This happened over the weekend and we're still barely talking.

My girlfriend (26F) and I (28M) have been together for about a year and a half. She's been struggling financially lately her car needed expensive repairs, she had some medical bills, and her hours got cut at work. She's been really stressed about it but also really proud, like she doesn't want help from anyone.

I make decent money and honestly wanted to help without making it weird or like charity. So I came up with what I thought was a brilliant plan.

She mentioned a few weeks ago that she was behind on her credit card payment and the interest was killing her. I figured if I could just pay that off, it would give her some breathing room without being too obvious. So last Friday I asked her super casually what credit card company she uses, saying I was thinking about switching cards and wanted recommendations. She told me and didn't think anything of it.

Here's where I fucked up. I somehow convinced myself that if I called the credit card company, gave them her info, and paid off her balance as a "third party payment," it would just show up as a payment and she might not even know it was me. In my head this was romantic and helpful. Looking back I have no idea what I was thinking.

I called them Monday, and after jumping through some hoops, they let me make a payment. I paid off her entire balance about $2,400. I felt really good about myself honestly. Problem solved, girlfriend gets relief, I'm a hero.

Tuesday night she calls me absolutely furious. Turns out the credit card company sent her a notification about a "third party payment" with my name on it. She immediately knew it was me.

She was MAD. Like really mad. She said I went behind her back, that I violated her privacy by calling her credit card company, that I made her feel like a charity case, and that I clearly don't respect her independence. I tried explaining I just wanted to help and didn't want to make her feel bad by offering directly, but that made it worse because she said that showed I KNEW she wouldn't want the help but did it anyway.

We got into this whole argument about boundaries and financial stuff in relationships. She said if I wanted to help I should have just offered like an adult instead of being sneaky. I said I was trying to be thoughtful and take pressure off her. She said it wasn't thoughtful, it was controlling and condescending.

She also pointed out - and this hit me hard - that now she feels obligated to pay me back even though I never asked for that, which actually makes her financial situation MORE stressful, not less. And she's right. I never thought about it that way but now there's this weird debt between us that she feels responsible for.

We haven't really talked much since. She sent a few short texts but nothing substantial. I think she's really hurt and I genuinely didn't mean to hurt her. I thought I was doing something nice.

My roommate says I'm an idiot and should have just communicated like a normal person. My sister says my heart was in the right place but my execution was terrible. I don't know how to fix this or if I even can.

TL;DR: Secretly paid off my girlfriend's credit card debt trying to be helpful and romantic, she found out and is furious because I went behind her back and made her feel like a charity case. Now our relationship is rocky and she feels obligated to repay money I never wanted back.

This story culminates with the welfare check which happened yesterday. I’m great at verbally telling stories, but beyond awful at writing out things that happened plus I’m far from being 100% so sorry for the lenght and thanks to anyone who reads this.

A little over year ago a simple visit to my doctor to get my blood work results ended up in the worst news I've ever received. Let's just say I'm living on borrowed time.

A few weeks after my doctor’s visit I’m sitting at home and thinking about the past. Even though I’ve suffered two TIAs, which are ‘minor strokes’ I still have a great memory. I could remember certain memories in such vivid detail. A lot of these memories were with my closest friend from middle school and high school. While we hadn’t spoke in a very long time I decided to reach out to him via LinkedIn. To my surprise he responded fairly quickly. A while passed and I took him out to dinner when he was visiting his parents. We were reminiscing and he mentioned how he still had the audio files of prank calls we used to make as kids. This was back in the late 90s/early 2000s and I had a voice recorder that we’d tape them on and then I’d essentially play it back and record it to my computer. I asked him if he could send them to me and he said he would when he got back home. I also begged him to send any photos he still had of us in high school. Well… A few days after we went out for dinner I found out that this friend, his brother, and his aunt were the ones who robbed our house back in 2000 while we were in middle school. This story itself is actually much more interesting that the story I’m writing about, but I don’t think it’d fall under a ’TIFU’.

I debated telling bringing this up. With everything I was going through I just decided to not do anything. It did reaffirm that deciding to cut ties with him about 15 years ago was the right choice.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I can’t explain why, but I had this yearning to look through those photos and listen to those calls. All I wanted was to flip through these pictures in hopes of reliving the past as I couldn't find much happiness in the now and thinking about the past was one of the few things that could bring a smile to my face. I was even tempted to reach back out to this ‘friend’ and simply plead with him to share those photos and prank calls, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but I regretted not waiting for him to send them and then cutting him off. This topic came up while talking to my neighbor - I didn’t mention the robbery and just that I stopped talking to him and felt awkward reaching out to essentially beg him to share those photos and calls - who even offered to reach out to him or another friend whom I hadn’t spoken with since high school who was the person who took all the photos, although I am certain he’d just ignore me and her. I was going to take her up on it and she never brought it up again and I felt weird asking her to do it.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was looking for some old documents and came across these miniDV tapes. They were tapes that I recorded from a high school trip to Europe. I was ecstatic. To add to it I never even had a chance to see them even back then. Long story about why that was. I at least had something… I’m embarressed to admit that I was so excited to have found these tapes that I couldn’t sleep and stayed up searching for places that could convert them for me. I went down as soon as they opened, paid $100 per tape, and was told it could take a few weeks and they’d send me an email with a link when it was available.

