And when you decide to take that big plunge, you can use all the help you can get.
Folks who started over in new cities shared their advice on AskReddit.
Let’s take a look at what they had to say.
1. Be smart about it.
“If you can, move with at least three months rent/ bills/ expenses saved. If you’re not going right into a job, you’re going to want that extra cash.
If you haven’t picked a place to live, and don’t know anyone, walk around different neighbourhoods you’re considering before you move (or aim for a short term lease to begin with).”
2. Very specific.
“Do not start a relationship with someone who you met on Tinder because you didn’t want to be alone in a new city and then let the relationship spin out of control and turn out that she’s kinda insane and very manipulative and then your first 9 months in London are s**t and now a whole borough of London is ruined for you by memories of an abusive ex.
Also, find a coffee shop you like that opens late. Nothing like getting some work done while drinking coffee on a rainy night.”
3. From a veteran.
“Moved around a few times, different cities, different countries.
Few tips.
Join stuff your into – sports, drama, drinking club whatever. Get to meet people with similar interests and get a base in the city.
There’s likely a meeting group for people from where you’re from, or at least a sports bar that shows your countries/teams games. Even if you’ve no interest in the sport, there’ll be others there same as you.
Join stuff you want to be into but didn’t for whatever reason. You’ll have the time and whose going to know you here
Get a job with food delivery place, like uber eats even part time. You get to know the city and the best food.
Rent a place short term, couple months until you get to know what part of the city you want to live.
Lovely new apts tend to be in boring places.
Get your public transport pass, the schedules, any apps for the city, emergency numbers, learn the big traffic times…
You’re moving to live, it’s not a holiday so enjoy your first couple of weeks but watch your money.”
4. Stick it out.
“No matter how homesick you get. Stick with it. Grind it out and know you moved for a reason.
My guess is to make a change. So be the change. As dumb as it sounds “be the change you want to see” There will never be a place that feels like “home”. But home will never give you a fresh start. What I’ve noticed from being a military brat and moving multiple times in my younger life to now being a traveling welder and continually moving, you will always be yourself.
But you don’t have to be who you once were or carry the weight of the regrets and mistakes that are making you want to move in the first place. As the old saying goes. “You live and you learn” everybody makes mistakes but if you don’t learn from said situations good or bad you will forever make the same ones. It’s scary honestly. The thing that eats at me the most is everytime I had/have to move is the feeling of being alone.
But every time I do I learn something new about myself that I would’ve never thought was possible. As scary as it is it’s the most gratifying feeling telling yourself “ hell yeah I did that and I made it”.”
5. Doing solo stuff.
“Get comfortable doing things on your own.
You won’t be alone forever, but there will be times where you find yourself with no one to hang out with and nothing to do. Go out anyway. Just wander. It’s incredible how many cool things you can find when you just leave yourself open to possibilities.
Push yourself to explore. I used to do something I called “the alphabet game”. I’d hop on my bike and look for the letters of the alphabet on street signs in order and turn when I came across them (right at “a” left at “b” right at “c” etc.) just to push myself into areas I wouldn’t otherwise find.
Don’t be afraid to visit the touristy spots. When you get guests from out of town, they’ll want to see them and you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the coolest stuff and know what to skip.
If your lifestyle allows, get a dog. They get you out if the house and are a great way to meet people and will help curb loneliness when it pops up. Just make sure you can give it a happy and healthy life. Some cities are far more dog friendly than others.”
6. See the town.
“Ride a bicycle every chance you get. Explore on that bike, and go everywhere.
Its amazing how quickly you’ll feel at home knowing every nook and cranny, every secret and seeing uplcose and personal the details you miss while driving.”
7. Get a routine.
“Find a routine.
Find a cafe/pub where the owner / servers look like people you would like to hang with and get personal with them. Find some community groups. keep seeing all the sights.
Join some meetups, help out for a cause, constantly ask strangers for directions rather than use GPS.”
8. A good start.
“Saying yes to things, and especially new things, is a good life philosophy in general. If you go and end up hating it, well at least you tried it and you’ll know for next time. If you go and end up loving it, awesome! You found a new thing you like.
For me, I had been having feelings of exclusion from my social group, but I realized I was kind of excluding myself by not being present or actively engaging with people.
All types of relationships take work and one of the best ways to make and keep strong relationships with people is by saying yes when they invite you to do things. When you say yes to things, you’re giving yourself opportunities to make memories, get cool experiences, and bond with people.”
9. You’re still you.
“You are still going to be you, so expect that only the scenery will change unless you make a real effort.
You need to find our build a community early before inertia kicks in. Your job, your hobby, and your social obligation are the three best sources. By social obligation, I mean volunteer work, church, fraternal order, whatever.
We have a lot of people come to my home and they keep voting the same way that ruined the places they are fleeing. Yet they come here and keep voting the same way trying to change things, and failing to see the irony.”
10. A big one.
“If you’re moving to a new country, learn the language!
I can’t tell you how much of a difference it makes. Even if you can communicate with people in your language/ another mutual language, speaking to someone in their mother tongue makes the person feel more comfortable and more willing to open up to you.
There’s also the added benefit of meeting friends in your language school if you choose to go that route.”
11. You got this!
“I’ve moved a lot too, and I would also add that I only start to feel settled in after about six months. Totally have the three weeks of hating it, and you’ll still have times when you are so unbearably homesick.
Keep in touch with your old friends periodically (if you aren’t trying to cut ties), and don’t go back to visit for at least four months. Enjoy the relationships you made, and throw yourself into figuring out the new place.
You made friends before, you CAN do it again, promise!”
“I was hanging with friends at a bar, and accidentally sat down at the wrong table (really dark inside). Started talking to those guys, long story short, one of them was getting married on Saturday, and he invited me to come. The other one was his officiant/future BIL.
So I went. It was at the bride’s parent’s house, so I only knew my bar buddies. It was a lot of fun though, I was glad I went! A snobby chick at the reception was like, oh, do you crash weddings often? No, I replied, puzzled, I do go when I’m invited by the groom, though.
The marriage didn’t last terribly long, but I’m friends with the bride on the FB now.”
2. Don’t know until you try.
“I asked a girl that works at the pet store by my house if she had a boyfriend this week. She does, but I knew I’d never forgive myself if i didn’t ask.
I said “Oh, he’s a lucky guy,” and moved on. I’ve been too afraid to ask before and that sucks.”
3. You hungry?
“When I was a kid the cool, older neighbor kids (also young kids) told me to eat grass. I of course didn’t want to, so they told me they all did and I would be cool if I did. So I picked a big handful and ate it while everyone laughed at me.
Afterwards it came out that none of them had, in fact, ate any grass at all, and, as it turns out, none of us knew what would happen if one were to eat grass.
So I ran home where my old man was in the backyard spraying something with a garden hose or some s**t.
I said “hey dad what would happen if somebody ate a big handful of grass?”
He replied, absolutely deadpan “tell me you didn’t eat grass.”
