Strangest encounter with a stranger?

[elevenspowers]

Today I went to the cash point outside Tesco and a man walked in front of me diagonally and we almost clashed and so I moved back (assumed he was walking to the entrance) and he just stared at me.

He was on the phone talking, with his back to the cash point, staring at me carrying on his conversation. So after about a few seconds I was like “are you using the cash point” - he responded yes but then still carried on his conversation. I was just like 😬 ok ….

Probably not that weird, but it’s fresh in my head.

This is going back over thirty years but it still puzzles me. I was out at lunchtime in the City with a colleague. We were both new and didn’t know each other that well. On the way back to the office a man holding a bouquet of flowers approached and asked which of us was youngest. We didn’t immediately know but quickly established it was me, whereupon he whipped out a bunch of unopened daffodils and gave them to me “as I was yet to bloom” and gave her the massive bouquet and walked off! I was so miffed I only got the spring onion looking things, I only realised later how weird it was.

Also on the same lunch break two men in pinstripe suits with aerials on their head got of a gold Rolls Royce and ran into the Bank of England. The eighties were weird!

I was once told I was "the most beautiful girl" he'd ever seen, but an elderly man on the 155 bus.

Sounds like stealth-boast... except the man was completely blind...opaque black glasses, white stick... even if he was sighted, he wouldn't have been able to see through those glasses.

*by an elderly man...

On my way back from my dog walk this evening, on a fairly quiet path, I saw a young man coming towards me. Head down, every now and then picking something up and putting it in a carrier bag. Just as I was coming towards him he spat on the ground (ew). But what was he putting in the bag?! He did say "alright" to me but it's more of a Good Evening, Lovely Weather type area IYSWIM.

DH was once buying nappies and some nutty woman behind him at the checkout threw them off the conveyor belt and on the floor and started shouting she'd had enough of bloody nappies!

She was escorted out of the store by security.

I once got on a train and I’d prebooked my seat, so I was looking for my seat number and the little “reserved” ticket on it. When I found it, a woman who was sitting at the table looked at me and said, “Oh, I think that one’s reserved.” And I replied, “Yes, it is. For me.” She just went back to her book, but I spent the next hour wondering why I don’t look like the kind of person who would reserve a seat on a train!

At Tesco got my trolley to go in.. outside was a man who asked me for a taxi number.. he said he had just moved to the area.

Not having any form of social life because of being in my final year at uni as a mature student married with children and never use taxis I explained I didn't know but suggested there may be a phone inside or customer services that could help... to which he informed me he likes meat on women and something to hold onto like me.. wtf

I don’t find that that odd. I was in the park once and 2 women with a couple of kids walked past, then one of them stopped looked at me pushing my son on the swing (he was about 10m old) and shouted that’s my baby, I thought she was joking so I shouted back in a jokey way “well I’m pretty sure I remember giving birth to him” she then just stared at me but her face turned angry, she then started screaming at me “give me my baby back”, “that’s my baby”, I didn’t know what to do so I got my phone out and called my mum, the whole time she stood there leaning against the gate with an angry look on her face, I completely ignored her and explained to my mum what had happened, the weirdest part was the woman and the kids she was with was just standing with her silently not reacting at all, eventually they walked off and about 2’mins later she walked off after them. It was seriously weird.

I was in the bakery section of the supermarket, when a 95 year old man approached me and asked me to go with him to a lunchtime dance at the local scouts hall. I declined, because I can't dance!

I was about 15 and on a bus on my way home from the cinema, it was daytime. My friend got off a couple of stops before me, and a man called me fat and then asked me to go back to his and have sex with him. When I said no he accused me of being racist.

Not that weird on reflection now I know more about men.

I was stood at the bar in a hotel at my work Christmas party. It was a mix of a load of different companies.

I was waiting to be served while chatting. A woman was stood glaring at me and then said "you've got purity all over you!" No idea what she meant so I just said thanks. The person I was talking to said he didn't think it was a compliment. The woman then said "no, it's not!" and continued to glare at me. He then stood between us because it was just so awkward!

I didn't see her again. I've still no idea what she meant or what her problem was.

I was sat outside Kings Cross waiting for a friends train to get in. The whole area outside was packed, literally people everywhere.

A man comes over to me, squeezes next to me and just stares at me for a few seconds.

I was about to just jump up and walk away and he said “Are you French?” in the most cockney accent. I told him no and he then proceeded to tell me his life story.

I always wonder what he would have done/said if I was French.

A woman stopped me in the town once and asked me if I could give her directions to the crematorium as she had travelled a long way for her late friends funeral and didn't know the area.

As I had finished my shopping and it was on my way home I told her to get in her car and follow me there, which she did.

When we arrived she thanked me profusely and we said our goodbyes.

Fast Forward a week later and DH and I went to do some Christmas Shopping in a City around 100 miles away. As per usual we got lost and were wandering round these backstreets with no one around apart from a lone figure walking towards us.

