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People Who Disappeared to Start a New Life Share Their Stories

You might think this only happens in the movies: a person realizes that in order to save themselves (or someone else) they have no choice but to disappear from their lives and begin again as someone new.

It turns out that people actually do this in real life, though, and here are 15 of their stories.

15. I need more details!

My experience is more recent. I left about a month ago.

No real responsibilities or debts and meagre savings, packed a bag one night and hit the road the next morning!

Life is good so far. I’ve met some great people, I’ve stepped way outside of my comfort zone, I’ve got a new job and (finally) a place to live, and I’ve never been happier.

There are people I miss, of course, but I know I’m doing the right thing. It’s kind of a scary time in my life right now, but I know I’ll be a happier and healthier person in the long run.

14. WHY, THOUGH.

Know I’m jumping in a bit late, but this has been pretty much my way of living for the past 10 years.

Every few years I pack up, move countries and start new.

Burner phones, changing emails, and no social network accounts.

I don’t really have a reason for it, I just enjoy being a vagabound and seeing places.

I grew up moving country to country as a child, and when I turned 16-17 it just seemed a natural way of living. I’ve hit around 150 countries so far, and lived in over 20.

I’m still young, and I work in all these places. (surf instructor, running hostels, bartender, teacher, etc.)

ok!

edit:

holy hell, this blew up a bit. I don’t even have internet at where I’m staying right now so I tend to leech it from where I work. I honestly didn’t think anybody would even see this. I’ll scroll through a bit and answer some questions if I can.

Cheers!

13. Sometimes you want to go where nobody knows your name.

When I was 17 I up and moved a few states away. Didn’t tell a single soul.

I was sick of being picked on and harrased. I had a drug problem, my friends were all dying, my mom died when I was young, and my dad left me after she died, so I was taken into foster care. After I was taken into foster care I was homeschooled, and never got the social integration that I so badly needed. I was isolated to the foster family. They refused to let me hang out with anyone, have friends, girlfriends, etc. I started acting out at like 14/15 years old, doing drugs and shit to feel like a person. My lack of social skills got me beat up and stepped over every day. I just wanted a friend though. Anyone I would hang out with would steal my money, or talk shit behind my back…this, that….I guess the teenage experience.

So one day, I decided to just leave.

I had a lot of people that knew me, I had family, not a real mom or dad, but I do have blood relatives. And…yeah….

The story is fucked up to actually.

I took some acid, had a realization that anyone I cared about was dead, and I would be too, if I didn’t destroy myself, id kill myself. So, tripping sack, I decided to grab a bag of clothes and hop on the next train out. No money, not even a wallet. Just a small duffell with a blanket and about two days worth of clothes. I snuck on the train, went 4 hours, and got off when I felt like it. I begged for bus money, and slept on the street and random strangers couches for about a year.

The rest of the story is kind of boring, just a lot of struggling. I will say, it was the best choice I ever made. I was going nowhere, and it took a damn lot of work, but I made myself into something.

I have my own place, a car made last year, I got my GED, go to college, work as an EMT, and also work at MIT. None of that would have been possible without leaving. It was refreshing. Nobody knew me. I wasn’t a failure to people up here. I wasn’t that weird kid. I wasn’t being bullied to the point of suicide. Nobody really knew my situation, well, anyone I was talking to as friends anyways. But that doesn’t matter now. People don’t matter to me. I concentrate on my own life, my own well being.

I left because I had no one. Now I realize that people aren’t worth it. They’re selfish, and out for their own well being. Most of them anyways. Now I’m content with nobody. I’m content with reaching my goals, and being the person I aim to be, on a daily basis. Someone who is there for whoever needs it, as a shoulder to cry on, a door to be opened, a person to vent to, a couch to crash on. I guess I’m rambling now. Hope at least someone gets to read my experience.

12. A fresh outlook on life.

I moved from the United States to Taiwan. And, while I will likely only be here for a couple of years, it’s amazing how much it helped. It cured the depression I never even realized I had.

EDIT: Never expected people to be interested in my story. Unfortunately I am at work on a break, so I have to be brief. But, basically, I never realized I was “depressed” in the United States. I mean, I wasn’t sad all the time. I had friends. I did well at a top tier university. None of that characterizes a depressed person, right?! But, I never felt very excited about anything. I just felt as if though I was going from box to box, looking for happiness. Wake up, get in my car. Drive to class. Leave class, go to a restaurant. Go home. Want to have some fun? Meet friends in a bar. It was all driving in a box to another box and convincing myself it all mattered. I just thought that’s what life was, and the fact that I was always sorta “meh” was what being human was.

Then, I got a grant to move to Taiwan, and I did it. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I suddenly feel like a person for the first time. There is a large, large, LARGE sense of community here. I feel like things matter. I don’t just drive from place to place, eating at identical restaurants. I realize I am perhaps being a bit cryptic here, but it just feels like things “matter” more here. Go out to eat? It’s not always going to be a chain restaurant that looks like all the other chain restaurants, due to all the building codes and ADA regulations. I might find myself in a bit of a shack, run by a family for decades, where people pour their heart and soul into the food. I know I am being general here, and I KNOW that “real” restaurants exist in the US, too. But, in general, I feel like Americans have traded variety for security. We like the security of knowing we can travel to another state and find the same 10 restaurants. We like the security of strict building codes, knowing that all the door handles are the same design in case of an emergency. And, of course, there are merits to all of this.

For example, in Taiwan, people will park all over the sidewalks, and you often find yourself dodging around parked cars when walking, into the street. As an American, I sometimes freak out and think, “WHY ARE THEY MAKING PEDESTRIANS WALK IN THE ROAD?! ASSHOLES. THIS IS A SIDEWALK! AAARGH!” And, this isn’t about sidewalks. But this draws to a larger metaphor. In America, you’ll get a ticket in a second for parking on a sidewalk, and pedestrians never have to worry about walking around cars on a sidewalk. To me, that is trading variety for security – we want to make sure every road is safe and “up to code,” and as a result, all you ever see are empty sidewalks. In Taiwan, just walking down a block can be a fascinating experience, as you never quite know what you’ll see. I worked in an un-air-conditioned building in Taiwan’s 100 degree summer, and I was sweating all the time. As an American, it bothered me so much, and I took several showers a day. Then you realize, “I’m human, it’s hot, I’m sweating… so what?” It’s that overall mindset and general ideology that “freed” me in Taiwan, and made me feel like a person again. I’d rather just live, rather than attempting to set up a utopia of safety and comfort.

So, me? Personally? Hopping on my scooter, driving through slightly-un-okay-level dangerous streets, not knowing if I can always find “that restaurant I like,” and knowing that every street will bring something completely new (good or bad)…. It changed my life, honestly.

I am pre-preemptively worried that someone will misunderstand this as a Taiwan vs. America argument, which it isn’t. If you can be as happy as I am right now in America, then more power to you. I am legitimately happy for you. But me? I can’t. I needed a change. And, it wasn’t until I made the change that I realized how badly I needed it. If you feel like you need a change, maybe you should just do it. Something like moving to the other side of the planet may seem insane and almost impossible. Well, it is. And that is exactly why you should probably be doing it.

EDIT 2: Wow, I am overwhelmed by the positive feedback here! It honestly warms my god damned soul to think that I maybe nudged even one person out of a rut, let alone dozens or more. I have been getting some negative feedback as well about my generalizations of America, which I expected. I didn’t really “plan out” my post as much as I just wrote it on the fly based on what I was feeling, so some of my examples (building codes, restaurants, etc) aren’t perfect. They were only intended to capture what I feel is the overarching ideology of Taiwanese life, but they definitely ain’t perfect. Also, I in no way “hate” America, as it made me who I am today. I attempted to explain this in my last paragraph, but I didn’t do a great job. Anyway, whether you liked my post or not, I fucking love you guys – keep on keepin’ on. And remember, though it almost always seems like there is, there rarely exists a good reason to not do something big if you think it might be just what you need.

11. People can still be toxic even if they’re related to you.

I am assuming you cut ties with your family as well. What do you think about the countless movie and TV series references to “family is the most important thing in the world” and some ideas in psychology that put your relationship with your parents above everything else? I am asking because I moved away from my family and I don’t miss them a bit, and most people think I am a monster for doing so. I wonder if we might have emotional problems in the long run.

10. Not so far, but far enough.

Faked a big move and cut ties with family and friends. I live about 20miles from my old home and kept my job. It has been 2 years and my anonymity remains intact. Happy life without the drugs, drama and abuse. Still keep in contact with my little brother, but that’s it. Everybody thinks I now live in Russia. Edit: details.

