People are full of surprises – good and bad. Here, surprised people share the most unexpected thing done by someone they thought they knew.
1. Is this a movie?
I grew up knowing my parents loved and respected each other intellectually, but did not function well as a couple. They split when I was 5 due to physical abuse and alcoholic tendencies going both ways, and we’re all glad they’re apart.
Fast forward: they haven’t spoken to each other in a decade. I’m a grown adult. I visited my mother, and she sits me down to explain a secret she has kept my whole life; I might not be his. PLOT TWIST: I might be his brother’s daughter.
Mom tells me a tale of forbidden love; she fell for his older brother hard and fast, but my grandma forbid it, as my mother wasn’t good enough for her beloved eldest son. Instead, my grandmother offered up the second son, and my parents dated on and off. For three years, my mother saw the eldest brother in secret while he was engaged to another woman, while my father, the second son, stood guard so no one would find out. My mother explained I could belong to either of them.
The most unexpected thing about this story was my dad; he loved her the whole time. He loved her so much that he protected her, knowing he was never her first choice. This made the story more tragic. I cannot fathom how tortured they all were.
NovelDame
2. And the next winner of American Idol is…
In college, we had four of us living in a two-bedroom apartment. I shared a room with Reuben, who was a really introverted shy nerd who didn’t seem capable of socializing well or talking to women much.
We had a small group of us go to this karaoke bar and we were drinking Soju and picking the usual bad songs and singing stuff. Reuben hadn’t joined in and sung anything, so we pushed him a little bit to pick a song and he chose “Always” by Atlantic Starr.
Then, it was like a moment out of a reality show and he just totally rocked that song, singing his heart out with more passion than I’ve ever seen him do anything. We were all silent and in awe that he could belt out a song like that and sing perfectly.
yakusokuN8
3. There’s always more than what meets the eye.
I worked at a gas station in Winnipeg and was filling in at a different store for a month while they trained a new manager. My midnight guy was this middle-aged man who kept to himself and meticulously cleaned the store every night. Perfect midnight employee.
The manager was trained, I went back to my original store, midnight guy eventually quits and moves to Alberta. A couple years later I read about how killed a guy on a Greyhound bus just outside of Winnipeg.
ChexLemeneux42
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4. That’s how you thank me?
I had been working with a colleague for years, supporting her in two projects and working my butt off to get promoted. We had a good relationship too.
During our last round of evaluation, I asked for a promotion (to be on the same level as her roughly), thinking she would back me up. She didn’t, even saying I wasn’t doing well or wasn’t working independently enough.
I found out it was because she wanted to make sure I’d keep working for her. That was unexpected after four years of really helping her out.
Elvagabundotonto
5. Not all hope is lost.
My sister and I haven’t voluntarily spoken to each other since I left home 15 years ago.
No grand falling out, we just always loathed each other and once we didn’t have to live in the the same tiny house together (with our discipline-obsessed parents) we had no reason to have to associate with one another anymore.
We’ve seen each other at Christmas at our parents’ place, at a couple of family funerals, and we can be civil to each other. But she’s always been pretty vile to me if we have to spend any time alone. I tried reaching out a couple of times in my 20s but she was just kind of crappy with me so I left it alone.
And then one weekend she emailed me to tell me she’s making some changes in her life and regrets the fact that she doesn’t know me at all, and that she wants us to try and forge a real sibling relationship, independent of our messed up upbringing and the people that we used to be.
I might be getting a sister, a proper sister.
Butwhatsmyname
6. So hypocritical it hurts.
My friend got engaged. He’s been very vocal in the past about not wanting to get married, and when our other friend got engaged after being with his girlfriend for 6 months, this guy went on a rant about how it was stupid to get engaged after such a short time.
Well come June, turns out he’s engaged, has been for 6 weeks, and has only been with the girl since February. Oh and she is his best friend’s ex, and that relationship ended in January.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
Keekee13
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7. Dad? Is that you?
My dad robbed a Blockbuster that he worked at when I was 10. One day I called the store to talk to him to see if he could bring me home a game for Playstation, and the manager asked to talk to my mom.
He then proceeded to tell us that my dad robbed the store a couple of days prior and was arrested. He kept coming and leaving the house as if he was still going to work all those days. Needless to say, the divorce happened shortly after.