I said “well no but somebody else did and I was just…”
He said, “Tell me you didn’t eat grass…”
Tears started welling up and I said “well I was running real fast and I fell and when I fell my mouth landed on a clump of grass and my mouth closed on it and I accidentally swallowed a whole bunch of it and… Am I gonna die?!?”
He said “Probably. But go in and drink as much water as you can stand and then I will take you to the hospital”
I ran inside and drank as much water as I could and rushed out to the van where the old man was waving me into the open door. We flew out of the neighborhood, screaming towards the hospital while I cried in the back seat.
Finally, we got to the liquor store down the street from the hospital where the old man said, “nah I’m just messing with you. You’ll be fine.”
And he went in and bought beer and we drove home.”
4. YOLO!
“Ziplines.
I have a fear of heights so I was very nervous about going on them in North Carolina with my friends. They were so supportive though talking about how, “Its ok, you dont have to go we understand” or “Of course you dont have to, I just think you would actually enjoy it”.
It was because they were so nice about it I really didnt want to disappoint them. I had an absolute blast on them by the way. So much fun after the first 5 seconds of terror on the first line haha.”
5. You were busy!
“For my 30th birthday I tried 30 new things.
The list included a pedicure and manicure, fancy Starbucks drink, driving a red Porsche, gambling at the casino.
It was a crazy fun day but I learned that I have a great life without all that stuff.”
6. Couldn’t say no.
“Paragliding in Interlakken, Switzerland.
I still have a fear of heights, but all my friends were doing it so I just had to join.”
7. A good decision.
“I joined my friends in auditioning for the musical in senior year of high school because i just happened to be friends with a lot of theatre kids.
Ended up with a supporting role including a duet and a decent amount of lines.
I still consider it one of the best decisions I ever made. It was a crazy amount of fun.”
8. Ouch.
“Ate ten ants to join my brothers club in first grade.
Said I could only join if I ate ten ants. So I did.
And then he disbanded the club.”
9. Had to do it.
“I went to Easter Island!
I was already in Chile for work when I learned that it was the only place that had flights there. I figured it was as close as I’d ever be, and I didn’t know if or when I’d ever revisit Chile, so I took the leap and did it.
Totally worth it.”
10. No way.
“One of those “mud races”.
Got a skin infection and sun poisoning.”
11. Not for everyone.
“Skateboarding.
I have some friends who know how to skate try to teach me, but I just wasn’t good at it.
Too bad because I think skateboarding is really fu**ing cool.”
Have you ever done anything ridiculous due to FOMO?
I don’t like secrets. They kind of eat away at you, like they have a life and mind of their own and just can’t wait to emerge into the big, scary world and do their damage.
Sometimes they come to you when you don’t ask for them and sometimes they’re the result of your own dubious decision-making, but either way, we feel like we have to keep them close for as long as we can.
These 14 people are admitting to sitting on some pretty juicy ones, so check them out.
14. I…wish I had not read this.
I walked in on my ex girlfriend.letting the dog lick her out while she brushed him. It was clinical as f**k, it was “the only way she could get him to not move while she brushed him”.
Zero enjoyment on her face. It was multiple levels of odd.
13. What a mess.
A good friend of mine is Indian and gay, which she knows her family won’t accept. She about to have an arranged marriage to a man, who is also gay.
Neither of their families know the truth and are excited about the upcoming wedding. The groom’s boyfriend is part of the wedding party.
They plan to have children via ivf at some point.
12. You can’t trust people.
I know his kink, he knows mine. It’s basically mutually assured destruction if either of us ever turns into that big an a$$hole.
11. What a horrible woman.
My stepmom threw away a family heirloom that was gifted to me to make my already poor relationship with my dad worse.
I didn’t figure it out until many years later, but my dad has passed now and she was never popular with any of my family or any of his friends to begin with.
10. A huge understatement.
I had sex with my mormon boyfriend before and after he went on his mission, and also either directly before or even after he’d proposed to his now wife (he didn’t think it was particularly important to tell me that he’d found a good mormon fiancé in another town already).
This is a big no-no in the mormon church.
9. Some secrets shouldn’t be kept.
One of my brother’s military friends sexually assaulted me while my brother, his friend, and one of my friends were hanging out playing pool and drinking. My brother knows because I told him the night it happened. My family also knows.
The dude is married and has three kids. Initially my brother was furious and talked about shooting the guy, but now they’re friends again and the reasoning he gave me was “everybody cheats.” Except none of it was consensual and I’m not a piece of s*%t.
His wife showed up in my “People You May Know” on Facebook and I’ve contemplated telling her.
I plan on telling the wife, and yes, my brother cheated on his partner to be with his current wife. He’s also in the military and that’s how he knows the douche in question.
8. They need to be outed.
Not sure about life ruining, but basically someone spammed another person with what they thought were anonymous death threats + told them to kill themselves, then fled the platform they did it on and now are fairly successful on another.
Definitely weird knowing someone’s a shitty person + having evidence and several witnesses while their fans / friends dont and think they’re a sweetheart.
7. She better watch her back.
One of my coworkers smokes meth at work. In the last three months I’ve found probably half a dozen pipes she’s left behind because she’s too fucked up to remember to hide them. About a month ago she started leaving these passive aggressive notes (usually when the boss shows up) about how she’s the only one who does her job
I showed her the folder on my phone and told her if she leaves another bulls*%t note for me to read, I’ll call the boss, then I’ll call DHR.
6. I hate this.
More like a secret amongst me, my mom and siblings, but it’s how abusive my dad used to be. Still is but he has improved.
My brother barely even speaks to my dad anymore, he caught the majority of the abuse when we were teens.
Mum passed away 2 years ago and since then he has stopped majority of his abusive behavior. Whether of not it was intentional or not I haven’t figured out.
But every now and again I’ll just have flashbacks of all the violent and aggressive bulls%*t he pulled.
5. Time to sober up.
Wouldn’t really ruin his life but it would be embarrassing.
One of my buddies is a furry, like a massive furry.
I was looking for some old call of duty videos we made in like 2009, I was just searching the old Gamertags, trying to figure out where they were and a page for a furry website popped up.
It had all his basic info on it, with an up to date age, I looked around the page and found an IRL pic from his room that I recognized. It had like 8 years of almost daily uploads/interactions on there.
Haven’t told anyone, can’t really.
Not going to be the guy that just bullies him or tells our other friends, he’s not hurting anyone. But I’m also not gonna tell him I know, cause that would be mad awkward.
I’m terrified I’m gonna let it slip when I’m drunk.
4. This is downright hilarious.
My mom is the most straight laced, uptight person you can imagine and she works very high level financial jobs for the government.
What no one else knows is that she has a tattoo on the back of her leg of a bear with p**ises instead of legs- like where it’s legs would be there are just massive d**ks. She wears tights or pants to cover it all the time, as far as I know I’m the only person that knows about it. She was a very wild teenager and met up with an “aspiring tattoo artist” (aka rando with a tattoo gun) in a hotel room to get a tattoo of a bear when she was 16- the guy got a little excessively creative and gave her a bear with dicks for legs.
