As humans, we have a lot to deal with every day. From friends to family, jobs, work, school and so much more, we're constantly under a lot of pressure. Sometimes, that pressure builds up. When it does, it causes people to behave in ways they normally wouldn't. Meaning, it's not pretty.
People on Reddit share the best "I don't give a darn!" acts they've ever seen. Content has been edited for clarity.
“He Has No Emotion”
“At Air Force basic training when you first show up, you’re either in civilian clothes or the uniform with sneakers (because they don’t want to mess up your feet I guess) and are affectionately called ‘sneaker weekers.’ While at meals if the table behind you gets up, you need to get up and leave regardless if you’re finished. If two tables behind you get up, you’ll be swarmed by MTIs and have them scream in your face until you do get up. I had just put my tray back and started to walk out when I look back and see one lone sneaker weeker by himself in a row of five or six tables, surrounded by six MTIs.
This kid is staring straight ahead and just eating his food one spoonful at a time, while the MTIs scream in his face. Finishes his food, sets his spoon down, picks up his drink and just slowly finishes his water, turns his glass over puts it down, picks up his tray and walks up to put it away while still being screamed at by six MTIs. Kid is walking out and I realize everyone in the room is staring at him. He has no emotion; no fear, no smirk, nothing as he walks out of the chow hall.”
“This Is Just So Inconsiderate”
“A couple of weeks back, I was on the way home on the underground and had the sudden announcement of ‘Due to a person under a train,’ which is terrible but happens frequently. There were delays. Eventually get on a tube and it’s packed.
A young woman around my age looking super dressed up and professional is constantly sighing loudly, moaning about the delay to her silent friend who looks mortified at her friend’s constant complaints that someone’s horrific death has inconvenienced us all.
This girl eventually says something a long the lines of ‘This is just so inconsiderate.’
I’m kind of squashed up against them both along with a well-dressed guy our age who also looks quite professional. He’s giving her the side eye the whole time but says nothing.
Dude and I just exchange a glance in disgust at her total lack of empathy. Get to the next station and because the girl is right in front of the door she has to step off to allow passengers to disembark. An old woman sort of takes her time so the doors are about to shut, inconsiderate girl is about to step back on at the last second when Dude beside me gently places a hand on her shoulder and as gently as possible pushes her back onto the platform as the doors are about to slide shut in her face.
All the while shaking his head at her and says ‘No. No, you don’t deserve to get back on. Take the next two minutes to figure out why.’
Goes back to listening to his headphones whilst literally everyone around us bursts out laughing.
She was awful, and he was just cool as a cucumber.”
“This Will Be Fun To Explain To Frank”
“I’m a paramedic. Witnessed a crew transporting a familiar face to the hospital. This particular patient had a hankering for pain medication and would call one to two times each day, usually about 30 minutes after shift change at the hospital, so they’d end up with different doctors.
Anyway, we’d just recently enacted a policy which allows non-emergent, stable patients to be placed in the waiting room of the hospital instead of just skipping to the front of the line. Well, this patient didn’t think it was right they were going to be made to wait for their morning fix, so they refused to get off the gurney. The medic attempted to get the patient off the gurney and into a chair for a solid 15 minutes before literally picking them up by their belt and arm and placing them on the floor. What’s better is he continued to hold the patient by their belt, so they couldn’t get back on the gurney as it was wheeled away.
The only thing he said after walking back to the EMS room was ‘This will be really fun to explain to Frank tomorrow.’
With the biggest grin ever. (Frank was our manager and had a wonderful forehead vessel that I’m sure pulsated nicely while having said discussion the next day).”
“Felt Like I Had To Say Something”
“I was waiting to get my car back from a brake job and this dude was complaining about how the price for an oil change was $25. He claimed was only going to pay $25, even though the sign also said ‘plus taxes and fees’ or something. The total bill comes out to like $32 or something, no big deal really, everyone knows about tax and about disposal fees at places like this.