9. When you can totally reinvent yourself from scratch.

I dropped everything and left without telling anyone where I was going. I hardly packed anything, just grabbed what I needed and left the state. I go by a different name now and I have no regrets. I was in a terrible place and now I’m so much happier.

I think the only difficult thing is how to figure out who I am now. I spent so much time living for the people around me that I didn’t even know who I was. Do I even really like to bowl? Is this really how I want to dress? But I get to re-learn and re-explore myself slowly and it’s a wonderful journey.

8. No regrets is an awesome place to be.

I didn’t do anything drastic like change a name or fake a death; I merely chose to cut out the terrible people in my life. My father abused me growing up, including sexually molesting me. While coming to terms with this as a young adult, I tried to kill myself. After leaving the mental hospital he mocked me. That was when I saw the light and decided to cut him out. A year or two after that my mom decided to a) uninvite me to christmas, and b) kicked me out the day before the holiday when she realized i didn’t intend to go. i left, she changed the locks. i decided to leave totally, and merely left town, blocking everyone there on my fb (didn’t want my wherabouts getting back to my family.) i live within an hour’s distance, never had a run in since. nor egrets.

7. Leave the toxic people behind.

I didn’t fake my death to start over, I just moved. Unless you’ve done something illegal or owe a shitton of money, just moving across the country will be drastic enough to ensure that 90% of people you’d want to avoid never contact you again.

A few months ago, I threw my hands in the air, said “Fuck it,” and moved several states away. The fresh start is awesome, and I’m so much happier now. I have just about everything I’ve ever wanted here, and I love the fact that I don’t have to relive ancient history every time I pass a landmark that reminds me of something.

Just cut ties with whoever is causing you grief, regardless of who they are or what their impact on your life is. Excise the tumor, and then pick up and go. Don’t ever let them back in, either…because cancer spreads.

EDIT: Wow, this blew up overnight. I’m more than happy to answer any questions that anybody has. And also, thank ye kindly strangers for the gold.

6. Very good advice.

I have an uncle who attempted suicide four times and failed. For his fifth, people were pleading with him to try anything else. I went to a park with him and smoked a joint and he told me he was planning on killing himself again. We sat in silence and jokingly, I suggested he just start over. If his life was bad enough to end, then he could end his life that he’s living and just starting a new one, in maybe Arizona or some far away shit.

Two months later I heard he left out of state and got a new phone and maybe a new name. I found an M&M container with a thank you note and three perfect joints a couple weeks after that.

I’m sure he’s doing ok.

5. This honestly sounds like a dream.

My story is definitely less extreme than some on here, but it is probably more realistic for those of you considering a big change. And I didn’t have to completely restart my life.

I got married about 15 years ago, and was on track for medical school. We were excited about our prospects but we wanted our lives to be an adventure. The expectation was that we would move to Boston and work 80 hours a week. It would have given us both strong careers, but…

So I went to medical school in Ireland. She got a job in Dublin. I worked hard through medical school, but our weekends were in Paris, Rome, Budapest, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, Porto, Tunis, Athens, Oslo, Berlin, and so many more. We could NEVER have afforded even two of these trips from the States, but from Dublin they were dirt cheap. Our target airfare was £15 each way.

We lost a lot of friends in those 6 years but not the good ones. And goddamn it was an adventure.

4. Sometimes you just need a fresh start.

I didn’t have to fake my death, but I was an active heroin addict in my old life so I guess it’s possible that people think I’m dead or in jail. Shit I got lucky not to be.

When I got clean I also moved a few hundred miles and cut ties with everyone except my family. It’s much easier to stay clean living somewhere without a ton of history of drug use, no reminders. I also am in a new college.

Overall it’s pretty good; I have a quiet and productive life, not much socially but I have people I can call if I feel the urge to not be alone. Loneliness is an issue but I try to remember that it’s better than living like I used to and isolating myself with erratic behavior.

So overall I’m pretty content with the whole “fresh start” deal.

3. Sometimes rearview mirrors are no good.

I don’t plan to fake my death or anything, but i am planning a move in the coming weeks. I have a bit of cash saved up and I’m actively seeking employment at the new location. Once I have a few nibbles there I’m buying a one way bus ticket and I’m not looking back. 400 miles away and no former friends or family members to bother me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Edited to add:

For those of you who are curious I have moved. I had about $3500 in the bank to spend. I posted an ad on craigslist, believe it or not, seeking temporary housing and was contacted by a local who agreed to let me stay for a couple of weeks just as long as I paid the agreed on amount up front. Once I had that ironed out after emails and phone calls I packed a bag with the stuff I wanted to take and I walked to the bus station. I went in blind but I knew that if worse came to worse I could find someplace for a couple of days if everything fell through.

My original estimation was incorrect, my new home ended up being 600 miles away from my old home. I arrived, paid my rent for the agreed upon two weeks, and visited four other longer term places for rent.

As of right now I am away from my old life, I have a longer term place to live, my rent has been paid for two more months, and I have a couple of job prospects. I am still unemployed, but the only thing I have to pay for in the coming months is food and I have enough for that.

2. Fill up your own clean slate.

I’m about to do this, I live in a fairly small city in Southern California, and I’m constantly running into people I didn’t want to see again from high school, ex-girlfriends, girls I regret never asking out, douchenozzles that are more successful than me, people younger than me having babies, etc. and friends who are just stuck,

Basically reminders of things I don’t want to be reminded of, and things like getting stuck in life and never progressing. Also high school, this is a big high school town, you can’t fucking escape it.

So I’m finishing up my associates at community college and using that as an excuse to transfer to a college in Hawaii. I have no family there, no friends, no acquaintances. Nothing. I am really looking forward to the clean slate.

1. Whatever keeps you alive.

My brother in law did this, essentially. He tried twice to kill himself, and was just living day to day on meds, trying not to feels.

There was a girl in high school who he had a crush on, but she moved to Texas(we live in Florida.) About a year she contacted him on facebook, and they started talking, and it really seemed to help him.

So, one day, we get a call from his work asking where he was(they knew he had problems before), so we start freaking out. Luckily he answered the first time we tried to call him. He had been on the road for about 6 hours already heading out there to see her. He initially was just gonna see her for a week or so and come back, but his engine died when he got out there, so he decided to stay. 5 months later, and they are together, hes slowly getting off his meds, and hes happy.

I’m fascinated and could read these all day!

I’m going to assume nothing like this has ever happened to you, but if it has, we need details!

The post People Who Disappeared to Start a New Life Share Their Stories appeared first on UberFacts.

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12 Mindbenders That Might Just Mess With Your Sense of Reality

The simple definition of a paradox is this: a statement that contradicts itself or a situation which seems to defy logic.

These are all around us every day, and range from something mundane like saying “I always lie” and the complexities surrounding the idea of time travel.

If you’re into reading things that really bend your brain, I present these 12 paradoxes, designed to do just that.

12. When did it cease to be?

The Ship of Theseus always kind of fucked me. So, there’s this Greek dude called Theseus, and he’s on a very long boat trip home. His ship needs repair, they stop, replace a few rotten boards, and continue. Due to the particularily strenuous nature of this very long trip, several more of these stops for repairs are made, until, by the very end, not a single board from the original vessel remains.

Is this still the same vessel? If not, when did it cease to be?

11. Simple but not.

Pinocchio says “My nose will grow after I finish this sentence”

Does it?

10. The more traffic, the more traffic. Or something.

Braess’ paradox.

From wiki “the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can end up impeding overall traffic flow through it. The paradox was postulated in 1968 by German mathematician Dietrich Braess, who noticed that adding a road to a particular congested road traffic network would increase overall journey time.”

9. Just stop it, people.

That “this page is intentionally left blank” page.

The page isn’t even blank anymore!

8. Triple make you crazy.

The UK ‘triple lock’ that people moving to the UK experience:

Need proof of address and photographic ID to open a bank account

Need a bank account and photographic ID to rent a place

Need a bank account and an address to get sent your photographic ID

7. The Legend of Zelda.

What about the song of storms from the legend of Zelda?

In the legend of Zelda ocarina of Time, you travel though time between child and adult by using the master sword, and doing so you can come back to certain areas to get different items from both times.

Well one song the you learn is called the song of storms and you learn it by going to the adult time and talk to a guy in a windmill. He tells you about a kid that came in 7 years ago and played a strange song and messed up the windmill and teaches it to you. After learning the song you can now go back to being a child and go to the guy in the windmill and play the song to him, despite not knowing it before as a child.

So questions are where did the song come from and who taught who the song? Did the windmill guy teach it to link or did link teach it to the windmill guy?

6. And around and around forever.

Jim is my enemy.

But it turns out that Jim is also his own worst enemy.

And the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

So, Jim is actually my friend.

But…because he is his own worst enemy, the enemy of my friend is my enemy.

