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.

Oh, also, he was covered in blood!

For strange encounters you want to hang round on the seats outside supermarkets. I've met a woman who claimed she was Myra Hindley's prison warden, a bloke who told me to be careful as god was round the corner and would be back in a minute (both outside Morrisons in Leeds city centre), and an old man outside Tesco in my sleepy market town who started bemoaning the youth of today before moving on describe how he and his friends used to shoot the gas lights out on the railway station platform with an air rifle and run away from the station master to hide in the long grass, but, "We meant no harm, we were only messing, not like this lot". "This lot" were peacefully skateboarding and minding their own businesses doing tricks without a single air rifle between them.

I was on a secluded beach alone in my 30’s. A chap in his 70’s came and sat next to me. Slightly on my towel.

I passed initial polite conversation with him expecting he’d then move away.

When I went in the sea he did too. When I sunbathed he did too. Offered to cream me. I declined.

He spent several hours with me until I decided to leave as my day had been ruined and then a week or so later received an email on my work account.
He’d managed to track it down from the basic information we’d discussed.
He said we had such an amazing connection he couldn’t forget me and wanted to see me again.
I asked if his wife had seen his email.

I don’t think I’ll ever go to the beach alone again.

I'm autistic and the Tesco guy who's "weird" for not making small talk with supermarket cashiers and going straight to the products he wants to purchase rather than spending ages ambling around looking at biscuits sounds exactly like me.

It's extremely disheartening to read how "weird" people find us, because there's really nothing weird about it at all.

To me, people who spent ages faffing and meandering around wasting time chit chatting about nothing are the weird ones!

One thing that really sticks in my head - several years ago I was going into the post office as a man (mid-40s, smartly dressed) was coming out. He held the door open for me as I had a double pushchair with my two toddlers in.
I thanked him and went to carry on, but he just said to me - "Don't have any more children" then walked off. So strange. I did have a third child a few years later, and three is such hard work! Maybe he was speaking from experience!

When I was pregnant with said third child - I was waiting for a train when a man (again mid-40s, seemed perfectly normal) came up to me and said "That's a magic baby that one - something special". Again, didn't wait for a reply - just walked off! She's not showed me any magical powers yet and she's 8!

I'm genuinely wondering about how many people I am the weirdest stranger for now 😂

Not least because I regularly wander round picking up feathers for art projects and putting them in a bag!

In my 20’s I was stopped on the street by a cyclist who told me in broken English that he wanted a girlfriend and he didn’t know how to get one, but he liked the look of me, so would I be his girlfriend.
Very odd!!

so many of these stories are men stopping women and making them feel uncomfortable…..

Having said that some people are weird.

I was walking home earlier today and some random man veered across the pavement to nearly bump into me, then loudly announced "Fucking princess" to the sky. If I'd been dressed up that would have been one thing but I happened to be in supermarket leggings, T-shirt and cardigan, just walking along the pavement.

A few weeks I was walking through a tube station (I think it was maybe Bank, anyway one of the ones where you have to walk down long corridors to change lines), and you know how you're sort of supposed to keep to one side but no one ever does? I don't mean on the escalators, but generally when walking through the station? A big group of tourists were walking towards me and were walking on their left hand side (so on my right), meaning that I and all the people walking in the same direction as me wound up having to walk on the left hand side.

There was one random man walking in the opposite direction to me who was determined that he was going to strictly obey the Keep Right signs (which are honestly so tiny and easy to overlook) even if no one else did, and was determinedly shoving his way through against the hordes of people when it would have been much easier just to walk with the flow of people walking in the same direction as him.

By pure coincidence I wound up being pushed to right next to the wall (just because of the sheer number of people) and when he noticed me, he got so offended that he ran right next to the wall and pressed himself right up against the wall and stood stock still, shaking his head angrily at me and loudly saying "GO RIGHT!!! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO ONLY WALK ON THE RIGHT."

Not least because I regularly wander round picking up feathers for art projects and putting them in a bag!

I did an art project once where I picked up every single piece of rubbish that I saw while climbing Ben Nevis on a particular day. I don't know if people thought I was weird or just part-womble (I am also actually part womble.)

Walking through Edinburgh with my sister and nephew who was about 2 at the time. Very cute (blond and blue eyed!)

A Filipino woman coming the other way stopped, went "So cute!" snapped his photo on a massive film camera and then walked off.

We were so gobsmacked we didn't even think to stop her.

@Stormyinacoffeemug i work in a psychiatric unit so this is pretty much all I hear most days. in future you can ring your local mental Heath team and get advice. X

I met an old lady in the woods when I was walking my dog.