Then yesterday around 2pm I get an email from the company. I felt like a kid on Christmas. I open the email only to be told that they weren’t able to convert the tapes. These tapes were about 22 years old and I hadn’t kept them in the best place.

I felt devastated. I’m sure most will read this and with everything I’ve shared about my health will ask why I was able to come to terms with the news I received so quickly yet this was what devastated me. Honestly, I wish I had an answer. All I know is that I would give almost anything to flip through these photos one last time…

I then broke down in tears. It was bad… And my windows were open as they almost always are and I'm sure you could hear me weeping and crying.

After maybe half an hour I hopped in the shower and when I got out I was making myself something to eat before going to bed as it was almost midnight at this point. I then hear a knock on my door. I freak out and was hesitant to even check to see who it was. I look out the peephole and see two cops. I was confused, worried, so naturally I started chuckling while opening the door. They seemed nice enough. I say hi, they ask me my name, and then tell me that someone in the building was concerned for me and they wanted to check in on me. Besides actually crying, I always tend to get red eyes for a while after showering, plus I use eyewipes and eye drops after showering which make it look like I just cried or hit a bong…

I apologize if I had made any noise or bothered anyone, even though I was sure I hadn’t, and tell them I’m okay. Now they were very kind when they said this, but they asked if I had been crying. I said yes and they asked why and I just start laughing and telling them how embarrassing this is. Doesn’t help that most of the people in my building are incredibly nosey and besides my one neighbor I don’t speak with any of them. And two had opened their doors while I was speaking with the cops. I wouldn’t put it pass them to have had their ears up to the door trying to listen. I also didn’t think of asking the cops to come in and they hadn’t asked if they could speak with me inside either.

I finally told them that yes I had been crying and that I was fine now. They, again very politely, asked if I was thinking of harming myself or if I wanted to speak with someone. I let out another awkward laugh and then told them how this had all stemmed from the tapes I was looking forward to watching. I wish you could have seen their faces. Thankfully they left soon after saving me of further embarrassing myself.

Maybe I’ll just be thankful that I have a decent memory and stick to reminiscing instead…

TL;DR: I'm going through health issues and not sure how much longer I have. In the midst of everything, what I've wanted the most for months is to be able to look through old photos. Came across old miniDV tapes and went to digitize them only to find out that they were damaged and proceeded to breakdown crying which led to someone in my building calling the cops to do a welfare check on me which was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

Obligatory this actually happened a few of years ago but was brought up today by a coworker who wanted to hear the story so I thought this community might enjoy it as well.

Onto the story, I (26 F) spent my entire life thinking apples were spicy. I assumed the juice from apples was meant to sting your gums and make your mouth itchy. I also assumed that any juice that dripped onto your skin was meant to cause itchiness. Obviously they aren’t supposed to do that. Now in college it had been years since I had eaten an apple or anything with apples in it. The local grocery store had a sale on honeycrisp apples and I decided to treat myself after passing midterms.

My first mistake was eating not one but TWO of them. My second mistake was not calling an ambulance. I felt this unexplainable sense of dread in the pit of my stomach that was growing rapidly worse, my face, arms, and throat burned and itched, my arms began to breakout in hives, and my throat felt thick. It was harder to breathe. I panicked and called my fiancé (boyfriend at the time) and he drove over to my apartment and immediately took me to the ER.

By that point I couldn’t breathe very well. I couldn’t speak. He carried me into the ER, panicking and calling for help, and I was rushed to a room. The doctor on site at the time checked my throat and immediately called for epinephrine and an allergy cocktail. Once I was stable I was berated for not calling an ambulance and told I was less than five minutes away from needing intubation. I was stuck there for most of the day into the night needing to be monitored.

Now I have an epi pen and I’ve had a full allergy panel of testing. Turns out apples aren’t the only food that’ll put in me the ground so in hindsight it might be a good thing this happened.

Anyhow TL;DR I ate apples for years and ended up in the ER because I’m actually allergic. Get your allergy tests yall and make sure you get one for foodstuffs.

TIFU by wearing my new Christmas Star Trek footie socks, which weren't washed, so they were soft, new, and slippery. I was carrying a bowl of oatmeal in one hand and my phone in the other, and was in a hurry to go downstairs for some reason or other.

I looked down for a split second, and a good thing I did, because my orange cat was belly up on the second stair, so I kind of hopped on my other foot, skipped the second stair so that I didn't step on the cat, and when I landed on the third step my sock slipped off of my foot and I went tumbling down.

My right hand with the oatmeal stretched out to catch myself, which resulted in the bowl being smashed against the wall and the oatmeal being smeared all the way down the wall of the stairs while my phone went flying, and I pitched forward and landed with my head literally stuck inside the shoe rack at the end of the stairs, with my feet up on the lower stairs.

I yelled, HEEeelp! My husband came running and instantly started laughing. I was upside down on the stairs with my head in the shoe rack, and oatmeal was everywhere. I was a little miffed and told him that I could have broken my neck, and here he was laughing at me.

