We went to an outdoor festival and one of the places you could use the bathroom was a nearby cafe. There was a line, of course. She waited in line for awhile while I was outside, and when she got to the front of the line, they said the bathroom was closed because it was broken. She pitched an absolute fit, accusing them of discriminating against her and basically making a huge scene in front of dozens of people. She said they didn’t want her to use their bathroom because she was disabled. The cafe worker didn’t know what to do so they just caved and let her in to the bathroom. After she got in there, it was obvious the toilet was totally clogged and really broken. She went anyway and then came back to me and felt absolutely horrible about it.
sykopoet
I accidentally scammed a stranger.
I was at the train station and a girl approached me asking if I could change her 50 bill into something smaller because the ticket machines don’t accept anything over 20. I had 45 in bills but could only find 4 in coins so I told her sorry. It was really late though and I felt really sorry for her so I felt like being a good guy and just give her the 1 for free. (Now you have to keep in mind that it was 11pm I had worked 8 hours and was super tired.)
So I told her, ‘You know what, it’s cool just keep it’ while TAKING 50 AND ONLY GIVING 49 BACK TO HER! She looked a bit confused but hurried away and I walked home with this ‘I did good today’ smile on my face.
Only as I told the story at home did it occur to me what I just did.
Barldarian
When I was an edgy teenager I was driving home from work with my friend as a passenger. We were blasting our music extremely loud. At an intersection the guy in front of us didnt move when the light turned green. I laid on my horn and he still didnt move. Then suddenly an ambulance sped through the opposite red light. Of course I couldnt hear the oncoming siren. Felt like a huge idiot after that.
bg-j38
My dad the other week, never seen him so embarrassed!
He was supposed to pick up my brother from his work at 3:00 to take him to a car auction where he was going to buy my brother his first car. They were both were very excited. I get a call from my brother at 5:00 asking if I’ve heard from our dad. He said he never showed up to pick him up and he’s been waiting. He said he’s ignoring his calls and text messages. I tried too and got 3 rings and a voicemail, clearly ignoring the call. So we got a bit worried and I decided to drop by Dad’s house to see what’s up.
I go to knock on the door and Dad’s on the couch watching TV. He comes to the door and when I asked why he’s not with my brother he said it’s because ‘he’s an idiot.’ He was going to pick him up and texted him 10 times and the kid never answered, so screw him! He said ‘LOOK AT THIS!’ and showed me a text message screen filled 10 messages ranging from excitement to rage, but each said ‘undelivered’ under them. I pointed it out and I’ve never seen him so embarrassed. He asked me what was wrong with his phone and I told him for starters when it rings hit the green button instead of the red one.
He rushed out to pick up my brother after that. I didn’t sell him out and I think he lied to my brother about what happened.
Basalted
I was queued up with my girlfriend for a movie at a film festival. It was first come first served, and we were already wrapped around the building and down the next alleyway.
There were some ladies behind us and then this sketchy looking guy just kinda slides in the line behind us and before the ladies.
I have a bit of an itchy trigger finger for when people cut lines, and I called him out for cutting in line. (wasn’t even in front of me, it was behind us, but there were another 50 or so people behind him still).
Turns out he was one of the women’s husband and he had been parking the car.
Travis_Healy
I used to work at Disney on Big Thunder Mountain. They’re all about efficiency and moving people through as quickly as possible, so you’re trying to unload people, load more, check 15 rows of lap bars (splitting the rows with another employee or “cast member”) and then pushing the button to start in less than 45 seconds.
When you check lap bars, you just quickly walk alongside the train saying “push up on your lap bars please,” while motioning with your hands and trying to keep moving, barely making eye contact with the guests.
You’re supposed to ask a guest 3 times before touching the lap bar yourself so it ends up being a “push up on your lap bars please, can you push up on that lap bar, just push up on that lap bar for me” as quickly as you can so you can check it for them and keep moving.
So it’s a busy day and we’re already running a little slow. I’m doing the check, get to a car with the lap bar still up so I make it through my ask 3 times, again not really making eye contact, then go to move this guest’s lap bar for them.
Did you guess it? Yep. This person had no arms.
Just staring at me. I was still trying to move quickly so I don’t even remember if I apologized or not, but my “flight” setting on fight or flight kicked in and I got that train out of there at lightning speed.
Definitely blocked that one out of my memory for a while.
roux_smalls
My friend’s puppy was killed by a pitbull.
I was a 17-year-old kid who liked to say edgy things.
When I found out his puppy was savaged, I legitimately said, in the presence of my friend, his brother and mother: ‘Well, it’s a dog eat dog world.’
My own brother reminded me of this comment a few weeks ago. I’ve not been able to stop cringing. Suffice to say, I’ve grown out of that edginess.
KingSetoshin
I remember once when I was in middle school, my friend had written a couple chapters of a book. She asked me to read it, and I kept putting it off until finally one night I read it. I came in the next morning and told her that I liked the story but the main character was one of the most annoying, awful characters I had ever read about. She then said the main character was based on her.
IanZarbiVicki
I was standing outside the train station, waiting for a shuttle bus to my college, so this was around 3 or 4 years ago. I saw this guy putting his phone screen right up to his face, and I’m talking like near enough touching his nose. I found it hilarious that he had to get his phone so up close when you can just zoom in, so I began mocking him and doing the same.
After what felt like 20 minutes of mockery, which was probably more like 2 minutes, I looked down and noticed his Labrador, wearing a guide dog vest.
Thankfully, he didn’t see me (no pun intended).
Mr_HatAndClogs
Points edited for clarity.