He also flew a lady out from SF that he met online, only to send her right back as she wasn’t what he expected…what a jerk.
EazyDAnk
8. Behind the exterior.
Coworker of mine just stopped coming into the office. That’s not that big a deal really, but it was after he used his vacation time, so it started to track down to sick time, and then unpaid leave.
The boss started getting nervous. This wasn’t normal behavior.
Anyways, this guy had worked quietly for 13 years, had been there a decent amount of time but never advanced or anything- just your typical quiet worker.
But then, poof: he just stopped coming to work.
Like completely stopped. No explanation, no text or call to our manager or anything.
So our immediate superior gets mad, and we’ve all seen this play out at least once or twice before. Some people just aren’t cut out for this line of work, but then the guy in question wasn’t exactly a new hire. He’d been with the company for a long time. Phone calls, emails- they’re going to fire this guy soon and they’re running out of excuses not to because he’s just not responding.
The manager has to go to HR, and now people start to wonder if maybe something happened. Call him on a different line along some really old emergency contact information, still no answer.
The thing becomes a mystery in the office. Nobody knows. Rumors start to spread. Maybe he’s dead…maybe there was an accident, maybe he got poached and went to another company…
They fire him, finally. I mean, I think they did. No other option really because he’s not in the office and they definitely replaced him.
The thing is, he’s not dead. He’s not sick or hurt or gone off to another company. No: this guy is a legend.
See, it turns out he was chipping at the metaphoric cell-block of office work, always grinding away like that dude from Shawshank Redemption. He’d been stockpiling over half his salary for years with some magic number off in the distance, and then when he reached it, the guy just retired. Like dropped everything right there and then, and just left without telling anyone.
I only know because somehow word got out from someone who knew a friend, who knew someone, who knew him- one of those long convoluted grapevine rumors, only this one held a lot more water than the rest of them.
I crept around on Facebook a few weeks after they replaced him, and there he was: All his posts were public too. The latest ones are just him on a beach or travelling on the road somewhere. Early 40s, worked quietly for years without any crazy windfall or salary, but he’s apparently a millionaire (or at least living like one).
Throwaway51551515151
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9. You can’t choose your family.
My aunt stole a large sum of money from me. When I turned 18 I was to get a check for 18 years of per cap with interest. Six months before my 18th, she quit her job and started working at a small 5 location credit union. She asked me to move my accounts there to help her meet quotas since she just started and would do joint accounts so I could get the benefits too. Ten months later I thought she had a better job and was reaping the benefits when she started to remodel her house and spend her nights at the bar. I didn’t think anything of it because she was my aunt and had a decent job.
When I went to change banks because I was moving across the country she told me she already withdrew the money and I couldn’t get it and since it was a joint account there was nothing I could do about it.
While not fine the worst thing about it was that she claimed it was what my mother wanted and was in her will. Then when disproved said she deserved it more than me, and then eventually that because she did it in a legal way it was hers now. She convinced her boss that I was trying to ruin her life so I couldn’t even go to them for help.
Eventually I got 60% of it back from a settlement but she burned all the bridges she could in the family. She would cut off any contact with people who asked what the problem was. Or would threaten to if they talked about it. Since she was getting free child care from her mom she said she would rather pay for childcare than listen to her mom talk about me. So my grandmother had to keep quiet or she would lose her other two grandkids and her last living daughter along with me because I was moving across the country.
Total blindside.
Killer_Tomato
10. You think you know someone…
I found out my roommate sexually assaulted a friend of mine and had been stalking him. She told me they had consensual sex, and had spent months talking about how he was ignoring her and how hurt she felt. She also made sure to tell him that I supported her, so that he and I did not talk.
Finally, she threatened him and his girlfriend after sending him about forty emails one night. He texted me asking me if I could help, and I called him immediately and we finally touched base.
It was the most terrifying information to learn, because she has been manipulating me in a way which basically made me realize all of her behavior and actions that she had told me about were BS.
Horrific to learn…I’ve never felt so viscerally shocked and betrayed before.
Spiderlegged
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11. Even your friend can be a shady car salesman.
I bought a used car from a friend during college years who was himself a mechanic.
The car looked like new. I thought I knew him well enough to take his word that the car was in “perfect shape and not needing any money spent on it.”
Turned out that he used our friendship to unload a vehicle fraught with mechanical woes – including serious transmission repairs, brakes and electrical issues.