It is so vulgar that if anyone saw it I think there’s a good chance she’s lose her job, or at least have some serious explaining to do. I once asked her why she doesn’t get it removed and she says it’s her “symbol to her stupid youth”.
3. That poor girl.
The family of a good friend (let’s call her Ashley) is very religious. To the point that they only let her go to school or out with people they approved (I was the “good girl” who was allowed to go out with her to have fun) So, I was with Ashley during her rebellious stage in which She got into everything her family hated, got piercings, drank alcohol, dated guys (there was a video of her in a threesome that we had to delete from a guy’s cell phone), and even has a couple of tattoos.
The point is that she is now of legal age and her family treats her as the exemplary girl that she never gave problems with the minors of the family. She is in a 1-year relationship with a boy from church that they approve of and with whom she “had no relationships” because they are expecting marriage.
If they knew the things she did in her adolescence, they would completely disown her, she would take away all the financial stability that she has from her since she continues to live with her parents. And all her neighbors would stop talking to her because her father is the pastor of the church.
2. As long as they’re happy.
My friend who got married (to a girl) is gay.
I live in an Asian society where being Gay is still stigmatized.
He told her he was mostly gay and interested way more in men than women in their first year of marriage. Divorce is also very stigmatized. They have a secret open relationship where she is free to pursue whoever she wants and the same applies for him.
They are currently in their 60s. Both are like each others best friend and are very close.
From what I can tell, they are happy with each other. Just not romantically.
1. He must know.
One of my closest friends went to an Ivy League college. He very much acts like it on a regular basis.
I know (but he doesn’t) that his parents bought his way in. His grades were far too mediocre.
Human beings are just so complicated, y’all.
What horrible secret do you wish you weren’t keeping? Confess in the comments!
The obvious solution to this problem is to set your messages not to display when your phone is locked, but I guess if someone else was actually using your phone, that might not always work.
If there was a foolproof solution, these 16 people would surely be all ears after these cringey moments of others seeing notifications on their phones that honestly, all parties probably wish they hadn’t.
16. Just so sweet. Ha!
My boyfriend and I send each other shit randomly during the day like “FedEx me that pecker” or “flap them t**s my way”.
I was showing my mom something on my phone once and he sends “gonna slap u with my d%*k tonight”
15. It may not be what it seems, but she’s not going to believe that.
My mum was looking up stuff on my prescription app on my phone when a message came in from a group chat I’m on, a group chat named pornographic material.
I turned Instagram notifications off after that.
14. This is actually kind of sweet.
I remember when i was like 13 my mom was showing me something on her phone. My dad was away on a business trip and texted her. I said oh dad texted you. She’s like whats it say?
And i read it (in my head thank god) and it said something like “i cant wait to make love to you again” 13 year old me just turned red and handed back the phone.
13. Beautiful.
My friend made this fake account on Twitter and followed me exactly at the time my teacher had taken my phone away.
The notification read @analfister6969 has followed you.
12. Everyone is sorry.
“Gonna f*k your a$$ so hard tonight, love <3”
Sorry for you having to see that, mother
11. It’s probably not the worst thing he’s seen, honestly.
I had this roommate my sophomore year of college and we had a very weird, close personal relationship. I was in my Spanish prof’s office hours and she was waiting for me at the cafeteria to get lunch together. Just before going in I texted her and asked her to get me some fries, and then I turned off my phone. I was showing my prof my paper on my laptop screen, very much forgetting that I had iMessage set up on my laptop.
I’ll never forget the look on his face when a notification from my roommate came in with her (jokingly) saying “I’ll get you fries but only if you sensually feed them to me while you call me daddy”. Suffice it to say, that was my last time visiting his office hours!
10. That’s a topic for therapy.
Imagine my conservative 15 yr old little brother’s face when my bf texted “I’ll destroy your p**sy” while we were watching some stupid goat on youtube.
9. I have questions.
My friend sent a poop pic while my then girlfriend was checking the weather for us one morning.
8. Teen movie level awkward.
Not exactly a bad message but I leant my jacket to my crush and it had my phone in it’s pocket. Someone sent me a message so she got it out to give to me but unfortunately she had sent me a message before that and saw that her name was marked with a heart.
Awkward night after that.
7. An awkward explanation.
A friend of mine sent me a message for the first time in 4 months that was just
“Ily”
Right as my GF held the phone…
6. At least he laughed.
Story apps can give really interesting ones.
My favorite that popped up while my boyfriend was holding my phone was something like, “Mike misses you! Come back and play!” Or something like that.
Of course all he did was pull the drop down menu down to see the full notification and laugh.
He teased me about it for hours.
5. Bless his heart.
I was showing my grandma some pictures. She chuckled a bit and quickly handed me back my phone. I looked at it and saw that my boyfriend (now husband) had texted me saying “I hate it when I’m pooping and my dick touches the water. Big d*%k problems.”
We laughed about it, but my husband is still horrified by the thought of my grandma knowing about his “big dick problems.”
4. What else can you say?
Not really my phone but I had text notifications on my computer, was working with a vendor and sharing my screen, my SO picked that time to send me a text that said “that was the most amazing s^x we’ve ever had last night!”.
I silenced the notification as fast as I could but the vendor went quiet for half a minute and then said “good job!”, so got out of that awkward zone pretty well. I never shared my screen with notifications active ever again.
3. No good explanation, really.
When I was in high school, my friends and I had the habit of giving each other funny contact names on our phones based on jokes we came up with. To this day my high school friend’s contact names are things such as River B*%ch, Jeff the Sl*t, Baby America, Sugar Mama, etc.
When we were juniors, a girl who was obsessed with my friend led to his contact name becoming “Booty Lord” with some rather suggestive emojis following it. Everything was fine and dandy, until a few months later when I had forgotten about it.
I was applying for a leadership position in a club I was a member of and was required to get two letters of recommendation. For the second letter I asked one of my teachers, who happened to be a very conservative man in his late 70’s, if he could write one for me. Being the lazy son of a bitch that he was, he told me to write the letter myself saying all the things I wanted him to say, and he’d sign it.
After I finished typing up the letter, I handed him my phone to let him read and approve it before I printed it out. About 45 seconds after I gave him my phone, he (very loudly and incredulously) said “Booty Lord??????” and gave me a horrified look and shoved the phone back into my hands.
That was hard to explain.
2. This might be my favorite story ever.
Not my phone, but a Hangouts notification that popped up on the screen while my new boss was standing behind me to train me on a new program.
The message from my husband asked “how’s the Pooper?”
I was so focused on the task that she saw and read it before I did and collapsed to the floor in hysterical laughter. I read it and immediately lost it too.
In tears from laughing we were frantically talking over each other – her trying to apologize for the unprofessional reaction, and me trying to explain that Pooper was our dog’s nickname because he was getting over a bout of diarrhea!
The rest of the office was so confused!
1. High five?
My aunt was like “hey, is that the new samsung, can I see it?” I say “sure”, and then I got a text from my gf, “Good news! I had my period!”