So, actually Jim is my enemy.

But…

5. Where to put the hooks?

So i know this is just a silly thing but…..

At my old work, my department was food service. In our prep room, you had to always wear an apron. Always, no exceptions.

When leaving the preproom, you had to take your apron off to prevent cross contamination.

The bosses were trying to figure out where to put the hooks. Inside in the back of the door, or outside on the wall.

4. Definitely hard to explain.

The Banach Tarski paradox is one hell of a mind fuck.

Its basically taking something, and rearranging it to form another exact copy of itself while still having the complete original. Like taking a sphere, which has infinite points on it and drawing line from every “point” on its surface to the center, or the core of the sphere. Then you seperate the lines from the sphere, but because there is infinite points you now have an exact copy of the original sphere.

Its kind of hard to explain here so just watch the Vsauce video on it for a more in depth explanation.

3. The coastline is always growing…or something.

The coastline paradox.

The more accurately you measure a coastline, the longer it gets… to infinity.

2. But you do, in fact, reach the door.

One of my favorites is Xeno’s Paradox.

In order to leave my apartment, just for example, I have to walk half way to my front door. Then I have to walk half the remaining distance. Then half that distance, ad infinitum. In theory, I should never be able to reach the door.

Now I love this paradox, because we’ve actually solved it. It was a lively, well-discussed debate for millennia. At least a few early thinkers were convinced that motion was an illusion because of it!

It was so persuasive an argument that people doubted their senses!

Then Leibniz (and/or Newton) developed calculus and we realized that infinite sums can have finite solutions.

Paradox resolved.

It makes me wonder what “calculus” we are missing to resolve some of these others.

EDIT: A lot more people have strong opinions about Zeno’s Paradox than I thought. To address common comments:

1.) Yes, it’s Zeno, not ‘Xeno’. Blame autocorrect and my own fraught relationship with homophones.

2.) Yes there are three of them.

3.) If you’re getting hung up on the walking example, think of an arrow being shot at a fleeing target. First the arrow has to get to where the target was. But at that point, the target has moved. So the arrow has to cover that new distance. But by then, the target has moved again, etc. So the arrow gets infinitesimally closer to the target, but doesn’t ever reach it.

4.) Okay, you think you could have solved it if you were living in ancient Greece. I profoundly regret that you weren’t born back then to catapult our understanding two millenia into the future.

5.) Yes, I agree Diogenes was a badass.

I hope this covers everything.

1. Just take a shot and pick a box.

Newcomb’s Paradox:

There are two boxes, A and B. A contains either $1,000 or $0 and B contains $100. Box A is opaque, so you can’t see inside, Box B is clear, so you can see for sure that there is $100 in it.

Your options is to choose both boxes, or to choose only Box A.

There is an entity called “The Predictor”, which determines whether or not the $1,000 will be in Box A. How he chooses this is by predicting whether or not you will choose both boxes, or just Box A. If the Predictor predicts that you will “two box”, he will leave Box A empty. If he predicts that you will “one box”, he will put the $1,000 in Box A. He is accurate “an overwhelming amount of the time”, but not 100%. At the time of your decision, the contents of Box A (i.e. whether or not there is anything in it) are fixed, and nothing you do at that point will change whether or not there is anything in the box.

It is a paradox of decision theory that rests on two principles of rational choice. According to the principle of strategic dominance:

There are only two possibilities, and you don’t know which one holds:

Box A is empty: Therefore you should choose both boxes, to get $100 as opposed to $0.

Box A is full: Therefore you should choose both boxes, to get $1,100 as opposed to just $1,000.

Therefore, you should always choose both boxes, since under every possible scenario, this results in more money.

BUT:

According to the principle of expected value:

Choosing one box is superior because you have a statistically higher chance of getting more money. Most of the people who have gone before you who have chosen one box have gotten $1,000, and most that have chosen both boxes have gotten only $100. Therefore, if you analyze the problem statistically, or in terms of which decision has the higher probability of resulting in a higher outcome, you should choose only one box. Imagine one billion people going before you, and you actually seeing so many of them have this outcome. Any outliers became insignificant.

In terms of strategic dominance, two-boxing is always superior to one-boxing because no matter what is in Box A, two-boxing results in more money. One-boxing, on the other hand, has a demonstrably higher probability of resulting in a larger amount of money. Both of these choices represent fundamental principles of rational choice. There are two rival theories, Causal Decision Theory (which supports strategic dominance) and Evidential Decision Theory (which supports expected utility). It is pretty arcane but one of the most difficult paradoxes in contemporary philosophy.

Robert Nozick summed it up well: “To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly.”

EDIT: I made some edits…to make it clearer.

EDIT: There are also an offshoot of Newcomb’s Paradoxes called medical Newcomb’s Problems. I’ve been in a situation like this before, I’ll describe it:

I went on an antidepressant, and there’s a history of manic depression in my family. My psychiatrist told me that for some people, antidepressants bring out their manic phase, and they find out they have manic depression. They already did have manic depression, so it doesn’t cause it, it just reveals it. She told me to watch out for any impulsive decisions I making, as that can be a sign of a manic phase.

I was in line at a convenience store and thought: should I buy a black and mild? I don’t really smoke, but for some reason it seemed appealing. Then I realized, that seems like an impulsive decision. But, if it is an impulsive decision, and I go through with it, and do indeed have manic depression, then I should just do it anyways. After all, it’s not making me have manic depression, it’s simply revealing something to me that I already had. On the other hand, if I don’t do it, then I have no evidence that I have manic depression, meaning that there truly is less evidence, and therefore I have no reason to believe that I have manic depression.

Expected utility = don’t buy the black & mild Strategic dominance = buy the black & mild

These situations aren’t quite as easy to see, but they’re interesting anyways.

I’m doing quite well now and all indication is that I do not have manic depression.

I’m off to take a nap to recover.

Do you have a favorite paradox? If it’s not here, please leave it in the comments!

Yes, we’re asking you to mess with our head once again. Because that’s how we roll.

The post 12 Mindbenders That Might Just Mess With Your Sense of Reality appeared first on UberFacts.

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History Buffs Share What They Believe Are the Greatest Real-Life Plot Twists in History

This is gonna be fun…

Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it, of course, and so if you’re someone who likes to see everything coming, you’re going to want to be up on the unbelievable, real life twists and turns.

I’m not promising that studying the past can help you predict the future, but – hey. It can’t hurt.

15. He must have been a lawyer in a future life.

It’s definitely Darius the Great’s ascension to the throne of Persia. Basically, he was caught literally red handed standing over his dead predecessor with a knife.

“Oh shit,” thought Darius.

“Oh shit!” said the magi. “Call the guards, this guy just murdered the emperor!”

“Whoa whoa guys, listen,” interrupted Darius. “I know what this looks like, but it’s not what it looks like. Not only did I NOT kill the emperor, but I can tell you who DID kill him. It was this dead motherfucker right here, who I realize looks quite a bit like the emperor but what you need to understand here is that he was actually a shapeshifting wizard, right? So he killed the king and pod-peopled his way to the throne, and all you guys are just lucky that you had someone like me here to avenge the rightful ruler, who I totally miss dearly.”

The magi consulted, and with a chorus of “why would someone lie about something like that?” They unanimously decided to raise Darius the wizard slayer to the throne of Persia.

14. A great do-over.

On June 28th, 1914, Gavrilo Princip’s group “The Black Hand” fucked up the first time when it came time to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. His colleague was to throw a grenade under the carriage as the Archduke and his wife passed over. The grenade delayed and blew up as the next car came by. He panicked, swallowed a cyanide pill, and jumped in a nearby river. Except the cyanide pill just made him vomit, and the river was 6″ deep, so he was caught pretty easily.

Gavrilo Princip was pretty damn dejected and went to get some food at a local restaurant at this time. After the assassination attempt, Archduke Franz Ferdinand told his driver to head to the hospital where he and his wife could visit those injured from the failed plot on his life. Cars hadn’t been around for too long, so when the driver got lost and tried to reverse the car, it stalled…right in front of the restaurant where Princip was finishing lunch. He walked outside, saw the Archduke standing there, and fired into his neck.

The most revolutionary event of the 20th century was a do-over.

13. Maybe we should have seen this one coming.

I’m going to simply take the answer /u/beardedmessenger gave 10 months ago to the same question:

“After World War 1, France dictated the terms of armistice to the Germans. A mere 20 years later, after Germany had just got done with powering through the french in 6 weeks, Hitler set up a meeting in the same train car, in the exact same place as the armistice was signed after World War I. Except this time, he was making the terms for the armistice to the French. ”

And, as /u/hellsheep added:

“and, even better, a few years later the Germans blew the train up while retreating so they wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of signing another armistice in the exact same train car.”

