Page 13 | What's the weirdest thing you've done that you look back and think 'WTF did I do that for?'

BarbaraVineFan · 2023-08-10T18:20:09+00:00

I'll start - when I was in my first long term relationship at the fairly advanced age of 24, my partner and I used to regularly cook our dinner, then take it up to bed on a tray and sit there watching TV eating our dinner like Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! No discernible reason, there was a perfectly good telly and sofa downstairs 😐 I have no idea why we did it! Anyone else got something similarly weird to share?

OutragedSloth · 12/08/2023 22:47

In primary school I thought the fact that my new jeans were "stretch" meant that they were appropriate for exercise. I brought them in for PE and wore with my new faux fur lined fleece thinking I was the bees knees. The teacher had a talk with the whole class to say some of our exercise kit was too heavy. I sat and stretched my jeans fabric to make sure he knew it was stretch. Told my mum and she said they were inappropriate clothes and she packed my bag from then onwards. Its been well over 20 years and I still cringe at it.

LittleMonstera · 12/08/2023 22:57

At 18 I was really drunk at a work do and having recently bought a phone with a camera for the very first time, decided to show several people including my male 50yrs+ boss a particularly fetching selfie of my arse. It still haunts me when I'm lying awake at night sometimes...

A non-alcohol related weird thing was at 19 I decided I wanted to be known by a different name (probably to disassociate myself from incidents like the arse picture) and just started using one at a new job. I used it for years then and repeatedly had to explain no that wasn't my name but it was the name I used. Then I went back to my actual name but was still in touch with people who'd only known my other name and it was all a confusing mess.

Truemilk · 12/08/2023 23:25

MorrisZapp · 11/08/2023 22:10

My mum collected Cordon Bleu magazines, we used to make extravagant bleugggh noises looking at them.

Before the internet or proper telly I used to obsessively read cookery books whenever I ate. My favourites were The Dairy Book of Home Cookery and all of Delia Smith. I can picture her squidgy chocolate log to this day, 'a bit wicked, as it contains no flour', and her frosted grape cheesecake.

I'm a very basic, unimaginative cook despite this deep encyclopedic knowledge.

I still use this book 😂 it's like a bible

What's the weirdest thing you've done that you look back and think 'WTF did I do that for?'

OhwhyOY · 12/08/2023 23:33

These are brilliant. I like the bamboo cane TV/light switch stories. My sister and I used to be relegated to the freezing in winter boiling in summer conservatory of an evening to watch TV as our parents were in the living room. To change channels we had to press a button on the VCR which used to always give you a mild electric shock. Wish we'd had a bamboo cane! Why we didn't get our parents to fix it I don't know!

apapuchi · 12/08/2023 23:51

Mothership4two · 12/08/2023 15:46

At my primary school Summer fete, my best friend and I won first prize in the fancy dress competition as the wicked queen and the mirror from Sleeping Beauty. It obviously went to our heads as we spent most of the Summer dressed up as them wandering around town. We got lots of bemused looks and a few foreign tourists asked if they could take our photos - this is one of the strange customs that English children do in their spare time! It was quite hot dressed up in all that clobber and pretty boring. Not sure what was going on in our heads?

Hahaha I love this. Just the kind of thing my best friend and I would have done 😂

My best friend and I used to call up the local late night call in radio show doing all sorts of weird accents and with strange, invented stories relating to whatever the topic was that night. We were very creative but the switchboard must have seen through us. We still got on lots of times and taped them on all a tape recorder while listening. I remember the whine when the recorder was too close to the phone. The good old, weird old days.

nadine90 · 13/08/2023 00:11

The summer after leaving school, I went for an interview for a "sales" job which was going to be in two parts - a standard interview followed by a practical. I should have known something was off when a group of us were rallied up and taken on a walk outside, to the bus station and handed single tickets to follow these guys onto a bus. I think we were told we were going to a "hub" or something. I was still under the impression it was telesales at this point.
Ended up on a posh housing estate miles and miles away from home, with a team leader and another interviewee (in the days before smartphones - I had no idea how to get home), going door to door selling Sky. I think I sat through two living room presentations before making a run for it. Managed to find a bus stop and got on the next bus to a town I knew had a big bus station. On the bus there was a sweaty looking young man in a suit shaking his head. He'd done the exact same thing as me.

sawnotseen · 13/08/2023 00:13

Train was cancelled so we walked along the tracks for half an hour??? 18 and should have known better

Babysharkdoodoodood · 13/08/2023 00:53

Just last month I did something totally weird. A new officer(pc) was passing my office door and for some really unknown and stupid reason, called out ‘Bonjour’ instead of my normal Good morning.