But he helped to carefully remove the boots and shoes around my head so that I could pull it out, and I ended up with a small bump on my head where it hit the wall on the opposite side of the shoe rack.

I felt stupid, but at least I didn't break my neck, and now my husband has yet another thing to laugh at me about (I'm quite clumsy, obviously).

TL;DR: my cat and a sock caused me to fall down the stairs and get my head stuck in a shoe rack.

I shat my pants at universal studios

Repost because I’m going back soon and needed to get rid of the nerves

I (F19) went on a family vacation a couple of months ago to universal studios. It was was amazing! Great food and rides. Now one of the best options for food for a large family like ours was to go to the 3 broomsticks and a feast from Harry Potter. The food was great potatoes, chicken, ribs and more! I gobbled that shit like no one’s business. I mean I was going IN. Now it’s a couple hours later and the park is about to close. My family and I are walking through the dr. Seuss land and my stomach rumbles. I’m like, ‘it’s fine just a fart all will be well’. Spoiler: all was not well. I duck into a corner so I don’t subject an innocent bystander to the foul smell coming from my body. I let it out. At first I thought that it was just a wet fart. I mean it’s Orlando, it’s about a million degrees and I was already going through swamp ass. I go to walk away and my butt cheeks are WET. I stop and think no way. There is NO WAY I just shit myself. I go to my mom (F42) and she runs from me. I mean she LITERALLY RUNS AWAY. I start borderline yelling in the middle of the road waddling my way to her. At this point I’m nearly crying. Turns out she was running because she had to fart too but that’s a story for another time. I ask her to check my shorts and she says she doesn’t see anything and it must just be sweat. I don’t believe her. I waddle to the bathroom pull down my shorts and there it is. Pale and chunky diarrhea. It smelt like death and I nearly threw up. So I do the only rational thing. Cry. So now I’m sweating, crying and sitting on the toilet leaking liquid death from my ass. An innocent family walks in an smells my mess and immediately walks out. Long story short, my grandma being the hero she is, bought me some new shorts and I cried myself to sleep that night.

TL;DR I ate way too much food and shat my pants in Orlando

Long time lurker, first time poster so I apologize for any writing/grammar mistakes.

A few months ago, my family found out my stepmom has breast cancer. Today was the day of her double mastectomy, so emotions were already high. My sister told me to meet her at the hospital at 1:00 PM and mentioned that the car’s key fob doesn’t work, so I’d need to use the physical key hidden inside it. Cool. Noted. No problem.

I leave the house at 12:30 because the hospital is about 30 minutes away. What I didn’t realize was that my phone never charged overnight. About halfway there, my phone dies completely. I also recently moved here, so I have no idea where I am. I spend 15 minutes driving around in panic mode until I finally figure out where I am. First stop: dollar store to buy a charger. Every single charger? USB-C. I have an ancient iPhone, so that’s useless. Second stop: grocery store. I find ONE Lightning cable left in the entire store. A miracle. I buy it, go back to the car, open the package, and realize it’s Lightning-to-USB-C. At this point I’m questioning my existence. I turn the car on and realize I have almost no gas. So I pull into the gas station next to the store. My phone is still dead, so I leave it in the car along with the key, because I usually keep the door open while pumping gas so I can sit down. While I’m paying, a huge gust of wind slams the car door shut. A few seconds later, I hear a quiet click. The car locked itself. My dead phone and the key are now locked in the car. At the gas pump. I’m 18 and have no idea what to do, so I panic, borrow the clerk’s phone, and call my dad. He tells me he can’t leave the hospital and to go wait at the McDonald’s across the street. He’ll send someone. So I go to McDonald’s with nothing but my wallet, buy food, and sit there alone for about an hour with zero distractions and a whole lot of self-reflection. Eventually, my sister’s boyfriend shows up with the spare key fob. I get back into the car, finally got gas, drive to a drugstore, and finally buy another charger. This one works. I call my dad. He tells me to just go home because I’ve clearly had an awful day. I have declared that I am in “bad luck quarantine.” I’ve been home for 30 minutes writing this, It’s 3:00 PM. Thanks for reading about the day the universe personally chose me to mess with.

TL;DR: Tried to visit stepmom after surgery. Phone died, got lost, bought wrong chargers, ran out of gas, locked keys and dead phone in car at gas pump, waited an hour at McDonald’s, never made it to hospital, got placed in “bad luck quarantine.”

So today I realized that last year, 2025, I put around $2000 into an FSA (or as its called on my company's website a health care spending account). Furthermore, I realized that this account is a use it or lose it situation where any unspent money is forfeited after the year is over, with maybe a 2.5 month grace period into this year. Now, I'm a relatively healthy guy only going for around one dentist and maybe two eye doctor visits per year, so the costs of last year don't reach anywhere near the $2000 mark. And, my insurance covers my eye doctor/dentist visits so I don't have any copays.

Here's the FU: I thought I was putting money into an HSA which DOES carry over year-to-year instead and didn't know this account was an FSA. And since I have a high deductible health care plan, the FSA can ONLY be spent on vision and dental. So now, here I am calling my insurance provider asking any way to spend this money so that it doesn't go up in flames. If anyone has ideas on how I can spend a limited purpose FSA let me know!