12. This is almost too strange to be true…but it is.

At the start of the Cold War, Henry Murray developed a personality profiling test to crack soviet spies with psychological warfare and select which US spies are ready to be sent out into the field. As part of Project MKUltra, he began experimenting on Harvard sophomores. He set one student as the control, after he proved to be a completely predictable conformist, and named him “Lawful”.

Long story short, the latter half of the experiment involved having the student prepare an essay on his core beliefs as a person for a friendly debate. Instead, Murray had an aggressive interrogator come in and basically tear his beliefs to pieces, mocking everything he stood for, and systematically picking apart every line in the essay to see what it took to get him to react. But he didn’t, it just broke him, made him into a mess of a person and left him having to pull his whole life back together again. He graduated, but then turned in his degree only a couple years later, and moved to the woods where he lived for decades.

In all that time, he kept writing his essay. And slowly, he became so sure of his beliefs, so convinced that they were right, that he thought that if the nation didn’t read it, we would be irreparably lost as a society. So, he set out to make sure that everyone heard what he had to say, and sure enough, Lawful’s “Industrial Society and its Future” has become one of the most well known essays written in the last century. In fact, you’ve probably read some of it. Although, you probably know it better as The Unabomber Manifesto.

Edit: Thank you for the gold.

11. WHO’S LATE NOW?

Backstory:

There was a samurai in Japan, circa 1600(?), named Miyamoto Musashi, who was frequently late to his duels. He was very skilled and world renowned as one of the most talented samurai to have ever lived.

One day, he decided to challenge the leader of the Yoshioka School, Seijuro to a duel. Seijuro agreed, and as always, Musashi came late. He struck Seijuro with a single blow, crippling his arm and knocking him out. Seijuro decided to pass ownership of the school down to Denshichirō, who immediately challenged Musashi back for revenge. Again, Musashi arrived late, disarmed and promptly defeated Denshichirō.

Here is where the plot twist comes in to play. The head of the Yoshioka school is now the 12 year old son of Denshichirō, Matashichiro. He (and his entire force of archers, musketeers, and swordsman) challenged Musashi to a final duel. Musashi decides that this time he is to arrive EARLY and hide nearby! Fantastic! So when Matashichiro and his army come marching by to the place where the duel is to occur, expecting a tardy Musashi as always. He springs from his hiding spot, and runs to Matashichiro, completely demolishing this 12 year old kid. He then escapes from the force by drawing his second sword.

TL;DR Samurai defeats an entire lineage of a martial arts school by changing from his usual routine of showing up late.

Edit: Circa 1600 and his name was Miyamoto Musashi, for those wondering.

Edit 2: Words

Edit 3: More words.

10. He beat the game twice.

Yi Sun-Sin. Pretty much all of this guy’s life was an epic twist. He joined the Korean military back in the 1500s when they were being invaded by Japan. He became a top commander and helped save his nation from being conquered by the Japanese. Then his jealous rivals had him framed, tortured, and imprisoned. When he was released from prison he re-enlisted in the military at the lowest rank, then was promoted all the way back up to commander and once again saved his nation from defeat against impossible odds.

Edit: fixed for accuracy.

9. What are the odds?

The real life story of Squanto.

Squanto (or Tisquantum) was captured by early explorers around 1590 and taken to Europe as a slave. He escaped and spent the next 20 years or so earning enough money to get passage back to the New World.

When he finally gets back to his home village he finds that just about every single American Indian on the East Coast has either died of disease or fled west. His village is abandoned.

He lives a pretty solitary life for a year or so until he comes across these starving Englishmen trying to make a colony in Plymouth. Since Squanto can speak English he is able to help the Pilgrims and shows them how to grow native crops in his family’s abandoned fields.

Thus Thanksgiving….

The odds of a struggling colony landing in an almost completely depopulated land (disease ravaged just 2 years before landing) and also finding a Native who speaks English… astronomical.

8. At least he was right about it being painless and humane.

When King Louis XVI suggested the guillotine be triangular shaped, then the people used it to kill him.

7. Huh. Wonder why nobody stopped him.

That a small time, strip club owner can walk into the Dallas police station and shoot the man who shot the POTUS 3 three days earlier in front of the entire police force.

Edit: grammar

6. The Vikings always found a way to win.

The English fought off a Viking invasion only to be invaded from the South by Normandy.

Plot twist: Normandy was under the rule of the descendants of vikings. So the vikings still conquered them.

5. France just couldn’t shake him.

Napoleon escaping Elba and sweeping back into brief power only to meet his Waterloo was a nice series of twists and turns.

4. They were only making things worse.

During the 14th century, cats were killed en masse due to the belief that cats were in league with the devil and the cause of the Black Death. If the cats had remained alive to keep rodent populations down (the hosts of the fleas that were the actual cause), the plague would have had much less of an impact.

Edit: For everyone saying cats would have fleas: Yes, and they would carry/transmit the disease as well, but due to predator to prey ratio (roughly 1:50 for cats), the density of the disease vector would be substantially reduced. Much like reducing the density of a forest can slow or stop the spread of fire, lowering the density of a disease vector can slow or stop the spread of said disease. It would have still existed but not in the same severity.

3. Let’s just have a little chat.

Attila the Hun turning back from his conquests after talking with Pope Leo I.

2. Spy stories never disappoint.

A man who was seriously considered to be the future leader of MI-6 (the British equivalent of the CIA) during the cold war with the Soviet Union was actually a highly effective spy for the USSR. If one of his mentally unstable friends hadn’t defected to the USSR, casting suspicion on him, he may have become head of MI-6. Name was Kim Philby, and he eventually defected to the USSR.

Another one of his friends from uni ended up as the royal art curator for the Queen, and was highly respected in academic circles for art analysis and he too was a highly placed spy. This was kept under wraps until Thatcher “outed” him in the early 80s

1. I’m not sure that was how they hoped it would work.

The treaty of Versailles. Ends the the worst war known to man at the time, but sparks a Second World War, set up the modern day boundaries of the Middle East with no cultural considerations, and Woodrow Wilson denied Vietnam self-determination from France in order to get the treaty passed, eventually sparking the Vietnam war. The treaty that was expose to end all wars, sparked many of the current problems today.

History is pretty hilarious and interesting when you find the right stories!

Do you have a favorite straight-out-of-the-history-books tale? Share it with us in the comments!

The post History Buffs Share What They Believe Are the Greatest Real-Life Plot Twists in History appeared first on UberFacts.

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15 People Share Small Things You Can Do Today to Start Making a Difference in Your Life

Change can seem very overwhelming, especially when we’re talking about big lifestyle changes.

That’s why this article from AskReddit is so helpful. People offered up small tips that you might want to consider to start improving your life.

Baby steps!

1. Flossing is important.

“Oral hygiene. Gotta be more consistent when it comes to flossing.”

2. Just do it.

“Start doing the “Rule of 5″ If it takes less than 5 minutes to do a task when you see something, and you’re not already mid task, just get it done. You’ll get your chore list cracked out a lot faster if you just clean the counters as you go around the house doing other stuff.”

3. Just a little bit.

“Do something a little bit.

Work out a little bit, so you can be just a bit stronger.

Eat a little more healthy, so you can be a bit healthier.

Always improve on something at least a little bit every day, and in the long run, you’ll be doing great.”

4. Always improving.

“Be actively kind to yourself. What did you do today that was great? Cherish it.

On the other hand, when you’re good at being kind to you(!), take the next step: what did you do today that you want to do differently tomorrow/next time?”

5. Set your goals.

“Start thinking in long-term (say, five years), medium-term (say, a month to six months) and short-term strategies (say, one day to a week).

You can break the long-term plan down into medium-term plans, and the medium-term plans into short-term plans. What do you need to be doing today to get you to where you want to be next week? Next month? Next year? Once you’ve got that in mind — and you get into the habit of taking manageable bites out of your life goals — it becomes a lot easier to achieve what you want.

The advice I always give relates to writing a novel. A novel is 90,000 words, give or take. If you write 250 words a day, every day, you’ll have the first draft of that book you’ve had rattling around inside your head on paper by the end of 2020. If that seems daunting… well, this comment is 210 words long. It took me less than five minutes to type up, and I’m only, what, forty words away from being on target? How many Reddit comments do you write in a day? How many Facebook updates? How many tweets?

A little amount of sustained effort is (usually) the best way to get where you want to be.”

6. Take a walk.

“Go for a walk, even just a short one. I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome a few years ago and I could barely get out of bed but I forced myself to walk- first to my mailbox, then the end of my street and beyond. It may not seem like much but I promise it can make a huge difference.”