Yes, Dear Reader it was the very same Woman who had asked me the directions just a week earlier! I don't know who was more shocked, me or her.

I still think about it to this day and the odds of that happening.

Was sat on a park bench while my boys played football. I had a book with me and was quietly reading while looking up every once in in while to check on them. I was interupted by a man who had sat on the other end of the bench. We pleasantly engaged in small talk before it took a bit of a turn. He began telling me about the people following him and how they tracked him through cctv on the streets and in shops - he pointed out all the cameras in the park (streetlights) and told me how the park keeper was undercover to make sure he was tracked 'on the floor'. I tried to go back to my book. He started asking me about it so I politely answered. He then started about his family abroad so I asked a few questions, relieved that the conversation felt a bit more normal. He randomly announced that he knew all about me, that I was working for 'them' and knew why I was asking so many questions. Then said he wouldn't let me get away with it and he knew how to stop me. I steered the conversation back to my book which he didn't appear to notice I had done, then quickly got my boys and exited the park the long way around to get home. So strange and for along time I wondered if I should have informed someone about his paranoia, but who? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was in the queue in a supermarket in Ilkley. It was very slow moving and I got chatting to the woman ahead of me in the queue. Over about 10 minutes we found we liked the same books, music and films. We agreed that we really should be good friends we had so much in common. Then another till opened, I moved, she waved to me as she went out and that was that. I often wonder who she was. It was about 20 years ago. Was it you?

Fag ends? There was a couple in my old hometown who would walk the streets picking up discarded cigarette ends so they could dismantle them to make roll ups 🤢

My own story of weirdness from a stranger was more a collection of strangers in one day, all asking my friend and I for money. We were about 13 or 14 and had gone into town. We were wearing what we usually did (nothing fancy, just normal casual clothes for two kids with probably a tenner between them to spend on the market stalls. I recall I had my eye on a sun moon and stars joystick holder! ) and no less than half a dozen local 'homeless' people accosted is for money. It was unusual because no one ever targeted us for begging so numerous people trying repeatedly, going as far as following us down the street or getting aggressive. It was pretty scary.
These people weren't in sight of each other (so hadn't seen the other beggars having a go) and weren't accosting anyone else. They were the same people we'd see most weekends so not a group targeting the area as such. The way they suddenly jumped up and came up to us you would think we were walking round with a sign on us saying Free cash here. So strange. Obviously we didn't have anything to give and wouldn't have done anyway.

@Stormyinacoffeemug ‘Them’, obviously!

This is such a nice story!! Crazy at how small the world is.

I once had an old man stop
mr in
the street to tell he he ‘feels sorry for all these young ladies buying food and feeding useless men’ I laughed and said ‘oh this bag is all food for me’. He apologised profusely…i seem to have a nutter magnet but other stories would out me.

One aggressive male act I do remember was walking along a high street to the station at about 10pm after drinking. There was group of 3 guys walking towards me and one deviated his oath to purposely barge into me. I saw it happening and managed to side step him , he stumbled and he was angry called me a ‘stupid bitch’ the screamed something at me in what I think was Arabic. I just kept walking at a good pace.

I have posted this before in mumsnet classics (most WTF moment) but it fits this thread to a "T" also-

This is completely true. Once a week I go fishing at a fairly remote spot about ten minutes from a town center bus stop. The route to the river passes through a few fields with styles and gates-a fair few locals us it for dog walking etc. Im just going through a gate when a young lad going the opposite way passes me. This lad was, I guess late teen, early twenties? He was also strikingly handsome-i only mention this as it has a bearing on what happens next-when i say good looking I mean international model standard-he must spend all day beating off suitors (male or female) with a stick. I stop to let him pass and he asks me "Are you english?". My nutter rader is slightly piqued but no obvious cause for alarm just yet so I say "Yes, I am". Next question-"Can I suck you off?". I am a 60 year old bloke. WTAF?????? The only time in my life I have impersonated a goldfish.

Probably the stranger who got in the jacuzzi at the gym and had a wank. This was after parading up and down poolside totally naked.

I think I met Jesus when I was 16. Honestly, I'm not being a dick. I was cycling to college down a crappy residential street of a rough part of Hull...we never saw any foreigners round there.

A really beautiful middle Eastern looking and importantly BARE FOOTED guy about 30 stopped and asked me in an American accent: "hey, do you know where I can get a bike? I'd like to get around and see the place"

I was so baffled that an American linen wearing Barefoot male model wanted to "see" suburban Hull, but I drew him a map of how to get to Halfords, and carried on to college.

I am 97% sure it was the second coming of Christ.

Also, I've just remembered the saying "Christ on a bike". My story has nothing to do with that (I don't think).

@dropthevipers You missed the bit where you said whether you agreed or not! 😁

I sat beside a woman on the bus when I was in my teens and she told me she was a fortune teller and she offered me a free reading. A lot of the things she told me didn't mean anything at the time but gradually everything she said has happened in one way or another. I never really believed in that type of thing but she said some things that would be impossible to know.