A point to know is that this dude was one of the three people in the town who together owned about 90% of the rental properties. This is a college town, and they make the prices incredibly expensive because they know they can since everyone is paying for it with loans. This is to say the dude had a ton of money, it’s not like the extra $7 was breaking the bank for him.
So, the dude wasn’t having it and kept arguing with the guy for five to ten minutes. My car was done and I wanted to leave since I was sitting there for about two hours waiting, so I ended up walking to the counter and saying something to the tune of ‘Stop yelling at the worker. I’ll pay your freaking bill just leave, I want to go.’
He tried to say that he doesn’t need my help, in which I responded ‘Then pay the freaking $30, and get bent.’
He tried to make a point where the sign says $25 so it should be $25. I gave the worker there my card and told him to run that and again told the dude to just go and that none of us want to hear him complain like a little girl anymore.
He ended up getting mad at this college kid talking down to him and stormed out without paying. The worker didn’t run my card for his job. What was nice was that the guy working at the counter owned the Monroe I was at (didn’t know at the time) and made me only pay for parts on the work I got done and not labor since I ‘said was he always wanted to say’ to that dude. Apparently the guy has been a problem in the past, so I thought the gesture was really nice of him (and I was a decently broke college kid so saving the cost on labor was a lot to me). I typically keep to myself in those situations but I really wanted to go and I could see the tired expression on the owners face as he was done with that dude’s nonsense, so I felt like I had to say something.”
“She Could Figure It Out”
“This happened in my high school junior science class. We were assigned some minor project to be done in pairs and the pairs were assigned. This girl was known for being smart and getting good grades, but not trying to break the top 10% or anything. Just your average good student. She was shy, quiet and very awkward. Again typical high school stuff. She got paired with some ‘jock’ type boy who was known for being an entitled butt.
The teacher gave the assignment and then left the class room for a time. I saw the jock type say something to quiet awkward girl, and then get up and go hang out with two of his friends who had been paired together. He never went back to her for the rest of class. She turns in the assignment at the end of class, and was only one of like three people who did so, the rest didn’t turn it in until the next day.
About a week later that assignment was handed back. Jock type got very mad at the quiet girl about how they had gotten a grade barley above passing. In the most straight get lost voice she could muster she said ‘I have straight A’s, that grade will barely make a dent. If you cared so much about it, you should have done it.’
Got the whole story after class:
He basically told her he didn’t know how to do the assignment and didn’t want to bother, but hey she was smart, so he bet she could figure it out. And really he’d just hold her back. Then he got up and left bragging to his friends that he got ‘a smart girl’ and didn’t have to worry. She was not having it and flunked the assignment just to spite him.”
“The Look On Her Face Was Priceless”
“I was at a restaurant recently. While I was waiting for my friends to arrive, I noticed a couple a few tables away. The lady was going on and on (I couldn’t hear the exact words), but it was pretty obvious they were having a heated argument where she was apparently scolding her SO. And the guy was just sitting there having an occasional spoonful of his desert. Exactly three minutes in, he just stands up and walks away. He goes out of the restaurant gets in his car and drives away (I was sitting at a table near the window facing the street). And the woman was in absolute shock. The look on her face was priceless.
I mean I shouldn’t judge their relationship without context but the guy sure did not care a single bit about what happened next.”
“The Hero We Need”
“In college, we had this professor for physics who liked to pick on a few students, basically me and a few others. We had an exam, and he would take off major points over trivial items. Cases where people were getting the correct answers, but he didn’t agree with our work, things like that. And we’re talking getting 2/20 on a question, which pretty much messes you over.
After insulting us, the professor gets up and solves a problem on the board, and made a trivial mistake, the kind of one that nearly caused us all to fail his class. One of the guys gets up, writes ‘F’ on the board, flicks him off and walks off. Truly the hero we need.”
“I Hate This Kind Of Nonsense”
“I had an inland flight about three years ago. This kid in the row behind me, probably six or eight years old, started to kick my seat after takeoff. It was not a long flight, about an hour and a half. But I hate this kinda nonsense. So I turned around and sure enough, that prick was kicking my seat, while his mom and dad was sitting on either side of him, pretending to not notice.