So, so awkward, y’all. Woof.
Has this ever happened to you? Share the story in the comments!
Becoming an adult is rough, and it seems as if there are some times in life – usually in transition periods – when people really start to question whether or not live in general really means much of anything in the long run.
What is life without a few existential crises, am I right?
These 13 people are recalling the moments in life when they couldn’t wait to sleep because of what was on tap for the next day…and the times when they woke up thinking about when they would be able to go back to sleep.
13. Growing up is hard to do.
once you go to middle school. middle school is way more stressful than primary school, because suddenly you have a bunch of homework and everything is way harder.
also your peers start to be total a$$holes on purpose
12. You have to figure it out.
People don’t know how to transition to adult life and to make meaning for yourself. There’s no longer someone telling you, “This is what should make you feel good about life.”
I think if people grow up with oberbearing parents then it’s not an easy transition. I think parents that allow their kids some responsibilities and freedom of choice/repercussion will typically find this transition easier.
For pretty much the same reason you said, some times kids have had almost every decision made for them up til that point.
11. That’s a good day.
Mine went the other way when I stopped drinking ! Not waking up hungover is exciting haha
10. Find some space to breathe.
Probably during university, I had lectures, revision, working a job and somehow trying to have a social life.
It was then hectic for a few years following university until I eventually just accepted i was burnt out and gave myself more downtime. I feel its much better now.
9. Something to aspire to.
Not yet.
I’m 63 and still happy every morning because it means I have another day. If you’re tired just make yourself get out of bed, brush your teeth, get dressed, and go about your day. Usually it’ll be better than you feared when you didn’t want to get out of bed.
8. Some people it hurts to lose more than others.
When my great grandma passed away.
7. What about your birthday?
I think the only time I ever was “I can’t wait for tomorrow” was when I was little and wanted Christmas Day/Santa…
6. What a ray of sunshine.
When we realized dreams are bullshit, life sucks, people in general are terrible, and things will not get better, they only become gradually worse.
5. Ain’t love grand.
Whenever my partner gets home from a month away at work. Everytime he gets home, I have plans of giving myself a facial, shaving my legs and getting a good night sleep.
I do all of those things except the last one, cause I’m so excited to see him.
Lucky he still loves me when my face looks like a butthole.
4. Damn the man.
Around the same time capitalism went from ‘work hard and you too can be rich’ to ‘work yourself to the bone and you might be able to survive another week.’
3. Family is everything.
When I stopped sharing things with my friends and family.
Something bad happened to me and I shared it with all my dear ones. Not only they didn’t gave a damn but also they thought I am seeking attention cause “it is normal”.
2. Life is full of ups and downs.
Honestly? During my twenties I was deeply depressed, so that was a brief time it happened. Then I met my fiance, and I was always excited to get to tomorrow. We live together now. But this year has been… I don’t know.
He and I are doing fantastically, but I feel like there is no hope and I genuinely just want to stop existing, or jump ahead, or SOMETHING. It’s difficult to picture and plan for a future when it feels like everything is so uncertain.
1. On an even keel.
I don’t have this feeling anymore since I started taking care of my mental health (medication, meditation, exercising, trying to eat a healthy meal, setting a sleep schedule, and no devices before bed).
I was definitely in this mindset during undergrad and grad school, but I think something changed this year when I started doing things I like again, like knitting, painting, dancing, and all of this is outside my work hours.
It’s a tough spot to be in, but I wholeheartedly believe we can get out of the rut. We just have to find the help we need.
I have to say, whichever stage you’re in, you have to know that the other one will come back around – if being a parent has taught me anything it’s that life is nothing but a bunch of stages.
What say you on this topic? Our comments are open!
Growing up comes with a lot of pains, whether it’s the physical ones of our youths – aching legs and the like – or the emotional scars that we accumulate with years of living.
One of the things that changes without our even noticing is sleep – we used to love going to sleep, right? It felt so good, but mostly, we were excited for one thing or another that was coming up the next day, and sleep was the best way to get there.
Now, sleep is something we can’t help, the thing that we live for in and of itself, and when did it change?
I remember being so excited to be going to the water park the next morning that I ran up the stairs to bed, tripped on the way and sprained my ankle.
Little did I know that that was a metaphor for life.
14. Is that all?
After 25 years I finally found the solution to my insomnia. All I have to do is exercise at least an hour a day, meditate at least 2 hours a day, eat super healthy with no alcohol / caffeine / sugar and keep a super strict bedtime schedule because even going to bed 30 minutes later one day will fuck my sleep up for a couple of days.
I feel stupid for not seeing this super obvious solution in front of me this whole time and I guess my sister was right when she said it was my own fault that I can’t sleep.
13. No magic bullet.
This is me. I stay up late because if I sleep then work comes quicker. So I stay up late to enjoy more of my free non-work time and then I am tired af the next day.
People will say “then obviously you hate your job”. No, my job is actually pretty good, it’s working I don’t like. If I had my way, I wouldn’t need to work, but since I like not being homeless, I work. There is no magic job that will make me like working or look forward to working.
Best I can hope for is not hating my work and just being a little tired a few times a week.
12. Those things can be taxing.
First full time job.
ive been at 45 hours a week and I hate life now tbh
customers are also genuinely stupid and corona makes them dumber somehow
11. Where’s the middle ground?
As a kid I got excited about Christmas and my birthday and would have a hard time falling asleep due to excitement.
As an adult I have a hard time sleeping because I don’t want tomorrow to come.
10. What choice do we have?
I love these threads because it always makes me realise that I’m not alone and that helps validate my feelings. We’ll get through it together internet fam.
The phrase in the question “too tired to exist” hit home. Its not that you’re physically tired, it’s a weird level of mental/emotional exhaustion that I didnt know existed until it was an inescapable part of life.
9. Idk I though college was fun.
high school.
Ever since high school started, I went to bed hoping I don’t wake up the next day. I’m in college now
8. They do seem to coincide.
The same day that hangovers go from aa mild annoyance to ruining your whole week.
I would say 25/26 is the standard transition period. So everyone should learn which type of alcohol their body doesn’t like, before this age.
7. That’s just too early.
Sometime in high school for me.
I could never sleep in, because the bus left at 6:30
Also when i realized school is only about passing tests, and not the actual learning anymore.
6. That’s the dream.
You’re talking about restorative sleep? I’m envious.
It’s gotten to the point in my early 30s where I genuinely can’t remember ever feeling refreshed and raring to go, fully rested etc.
Always either a mild headache when I wake up, or my eyes ache all day randomly, or feeling a bit jetlagged all day, or physically drained. Never just great, never energized.
6 hours, wake up twice a night, 7 or 8 hours straight, doesn’t matter. I still feel unslept in some way.
5. A reason to get through.
High school, I’d say 11th grade specifically. I’d wake up every morning thinking “I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight”.
4. Whenever that happened.
When you started dealing with way too much shit without properly taking care of your physical/mental/emotional/spiritual wellbeing.