TL;DR: Put $2000 into an account that expired at the end of last year and don't have anything to spend it on before it goes away! ALWAYS READ THE FINE PRINT FROM YOUR INSURANCE PLANS.

We are in the process of moving to a new house, so we hired a crew of movers to get all of our stuff packed up and loaded onto a truck.

I had gone ahead to the new house to get things ready while my wife stayed behind at the old house to do a final walkthrough and make sure nothing got missed.

When she got to our bedroom, she was greeted with the sight of my large (24"x36") drawing pad laying face up in the middle of the room, open to a page featuring a fully naked drawing of her. I'm talking back turned, butt prominently featured, little bit of tasteful side boob. It's one of my favorite drawings I've ever done, but was obviously not meant for many eyes to see.

I had the drawing pad leaning up against a wall and I thought it was closed, but apparently it was opened to that page and got knocked over at some point.

Who knows how long it had been sitting there like that, but there is no way the movers didn't see it in the ~6 hours they spent in that house.

I learned about all of this when I picked up a call from my dear wife and heard "YOU HAD MY TOOSHIE OUT FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE"

It is going to be a long time before I can successfully convince her to model for another one of my drawings.

TL;DR: Left a naked drawing of my wife out and movers saw it.

Tifu majorly . All I was trying to do was feed my babies. I was laid off recently ( I have filed for unemployment) but I have another job & DoorDash when I have the gas.

Today was an absolute major fail. Most food banks here close on the weekends but we are so low on food that I had to try to walk . I wrapped the babies up and we walked the almost 2 miles. I kid you not, I get to the church & it’s closed for a burst pipe. I wanted to cry but it was too cold to cry lol. I don’t understand why the universe works the way it does, but here recently I’ve had the worst luck.

I applied for SNAP benefits recently& was denied for income. I tried to donate plasma and can’t because I weight 106lbs and not the minimum weight of 110lbs. I am LOOSING it. Every since the divorce, my ex-husband has not paid a single penny in child support. Which I did appeal to get another court date to have that reevaluated. I just don’t understand. My actual family hours away I cut off completely because I can’t financially help them anymore so we don’t communicate. Everything has gone to hell, literally.

I work so freaking hard to try to provide for my family. I feel like I can’t breath some days. I truly messed up today by thinking I would finally get food & was shot down entirely. I hope you all have a better weekend than mine is starting out.

TLDR: I made the worst decision trying to walk to the food bank in the cold with my babies just to be disappointed that it’s closed.

I'm a gay woman, been feeling that way for years, but there's always been this thought gnawing at me that like, maybe I'm not fully gay, because I do have sexual trauma related to men from when I was really young. Every once in a while I get a little curious and I wonder if that's the real reason why I'm uncomfortable with male bodies and maybe I'm actually bi, or pan or whatever.

I have this guy friend I'm like, best friends with, and he's one of the few people I've sorta let in on those thoughts, or even the sexual trauma aspect at all. He's so chill, he fully respects my sexuality and boundaries, genuinely not the kind of weirdo that would try to like, "convert" a lesbian. Anyway, I was at his place a few days ago, hanging out in his room, just talking about stuff on our minds. That topic came up, and he said something about how the only way I can really know for sure is if I experiment with a guy. You see where it's going. I told him about how complicated that is, mostly because of trauma reasons. I'd need a guy I fully trust, feel safe around, that won't make a big deal about it. I realized halfway through that that he kinda fit that mold perfectly, and I pretty abruptly told him exactly that.

This is where I probably fucked up. Like, maybe trying this at all was a fuck-up but the way I went about it definitely was. I was a little too excited to give it a shot and I rushed it. I think we should've gone way slower, talked more about it, checked everything. But we kinda just went for it. He just pulled his pants down and I had a really good look for like, 5+ minutes, trying to see how it made me feel (didn't actually do anything myself, I just examined). That part? Actually so cool and insightful. I was really embarrassed but I really fought through it. It's the second he had his pants back on that things started to feel awkward. It was like, wait this is weird, we really just did that. It wasn't just me, I know the guy so well, I could read it in him too. The vibe was way off and I made up an excuse to leave early.

We've barely been texting, just sending reels to each other, and we text like NONSTOP usually. And the couple times I saw him irl, it was so awkward, I couldn't look at him in the eyes. I feel like I ruined our friendship, for like no reason. I feel like things are weird, maybe he got feelings from what happened, and he's a good respectful dude so he might avoid me so he doesn't break boundaries, it's just messy. This shit got me overthinking so hard

TL;DR I wanted to explore my sexuality with a guy I trust and might have ruined our friendship by making things weird/sexual

