Strange things people have done or said to you that you still think about sometimes?!?

[biney]

Mine is I once called my uncle to ask him if he would like to meet at a cafe in town to get a coffee, he went absolutely mad at me over the phone and hung up, Later found out he had told the rest of my family that I was obvioulsy a controlling person because I was trying to control him and his life for trying to 'make' him go out for a coffee when he didn't want to!

This was four years ago and he hasn't spoken to me since, Apart from one text to tell me he was better without people like me in his life for the sake of his own mental health!.

There is no backstory apart from what I wrote here, I still think of this all the time!

Well he sound a little bit unwell OP? I wouldn’t give it another thought unless to get someone to check he is ok. What did the rest of your family say?
An old lady approached me one day when I was out with DD1 then 18months and a three week old DD2 and told me very angrily that I didn’t know how lucky I was and I ‘didnt deserve those children’. I was literally just standing waiting for then DH outside Tesco. I must have looked very miserable or something? Again I eventually just assumed she was mad, but it take post partum me a bit of time to get over it!

Sorry that happened OP! Very weird behaviour from your uncle.

Boyfriend and I were in a pub, on the table nearby were two youngish women (would say about 28-30)? Towards the end of our conversation I got the impression that they were looking at and maybe talking about us but was hard to be sure as the pub was very noisy. We got up to leave and one of the women immediately stood up and made as if to confront us, looking really upset and almost tearful. Her friend calmed her down and told us not to worry, it was nothing. It was totally bizarre - we'd not said a word to them, didn't recognise them at all ... It really stressed me out at the time! Was trying to work out what on earth the problem was.

My then BFF phoned me up one day to tell me that 'I knew what I'd done' and our relationship would never recover. She was right, and we never spoke again, although I still have absolutely zero idea what she was on about.

Hm. I'm sure you're great but I wonder whether there's something that's rubbed him. So, up by not giving him the support or empathy that HE needed, not what you thought he needed. This can come wanting to help but from not listening.

I'd be interested in his side of the story. Why do I ask?

My mother is the kind of person who would do anything for you practically but very much on her terms and is a bit of a bull in a china shop.

Wants everyone to be fine and put on a brave face for her, whether that's cancer, mental illness, other chronic illness, bereavement, poverty, job loss, addiction, whatever it may be. You name it. She's had relatively good health throughout her life, touch wood. Not scot free, but nothing compared to many of her relatives including myself.

If your uncle was really struggling with his MH and you were jollying him along to come out and meet him for coffee when that was particularly difficult for whatever reason, that may have felt like both a big step to far, and like not being listened to. That's hard.

DM has found herself totally obliviously in the centre of many rows because she hasn't read the room and barged in minimising etc when people are going through something awful.

May totally not be you but it rang a bell!!

I was recalled after a recent mammogram and had to have an ultrasound and punch biopsy. I very calmly asked the radiologist if it looked suspicion ans his expressions were very serious and he replied “ I’m not telling you it’s cancer so you can go away and cry for two weeks am I ?”. I was completely dumbfounded as I’m a health care professional in oncology and I would have preferred to be given his opinion rather than being dismissed like that. It was malignant

When DD was about 2, we'd just been to Lidl and I was pushing the trolley back to the car with her sitting in it. I heard a car behind us so I moved right over to the side so it could get past, but instead the man slowed right down, almost to a stop, and the woman stuck her head out the window and said to me, "ooh, your little girl looks ever so sad!" while the man nodded vigorously. I can't even remember what I said back, I was so bemused.

For the record, she definitely wasn't sad, she was excited about the bakery cookie we were about to share as per our Lidl tradition... Maybe she had the toddler equivalent of resting bitch face, I'm not sure.

But what a bizarre thing to do! Which one of them decided to do it? And why!? It was said with sympathy rather than malice, but still. Did the woman tell her husband to pull over, did the man point us out to his wife and get her to say something? What possessed either or both of them to make a youngish Mum feel like shit? What was the aim?

I still can't get my head around it. Every time I'm in that car park I remember that day. I can laugh about it now, some 10 years later, but at the time it made me feel awful!

I was seeing a guy casually when I was 30 (he was over in the UK on a fixed term contract and heading back to Aus, so we both knew it was finite), who told me he couldn’t see me getting married or having kids.

It’s now 23 years later and he was right - I never got to chance to get married or have kids, not through want of trying. It just didn’t happen for me. We are still in touch and I do sometimes wonder about asking why he thought that but am scared to hear the answer, if he even remembers saying it.

DH and I were renovating a derelict house and the previous owner had hoarded about 8 lawnmowers, which we had at the front to get rid of. A week after clearing them, a woman walked past and started chatting. She asked where my children were, I said I don't have any, but she continued.

'I saw a pushchair here last week, WHERE are your children???'
I again said I don't have any.
'Well they must be somewhere, I saw the pushchair!!!'
I explained that she must have seen the lawn mower handles and thought it was a pushchair.
'I know what I saw, it was a pushchair. You don't need to pretend you don't have children!'

A few months later, I saw her again. She was cheery, said hello and asked how my daughter was? I told her once again that I don't have children and reminded her of the previous meeting- which she said she didn't recall. 'Oh, I was sure you had a little girl?'