She said that it was so lovely that I had cut my hair like my dogs.

He has scruffy, unkempt brown hair.

I had a good laugh but went home and dyed my hair bright red and booked a hair cut.

I was walking back to the hotel in Liege in Belgium after being at the Christmas market. Late afternoon. A man I walked past smiled at me and then asked me in Dutch where I was from. I replied in English. He then said "Would you like to come with me and I can take some photos of you? I'll pay you you well" I am short and not model sized. He wasn't very threatening, so I laughingly said no thanks and then he said "You'll enjoy it though". I just kept walking.

I am convinced I was nearly recruited for a porn shoot! Ugh no thanks.

A fortune teller told my mother that one of her daughters would leave for X far-away city for a red haired man and the other would save lives close to home. Told her this when we were 4 and 6 years old so mum just said 'ooh really now'.

At 23 I left for X city for a red haired man. The same year my sister became a doctor at our local hospital.

My mums never quite shaken the coincidence/prediction.

There's also a man who regularly wanders my local park screaming (and I mean really screaming) random phrases over and over. They change every few days. He's obviously mentally unwell but God it makes me jump when he passes my house and shrieks 'The supermarket is a cunt shop' or 'Jesus hates tins'.

Don't know where he chooses his phrases from. Though the 'balls' phrase was amusing.

Poor chap.

There’s a guy that lives in my town and we first met him/came across him one night a few years ago. We were out a walk with the dogs and he drove along the street (slowly) with the windows down and blaring old music. He sang at us as he drove past and was in his 50s. I was in hysterics at him after and told my sister about it. He then did the same thing to her out a walk a few weeks later and she was in disbelief. Now as soon as I see his car coming I’m so excited for him to turn the music up and sing at me on the way past 🤣 It’s the fact he does it to everyone and is just the happiest wee man, it’s not creepy or anything, just sharing his joy of life! Saw him at the supermarket with his wife once though and he had the windows firmly up and no music blaring, obviously not allowed to do it when she’s there or she has no idea he lives this double life 🙈

Mine was walking along the street when this woman stopped us and asked me to carry the baby for her. She was tired and needed to get home asap as the baby had fell in the river!

Baby was wrapped up in a blanket and I remember asking if she should not take it to hospital. Baby looked fine all snuggled up though. This woman was too old to be the mother but then when we were nearly at her door a family member caught up with us and asked if everything was okay. I felt like a baby snatcher at this point.

It all felt so odd!

@dropthevipers I would assume he was after money. Presumably you declined, did he say anything more or just walk off?

No I dont think he was after money-there was no mention of any and I got the impression he was, lets say, inappropriately friendly. He walked off leaving me utterly slack jawed.

Exactly. I didn't think there was anything weird sounding about Tesco guy!

I was once in a bar with my OH. There weren't many people there, we were dancing a bit. I went to get us a drink from the bar. This woman came up to me and told me to f-off. I was very taken aback but just went back to my boyfriend. We had a drink and carried on dancing (nothing salacious, it was literally like croony '80s songs.) Forgot about the woman who was at least 15ft away.

She came up to us and stared saying' Do you mind - I'm here with my FRIEND'. Kept f'ing and blinding and repeating the same phrase. My OH had a go at her and she started hitting him. He pushed her back in self defence and it resulted in him being chucked out and laid on in the street by their ginormous bodyguards.

It's still to this day the weirdest encounter I've had with a stranger. I can only presume it was drugs or something... the place doesn't have a particularly great reputation.

You know when you 'dance' with someone else on the pavement to decide which way you're going to pass? I was doing this with a zonked alkie looking guy and he used it as an excuse to grope my hip/thigh, before zombily walking on along the middle of the road. This was quite repulsive.

There happened to be an empty bottle of Kopparburg on a nearby wall. I picked it up and threw it at his back, which it shattered against.

He just carried on walking through the traffic.

12 years ago. 6 week check after birth. My usual doctor was away but the ‘top’ and slightly eccentric doctor at the surgery took my appointment. She was lovely, so normal, but just as I was leaving with my baby, she got up so close in my face and spoke softly yet firmly “don’t be feeding that baby when he’s in welly boots”.

I worked in a coffee shop when I was younger. The customer I always think of is the man with the black eyes. He made his order without blinking, stared intensely at me the entire time, and his eyes were pitch black. Not dark brown. I know it could have been contacts but it was still very creepy. I can still remember his face 10+ years later.

To add, I am autistic and usually find it very hard to make eye contact, but I didn't want to look away from this man. A very bad feeling.