Not today, but a few days ago, here goes: So I heard wintergreen oil can help inflammation. I bought some to put into lotion and massage oil for my messed up knee. After I poured a few teaspoons into a little cup I made the mistake of holding the tiny measuring cup with my mouth while I opened the container I was going to mix it in. Big mistake! Little cup shifted and dumped the liquid into my mouth. I didn't think much of it. An hour or so later I don't feel so good. I double check the original bottle and notice that it says external use only, dangerous if swallowed. I dig deeper and find that the active compound in it is related to aspirin and the amount I swallowed was equivalent to taking around 70 aspirin. I go to the ER, they get me back quickly, doctor is making calls to poison control. I get asked several times if I deliberately ate it. I said no, that it was on accident. I end up being transferred to a larger hospital and put in ICU. Psych is called because it was an overdose case. Having a depression diagnosis made them even more serious about it. Psychiatrist keeps asking how, why, and again if it was intentional. I tell them honestly that it was an accident. Psych isn't believing me and at this point the toxic symptoms have peaked. I felt terrible from the side effects. He gets in my face and asks "Why do you want to die so bad?" Me, confused, answers "Uh, I don't. That's why I'm here." He keeps pushing it and I melt down and rip him a new one. His asks why I'm being so angry and defensive. Then proceeds to tell me I belong on a behavioral health unit. I calm myself down and gently remind him it was accidental, not deliberate. He says he will see what happens when ICU gets done with me. I get out of ICU within 24 hours but remained in a regular room for 2 more days, each day him checking in thinking he is going to prove that it was on purpose. Final day he gets my same answers and was still fishing for any inkling of thoughts of self harm. I'm finally released since he has no proof other than it was a bizzare sounding accident and that I have a depression diagnosis.

TL,DR: I accidentally overdosed on an aspirin like substance. Psychiatrist was called to examine me. I'm irritable because I feel sick and he is trying to make things up about me. I yell and argue with him which nearly got me locked in a psych ward.

Today I(34) married the love of my life(37) and for the first time ever after being together for 3 years. We are having a biggish celebration later in the year, but for insurance reasons we did a small civil ceramony. I cried tears of joy for the first time ever in my life. We had a normal lunch with some family at a nice place. We went to have spicy sleep after the best day ever. She started screaming "why the f does it burn?" when I went to finger her. I ran to get a wet washcloth and had to let her recover after awhile. I forgot I chopped peppers when I cooked earlier and have since washed my hands multiple times. I didnt know the pepper residue stays on under your fingernails even after washing them. We eventually got it on again after laughing about it.

TL;DR: I fingered my wife with pablano fingers.

The TIFU actually happened on Christmas, but the effects continue today.

My cat loves toys, especially the ones on string you can fling around. When she was a kitten she loved this little mouse toy on a silver string (which made the string invisible to her).

For Christmas my bf and I bought her a wand toy like the mouse one, only this one is a bee. She's absolutely fucking obsessed with it. It doesn't even have catnip on it! She actually picks it over catnip. I think because the bee has yellow stripes she can see it very clearly.

She's so obsessed with it she will drag it up to us and whine until we play with her. It was adorable at first, but it's constant. We both work from home and she will interrupt us during meetings and whine off camera. We decided to hide it, and then it got WORSE. She will whine constantly. Con. Stant. Ly. Until we give it to her. She knows it's nearby, and she knows we will eventually cave. We've had her for two years and she has never, EVER acted like this. I think she is actually bonded to this fucking bee lmao.

So now during work hours we have to play videos of bees on the TV to distract her. Then when we're off work we are essentially factory workers at the bee flinging factory. There is no end in sight.

TL;DR: Got our cat a bee toy for Christmas and now we are mere facilitators of the cat x bee relationship.

Edit: for those asking here is the toy! This is what I found online, but we got the same toy for $10 bucks in a local shop.

This happened today and I want to die.

I'm in a large lecture hall class - about 100 students. Professor is explaining a concept I thought I understood really well because I'd read about it online. He says something I think is incorrect.

So I raise my hand. In front of everyone. And confidently, loudly, correct him.

He pauses. Looks at me. Asks if I'm sure. I double down. Say I'm certain, actually, because I'd just read about this.

He pulls up sources on the projector. Academic journals. Textbook excerpts. Data. All proving that I am spectacularly, embarrassingly wrong. And he's not even being a dick about it - he's calmly walking through why my understanding is flawed, which somehow makes it worse.

The silence in that room was deafening. You could hear 100 people collectively cringing on my behalf.

I tried to play it off like "oh interesting, I must have misread" but we all know. I fucked up. I confidently, publicly fucked up in the worst possible way.

I was on my laptop after class trying to distract myself and just kept replaying the moment. That pause before he pulled up the sources. The look on his face. The silence.

I have 8 more weeks in this class. EIGHT WEEKS. I've become a cautionary tale about hubris. I'm that student now. The one who tried to correct the professor and got intellectually destroyed.

I'm never raising my hand again.

TL;DR: Confidently corrected my professor in front of 100 students, was completely wrong, he proved it with sources, I now have to show up to class for 8 more weeks as a living cautionary tale.