First I kindly asked the dad if he could make him stop, and he somewhat tried to convince his kid to stop. The kid sulked, but seemed to get the memo… at least for one minute, and then proceeded to kick my seat again. And once again I turned around, and this time, dropped the pleasantries, and told them that this was a golden opportunity to teach their kid some manners.
As this is Norway, and some people are starting to feel more entitled that others, this didn’t go that well. The mom started to yell at me, saying he is just a kid, and needs to express himself. It is at this moment the flight attendant arrives, and I try to explain the situation, while this kids awful mom and dad tries to bagatelle my complaint, by saying I’m the one who is making a scene.
The flight attendant, not wanting any trouble as we are miles above ground, tries to explain that kicking the seat can be annoying and that we all should just get along.
Flight attendant leaves, and kicking commences, so I simply picked up my stuff, walked to the row behind them, asked the woman behind them, if she would be so nice to could move to the window seat, so I could get the middle seat. She just smiled and nodded. I sat down behind the kid, and started kicking for the 40-50minutes that was left of the flight.”
“It Was Freaking Great”
“In high school, there was this guy who would harass me (I was a senior, and he was a sophomore) and we had gym together. He would make nasty, dirty comments about me constantly. Just gross. I reported it to the gym teacher who laughed it off. The last straw was as we were getting off the bus after a field trip, and he grabbed my butt. I got off the bus, handed my stuff to a friend and the minute his feet touched the ground, I went at him. All 110 pounds of me just wailing on him. He couldn’t get a punch in even though my friends said he tried. I blacked his eye, bloodied his nose, pulled out a chunk of hair and scratched him up pretty bad. I quit when he dropped into the fetal position then I just walked home. It was freaking great.
Monday morning, I got called into the office because this went down on school property. I got the gym teacher in trouble for inaction and was suspended from the bus for a month. Dude got a three-day suspension for butt grabbing. When he came back, his face was still pretty colorful, and he got teased relentlessly for getting his butt kicked by a girl half his size. He grew up to be a crack head, in and out of jail.”
“He Does The Ultimate Power Move”
“Two years, ago, I was at a festival with a few friends waiting for my favorite band to play. We went to the stage the band before them and were just enjoying the music. Suddenly, a really, really hammered dude tumbles in from the side, stands beside me and just puts his arm around me. I’m a nice guy and was in a good mood, so I thought Maybe he just wants to see the band too, so I didn’t mind too much.
After some time he was getting a little heavy, so I look to the side and I see a really buff dude. He was like a whole head taller than me, had one of those gym-bro tank tops and huge muscles. Absolute unit. So I look at the guy and ask him ‘Hey, can you help me with this hammered dude?’
He’s like ‘Yeah, sure.’
So hammered dude is just standing there, being held by two strangers in the middle of a stacked crowd at a festival. Suddenly, hammered dude starts leaning forward. Bad sign. It looked like he was about to throw up, the people in front of us made space.
So the buff guy looks at the dude, then looks at me and goes ‘Is the guy your friend?’
I say no, never met him. Turns around to my friends, asks them the same question, they shake their heads. He looks a bit around and then just does the ultimate freaking power move. He just freaking picks the dude up and hands him over to the crowd. I looked at the hammered guy and his eyes were still closed as the crowd made him float to the front of the stage, but I could see him open them in the middle and I still remember the shock on his face. Had to tell the buff guy how amazed I was at how casually he solved that hammered-dude-problem. Absolute legend.”
“Look How Much We Care”
“In grade 11, I was basically being bullied by my school rowing coach. She had been rude to me all year, but I loved the sport and my team of three other girls in the boat with me. We’re approaching the end of the season and the biggest race of the year, where we hire a few motel rooms for a weekend event. I didn’t want to stay with the team in the motel, and instead asked to stay with my mum and exchange student, who I was hosting through the same school. The coach had absolutely no involvement with the exchange, but it was a big commitment with the school. She decided to put her foot down and say I had to stay with the team. My parents knew this woman was affecting my mental health and I had to make the most of the time with my exchange student-also my best friend. They supported me, but my rowing coach pulled me into a meeting with the vice principal during class, and the two staff members harassed and manipulated me into changing my mind.