7. Clean it up.

“Donating/throwing out/selling old stuff you no longer use. Also, cleaning out your fridge.”

8. Wake up fresh.

“Do your dishes before you go to bed. Waking up with a clean kitchen is a great feeling.”

9. All in your head.

“Be aware of the narratives we make up in our heads that only cause distress or anger.

An example of what I mean: “My friend hasn’t texted me for 3 days, she must be growing tired of our friendship!” More likely is that your friend is simply busy.”

10. All good tips.

“Allocate time more directly to maintenance of my body and home:

I lost 100 lbs this year. All due to diet. I could be a lot healthier if I added 30 minutes of exercise.

Then there’s my house, after I lost my wife I had a lot of trouble motivating myself to clean and now certain rooms are really needing it. If I could allocate even just an hour a day to it I would eventually be able to get back to regular maintenance rather than feeling helpless every time I open the door to one of those rooms.

Lastly, reading. I desperately want to get back into it and I’ve succeeded a couple times and loved it. But college broke my spirit of habitual reading and I’m not sure how to get it back.”

11. One piece at a time.

“If you’re sitting on a couch, desk chair, or lying down, and you get up to go to the bathroom or kitchen, take something with you. The 2 empty water bottles near your bedside, or the dirty dish on your coffee table. Knock out 2 birds with one stone.”

12. No more soda.

“Drink more water. Less soda.”

13. Very important.

“Stretch.”

14. Nobody’s perfect!

“Realizing you don’t have to be perfect is a good first step. People get shit wrong, we’re fallible!

Also I cannot stress enough how good books are for your brain. Expands your vocabulary, encourages imagination and creative thinking and even if you have problems with reading words, for example if you’re dyslexic, audio books are a thing and for the most part they’re just as good and effective.”

15. Start MOVING.

“Get the fuck out of bed. Stop snoozing. Stop laying there. Just get up, make your bed if that’s your thing, and have a big glass of water. Then move. Yoga, a walk, 20 jumping jacks. Anything. Just move a little bit.”

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Desperate Ways That Celebrities Have Tried to Stay Relevant

We live in the age of social media “influencers,” and it’s pretty easy for celebrities to figure out a way to make some extra cash off of their fame. If their initial careers peter out, there are plenty of solid back-up options.

And also, plenty of not so solid back-up options. Over the years, celebrities have resorted to all kinds of wacky antics to hold onto their dying fame.

On AskReddit, users shared the most desperate bid for fame that they’ve ever witnessed from fading celebrities. These stories are pretty bleak!

1. Remix albums.

“Vanilla ice putting out an album 5 years ago with 5 different versions of Ice Ice Baby.”

“He played at my college to promote that album.”

2. Infomercials.

“Infomercials. My favorite is Montell Williams selling blenders with special guest star Silvia Browne.”

“Shaq’s icy hot commercials are pretty funny.”

“Kevin Bacon’s commercials in the UK for EE. Impossible not to cringe every time they come on TV.”

3. Phone sex operator.

“When Octomom became a phone sex operator and did porn.”

“Lest we forget the time she ‘guest starred”‘on MTV’s Silent Library. She laid back on a gyno table with her feet in the stirrups and ‘shot’ plastic baby dolls at the contestants from her vag.”

4. Stage-bombing.

“Lil Mama getting on the stage when Jay-z & Alicia Keys were performing. Oh God!”

5. Under-attended concerts.

“Aaron Carter just performed a concert in my town for a crowd of a whopping fifty people.”

6. Farfetched lawsuits.

“Lindsey Lohan apparently suing Rockstar because of stuff in GTA 5. Claiming that they are using her as an image or something stupid.”

“Will.i.am suing Pharrell for saying “I am” in a song.”

7. Fake relationships.

“Farrah Abraham faking a relationship with James Deen.

8. Reality shows.

“When any “celebrity” does a “celebrity” reality show (ie Celebrity Diving Challenge, Dancing with the Stars, Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Rehab). It’s just so embarrassing.”

“David Hasselhoff’s reality show. Basically every reality show.”

9. Random sitcoms.

“Kristie Alley always seems to show up in a terrible new sitcom/commercial every other year. Just stop it already!”

“This most recent one seems exceedingly desperate. Especially with Michael Richards playing a seemingly Kramer type character and Rhea Perlman who hasn’t been seen since her divorce.”

10. Selling their stories.

“Mine would be seeing Lindsey lohan sell out her “recovery story” to Oprah.”

11. Talk shows.

“I think the Sarah Palin show. I live in Alaska and that shit was just embarrassing for this state.”

12. All things Kardashian.

“Anything anyone with the name Kardashian does.”

“If you really think about it, they were just a little bit famous because the Robert Kardashian (the dad) was OJ Simpson’s lawyer. Kim kept that fame by sleeping with Ray J, who was also clinging to fame behind his older sister Brandy. So really, the first thing Kim did in her career was something desperate to stay relevant.”

13. Plotting with paparazzi.

“I’ve read that Jennifer Love Hewitt will personally call some of the paparazzi, but act like it’s an anonymous call, to let them know where she will be so they can show up and photographer her.”

14. American Idol.

“Becoming a “judge” on American Idol.

Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Paula Abdul. People we haven’t heard anything out of in years join the show and release more shitty music.”

15. Sex tapes.

“Dustin Diamond aka Screech doing a sex tape and having a rap career, probably.”

“The Chyna sex tape is right up there.”

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People Share the Way They Got Revenge on Those Who Wronged Them

As the saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold.

And these folks behind these stories certainly know that to be true…because they got revenge on people who messed with them in major ways.

Check out these twisted tales from people on AskReddit.

Do you have a killer revenge story of your own? Share it in the comments with us.

1. Let’s start with a long story.

“When I was 15 years old, my parents divorced. We lived on a farm and I bucked bails and pulled fence year-around to pay for motorcycle gas. I was also about 6’4″, 300lbs at the time and in varsity football.

I wasn’t taking the divorce so well, so I moved in with my mom, who had just got her own place. I was in my bedroom one day and heard a commotion, so I went to the kitchen to look. Right as I turned the corner, I saw her new boyfriend (we’ll call him jim, because that was his name) backhand my mom, knocking her to the floor. She scurried to her feet in disbelief, grabbed her keys and ran out of the house. Moments later, I heard her lay rubber in the driveway..

Seeing my mother flee from this man with such panic and fear in her eyes filled me with rage. I’ve been mad before, but not like this. I wasn’t mad, I was full of pure hatred and rage. My life sucked already. My parents were going though a very very messy divorce, I was a misfit in school, my younger brother and sister were both suffering as well, so all-in-all, I was already furious about everything up until this very second.

I confronted jim, who stood 5’5” and maybe 150lbs max, about hitting my mother, trying to the best of my ability to hold back the rage. He made the worst mistake possible. Jim got physical with me. He raised his hand up like he was going to backhand me and that’s when I snapped.

I don’t remember how his swing landed. I’m not sure if he was able to land a blow or not, everything was just a blur. The next thing I could really remember was sitting on his chest punching his face so hard, the back of his head was bouncing off the linoleum. I hit him until he was unconscious and bleeding from both every hole in his face.

I stood up and went to the bathroom to clean myself. When I got back to the kitchen, he was still unconscious on the kitchen floor. The pool of blood around his head was still growing. At this point, I thought I had killed him. I dragged him out of the house by his feet to the back of his hilariously jacked-up ford pickup. I dropped the tail-gate and threw him into the bed of his truck. I threw his coat, keys and anything else I could find of his in the house in the bed with him and went back into the house.

About an hour and a half later, I heard his truck start-up and drive off. When my mom came home, she did not even ask about my hands or the half-cleaned bloody drag marks on the front patio, concrete walkway and the grass. I’m sure she knew exactly what had happened. I’m half convinced that she anticipated my reaction and that may be why she left me at the house with jim after he hit her.. I don’t know..

I saw jim in a gas station several years later and his face still showed obvious signs of trauma. Bags under his eyes, twisted nose, missing teeth up front, etc. And yes, I feel terrible, still. ? “

2. Wow!

“My then-high-school-girlfriend was a total bitch, and wanted me to abandon all of my friends, would always try to bring me down, etc.

When I got fed up, I broke up with her on picture day. She took them, but her mascara was everywhere. Two days later, I told her that I was sorry, blahblah, and I wanted to get back together. She liked having someone to walk on, so of course she said yes. I then broke up with her again on retake day.”

3. That’s what friends are for.

“I had a friend in high school who became an asshole during our senior year. There were a bunch of little things that added up to our friendship falling apart, but at the worst of it I pooped on his car one night.

Real simple, I just crawled up on the hood of his car and took a shit on his windshield. I just knew that he’d walk outside the next day and think, “what the fuck is this?””