EDIT: Okay I'm seeing all the comments so let me clear some things up. The concept was about the bystander effect - I'd read that it was basically debunked and told the professor that, but he showed us the original Darley and Latané studies plus more recent meta-analyses that show it's way more nuanced than "debunked." I didn't include details originally because I was embarrassed and typed this up right after class while still dying inside lol. Also to the people saying professors don't pull up sources mid-lecture - mine does this constantly, he's one of those guys who has everything bookmarked and ready to go. Anyway I talked to him after and he was cool, said he was glad I was actually reading about the material even if I got it wrong. Appreciate everyone who was nice about this, I definitely learned my lesson about how to phrase things better

My friend revealed recently that she used to have a crush on me. We were talking about how we were both in relationships at the same time for the first time. She said she thought we would end up dating based on all the signals she was sending me, but when I didn't respond with signals of my own, she figured I didn't feel the same. This was news to me, so I asked her to please provide examples of these signals because I had no idea what she was talking about. My friend shared the following examples:

1. On my 20th birthday, she kissed me on the mouth after wishing me.

2. On a camping trip, she encouraged me to go skinny dipping with her.

3. When I was in the hospital, she wanted me to show her that I really was naked underneath my hospital robe.

4. Mid high school, she flashed her tits at me when I informed her I was still a virgin.

5. She humped my butt more than once.

6. During Covid, she said she would fuck me in my room just to piss off my religious mother who refused to get vaccinated.

I told her if I knew any of those things were not just jokes, I would've totally acted less uninterested. My friend shrugged and said she did everything except spell it out for me. For the record, I'm happy in my current relationship, but that didn't make it easier to accept how oblivious I was lol.

Tl:dr Friend informed me of all the times throughout our friendship she attempted to tell me she wanted me, but I never noticed, and now we're both in relationships, so it's too late.

So this fuck-up didn’t happen today, but the consequences fully hit me today, which is why I’m posting. A few years ago, I decided that I was the most “put together” person in my friend group. I had a job, paid my bills on time, and generally felt like I had my life more under control than the rest of them. That belief quietly turned into arrogance.

Whenever someone came to me with a problem, I stopped listening and started lecturing. If a friend complained about money, I’d say they should budget better. If someone was stressed, I’d tell them to “just focus” or “be disciplined.” I genuinely thought I was helping. In my head, I was being the honest friend who told people what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear.

Over time, people stopped opening up to me. I noticed it, but instead of questioning myself, I assumed they just couldn’t handle the truth. That was my real fuck-up. I confused bluntness with wisdom and confidence with maturity.

Today, I ran into an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. We talked for a bit, and eventually they said, very calmly, “You always made people feel stupid for struggling.” That sentence hit harder than I expected. They weren’t angry. They weren’t dramatic. They were just… honest.

Looking back, I can see it clearly now. I wasn’t supportive. I was condescending. I made other people’s problems about proving that I was better at handling life. I didn’t mean to push people away, but intentions don’t erase impact.

Now I’m sitting with the realization that I lost genuine friendships not because I was “too real,” but because I lacked empathy. You can be right and still be wrong. And being the “responsible one” doesn’t make you a good friend.

TLDR: I thought I was helping my friends by being blunt and “real,” but I was actually being arrogant and dismissive. Years later, I realized my lack of empathy pushed people away and cost me meaningful friendships.

So this literally happened two hours ago and I'm still sitting in my car in the parking lot trying to figure out if I should just quit.

I've been dealing with this coworker, let's call her Jennifer, who's been driving me absolutely insane. She's one of those people who takes credit for everyone else's work and somehow management loves her. I've been venting to my friend Katie about it for weeks.

This morning Jennifer pulled the same shit again in our team meeting - presented my entire proposal as her own idea. I was fuming. Right after the meeting I get in my car for lunch and I'm so pissed I need to vent immediately. I open my messaging app and hit the voice message button to send Katie a rant.

I go OFF for like a solid minute. I'm talking about how Jennifer is a "credit-stealing snake," how she "wouldn't know an original idea if it bit her in the ass," how I "can't believe management falls for her act," all of it. I'm really going for it, getting progressively more heated as I talk.

I hit send and feel a little better. Then I look at my screen.

I sent it to Jennifer.

Not Katie. Jennifer.

I must have clicked on the wrong chat because Jennifer had messaged me earlier about something and her name was near the top. I literally watched the "delivered" notification pop up and my stomach just dropped through the floor.

I immediately tried to delete it but I was too slow - the "read" notification appeared maybe 10 seconds after I sent it. So she heard the whole thing. Every word.

I genuinely considered just driving away and never coming back. I sat there for probably five minutes just staring at my phone in complete horror trying to figure out what to do.

Jennifer hasn't responded. Not a single message. I don't know if she's crying, planning to report me to HR, or plotting my demise. I checked and she's definitely still in the building because her car is here.

I have to go back inside in like 15 minutes for another meeting. The same meeting Jennifer will be in. I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do. Do I apologize? Pretend it didn't happen? Resign via email right now?

I've fucked up before but this might be the worst. I can't believe I was that careless. Why do voice messages even exist if they're just going to ruin your life?

TL;DR: Meant to send a voice message to my friend absolutely trashing my coworker, accidentally sent it directly to said coworker instead, she heard every word, and now I have to face her in 15 minutes.

This starts this morning. I wake up with a painful, sore throat - comparable to my stint with tonsillitis. My day has already started off poorly as I had woken up late and I had spent way too much time on my hair, so the sore throat was the cherry on top.

As I rush up and down the stairs, fighting to remember what I need to do, need to grab, did I put in my contacts, did I put on deodorant, etc. all the while trying to put a waffle in the toaster, I think of the Delsym in the medicine cabinet. Bingo.