During this, my exchange student wandered alone into my sister, who was a year older and in her final year of school. She told my sister what was happening, so my sister marches into the office we were in to ask them ‘What the heck are you doing?’
I’m in literal tears, so my sister says, ‘You can’t do this, I’m calling mum.’
Mum had the day off, and we lived a few blocks away. Even though my sister was not allowed to have her phone on her person, much less use it DURING CLASS, mum was by my side in less than five minutes.
The students still remaining in my class basically heard exactly what my mum said to those grown up trash bags of human beings, that we made a commitment to the school with the exchange and as a result, I would not be rowing with the team. The coach responded by saying ‘If she doesn’t row, the rest of the team can’t race with three girls.’
To which my mum yelled, ‘Look how much we care.’
My mum walked down the hall to the office, signed us out of school for the day, while I went back to class with tears streaming down my face to get my bag, and we went left and got ice cream.”
“I Paid For This Course”
“In college last year, I had this lecturer who would outright ban people who attended his lecture late. Those lectures were first thing in the morning, and 90% of the people had to travel from other counties. One guy just came in, sat down while the lecturer told him to get out, but he just spoke out ‘I paid for this freaking course, I had to travel from freaking Laoise, I had to work a freaking night shift, so can you just shut the heck up and just get on with the lecture.’
He of course was ban from attending the lecture, but the class representatives, myself included, got together and discussed this issue with evidence. The lecturer just rhetorically said ‘I live 10 minutes from here, but you don’t see me complaining about getting up in the morning.’
After that, less people have been attending and either failed the exam or dropped out because of him. I dropped out, not because of him but I just didn’t like the course in general, but I know that the Head of Science Dept. written him out of the timetable with a new lecturer, but she had struggled to keep the class together. She was nice and helpful, even doing evening tutorials to those who struggled, but it was already too late, only a handful of people that lived near the college attended the lecture.”
“He Went Into Full Chill Mode”
“My social studies teacher in eleventh grade was always a chill dude. But not to the point where he didn’t care about everyone’s education. He would always let us watch a movie on half days, talk about recent tragedies and mourn for the people who died in those tragedies. Which was the thing that got him fired, for mourning for people’s losses. Messed up right? This is in 2019 in Virginia Beach and right after the Virginia Beach city hall shooting, and we were talking about it when we got back to school two days after it happened.
Some boy ratted him out to the principal, and he was told he had a week to get his stuff together because he was fired. What did he do? He went into full chill mode, he let us do whatever, we brought our Nintendo switches in, one kid brought in his PlayStation 4, and we took turns playing Black Ops 3 and other games, we asked him why was he letting us do this? His words were ‘because you all deserve a day where you can take a break from work.’
He didn’t tell us that he was getting fired, and he told us this on the last day he was here, after that day we never saw him again, we just kinda figured it out. And that boy that ratted on him? He became an outcast and got his butt whipped in the locker.”
“Are You Stupid?”
“I was at a car race with my mom and grandpa. We sat in our normal seats, and this huge family sat directly in front of us. The parents would stand up, in our way, ever single time a race started and ended. Usually the most exciting parts. We decided to move, just scooting a few feet to the left cause it wasn’t super busy (also the reason we couldn’t figure out why they had to sit right in our way.)
They all left to get food for like 40 minutes and my mom was already irritated so when they came back and sat exactly in front of us again, she was furious. They stood up again for the beginning and end of all the races and on one of the last few my mom had it. She stood up and spoke loudly, ‘Are you stupid?’
They turned, stunned for a few seconds, before muttering something about my mom being rude and moving to the complete other side of the seats. We went back to our normal spots and enjoyed the rest of the races. Its now a very funny inside joke between us.”