Except he was/is a multi-lingual Romanian and proceeded to come in and chat to me in French ( I only got the basics -school French etc) and managed to nod along as though understood every word.

But every bloody time I see him now, he stops and has a chat to me …..

In French!

On the upside, my French is improving

KennedyClan · 13/08/2023 00:54

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DreamingOfRest · 13/08/2023 00:58

countvoncount · 12/08/2023 06:42

Many many years ago I was asked around to this guys flat for coffee, we sort of knew each other and I was desperate to impress.
I'd read in cosmopolitan that men liked women who did quirky confident things and a suggestion was to take HIM flowers....
I went to a florist that morning and asked (this still makes me curl up) for a "man bouquet"
Paid £20 and she proceeded to make this monstrosity of twigs and thistles, basically imagine the opposite of a beautiful arrangement.
I awkwardly walked off with it to the dream man's place, knocked on the door and with great bravado announced "these are for you" like I ruled the world.
He took them off me so bemused, we had a nice afternoon, little kiss, I thought all was good until I bumped into his flatmate a few days later and apparently he was convinced that it was a voodoo spell, and I'd freaked him out with my grand gesture.
Never heard from him again, bloody cosmo.

This has me in convulsions, thank you so much, I really needed a laugh!!

SplendidUtterly · 13/08/2023 01:19

CringeyCrispys · 11/08/2023 18:50

Name changed for this. As an 18 year old I had a boyfriend my (very controlling) parents hated. On Christmas Day I was absolutely desperate to see him to swap presents/profess undying love to each other in his van. We arranged to meet on the corner of a neighbouring street that evening, and I told my parents I was going to a friends house up the road for Christmas drinks. My dad was absolutely insistent he gave me a lift despite it being literally a street away. (I’m certain he knew I was planning on an illicit tryst with my banned boyfriend).
so after much protestation, into the car I get with my dad who drops me the 2 seconds to my friends house. I get out….and he waits. And waits. I find myself walking up the driveway of a girl I barely fucking knew from school on Christmas Day knocking as my dad continues to watch. She opens the door understandably totally bemused what on earth I’m doing knocking on her door on Christmas night while I mumble something about wanting to wish her a happy Christmas. I’m sure she thought I was on glue or something, it says so much about how conditioned I was to not stand up to my parents that I didn’t just tell my dad that I was 18 and if I wanted to see the boyfriend he disapproved of I bloody well would. Anyway after a couple of minutes of absolutely painful chitchat with the girl I knew and her family, I said happy Christmas cheerio and bombed it down the road red faced to meet my boyfriend. I look back 20 years later and still feel so fucking embarrassed at what on earth they must have thought.

You win! lmao

sashh · 13/08/2023 01:55

TheOwlChronicles · 11/08/2023 23:04

Met some bloke in a pub. I live down south and he said he was from Wolverhampton. He was some sort of contractor here for work and we ended up having a bit of a kiss etc.

Anyway I didn't know his name or anything and we only spent about an hour together. He mentioned he lived opposite 'the big Tesco' off a roundabout in Wolverhampton in passing

Fast forward a few weeks. I decided to track him down. I couldn't drive at the time and it was way before mobile phones or the internet

So I hopped on a train to Wolverhampton and spent ages trying to find the big Tesco and identify nearby houses

I mean - what was I going to do? Knock on every single house in the vicinity? Who even knows if he lived in Wolverhampton?

I came home the same evening on the train and even now, 30 years later, I still cringe at this memory.

I'd like to say it was a one off. T wasn't. I did similarly dangerous things all around the same time.

Why? I can't answer that. I'm now boringly married and settled with kids and I'd go absolutely spare if any of mine pulled this sort of madness!

I live in Wolverhampton, there is no 'big tesco' off the roundabout.