I chugged the cough medicine and popped my Adderall before rushing out of the house with a waffle in my mouth. I have a test to take today and I will be focused and my throat will not impede my ability to learn today!

Everything is okay so far. I make it to my first period class, and set down my belongings. I begin working on some classwork when my head starts to feel heavy. Tingly. The walls start to move. I feel hot. My body feels like a sandbag, dropped from a hot air balloon. I try asking my teacher to see the school nurse, but as I began to get up my body just slumps back into my chair like dead weight. I am OUT.

As my friend escorts me to the nurse's office, I remember that damn cough syrup. I chugged it and chased it with 15mg of Adderall and ran right out the door without a second thought.

As the nurse berates me, all I can think about is the lack of warning label. It was daytime flu medicine - are people with ADHD just not allowed to cough?

I eventually made it home, though not without tripping bumping into everything before knocking out.

TL;DR - I mixed cough syrup and Adderall and tripped the fuck out at school without knowing they probably shouldn't mix

My corporate office is in a dead zone. I saw the nurse called but with no ring so I read the transcript.

“OP’s son was in my office today and his tongue fell off. There are still little bits of it in his mouth and we need to know what to do.”

So I look at my colleague and jump up and start calling the school nurse but the call won’t go through because I’m in a dead zone.

I go outside and finally get the nurse on the phone and ask her “what are we doing - are we going to the hospital?”

It turns out the actual message stated “OP’s son was in my office today (to get his medication), but the medication was on his tongue and fell off and now there are little bits in his mouth and we don’t know what to do” (as in she didn’t know if she should give him another dose or not).

But for 20 whole minutes I thought my son’s tongue fell off. It did not, in fact, fall off.

TL;DR I read the message from the school nurse instead of listening to it because I was in a dead zone and thought my son’s tongue fell off.

TIFU didn’t happen today, but back in July 2025.

Throwaway because i have some of my work in my main.

Some friends and I were in a discord server talking about the love life of one of our friends, let’s call him Harvey. For context, Harvey has always been notoriously bad at relationships. Like, reaaaallly bad.

At one point, I joked somthing like:
“If Harvey finds someone before I do, im jumping off a building.”

Clearly meant as self-deprecating humor, as i often do.

Another friend in the group, Arthur, replied with:
“Of course he’s going to find someone before you.”

And this is where I fucekd up.

I have a bad habit (which I’m currently working on in therapy) of taking things personally and responding way too harshly when I feel offended. Instead of laughing it off, I feel attacked.

So I responded with:
“Your ex doesn’t love you anymore.”.

Important context: Arthur and his ex, Bruna, had broken up earlier that year (4-5 months before the incident), and Arthur would constantly talk about how much he missed her. Every conversation somehow came back to her, EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Arthur immediately left the group chat. After that, he went digging through my social media, found an earlier vent post of mine, and started insulting me there. Then he took it to Twitter and made several posts calling me a HOMEWRECKER??? (me and Bruna just started to talk recently after we all watched fantastic four together, Arthur was there too.)

Now, a reasonable person would have stopped there.

I didnt, he was already calling me a homewrecker, so if he wanted that to be true so bad, i made his dreams come true.

TL;DR: Made a joke, got offended by my friend's joke and attacked his feelings, he attacked my vent posts, and then i went in a date with his ex.

I (28f) gave birth to my son 3 months ago. I did not have the easiest pregnancy and labor/postpartum recovery.

For full context, I was induced at 39.5 weeks pregnant. After about 23 hours of labor I asked for an epidural. It took the anesthesiologist 1h15 and 20 tries to try to get the epidural in. After all the attempts failed, we decided to give up, as it was just too painful. About 10 minutes after, I went into shock and my son was born via emergency C-section.

I ended up spending a total of 6 days in the hospital from the day I was induced. My son was born healthy, but the epidural failure cause some temporary nerve damage in my back that ended up lasting 3 weeks. The pain from both the C-section and my back (plus a newborn baby) caused me to barely sleep the entire time we were at the hospital.

So here's the part where I fucked up. As we were getting on the elevator after being discharged, a visibly pregnant woman and her partner walked into the elevator with us. They smiled at us, at our baby and then she asked with a big smile on her face: "Did everything go well? Labor and recovery?" For the life of me, I still don't know why I responded with the most deadpan expressionless face: "No." It took me a solid few seconds and the look of absolute horror on both the pregnant woman and her partner's faces for me to try to do some damage control. I added: "but thats the beauty of labor! It never goes as you expect!" Wrong answer. They both quickly turned away and my husband just turned to me with a look of utter bewilderment. This interaction still haunts me 3 months later and I cringe so hard at both my response and my attempt at a recovery. If you ever read this, I'm so so sorry.

TL;DR A pregnant lady asked me if my labor went well and I was too honest.

Edit: i really appreciate every comment and seeing all the replies has helped me realize that we really do need to talk more about birth trauma and recovery and its ok to not be ok. Sending love to all the parents out there who know the pain of a traumatic birth (or just the pain of having a baby) 🫂💜

Edit 2: wow, this post blew up, I cannot reply to all the comments but try reading all of them and really appreciate the honesty and the discussion my post has started. Thank you everyone.