Back2Bach
12. Please never talk to me again.
Guy that I grew up with killed his girlfriend right after we all got out of high school. Shocked us all.
He was incarcerated in ’88-’89. In 2004 I went into a little convenience store. There’s a great big guy in there, he knows my name and greets me enthusiastically.
I don’t recognize him – of course you know how this ends, it’s my former childhood friend. He had been out for about a month. And does he like to talk. I’m not kidding you, he recited my old phone number from the ’80s back to me like lightning. And then my best friend’s, and several of our other friends. Never seen anything like it.
Then tells me he has a Corvette. and that “maybe if you’re a good girl” he’ll let me ride in it sometime. Ew.
MooPig48
13. Nice excuse.
A friend stole 200 out of his best friend’s wallet, they were like brothers. This was at another friend’s wedding. He even helped look for the wallet when it was assumed lost. The CCTV was reviewed the next day by the happy couple when they see him clear as day open the wallet, count the cash out and dump wallet in a bush.
They then see him 45 minutes later ‘find’ and then re-hide the wallet so it’s in clear view, then ushers people to check another area again. Luckily all was sorted the following day by wives and girlfriends where he cobbled together a story about trying to stop him wasting his money.
Maintained that story until he realized we’d seen CCTV. Hasn’t apologized and lost a whole group of friends.
Mikejclark
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14. A turn for the worse.
My best friend through high school, college, for whom I was the best man at his wedding, and whose kids I babysat on more than one occasion, who never did drugs or drink excessively for as long as I can remember, decided one night to get behind the wheel drunk, and with a strange woman nobody in our circle knew, and drove into a ditch.
The woman was fine but he was taken to emergency room, suffered concussions and later released. He hasn’t been the same since (2 years ago now), and couple of months ago he got a divorce.
Trepidwolf
15. You just had to push the right button.
My husband is kind of a no-nonsense guy, or at least more straight laced than me. He’s an engineer, and a safety analyst to boot so he’s very conservative about pretty much everything.
However, one evening we had friends over and after dinner, we let our friend take the remote and flip through the channels to find something to watch. As they were flipping through, they paused for a millisecond on a WWE match that had ridiculous costumes (like a little person in an alligator suit fighting a man in a bunny suit). My husband exclaimed “GO BACK!” as soon as our friends passed it and so they went back and kept it on the WWE match.
My husband inched forward on the couch and stared intently at the match then proceeded to laugh the hardest I’ve ever seen him laugh (to this day) at all the silly fighting choreography – I’m talking can’t breathe, tears streaming down a red face type of laughter. It took us all off guard but especially me.
Since then (we’ve been married for almost a year now, and dated for two and a half), I’ve come to realize that lots of stupid things that most people would simply chuckle at – he just cracks up at. He also thoroughly enjoys those Dear Kitten commercials by Friskies cat food.
chalter
16. He was going to “work.”
I had been dating this guy for almost a year. Everything seemed normal. He and his daughter lived with his dad in a big two story house. His dad worked a lot, made really good money. I would have definitely considered them upper class.
Soo anyway, my ex had full-time a job, his hours were always different but he’d go in almost every day. He would always tell me about his day, things he has to do at work, typical stuff.
One day I get a call from my parents saying they were worried about me. They informed me that they saw my ex, who was supposedly at work at the time, outside standing on the medium of a busy intersection. He had a sign and was begging people for money. I had come to find out he had been doing that for years, never had a job the entire time we were together and was just lazy. I was shocked at the time, now that I back track I missed the warning signs
lithium99
17. Selfish intentions.
My cousin, who’s in his 50s, was having a rough time financially so his parents (in their 70s/80s I think) helped him move out of state to be closer to them, bought him a house and got him set up and get financially stable.
Shortly after, he sold the house, pocketed the money, went on an around-the-world trip during which time his dad died and my cousin chose not to come home for the funeral. I never thought he would ever do something like this. I see him now posting pics from his trip on Facebook, having a grand old time. I feel bad for my aunt.
reddit_user
18. Don’t let the shy facade fool you.
Found out that one of my good friends started producing fetish videos with girls he met online. I found his hidden gear by accident one day, you should’ve seen his face. He was mostly a shy person so it just came as such a shock.
Fsociety00100100