3. What a beat down.
I think it has happened twice for me. The first time I was 13 yrs old and the school counselor pulled from gym class to tell me my mom died in a car accident. After a few years, I felt better and started joying life again.
Then, I joined the service and I got told I was worthless by my supervisor daily and that I was a disappointment to my family. After that, I have struggled really hard to find the light in my life.
2. Wow, that’s early.
Around middle school when things stopped being new and interesting and life turned into a tedious grind.
1. Work isn’t…great.
Age 22 seems about right.
Basically the transfer from college to working full time… Life changes pretty quickly and just kinda fades away like a limp d%*k.
I’m pretty sure it changed for me when I had kids. Just saying.
When did sleep change for you? Confess in the comments!
In America, people flex about being a “workaholic” – someone who is always plugged into their job, who works way more hours than they get paid for, who can’t put work out of their mind, and who even prioritizes work over family, friends, and their own mental health.
In other parts of the world, like in much of Europe, those traits are frowned upon and not terribly common. People take long vacations with their families and are expected to have a healthy balance between their jobs and their person lives.
These 13 Redditors are weighing in on whether or not this whole “healthy balance” trend could find a place in American culture.
13. Like that ever did any good.
“You shouldn’t do X because otherwise people will expect others to do X”.
Which is the problem, X or the expectation of it?
The expectation. So direct your complaints at management.
12. It certainly can be.
Or managers should just hold people to normal standards of productivity, regardless of whether or not another employee is working more often or harder. Sounds like a management issue to me.
11. Happiness is key.
I make hiring decisions from time to time, and I never hire workaholics. Hard workers, yes, but not workaholics. Happy employees are more fun and easier to work with, and workaholics can easily poison a work environment.
10. Management definitely needs to take a hard look in the mirror.
I feel like management either totally overworks their employees or underworks their employees. I’m on the opposite end and this whole month basically working from hone it’s been super slow for me, to the point where last week I literally just layed on the couch and worked for maybe 2 hours all week.
Had a meeting with my manager and once question he had for me is my workload is too tough.
9. Some people need boundaries.
In Japan it was such an insidious social pressure that they would have to make new laws or shut off lights after hours so people would leave work at the end of the day. I think that seeing being a workaholic as something positive is kind of destructive.
It’s different if you are passionate about your own business, though.
8. How easily they forget.
To add on to that, corporate should remember what it’s like to be the workhorses. They’re the ones that put the pressure on management, which is then passed down to the employees. All corporate is concerned about is making money.
They forgot all the work that goes into generating all that revenue.
7. Or if you do, you should make more money.
Because a society that views this positively, expects it. People who strive for a good work/ life balance shouldn’t be made to feel that they should do more.
6. The whole culture is whack.
I totally agree about the hostile work environment part. It opens the door to employers adding unreasonable workloads to their staff. I was in a salaried retail management position for several years and my bosses outlook was “if you can do your job in 40 hours good for you go home” but then would dole out 70 hours worth of work
The people getting promoted were the ones who worked 80 hour weeks. Completely unrealistic and not conducive to having a family. The salary was good for 40 hours, and complete trash for more than 60. I took a 9-5 that pays hourly and I couldn’t be happier with that decision
5. Some people don’t want balance.
Its pretty clear who in this thread works retail/other shit jobs vs people who work high paying or otherwise fulfilling jobs.
Newsflash, for some of us, our work is also our passion and what we feel is our purpose in life. I spend all day figuring out how to keep community and other rural/low income serving hospitals/medical practices viable.
Day in day out, I get to work on saving a communities hospital so they don’t have to drive 3 hours through the backroads to deliver a kid.
If that takes me 100 hours a week, so be it, I get to do the right thing and I make a bunch of money doing it.
4. Maybe salaries are the answer?
It works both ways. I’ve been salaried for over 20 years. Some weeks I’ve worked 70 -80 hrs and others, I’ve worked 30. Some, I haven’t worked at all.
My hours aren’t set in stone, I don’t clock in or out, and I’m paid according to my position and completing tasks – whether it be in the office, on a job site, driving, or whatever else I may be doing. My salary is based on 50 hrs per week, but it’s rare that I work more than 40.
I honestly don’t really pay attention.
I’m up extremely early, and in the office by 6 am, so I can avoid a couple of hours of distraction. I generally leave around 3:30 or 4, and I rarely work past noon on Friday.
Hourly positions, by and large, require you to be there and be seen working and performing a set list of duties at all times.
This isn’t to say that all companies have the same work culture, but I know many that do, and I’ve heard some horror stories about those that don’t. That’s the great thing about a free market. You can choose to stay in a job you hate or seek out a better situation.
3. There is always a downside.
One of the most common regrets on people’s death beds is having worked too much in their life, instead of taking time off to be with family or cultivate a hobby or travel and have another passion.
There are positive benefits to working, of course, such as more financial stability, and staying mentally active as well as socially connected. But too much of it is often bad, even if the person worker doesn’t realize it in the moment.
There are people who are probably harming themselves by working so hard, and being indoctrinated to think that that is the measure of a person’s value. I know people who work 12 hours a day and acknowledge this.
There’s a gigantic downside, and everyone has to work, but there are other things in life.
2. To each their own.
I think the problem for me is not that we shouldn’t look down on people who dedicate too much of their lives to their work and have a poor work/life balance, it is instead that if you mention to these people that you do not work late, or work weekends, and instead opt to pursue hobbies and passions during your free time then in my experience you are lambasted for being “lazy” or “not driven”.
Of course, it depends on who you are and if you love (hate) your job, starting a business etc but I absolutely would not have a go at someone for how they choose to use their time, just don’t come whinging to me about how you do not have time to work out or cook meals any more due to a lack of time and energy.
1. Or not…
Well because in this instance, being a workaholic, once normalized, gives additional power to business owners and changes the standard in their favor, like how the proliferation of college degrees has made degrees the minimum now and hiring managers won’t have to worry about employees leaving or asking for promotions because they are in student loan debt slavery and need a paycheck more than they need career power.
Do you want to be competing with a majority of workaholics? Not a workaholic? Less opportunity.
If everybody thinks they have to be a workaholic or corporations expect workaholics, and that then becomes the standard. More production from them with their new workaholics, but you know damn well sure they aren’t going to be paying them more.
Take your vacation days, people. Your employer would replace you in a heartbeat if you died.
My grandpa used to say that nothing good happens after midnight, and while as a teenager I thought it was just a thing he said to reinforce my parents’ good sense in having a curfew, as an adult I can see how there could be some merit to the advice.
These 16 people would probably agree, given the things they’ve seen while driving late at night – and after you read through them, you might enforce a curfew of your own.
16. I have so many questions.
My young wife and I were moving between cities. We’d spent all day loading a large 16-ft. trailer with all our belonging, and began the drive across the state just before dark. I’d borrowed a large pickup truck to pull the heavy trailer to our destination, so the combination of this truck and trailer (fully loaded) was VERY heavy, and pretty slow and cumbersome to start and stop.