4. Cheated on.

“In 2009 I deployed for a 6 month tour to the Helmend Province in Afghanistan. Running at least weekly missions from Leatherneck to Now Zad. We were the only unit that would run that route in the entire AO, it was that bad.

A month into the deployment, I was just getting 6 months into my first “real” relationship. It was long distance, as I was stationed in NC and she lived back home in NY. We were planning on getting married, but my Staff Sergeant gave me a little speech and I decided that it was best to wait until after the deployment.

She was already cheating on me 4 months into the relationship. I took it hard. And that’s all I thought about for 6 months while I waited to get back home. I had a bunch of her stuff, and she had some of mine. I never got any of my stuff back, but she had given me this tiny little dancer trinket to wear on my dog tags. Her mother had given it to her before she ran off, so it had some sentimental value to her. ‘

Oh, and 5 months into my deployment, her new Level 3 sex-offender boyfriend who she left me for goes back to prison for probation violation. I get a message over Facebook that she “Just found out she’s six months pregnant, and it’s mine.” There’s no way you “just find out you’re 6 months pregnant” when you weigh 110 pounds soaking wet. It was a sham to get me back, there was no pregnancy.

6 months later, I arrive back home. I go into the Subway where she works, and lo-and-behold she’s working. I walk in, and she goes “Welcome to Su…” and cuts off mid-sentence as she sees me, with a look of absolute horror on her face. I walk in, walk up to the counter, look her dead in the eyes, set the dancer trinket on the counter, shake my head, and turn around and walk out. I could hear her start crying before I got to the door.

I’m much more successful out of the military. I have a great job, an amazing girlfriend, and a sweet townhome. I’m about to get a dog here soon. I’ve never blocked her on Facebook, I just don’t see her updates in my news feed. She’ll poke me every once and a while, but I never poke back. It’s nice to know that she can watch me be successful without her, and I know her life is in shambles. About once a year she tries to message me and ask me how I’m doing, but it usually ends with her going on some depressing rant about how she fucked up and wishes she never cheated on me and left me.”

5. No regrets.

“I had a loud ass apartment neighbor that was always causing problems. My wife got fed up one night when him and his drunk friends were wrestling in the parking lot while making a ton of noise and called the cops.

This was an angry drunk Mexican that decided to retaliate for the cops getting called by breaking my antenna off my car as soon as the cops leave.

I fumed about the antenna for a week or so when the dick came back home drunk again at 6 AM again waking me up as he thundered up the stairs. It wasn’t till a couple hours later we noticed he left his keys in the door of his apartment. I snuck up the stairs and took his keys right out of the lock and chucked them in a ditch a block away.

The best part was hearing him storm around tearing his place up looking for them. You could hear the prick moving furniture and shit. His truck had two separate alarms and after he lost his remotes he had to replace both of them. I regret nothing.”

6. You’re in trouble.

“My first high school bf was not very good with grades so he asked me to make him a fake report so he could show his parents and not get into trouble. He also cheated on me with my best friend and dumped me. He then promised to get back with me if I forged the report for him.

I agreed up until the day when we were meant to get our reports for school. I told him I didnt do it. He got bashed by his dad when he got home for the string of D’s and F’s.”

7. You’re gonna get sued.

“I went to school with someone who was a real dick. He bullied me a substantial amount and eventually I got fed up with it.

One day when we were in the library, I saw him log on. As he went to access his emails, I snuck a look at the keyboard and noticed his password . Lo and behold, the idiot used his name and a number and that was it.

Queue creeper time. When I went home I had a quick look through his emails. I noticed a rather interesting discussion between himself and a friend of his. To cut a long story short, his mother had convinced centrelink (unemployment benefits in Australia, maybe elsewhere, I don’t know) that he had a learning disability in order to claim more money.

I forward this email archive along with his password to Centrelink. They probably couldn’t directly access his email account due to redtape, however, I think someone must have done it off the books. A few weeks later at school I hear that ‘Bob’s’ family was getting taken to court and being forced to pay back all the excess money that was claimed under false circumstances.

I don’t know how it ended up as I graduated before the case was settled but I know they had to pay back several thousand dollars at the least.”

8. Win in the end.

“About 4 years ago, I found out my husband of ten years was fucking around with a girl he went to high school with. (It should be noted that they never dated because, according to him, she was too much of a whore not to fuck more than one dude at a time) At this time, I was a full time student and he was financially supporting us and our toddler. When I found out, I flipped shit, understandably.

He called me a psycho and decided he wanted to leave me for her. So I quit school for a year, worked two jobs, paid for the divorce and supported our child by myself. I ended up supporting myself thru school, graduating with honors, landing my dream job and generally kicking ass on my own. He, on the other hand, has been cheated on several times, lives in a shitty trailer park with his whore girlfriend and generally is a loser. Technically not fucked up revenge, just very very sweet.”

9. Hahahaha.

“I live in a very small town so locking your car doors is not very common. One day my friend played a prank by putting dog shit under my car seat on a hot summer day so my car smelled terrible for a week.

At this time I was dating his sister and she would send me nude pics, one day I showed him a pic of just her boobs and he got excited and asked me to send it to him. I figured he was going to wack off to it so I sent it to him and then told him a few weeks later who it was…6years later I’m engaged to his sister and we still have never talked about it.”

10. Break a leg.

“When I was seven, the Monica Lewinsky scandal happened, and my name happens to be Monica. You can imagine what a bunch of immature kids liked to call me. One girl who was several years older than me, whom I never talked to before, kept picking on me and calling me Monica Lewinsky. I asked her to stop, and she didn’t. Keep in mind that this girl was pretty big compared to me.

One day, she was playing on this jungle gym in the shape of a fire engine and was trying to balance, so I took advantage of her vulnerability and started tickling her. When I noticed she didn’t like being tickled and was losing her balance, I continued to tickle, which was probably my innocent way of being violent. The girl eventually lost her balance, fell down, and broke her leg. When I saw her later on in a cast with crutches, she looked at me with this apologetic expression and never called me Monica Lewinsky again. She was afraid of me, a little seven-year-old girl.”

11. Bad parents.

“I have one I’m about to do in a couple days. See my parents suck, I’ve been taking care of them for a while, while also going to school and what not, and still they are trying to cheat me, pawn my things, etc. But I’ve become fed up with them. I’m out of town at the moment, but when I get back, the next time they ask me to walk two miles to get them a pack of cigarettes, I will walk outside, around the house, have a friend with a van come.

Bring my pre packed shit out of the basement entrance, leave and stay at my friends house for a few days until the day my train ticket is planned for, then move 2000 miles across the country and live with another friend who just got me a job. Rendering them worthless pillheads waiting for a pack of pal mal menthol 100’s for the rest of their sad lives.”

12. Oh, Vanessa…

“My sister used to beat me up, steal my birthday money, call me a fag in front of friends and girls i liked. when mom went shopping for Xmas my sister would tell her to buy me these horrible clothes to make me look the part. Pretty much was just a total bitch to me. So everytime i had to pee in the shower id pee in her shampoo and body wash all over her razor, body sponge thing , everything. Fuck you Vanessa.”

13. Life blew up.

“I too dated a cheating girl. But I’ll start by saying I’m stupid and took her back after the first time. The first time she cheated it was with her “ex”boyfriend. I knew it was happening so I got her phone and got his number and I called him. He, naturally, didn’t know anything about it and I 100% believe him because she is a scum liar. So we set it up for her to meet him in a park to which I’d be there too. Unfortunately, the ex couldn’t follow through with it and and the plans foiled but her double life still blew up in her face.

But the better one was I knew she was cheating on me with this dude named Tim. So one afternoon I had her come over to my house. She said she had dinner plans and wouldn’t be around that night. So I wanted to fuck her one last time so I had her bent over my bed and was fucking her doggy style. I took a sharpie marker that I had laying on my night stand and, while fucking her, wrote “Hi Tim” on her ass. Again, he knew nothing about me and, again, her life blew up in her face.”

Yikes! Those were some stone cold revenge stories, right? People can be brutal AF sometimes…

Alright, it’s comment time! Let us know your faves!

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15 People Share the Things They Regret Finding out in Their Lives

Sometimes, you find out things that you wish you hadn’t…

Have you ever discovered something in your life that you really wish you hadn’t? Something that changed the way you thought about things or people?

I know I have, and I wish I could turn back the clock and erase those certain things from my mind. But…that’s life…

AskReddit users shared the things they wish they’d never learned in their lives.

1. Robbing the cradle.

“My mum was 14 when she met my dad. He was 24.”