KissyMissy · 13/08/2023 02:17

CringeyCrispys · 11/08/2023 18:50

Name changed for this. As an 18 year old I had a boyfriend my (very controlling) parents hated. On Christmas Day I was absolutely desperate to see him to swap presents/profess undying love to each other in his van. We arranged to meet on the corner of a neighbouring street that evening, and I told my parents I was going to a friends house up the road for Christmas drinks. My dad was absolutely insistent he gave me a lift despite it being literally a street away. (I’m certain he knew I was planning on an illicit tryst with my banned boyfriend).
so after much protestation, into the car I get with my dad who drops me the 2 seconds to my friends house. I get out….and he waits. And waits. I find myself walking up the driveway of a girl I barely fucking knew from school on Christmas Day knocking as my dad continues to watch. She opens the door understandably totally bemused what on earth I’m doing knocking on her door on Christmas night while I mumble something about wanting to wish her a happy Christmas. I’m sure she thought I was on glue or something, it says so much about how conditioned I was to not stand up to my parents that I didn’t just tell my dad that I was 18 and if I wanted to see the boyfriend he disapproved of I bloody well would. Anyway after a couple of minutes of absolutely painful chitchat with the girl I knew and her family, I said happy Christmas cheerio and bombed it down the road red faced to meet my boyfriend. I look back 20 years later and still feel so fucking embarrassed at what on earth they must have thought.

Brilliant

cariadlet · 13/08/2023 03:45

LimeDrizzled · 12/08/2023 02:47

Had a one night stand I didn't want. I tried to say no but he kept wearing me down. I thought maybe he would leave if I did enough to keep him happy for a while. I hated every minute of it and was shaking.

I wouldn't allow that now. I have more self respect.

@LimeDrizzled I'm so sorry that this happened to you and that you still seem to blame yourself for having allowed it to happen and for not having enough self-respect when you were young.

You did not want to have sex. He knew you didn't want to have sex. You told him but he coerced you into having sex.
If you were shaking, he could even see that you weren't enjoying it but he didn't care and he carried on anyway.

He raped you and you didn't deserve for that to happen. Try to stop blaming your younger self for something that wasn't your fault.

CrazylazyJane · 13/08/2023 04:01

So many stupidly dangerous things when I was backpacking in Asia and Australia. I desperately wanted to move out of the backpackers hostel I was staying in and answered an advert on Gumtree for a ‘bed share’ in a trendy but notoriously seedy part of town. The guy had a double bed, said that we’d simply be bed partners and the rent was peanuts. 24 year old me thought ‘seems
legit’. I was messaging this guy about moving in and then all of a sudden the messages stopped. To this day I wonder if he was a sex offender or murderer and had got taken in by the police.

montecarlo7 · 13/08/2023 04:05

Busubaba · 11/08/2023 21:36

A lovely trip down memory lane.

I collected recipe cards and every week and the folders to put them in

I had a dinner part for 4-8 guests and made a three course meal from using the recipe recipe cards.

I was addicted to it.

When our guests arrived, friends and family, the men would go in the sitting room and chat about football etc and the women would sit in my dining room whilst I scurried about in the kitchen and they could view me through the open doorway.

They would be as excited as me and would read the cards and ask to borrow them or if they also collected the cards would talk about what they made.

It was like a huge big weekly event and my partner who belonged to a wine club would select the wines. I don't drink so I wasn't involved in that.

We would all dress up and look glamorous even though we were only in my house!

It seems funny looking back at it but ordering a take away in those days wasn't really an option. We all cooked and baked.

The sad thing is that most of those people are now dead.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224671090616?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338749367&toolid=20006&customid=GB 11224671090616.146402343561~1871060449859-g Cj0KCQjwuNemBhCBARIsADp74QQERNqDiCvBtQH1dUnEaO8Rn3kwOU9eEM5ufBh-Pth67aj6LSnGkCgaAsrsEALwwwcB

This sounds lovely!

montecarlo7 · 13/08/2023 04:11

Got into a car in Malaysia with 2 male strangers. Luckily they weren't rapists or murderers but they could have been. One of them was muslim and was going on at me about how important it is for me to have kids.

montecarlo7 · 13/08/2023 04:33

LimeDrizzled · 12/08/2023 02:47

Had a one night stand I didn't want. I tried to say no but he kept wearing me down. I thought maybe he would leave if I did enough to keep him happy for a while. I hated every minute of it and was shaking.