We were traveling along a very desolate stretch of highway at around midnight, driving roughly 60-65 mph, when I see what looks like a couple of deer walking out into the road ahead of us…maybe 200 yds ahead? My wife is asleep on the seat next to me. I begin to slow down a bit and lay on the horn to scare the animals off the road before we reach them. Where we live this is a pretty common occurrence, so I’m not slamming on the brakes cause I expect these deer will move well before we get there. They usually do.
Suddenly I realize, as these “deer” come clearly into the light of our headlights, that these aren’t deer! It’s two men, and they’re trying to stop us! It’s only a two lane highway, and one man is standing in the middle of our lane, and the other is standing in the middle of the opposite lane. By now there’s absolutely NO WAY I’m going to be able to stop this rig, and they aren’t leaving me anywhere to go. But they don’t realize I CAN’T stop!
I stomp on the brake pedal, and continue to blare the horn over and over again as fast as possible, hopefully getting them to move. I’m fighting to keep the truck and trailer from jackknifing, brakes locked up and tires screaming, but these guys are NOT moving, and I’m still going 35-40 mph when I reach them.
The only thing I can do at this point is try to thread the needle between them, so I center the truck in the middle of the roadway and hope neither of them tries to close that small window. At the very last second, the guy who’s standing in the middle of our lane jumps out of the way. He was so close I was seriously worried our big rear view mirror might hit him in the head! I missed hitting him by mere inches.
This all happened in a span of about 5-8 seconds. There was no car anywhere on the road, we were way out in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty obvious, based on their behavior, that these two guys were up to something potentially nefarious. I didn’t stop. I’d come WAY too damned close to killing these guys. My heart was literally in my throat, and it was pounding so hard I was having trouble breathing.
I didn’t even realize until afterward that when I’d slammed on the brakes my wife had slid off the seat and onto the floor (this was before seat belts were mandatory). She groggily gets up off the floor and asks me, “What the hell happened??” She’d missed the entire ordeal.
/ Certainly not “unexplainable”, but it scared the SHIT out of me! I’ve never come so close to killing someone in my life, and I truly hope I never do again!
15. He may never know.
A driver drove past me by my right side.
I was driving in a single lane street next to a cliff on my right and a mountain (no road) to the left. I slammed my brakes and let it sit for some minutes before driving again.
To this day I’m not sure of what I saw
14. My stomach dropped.
Scariest thing was this dude who was hitchhiking except something was strange about him. He wore his hoodie down when it wasn’t raining, it was actually a hot humid night in Alabama, and also his other arm was behind his back.
When I passed him by I looked on my rear view mirror and saw behind his back was a shotgun.
13. It’s a whole mood.
I’m probably too late to this thread, but almost two years ago my brother and I were making a cross country journey and were planning on stopping off in Arizona to see some friends. There were highway notices everywhere that there was an escaped convict as soon as we entered Arizona, and it was about 1am so we were already in a bit of a strange mood.
Something about the drive through the desert felt super eerie, and so one of us mentioned it and we started joking about the spooky claims people make while traveling through the area (aliens, skinwalkers, ghosts, etc). While we were having this conversation this crazy looking animal ran across the road right in front of us. At first I thought it was a deer but it looked too wolf-like to be a deer. BUT it moved like a deer and was too lanky to be a coyote and it had a long tail like a cougar. And it was big.
I slammed on my breaks and it ran off into the brush. We both just started screaming and then laughing. We have no clue what it was. At first I thought “cougar with mange” after we had a minute to process it but the more I thought about it the less sure I was of what it was we saw.
12. I hope no one else stopped, either.
This reminds me of a time my brother and I went on a camping trip. We were running late and by the time we were nearing our campsite it was pitch dark outside. We were driving down some narrow mountain roads when we saw a group of 3 hitchhikers on the side of the road.
They were dressed in all black. I couldn’t even see their faces. Just dark shapes standing by the side of the road, one of whom started walking out into the street. I got a terrible feeling in my gut the second we saw them. My brother is the type to slow down and help stranded campers but he must have shared my gut feeling because he veered around them and said something like, “someone else will have to help them.”
Anyway, pretty uneventful story but it gave me the creeps at the time and your story reminded me of that feeling.
11. This could have had a sad ending.
I had just gotten back to the high school after a state dance competition. It was 2am and I’d been up since 4 that morning, so I was extremely tired. I only had to drive 7 miles from the school to my house, and it was a very rural area, so I figured I’d be fine, but I was exhausted. About 1 mile in, I started to see shadowy people walking on highway. Scared the crap out of me.
The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed that morning. I went outside and found my car in the driveway, turned off but still in drive, with the keys in the ignition. I still don’t know exactly how I got home. That said, I am known for sleepwalking. Yikes!
10. Call the police.
It wasn’t exactly something I saw, but some point halfway through my drive home, at about 8:30 ish at night, a guy started following me. It couldn’t have been for very long, because I didn’t notice he was there until I pulled into my driveway and he parked there at the entrance, got out, hiking his horn and screaming some sort of nonsense.
Bunch of s*%t like “we f**king know where you live! F**k you!” over and over again and not saying anything about why he had followed me. F**kin terrified me.
Worst thing? Happened two days ago. Still have no idea why or who it was. Been staying at my mom’s bc if some random angry man knows where I live then for the time being I don’t live there
9. A stroke of luck?
This happened to me when I was 20 years old and my car was about a year and a half old. I was driving home from work at about midnight, coming through residential streets. The boulevard that I was on was four lanes with a cement divider that had plants in it along the way. I was halfway through an intersection, and my car stalled. My foot was on the gas, and suddenly the car was dead. Luckily, they were no other cars that I could see, so I brought my car to a stop, put it in park, and started it up with no problems.
Then I looked up.
Coming straight at me we’re headlights. Someone had turned from a side street and instead of going across the median to turn left going down the correct side of the street, they had turned left into my lane thinking it was only a 2 Lane Road.
Had my car not stalled when it did, I would’ve plowed head first into that car. In the five years that I own that car, it never stalled again.
8. A moose story.
My family used to go out on little drives together sometimes for fun in the spring to watch all the run off water from the snow melt. We live in the rural prairies of Canada. Were on a back road slowly winding the edge of a prickly hay field with a tiny trickling ditch river beside us, its the golden hour, the returning geese are dotting the water gathered in the fields for miles. A scene Van Gogh might wanna paint, ya know?
Anyways, we’re driving along when this enormous moose thunders out of nowhere at top speed right in front of our car. She heads through the field right beside us and straight toward some water that had pooled at bottom of a little hill in the field. Very wide puddle, but looked maybe a foot deep at most. She made it a few feet in to the water then suddenly fell into an unsuspecting abyss below and vanished completely.
I don’t even know how long it was but it felt like ages, she eventually emerged ~40ft away on the opposite side of the “puddle” and kept on running like she didn’t just slip in to mariannas trench.
Its about 6ft from hoof to shoulder on a female moose. Theyre absolutely huge, larger than horses and she completely vanished. Ill never forget it.