2. Sad…

“That my best friend took her own life. She told me she was moving and gave me all her stuff because she said she had a furnished room where she was going. I hadn’t heard from her in awhile and she never answered my texts so i looked up her name to see if she had an accident. Nope, it was suicide. The kicker is she had talked me out of it back in 2014 and i wasn’t able to be there for her.”

3. She knew…

“That my mother knew she had cancer a year before she told anyone or rather, a year before she was “diagnosed” after I literally forced her to see a doctor for her then extremely distended stomach.

I was under the impression that we told each other absolutely everything because up until that point, we did. I found out the truth a month after she died when I’d requested all of her cancer-related paperwork from her oncologist.”

4. Uh oh…

“That my younger sister has a high rank in a local BDSM club…”

5. That’s a lot to handle.

“My dad informed me when i got back from Iraq that I was the reason he and my mother got a divorce. I never really wanted to join the military anyways, and it fucked me up big time. They had financial troubles and my mom sent me care packages quite a lot. Apparently, that put them into bankruptcy, and if I hadn’t joined it wouldnt have happened. I just wanted to get out of that house because it was like I didnt exist.

Edit: I’ve never received this much support regarding this issue. Thank you. For the first time I think I really believed it when I told myself it wasn’t my fault. I’m smiling so hard through the tears. Seriously thank you.”

6. Way too young for that…

“Mom telling me on regular basis when depressed that she wishes she would fall asleep and never wake up. Don’t tell a six year old this, damn.”

7. Family history.

“I didn’t meet my dad until i was 15. It was in secret since my mother wanted nothing to do with him. Within the first 3 sentences exchanged, he felt the need to tell me that i was conceived on a beach in July during the last time they had sex. I was the product a going-away fuck in a relationship doomed before my conception. He followed it up with “We were good at two things, me and your mom. Fightin and fuckin. Unfortunately we were fighting more than we were fucking so it stopped being worth it.”

10 years later and this is still how i get my family history.”

8. Didn’t need to hear that.

“When I was about 14 my mom took me to a tattoo shop to get her nipples pierced. While the procedure was happening, she turned to me and said “your Dad bites harder then that”……I could have lived without that info.”

9. Bad news.

“That my father cheated on my mother on a regular basis, I discovered he even went in an orgy while with my mom which is not a cool thing to learn when you’re 15 and don’t know if you’re mother knows or not.”

10. Awful.

“That my grandmothers fiancé is a convicted pedophile, she doesn’t care and has moved in with him. He was a teacher at a middle school and sexually abused and violently assaulted 3 handicapped children.”

11. Wow…

“That I’m possibly inbred. My dad had a kid with his first cousin and the kid had down syndrome and a hole in his heart (sweet as can be and really good at videogames). Apparently that was a little common on my dad’s side so it’s possible I’m slightly inbred.”

12. Terrible.

“My mother died in a car accident when I was three. I found out from a newspaper article years later that it was her fault. She wasn’t paying attention and crossed the yellow line and ended both her life and that of the person in the other car.”

13. Defrocked.

“I regret finding out that a priest I used to admire was a pedophile and has since been defrocked.”

14. That’s pretty classy.

“Finding out my ex had slept with my uncle and 3 of my friends…”

15. Totally gut wrenching.

“Looking on my ex gf’s phone when we were on a trip to Ithaca NY. I would take any physical pain I’ve had so far over that I felt when I saw the things on there. Totally gut wrenching. I wanted to marry her.”

The post 15 People Share the Things They Regret Finding out in Their Lives appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Share the Weirdest Gifts They’ve Ever Received

It’s officially the holiday season! Lots of gifts, including really odd gifts from your family, most notably your Uncle Al who likes to give really weird presents every year.

Do you have someone in your family who gives odd gifts for holidays and birthdays?

These AskReddit users certainly do…

1. Thanks, Mom…

“One year I came home for Christmas and my mom had been asking me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her I didn’t want anything, I had everything I need and not to get me anything.

Well, come Christmas morning there were a number of gifts with my name on them.. we always hand out all the gifts first and we each had a pretty decent pile..

We always start with the youngest and go up so I was like 3rd or 4th in line, and everyone had pretty normal gifts.. gloves, PJs, usual winter gift stuff.

My turn comes up, I probably have maybe 8 or 9 small packages to open. I open the first one and it’s a box of hamburger helper.. I laughed and was like, uh thanks Mom..and then I continue.. after 3 boxes of hamburger/tuna helper there’s a couple cans of chef boyardee and spaghettios and I’m like.. do you think I’m not eating or something, or are you trying to kill me? What’s with all the random food?

Her response? “No, I just felt bad that you didn’t have anything to open on Christmas! You can go put those back in the cabinet when you’re done.”

Thanks, mom. ?”

2. What a gift!

“A co-worker of mine won a radio show contest where people were invited to describe the crappiest office gift they ever got. My friend was the secretary of an IT company and her boss gave her a plastic bowl for Christmas. And it wasn’t even a nice plastic bowl. The first time she put it in the microwave, it melted. She won the contest and got a $100 gift card to Outback Steak House. Her boss insisted she take him since it was his crappy gift that caused her to win the contest.”

3. There’s always an uncle like this…

“My uncle is notoriously cheap. One year he gave me a magazine that had Ichiro Suzuki on the cover. It was a free magazine (as it stated on the bottom of the cover). Another year he also gave me a free t-shirt he had gotten for running a race. Possibly the best, was the birthday gift he gave my dad one year- a McDonalds Happy Meal toy.:

4. Can’t talk trash because he’s the boss.

“Maybe not the most WTF, but at my old company, we had a secret Santa gift exchange. The manager drew my name, and gifted me a very clearly used zoodler. He proceeded to explain, in front of everyone, that he though I would have more use for it, as he only ate “real noodles”.

I don’t work there anymore.”

5. What are you talking about, Granny?

“I got a 3 foot tall stuffed Mr. Peanut doll from my 89 year old Grandma for Christmas…when I was 23.

She said “I know how you like to collect things like this.” Not sure what she was talking about.

I did kind of love it though and still have it 12 years later.”

6. Mocked mercilessly.

“An Egyptian pharaoh pen when i was in middle school. It was all gold colored, and the pen barrel stuck out between his legs. Needless to say i was mocked mercilessly by my classmates for having this massive Egyptian dong pen.”

7. Give it away, now.

“I have been disabled my entire life. It affects the footwear choices in my life. My mom has bought me dozens of pairs of slippers that I cannot wear. Sometimes multiple pairs per year. I have given up at this point. I just give them away.

When I was a teen, before I moved out she also had given me embroidered dish towels with weird sayings.

She also refuses to actually get my damn size and just holds clothes in the air and looks at them to decide if it looks like it should fit.”

8. An empty box.

“A cheese and champagne gift set that had the champagne and most of the other goodies taken out of it. So cheese in a mostly empty box.”

9. Thanks?

“When I was a kid (6 or 7) I had surgery on nearly all of the fingers on my dominant hand (the other hand came later!), scary surgery for a kid though pretty simple, mostly boring and a few weeks of pain, my aunt (who I love) sent me a coloring book in the hospital as a “cheer-up” / “pass the time” gift.

If it’s the thought that counts, I like to say, we should think hard ….”

10. Actually…

“I randomly went to some extended family Christmas event and they gave me a woven basket. Within ten minutes, they had asked for the basket back. It “meant something” to them?? I didn’t really care, I thought it was odd and funny.”

11. Dammit, Mom!

“A lavender gift set (eye mask, cream, perfume) from my mother in law. I am severely allergic to lavender, and she knows this.”

12. Sharing and caring.

“Christmas, 1993. I was eleven.

My grandma gave me one half of a pool cue.

She gifted the other half to my then-8-year-old brother.

Grandma: “See? You can only use it if you two cooperate and share!”

We did not own a pool table.”

13. WTF?

“When I was accepted into my business college they sent me a single sock.”

14. A great Christmas.

“I was once given some yeast, a cucumber and a pack of Toblerone for a secret Santa.”

15. I need that DVD in my life.

“My little brother bought me a “How to become a Male Model” DVD. Got drunk with my buddy and his girlfriend. We were laughing the whole time. Then she wanted to watch it again and they had a fight over it.”

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Mall Santas Share Their Favorite Stories from Their Holiday Jobs

You have to be a special sort of person to take a job as a mall Santa during the holidays. For one thing, you have to look the part! Also, dealing with kids (and their parents’ expectations!) for hours every day can’t be the easiest task – especially when the season already has people stressed out.

If you want to know why they do it (or at least how they get through it) here are 15 stories that make the experience a little more real.

15. A kid that’s going places, for sure.

Not a Santa, but I have been a Mrs. Claus for the last few years and I always ask the kids what they want while we do our crafts.