I wouldn't allow that now. I have more self respect.

I'm really sorry that happened to you.

Newnamehiwhodis · 13/08/2023 05:50

SnowWhiteAndTheTwoKids · 12/08/2023 22:02

I was once invited to a pretty swanky party, there was this guy there who had once been someone important in the music industry. He was bragging about how he doesn't feel any pain. For some ridiculous reason, I took up the challenge and said: "I bet I can make you feel pain." Then, with a flourish - and without invitation - I stabbed my finger in his ribs very hard saying, "The finger of pain!" He screamed and through gritted teeth mumbled that I should never touch him again!

THE FINGER OF PAIN

I am crying 🤣

dkedm15 · 13/08/2023 07:27

@SnowWhiteAndTheTwoKids @Elzibells I will think of these whenever I need cheering up 🤣😭🤣

LaurieFairyCake · 13/08/2023 07:50

Used to dial random numbers for the fancy city about 80 miles away - then when a bloke answered ARRANGED TO MEET HIM (if he was close in age to me, so I was 15/16 and provided he said he was under 20 I would)

WHAT. THE.FUCK - how am I not murdered?

Mgi4243765 · 13/08/2023 08:46

I was at boarding school and there was a family that used to live on one of the floors to look after us. They had kids a girl my age who went to the school (her dad was also a. Teacher) and twin girls. I was writing Christmas cards with them and teaching them how to draw etc and I (unbeknownst to me at the time) wrote to their mum and dad happy Christmas mummy and daddy!!!! Only found out months later when a boy ‘friend’ of mine, who the girl my age was seeing said why did you write a Christmas card to them with to mummy and daddy!?! I was horrified.. didn’t even realise I did it was just for the girls.. 🤦🏻‍♀️

CloseItAgain · 13/08/2023 08:57

Thewheelweavesasthewheelwills · 12/08/2023 00:12

Many many things.

One that is sort of sweet though, when I was 3/4 I shoved a button up my nose. Apparently I told people all day about this button but no one believed me until much later when finally someone had a look and there it was.

I had no clue what periods were and was so embarrassed when they started I didn't tell anyone I wore bicycle shorts to contain things and then binned them after.

When out drinking outside a 7/11 in Indonesia I decided a lift home with a random man on his motorbike was great idea.

As a child I did this with rolled up cotton thread. Twice. I also shoved a garden pea up my nose and then panicked so tried to get it out with a coat hanger. Ended up making it bleed and it went further up. All three times I ended up at a&e 🤦‍♀️
I also used to try and slide down our washing line prop. It was wooden and I would end up with splinters in my hands and inner legs which my mum had to pull out with tweezers. I think I did it repeatedly as I got given an ice lolly to distract me whilst she plucked them out 🙈

PollyannaWhittier · 13/08/2023 09:37

Truemilk · 12/08/2023 23:25

I still use this book 😂 it's like a bible

Show quote history

Definitely a bible ! I bought myself a copy off eBay when I went off to uni in 2011 as I knew I wouldn't survive without it

Both my stupidest things I can think of were things I was told to do by someone else, and was too dim / shy to refuse.

1- aged about 10, my best friend and I climbed out of her bedroom window onto the (old, glass) conservatory flat roof. Her mum didn't see, but her little sister tattled and both our mums were livid. The roof broke a few years later in a storm, we were very lucky not to fall through.

2- I worked late evenings in a supermarket in first year at uni, and one night about 21:30 this older woman who smelled of alcohol came in, did her shopping, and asked for someone to carry it home for her - she 'only lives round the corner'. My supervisor told me to take it for her !! We got to the building (a good 5+ minutes away) and I made to hand it over and leave, but she said she needed me to carry it up the stairs to her flat. Again, I tried to leave it at the door, but no I had to take it in and put it in the kitchen. Thankfully the kitchen was right by the front door, as I kept my foot in the doorway, lobbed the shopping onto the kitchen side, refused her offer of a cup of tea, and legged it. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life !! I then had to find my way back to the shop in the dark, down several narrow twisty streets. I told my (young, female) department manager next time I saw her and she was horrified, ripped the (middle aged, male) supervisor a new one and made it clear that nobody was to be sent on such an errand ever again.

Mybusyday · 13/08/2023 09:58