7. Definitely strange.
It was in the dead of the winter and in the middle of night a girl was dancing around on the highway. I almost hit her because it was snowing but I managed swerve.
So I got worried and turned around on the next ramp and when driving back she had just disappeared. I was probably just sleep deprived but it felt so real.
6. You hate to see it.
Driving on one of the reservations in New Mexico and came across a car completely stopped in the left lane. We slow down to pass the car and see the victim of a hit and run in the road in front of the stopped car (it wasn’t them, they stopped when they came across the body). We pulled over, my Dad and husband got out to see if they could do anything.
Unfortunately he was long gone and others had called the police. We didn’t witness the accident and couldn’t help so we left so that we wouldn’t be in the way.
The worst was that we still had a few hours left of driving that night. It was super foggy and I was terrified someone was going to jump out into the road from out of the fog.
5. You probably don’t want to know.
First, I was driving home from visiting family late at night. I was on a 2 lane highway in the middle of nowhere. Farms all around and spotty cell phone reception. If you didn’t have headlights on, you couldn’t see anything. My radio started cutting out and my headlights started getting dimmer all of a sudden. I turned the radio off and was just listening to the silence as my headlights were getting worse and worse, when all of a sudden, I hit a huge bump in the road. My radio came back on LOUD and my headlights were at full brightness. It was the weirdest car thing I’ve ever dealt with. But I would have been screwed if I’d broken down out there.
Second, driving home from a friend’s house in the city at 2am. As I’m coming around a corner I see this creature crawling along the road. It was definitely larger than a raccoon, but smaller than a medium sized dog. It was moving slowly and sort of wobbled as it walked. I slowed down because I wanted to see what on earth it was. As I get up along size it, it scurries directly toward my car and I stepped on the gas. I looked in my rearview mirror and nothing was there. Still not sure what it was…
4. A cautionary tale.
This is my grandmother’s story, she’s 85 now. This was in London, England.
When she was in her early 20’s my grandmother was walking home from work late at night (actually I think it was early hours of the morning after a night shift).
She noticed a man walking behind her for quite a long time that she thought might be following her. She continued walking and he was still behind her, if she slowed down so did he, she crossed the road and shortly after he would cross the road too.
She knew there was a secluded alleyway coming up that she had to walk down to get home and panicked. The man walked ahead of her at this point and went down the alleyway. My grandmother saw a milk float and flagged down the driver and asked if she could get in with him as she thinks a man is following her.
The milk man agrees and as they drive past the alleyway she turns her head to look down it and the guy is standing there against the wall obviously waiting for her to turn into the alley.
Every time I go out late at night she gives me cab/taxi money and tells me this story.
3. Never stop.
Around midnight at Rio de Janeiro and two boys on foot (maybe 16, 17 y/o) with machine guns attempt to make me stop the car by pointing their guns at me, screaming “stop, stop” and closing the road with their own bodies.
It was a sharp turn and I entered exceptionally fast because there were almost no cars at the street and I was rushing home, and that’s what made me react as not stopping.
The entire thing lasted only for a split second, as I barely saw their faces. On the next split I started wondering: “WTF, I have almost just died tonight.”
2. That’s amazing.
I was on a run to pick up 3 cars on a trailer from Virginia Beach back to Iowa some years back. I drove the entire way there without stopping except for bathroom (about 20 hours if I remember correctly), and had planned on grabbing a hotel room when I got there and sleeping before turning around to come back home.
I wasn’t tired when I got there after drinking a few 5 hour energy during the trip, so I loaded up the cars and turned around and figured I’d stop when I got tired.
It got to be pretty late at night and I was driving through the mountains of West Virginia and starting to get tired but didn’t see anywhere to stop for a while that didn’t look too sketchy.
All of a sudden, I see a person crawl up out of the ditch and lay down on the side of the road. I’m doing 75 or so with 3 cars on a trailer, going down a mountain, so I couldn’t exactly slam on my brakes or anything… So I just dialed 911.
I said “I don’t know if I’ve just been awake too long or what, but I’m pretty sure I just saw someone climb up on to the road from the ditch”.
They said they would check it out and that they were getting the same call from a couple other people.
I decided that I would stop at the next exit and find somewhere to stay.
Next morning, I turned on the news in the hotel and it said that the guy had crashed his motorcycle a day earlier, and barely alive, climbed up to the road and died as soon as he got up there.
1. Weird AND creepy.
Me and a few of my friends in college went on a hike my freshman year. We had a few tokes by the river and started heading back to the car. It was starting to get dark out so we turned our phone flashlights on for the last 5 or so minutes of the trek.
We all piled in my 01 Civic (there were 6 of us) and I switched the key and turned on the headlights. I shit you not about 30 or so feet in front of the car, just within the tree line stood a 40 or so year old man butt a$$ naked. He stared at the car with zero f**ks and just stood there.
I dont know what the f**k he was doing or why he was there but i’ll never forget that “is this real?” moment we all had. We all think he must’ve been high on something or he was just a wild dude lurking in the shadows. He straight up looked like tom hanks in cast away.
I have no desire to see any of these things through the darkness, let me tell you.
If you’ve got a creepy story that belongs on this list, please share it in the comments!
Whether you’re a cat lover or not, there’s no denying that cats make the word go ’round – or at least, they make the internet the place everyone wants to be.
Cats, cat videos, funny videos of people giving thoughts to their cats…whatever it is, if there’s a cat in it, people are down.
For all of the people in the world who love cats, though, do we really know everything there is to know about living with (and catering to) our feline friends?
If you’re looking to know more, we’ve got 50 facts that run the gamut from basic to totally interesting, so snuggle up your kitty and take a gander!
50. People have been showing cats since at least 1871.
Cats groom themselves for several reasons, such as toning down their scent to avoid predators, cooling off, promoting blood flow, and distributing oils naturally through their coats.
Shared grooming sessions also serve as a sign of affection between cats, and experts also believe their saliva could contain enzymes that serve as a natural antibiotic.
However, they also purr when they’re sick, stressed, hurt, or even while giving birth.
Basically, don’t assume the sound means they’re happy.
46. Cute cat videos predate the internet.
This clip all but proves cat videos have been making the world go ’round long before they took up permanent residence on the top of the YouTube charts.
Thomas Edison (totally on brand) filmed two cats “boxing” inside a small ring in 1894.
45. Purring could help improve their bone density.
Experts, like associate veterinary school professor Leslie A. Lyons, aren’t sure why cats purr, but one hypothesis is that the sound frequency of a purr – between 25 and 150 Hertz – can “improve bone density and promote healing.”
She wrote in an article for Scientific American, “because cats have adapted to conserve energy via long periods of rest and sleep, it is possible that purring is a low energy mechanism that stimulates muscles and bones without a lot of energy.”
44. There was a video game based on Socks, President Clinton’s cat.
Socks, a black-and-white tuxedo cat, lived in the Oval Office during Bill Clinton’s tenure as President.
During the early 1990s. Super Nintendo Entertainment System created a game called Socks the Cat, which featured the First Feline in Chief.