My favorite was this 4-5 year old girl that told me she wanted “one of those loud horns”. She made a gesture like she was using those canned air horns and she made a little horn sound. She said she wants to use it to wake up her baby brother when he naps in the daytime so he “knows what it’s like.”

14. It’s best to be specific.

Not a santa but an elf.

I read a letter (maybe I shouldn’t have) from a child who asked for a dolphin, specifically not autistic. Not sure if he had had a bad experience with disabled dolphins or what but he was about 6 years old .

13. Well, Santa tried.

My 3 year old son asked Santa once for “a baby rhino” Santa told him that “The baby rhinos mama would be very sad to lose her baby though”

Then my son said, “okay, well I’ll take the mama too, maybe she can sleep in my moms bed”

12. Lol, yikes.

Many years ago a small girl would not tell her mother what she wanted for Christmas. Mom told me the problem and I was to tell her after the kid jumped off my lap. The little girl hopped up and told me she wanted some make up and some tits…. ok now I have to tell mom.

11. That Santa probably had some *thoughts*.

My sister asked Santa for “Black Men” for Christmas. She meant “Men in Black.”

10. I bet he had a baby sibling.

Not me but my dad

a kid asked for his moms milk he was like 7

9. This is so incredibly pure.

I was an assistant manager for a mall Santa with Noerr Programs. There was a special needs 20-something black guy that would come by nearly every day. He easily weighed more than 250 pounds so we did eventually convince him to sit next to Santa instead of on his lap. Every time he had to remind Santa what he wanted for Christmas. His list was Home Alone on DVD, Straight Outta Compton on DVD, and Prince’s 1999 album on CD. Santa was awesome and brought him the Prince CD a few days before Christmas.

8. It’s always the younger sibling you have to watch out for.

Yesterday the big sister asked for a pet mouse, the little sister asked for a snake.

7. That’s not as weird as it is sweet.

Not a mall santa my friend was one. He said that the weirdest thing he heard from a kid was a husband for his mom.

6. This is tough.

I worked in Russia as “Snow Maiden”. This is a Christmas character here, Santa Claus granddaughter. One of the children in a wheelchair asked to walk again. It was hard.

Upd. For people’s, who wanted funny answer. In my practis was a boy, who wanted a girlfriend. He was 5-6 years.

5. Being a parent is hard.

Was a Santa at a party last week. A kid asked for a whistle that she could blow at night to wake her mom up and scare her when she was sleeping.

I said “No, that would put you on the Naughty list, let your mom sleep you little gremlin.”

Mom laughed.

4. Smart kid.

My uncle was a Santa and he told me that one year a kid asked for a coffee maker because he wanted to start his own Starbucks coffee stand instead of a lemonade stand. Apparently business was not very good as a lemonade stand but he noticed a lot of adults drink coffee, so he’d make coffee.

That kid is probably a millionaire now.

3. Bread is life.

A piece of toast.

2. You sit on a throne of lies!

For me to “stop upholding this charade”

1. Did your dad tell you to say that?

There was a joke a radio host told that I heard about 10 years ago or so and there was a mall santa and this kid, and the kid wanted a tonka truck that had a hitch or crane/hook or something, and when it comes time to tell santa what he wants the kid says “I want a truck with a hooker”

I couldn’t do it, I don’t think!

Have you ever played Santa? What’s the best/worst thing that ever happened to you when you did?

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People Share What They Think Are the Toxic Ideas Spread on Reddit

Reddit can be a good site to connect with people and to learn about different topics, but let’s face the facts: there are a lot of people out there with dangerous ideas that spread like wildfire on the Internet.

That’s why it’s important to find your news from reputable sources…which can definitely be hard to do these days.

Folks on AskReddit shared what they think are the toxic and potentially dangerous ideas and beliefs that people share on Reddit. Share your thoughts in the comments.

1. Deviating from the norm.

“Absolutely hating on those that deviate from the norm. Hating on people that conform to society’s norms but not Reddit’s norms. Hating on people trying to have fun or hobbies.”

2. Pure selfishness.

“Glorification of selfishness. I get the impression a ton of people on this site have difficulty asserting themselves, or recognizing or setting their own boundaries, because Reddit is full of advice geared toward people with these problems.

What these posters seem to forget is that not everyone is codependent with self-esteem through the floor. And yet anytime anyone wants to get out of something that someone else wants them to do, Reddit leaps to “no is a complete sentence! Put yourself first! Don’t JADE!” In real life though, maintaining healthy relationships requires sometimes doing things you aren’t thrilled about for others’ sake.”

3. Let’s see the proof.

“Reddit is very much “Guilty until proven innocent”.

They will jump straight down the throat of any alleged criminal with 0 facts, 0 context, and demand they be sentenced to years behind bars, or worse.”

4. Quick to judge.

“Reddit has a tendency to label people “toxic” and encourage relationship advice that isn’t great.”

5. That’s bizarre.

“Worshipping celebrities. 10 year olds don’t need to receive death threats because he’s never heard of a 55 year old actor.”

6. Hostile to the facts.

“Reddit is extremely hostile to actual expertise. If you state outright “I do this professionally and you are wrong” it will send people into an impotent rage. If you don’t say so, they will smugly keep missing the point. There really is no good way to try to correct misconceptions or bad information.”

7. Amen to this one.

“To an extent, Reddit plays a role in the growing anti-intellectualism. There seems to be a large assumption that this is a website of experts and lengthy replies must be credible. I saw a fellow redditor describe it perfectly, “you finally realize how little most redditors know when they start talking about a topic you happen to be well researched in”.

I see this in two places primarily, topics about public education (I am a middle school teacher) and topics such as anti-vaccine. I understand reddit hates anti-vax for good reason, but it is also stuck in the old “anti-vaxxers are just stupid” stereotype. Instead of educating and helping the problem, they just poke fun. This unfortunately drives more anxious parents toward anti-vax communities. A little empathy, understanding, and education would do more to combat ideologies such as anti-vaccines than anything reddit actually does.”

8. Does that mean you can do whatever you want?

“Those people who make introversion out to be an excuse for some pretty terrible antisocial/misanthropic/unacceptable behavior.

I don’t like loud spaces and can feel overwhelmed by crowds of people; I would pay not to go to a concert. I also genuinely love the people in my life and will always make time for anyone who needs me. In my experience this is true for everyone extroverts and introverts alike.”

9. Don’t take this advice.

“Everyone is an armchair psychologist. You post about feeling sad sometimes and inevitably someone is like “thats because you have atypical depression and bipolar disorder” or whatever.”

10. Come on Reddit…

“One example of this….a medical doctor posts a well written comment about the dangers of over prescribing anti biotics. Top comment of the thread. Tons of awards. Later a 2nd year med student posts a similar comment. Still well written but maybe misses a few key points specifying how and why. Again…top comment of the thread. Gilded to the nines.

Later a college freshman bio major writes a pretty bad summary of the situation but it’s part of the Reddit hive mind echo chamber so anyone who bothers to correct him gets misinterpreted and downvoted. And so on and so on until someone LITERALLY TELLS ME they read on Reddit that taking antibiotics is dangerous and will lead to a super disease that will wipe out humanity. Come on Reddit….”

11. Stereotyping.

“Stereotyping, in general, seems rampant. Many comments and posts seem to believe that individuals are incapable of independent thought and just reflect the race/religion/gender/ethnicity/group/nationality/political party/subreddit/culture they belong to.

People are varied even within ideologies. Argue points and issues, not identities.”

12. That’s not good.

“If your partner does anything at all that you dislike, you should dump them, take them to the police, avoid all other partners in the future, etc etc.

Particularly prevalent in Relationships, Relationship Advice, AmITheAsshole and even just AskReddit itself. It’s rather appalling, and it seems to be pushed by people who have no idea what being in a relationship is actually like. It’s not fucking easy basically, you want to love something and be in a completely committed relationship? Prepare to fight for it, because it is not easy.”

13. What about the gray areas?

“Failure to acknowledge any nuance or gray areas. People feel the need to go all in on one side for any issue. I think they feel they’ll look weak or hurt their argument by relenting on any point. Or having a discussion on any point.”

14. Bad advice.

“That whenever someone in your life isn’t behaving perfectly or 100% supporting of you all the freaking time, you need to “cut them out of your life” because they are “abusive” and “toxic”.

I’m curious how many families have been ruined by such destructive advice.”

15. Most people are good people.

“Most Americans I know are nowhere as racist, dumb or fat as reddit makes everyone else think.

A good bunch of them are smart, hardworking people, and are also nowhere as extremist as to be considered far-right, far-left, etc. Reddit might be a huge echo chamber in politics, but, at least the Americans I know, have moderate views and are easy-going people.”

The post People Share What They Think Are the Toxic Ideas Spread on Reddit appeared first on UberFacts.