What made the whole interaction even more weird and hurtful, was that I'd had my 3rd MC a few weeks before meeting her.

A few years ago my husband and I had just arrived on Sentosa (we were staying in Singapore and were there for a day trip).

We were standing in a big open square with a fountain and shops, trying to decide what to do first, when a group of around 20 Korean tourists ran over to us and started taking photos (single and group) of themselves with us. They were lovely and friendly and obviously delighted to see us.

When they'd all taken their photos they wandered off, waving and saying goodbye and thanking us. To this day we have no idea who they thought we were! Neither of us look like anyone famous 😆

When I was pregnant with my third I went to one of those seconds hand clothing sales in a school hall. An elderly lady came up to me and we got chatting. She asked when I was due, if I was having a boy or girl, if I'd bought anything nice etc. Then she looked me dead in the eye with a serious expression and said something like " try not to worry. Things might be ok and the baby might live". I was taken aback and as a quite anxious person it worried me for quite a while.

I once got accused of writing a horrible abusive poison pen letter to one of my best friends. In secondary school.
The head of the school brought me into her office and just told me she knew I did it. I asked what it said and she said 'you should know'?!
Obviously not.

I had been bereaved as my dad died recently and it was all too much. I ended up leaving the school.
The friend who was the subject of the letter never once said anything to me about it, and our friendship was normal?!

This has bothered me for a very long time. I know who did it but I don't understand why they accused me, and didn't believe my innocence.

@GroovyChick87 What a strange/hurtful thing to say. She sounds like a witch!

@Woollygreymittens - so sorry to hear about your experience. How awful and thoughtless and uncaring some people are.

Some of these do sound like people who are mentally unwell. What they say is absolutely bonkers - and can be upsetting - to people of sound mind; but they are just speaking their 'truth'.

Not me but at my FIL's funeral a man said this to my Sil who was 17 and absolutely heartbroken, 'I didn't like your father, I respected him but I didn't like him'. Weird and unkind imo.

@Woollygreymittens I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I would have put in a complaint. He is clearly in the wrong job.

A school mum of twins, which had become her entire personality, boastfully told me she was very active in the local twins club and knew 78 pairs of twins. Fine, she's enjoying being a twin mum, good for her.

Then she was talking about her own twins and mentioned one being a little taller than the other and, following something she was saying about buying 2 of every outfit, I asked if her girls were identical.

She tutted, rolled her eyes, leant over and slapped my arm.

"No! They're different HEIGHTS." Said wide eyed, and in the exasperated tone of "for the seventh time, pick up your bag!"

wtf

There's been a few. In my early 20s a distressed woman came into my workplace and accused me of having an affair with her boyfriend. Her "proof" was white cat fur on his clothes, I didn't even have a cat.

More recently neighbours accused me of conspiring with the previous owners of their house to keep them in the dark about the damp and other problems with the property. The husband bought it on a whim without consulting his wife, and I never even met them until the day they knocked on my door to introduce themselves as my new ndn. Happily they've moved out now.

Then there was the note asking to join my coven(?!), and following that, a woman knocked on my door with a note she'd received asking to join her coven because the big meanie at my address wouldn't let him join hers.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd have not fayred so well in 17th century england

We had this in Singapore, people OBSESSED (and I don't use the word lightly!) with the very pale red headed toddler I was travelling, taking him out of the pram and taking pictures with him, trying to take him out of my arms, following us, if he was walking holding my hand people (Largely teen-mid 20s girls) would run over and take his other hand. Luckily he loved the attention and everyone was lovely! Also people would take pictures of us together.

I asked our lovely hotel receptionist bout it after people stopped to take a picture in the lobby and he said "He is very very white and we don't see much red hair and you are very very big" (I am chunky 😂)

At the time it was strange, now its amusing...

I attended a day workshop related to work some years back, with a bunch of people from across the country who I'd never met before or the facilitator. None of us worked for the same company. It was a pretty unspectacular event but nothing strange occurred. However, as I was getting ready to leave and thank the facilitator, he turned around looked me dead in the eyes and said, " I told you, you didn't have to come". I'd never met this person before, had had no prior conversation, didn't know him from Adam! I sort of shrugged it off and gave a little laugh and left. But I've always puzzled over what he meant - did he get me mixed up with someone else, was he being sarky? wish I'd asked at the time!

It was always at bus stops that people would kick off or give me the evil eye. They seem to attract all sorts.

It wasn't me!! 😂

Exactly the same happened to me though luckily not my BFF but a good friend. Wouldn’t speak to me to tell me what it was despite my asking. Decided I don’t need people like that in my life but it still haunts me occasionally.

Horribly bullied at nursery and junior school for a visible difference I have. Hurt me to my core. I can cope with looks/comments now but it took me years to become the confident (on the surface) person I am now.

Many years ago I was in a pub with my friend and an idiotic young man came over and tried to claim that he knew me. I said we didn't know each other, because we didn't know each other. He wouldn't 'believe' me and kept trying to make me say that I did know him really. Then he retreated but kept staring. Idiot.