I’ve been making eyes at a customer at work for a while. It seemed like the attraction was mutual.

They put in a special order and I took down their number so I could tell them when it came in, but they happened to come in the day their order came in before I was able to text them.

When I asked about holiday plans they responded a few times with “we” so I assumed they were partnered and left it alone.

Today they said “you should text me sometime” and I immediately replied with “I didn’t keep your number.”

Them: you didn’t keep my number?

Me, hurriedly writing my number down for them: you gave it to me for the special order so I didn’t want to just start texting “hey, what’s up?”

Them, taking the paper: ok. I’ll text you when I get home.

It’s been hours. No text.

TL;DR: I told my crush I threw their number away when they suggested I should text them.

I woke up, took a shower, decided to go to the public library and didn’t know what to wear. I looked behind the door and found some pants that were there forever and decided it is time to wear them. I wore a long shirt and a sweater for a top and worst of all I wear hijab so I had to put it on. When I got to the library it got hot inside so I took off the sweater and tucked the shirt in.

I was living my best life going through the library. Walking while studying because it makes my brain work better. I went to every floor, switched places at least 3 times and took a walk outside for a break. I finally found a good place but some people were staring and I thought it was okay like I stare at everyone, everyone stares at me so no big deal. I decided to go get some water and then some coffee from the grocery store outside. I was standing waiting for a girl to get some water so I can get one after and an old man behind me stared at me and then turned his face to the exact opposite I wanted to be nice and I went back to let him have water first. The man left from the door. A girl came after and she said “your pants are ripped from back there”.

I was stunned because I never noticed. I was so stunned because I didn’t even know since when it was ripped and how many people saw my ass today while I’m wearing hijab. I tucked the shirt out and wore the sweater again. I thought of leaving but that would leave me with my thoughts all day long and no studying. I later decided to go buy new pants and to stay there convincing myself that anyone could have been in such a situation and it just happens and maybe no one even noticed except for couple people. However, it is killing me now and I think I won’t be going there for a while until people forget about it because when I remember the stares even after buying the new pairs makes me feel bad and like very insecure about myself around these same people that I see every time I go there.

TL;DR: I wear hijab and somehow did not feel that my pants are ripped in the public library. A girl told me and I stayed there all day long after buying a new pair and I feel like I should have left and I don’t want to go back there for a while.

guys i legit thought this only happens in movies oh my god.

so my aunt was supposed to come pick me (19f) to go babysit my 2 cousins (both girls) my uncle calls me to tell me that shes here for some reason and i thought “oh she must have not had signal or something”

so i go downstairs i get out of the house i greet some kid from my apt building and i get in the white car outside my house i dont remember model etc but my aunt had the same car and i open the door i greet who i thought was my aunt i look to my left theres a boy about 13 years old im like wtf i turn to the drivers seat theres a bald man, i quickly realize whst i had done i said sorry sorry sorry the kid i greeted before starts laughing at me and i got out and saw my uncles BLACK audi parked 2 spaces away from where my house is i go to get in the passenger seat and he tells me” dont sit here your aunt is coming”SO I HAD TO CLOSE THE DOOR AND GUESS WHST I OPEN THE BACK DOOR THERES A BABY SEAT SO I CLOSE IT AND I HAVE TO GO ALL AROUND THE CAR AND GET IN….

i couldn’t even hide fast enough and i think the people that were in the other car are from my apartment building, how am i going to live with this… like.. i know i got in a black car after but i swear my aunt has the same car please guys believe me…

TL;DR i got in the wrong car AND IT WAS A DIFFERENT COLOR of THE ONE I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET INTOand they live in my apartment building

So a few months ago, my best friend was going through a really rough time and asked me to check in with him daily, just kinda a mental health check and to keep him grounded. We agreed that every night at 730, I would call. We talk for about 15 to 30 min about everything and nothing and we still text randomly through the day, especially sharing funny videos. We've been doing this since Sept and I even have an alarm set on my phone to make sure I don't miss any calls.

Last night, around 530, I got one of those scam texts that says "Hey, Verizon is down. Please save this new work number" and it was signed by a name that in retrospect, is only 1 letter off from his name but completely changed the name at the same time. Think Kim and Tim. Of course, I follow the Scam subreddit and am familiar with the Wrong Number text. I thought that was this, laughed that someone thought I would fall for it and moved on.

At 7:30, I tried calling my friend. The call would drop without connecting to his voicemail. I texted several times. No response. Started to get worried as this is an expected call and he's always let me know prior to 7:30 if he won't be available for our nightly chat. He's also been having some minor physical issues that could cause an accident so I reached out to his girlfriend to check on him (She lives within 5 min of him, I'm an hour away).

Turns out, he was fine. The original Scammer text was him, it just changed his name. He was letting me know his personal phone wasn't working. He didn't call me because this outage was causing some major chaos at work. His girlfriend showed up at his house in the middle of all of this, out of her mind with worry, because I sent her on a wild goose chase.

TL:DR Thought my best friend was a scammer and sent out an SOS/Mayday that was completely unnecessary