It was never officially released and was even thought for a long time to have been lost, but recently collector Tom Curtin bought the only copy in existence.
He also purchased the rights and partnered with game publisher Second Dimension to bringSocks the Cat Rocks The Hill out in 2018.
The herb catnip contains several chemical compounds, including one called nepetalactone.
Cats can detect that particular chemical compound with special receptors in their noses and mouths, which triggers those odd behaviors we associate with “kitty weed.”
That’s why you might see your beloved cat sniffing, shaking or rubbing their head, and rolling around on the ground.
In the 1960s, a man named Henry Helb lived in the Dutch Embassy in Moscow with two Siamese cats.
He noticed his pets were arching their backs and clawing at one of the walls, and Helb, convinced the cats could hear something he didn’t, went looking behind them.
He found 30 tiny microphones, and instead of busting the spies, he and his staff used them to pass wrong or irrelevant information onto whoever was listening.
If you’re a female cat, copulation isn’t the funnest time, and it could be part of the reason why they tend to be loners.
Male shafts are barbed in order to stimulate the female’s privates, which inspires an ovulation – and also keeps her from running away before he’s done.
If you’ve ever heard cats yowling in the night (probably because a female is being forced into mating), you’re probably not surprised to learn they really don’t consider what humans listen to pleasant music.
At least they have people like composer David Teie on their side; in 2015 he partnered with animal scientists to make an album calledMusic for Cats.
According to his website, the songs are “based on feline vocal communication and environmental sounds that pique the interest of cats.”
Hmmm. I wonder if it’s on Amazon Prime Music…
36. College graduates are more likely to be cat owners.
According to 2010 research collected by the University of Bristol, people who have graduated from college are about 1.36 times more likely to own a cat than other people who own pets.
After studying the more than 3,000 survey responses about the person’s pets, geography, and academic history, researchers believe they can chalk up the slightly higher chance of cat ownership to the fact that they’re typically more low-maintenance than a dog, and therefore better suited to people with thriving careers.
A group of kittens all born to the same mama at the same time is called a “kindle,” and I have to believe that Amazon knew that when they chose the name for their e-reading – cats and books just go together, right?
If you’re curious, a group of adult cats roaming the street isn’t a pack – it’s a “clowder.”
Abraham Lincoln could vie for the craziest cat man in history, though – once, when his wife Mary Todd asked about Abe’s hobbies, he reportedly replied “cats!”
It should be noted that Lincoln also owned and loved dogs, which proves he was just an all-around good guy in my book.
Specifically, Sphinx cats are hairless, or furless, but still manage to maintain an average body temperature around four degrees warming than a typical cat.
Some cats doenjoy the occasional dip, though, including the Turkish Van, Maine Coons, and Bengals – no matter the species, there always have to be a few who go against the grain!
26. The world’s oldest living cat is a thirtysomething.
The average lifespan of a cat is between 12-18 years, and while most of us have known a cat who made it to – or a bit beyond – that upper threshold, I doubt they’ve lived to be 35.
The current oldest living cat just passed his 35th birthday – he’s a tabby living in Britain, and his name is Henry.
25. But there’s no Guinness World Record for the fattest cat.
There used to be records for the fattest animals, but Guinness found that people are terrible (not news) and would intentionally overfeed their pets in an attempt to get into the record books.
If there were a record attained somewhat naturally it would be Katy, a Siamese cat who lived in Asbest, Russia.
She was given hormones to stop her from mating and the treatment had a surprising side effect: it made her ravenous.
So ravenous, in fact, that at one point she weighed more than 50 pounds.
The phrase “if it fits, I sits” means cats will squeeze themselves into very small spaces whenever possible, and animal experts think that’s because it makes them feel more protected, secure, and important – sort of like being back in the womb.
Shelter workers have known this for some time, as any time they’re given boxes to snuggle in the adjust more quickly and are less stressed than cats left alone in their cages.
Sleeping in a smaller space also helps cats retain more body heat, and so they can stay relaxed and get more rest, too.
23. A massage from a cat is more than a kind gesture.
You might find it sweet when your cat kneads your leg or your belly (as long as their claws stay retracted), but experts believe your cat is actually marking you as part of their territory through the process.
Cats have scent glands in their paws, which is part of why kittens knead their mama’s belly while nursing – it stimulates milk production.
So it makes sense that if the behavior carries over to adulthood, those glands would still be useful for something.
Cat experts do know why kittens meow – it’s to get their mother’s attention – but as to why full-grown cats might do the same, they’re not totally sure.
They think the behavior grew out of their connection to humans, since cats don’t meow when interacting with other cats.
Instead, they use those noises they made as kittens to convey their emotions and needs to their human “parents” in the same way.
21. At least one cat painting is worth nearly $1m.
More often than not, cats do land with all four paws solidly on the ground.
Cats have a great sense of balance, even when they’re falling, and can use their flexible backbone to adjust their bodies in the air.
The can also spread their legs out to “parachute” down, and since they’re small and light-boned, that often means falls won’t be as hard as they would be for another creature.
That said, people shouldn’t go around testing this theory, because the cat could get hurt – it’s not a 100% of the time thing.
18. They spend the majority of their lives asleep.
A 2018 survey found that the most popular cat breed in America was the Exotic – a flat-faced cat that’s basically a short-haired version of a Persian cat.
The second most popular was the Ragdoll, with the British Shorthair coming in 3rd.
Personally, my favorite is “the cat who showed up on my porch and wouldn’t leave.”
Bodegas are known for keeping a resident feline, and the Algonquin Hotel, which has graced midtown Manhattan for a century, also has kept a lobby cat since the early 1920s.
The current resident is known as Hamlet. He assumed his post after the passing of Matilda III, who “moved on” in October of 2017.
15. T.S. Eliot thought cats were downright poetic.
We know because in the 1870s, the city of Liege, Belgium, tried giving them the job.
Their attempt to train 37 cats to deliver letters in waterproof bags tied to their necks didn’t go all that well – the letters were late when they got to the correct address at all.
Anyone who has ever tried to train a cat is not surprised.
Dogs, horses, and other breeds might come to mind first when you’re thinking about fast animals, but the fact is that your house cat could probably give some of them a run for their money.
The average running kitty can clock around 30mph, after all, so don’t bother giving chase if one darts away from you.
All across Western civilization, you’ll find the myth that black cats are a bad omen, but no one really knows how it began.
As early as the Middle Ages, superstitions arose surrounding black cats being the reason for the plague pandemic.
Little did anyone know that by expiring cats, they were also getting rid of the best chance they had to get rid of infected rats, who actually carried the disease.
They eventually became associated with witches, because older, single women often adopted alley cats as companions.
4. In some countries, black cats are considered good luck.
In the United Kingdom and Japan, however, a black cat is a symbol of fortune.
New brides are given black cats to bless their marriages in England, and in Japan, they’re considered particularly lucky for single women.
The Germans throw their beliefs way back to Ancient Rome, when anything that came from the left was ominous – so a black cat crossing from left to right was a bad sign, but if it crossed from right to left, the omen was good.
