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.

Years ago, was sitting peacefully at an outdoor cafe in a small town in Morocco, when someone snuck up behind me, hit me over the head with a large bunch of parsley, and ran away. Make of that what you will...

I've also accidentally played the role of 'random stranger'; still makes me cringe. Was visiting friends in Senegal (in a non-touristy place; l think I was the only white person in the area, which is relevant later...). One day their driver dropped us somewhere for lunch and parked up to wait. I was ahead of the others as we returned, hopped merrily into what I thought was the correct car with a loud 'merci', and I've NEVER seen anyone look as astonished as the the poor guy who was enjoying a post-lunch snooze at the wheel, when a random white woman suddenly jumped into his back seat, shouted at him, and then fled again at high speed! 🙀😳

Once my mum & I were walking up the street in San Francisco, very nicely dressed in skirts & jackets, in the business district. An elegantly dressed man with a briefcase came out of a building and started walking towards us. I mean, more like aiming at us. We finally ended up way out in the street, in the middle of traffic, to get away from him, before he gave up.
And everyone just sat in their cars nonchalantly looking at us.
If you want to see “weird,” go to San Francisco.

A normally very rational acquaintance (who was a retired headmistress) once told me about 12 years ago when my youngest daughter was about 5, that the generation of children born after 2003 were called the rainbow children, which at the time seemed oddly specific. It was only in 2020 when everywhere was decorated with rainbows for the nhs, that I realised that her ‘rainbow children’ were the cohort that had their schooling disrupted by the pandemic. My youngest DD was 15 at the time (born 2004) and missed her gcse’s.
In the same conversation she also told me that the generation of children born 1999 - 2003 were all a small of window of what she called ‘star children’ and were exceptional, and it would be this generation that were the leaders of tomorrow. No idea what that was about. very strange conversation that day.

sorry, just realised that thread title said with a stranger- mine was a vague acquaintance, but not someone I knew particularly well

@dancinfeet That's well-known in "woo"land. You should have a google.

Mine also involves a vague acquantance. And it happened twice!

At that time I was temping and travelling a lot. Met colleagues in two different countries. A couple in South India - they both worked there and went off travelling to Thailand. Another one in Kenya.

Small world indeed!

DH was walking along the River Lea towpath near Rye House, on his way home from work one winter evening. He saw a couple approaching him in the semi-darkness, and smelt the strong scent of violets. As they passed, he realised that he wasn't hearing their footsteps on the gravel, and glancing up, saw that neither of them had an actual face-they were completely dark. He'd automatically said "good evening", but there was no response. He arrived home, looking, well, as if he'd seen a ghost. And no, he doesn't drink, is ex-Royal Navy, and as sane as he could possibly be.

I’m in London and to be honest that’s nothing unusual when you use a cash point outside a Tesco Branch and depending on the time usually after 4pm there’s a good chance that you will be pestered ( that’s me being nice ) by a person sitting on the floor asking you for money .
I’m sorry this happened to you and in my opinion there shouldn’t be cash machines outside supermarkets for this particular reason but that’s open for discussion but not on this thread.

At university a student came up to me asking me about a subject at Uni that I was not taking, they then apologised as they'd mistaken me for a girl in their class who I "looked like". This happened for weeks with random different people coming up and mistaking me for her. I kept my eye out for my doppelgänger but never came across her unfortunately.

I used to work in a bag shop as a teenager. One day a customer walks in and wants a suitcase, my manager spends ages going through a sales chat about the suitcase and the customer decides at the end that they don't want it and leaves. They then come back just as we're closing up shop and decide to buy it. A few days later they're back returning the suitcase as they don't want it. A few days after that they are back wanting to buy it again. This went on for so many days that my manager refused to serve them when she saw them approaching the shop again. To this day I have no idea why this person kept buying and then returning the same suitcase...

I guess a lot of the stories on this post can be attributed to mental health/personality disorders.

As a student a couple of years ago I decided to take a bus from kingsx back to my student halls to save costs (to clarify I was in the seat near the luggage rack due to having arthritis of the hip0 and knee. The journey was fairly pleasant until a lady got on and sat next to me on the outside I kept asking her to let me out for two stops and she ignored me, I felt bad and thought she couldn't speak English so just sat there. At the third stop loads of people got on including an elderly gentleman. Even though I was on the inside seat and clearly trying to get off myself passengers proceeded to scream at me for 'not moving' and not having respect for elders etc. I was trying repeatedly to slowly get off and the woman next to me fully started speaking in English about how she could move (this btch*??) Everyone who got onto the bus was of a different ethnicity to myself and really aggressive despite my evident disability. One lady spat at me and another followed me off the bus with a knife whilst I was on the phone to the police. It traumatised me so much that I moved back home from London and transferred my degree. The people there are honestly vile.

At the time the friend was a stranger, went to a wedding and ended up in the background of a photo of the person with me lining up directly behind them then couple of years after, we reconnected and yea. Seems almost fate so to speak.

I was on the tube, on an old Northern line train where some of the seats were back to back.

I felt a lick on my neck so turned round to give the perve a mouthful, and found a border collie with a very embarrassed owner.

During one of our lockdowns, I went for a walk to the nearby bay, off the walking path and sat on a rock on the beach. A guy came up behind me and said hi, I was a bit weirded out as he had to also come off the path to talk to me and no one else was around. After asking how I was he asked what I thought about "all this" and waved his arms in the air. I said I don't know and he went straight into a massive rant and conspiracy theories about covid and how Bill Gates made it in conjunction with the banks, "OBVIOUSLY". After a few minutes of ranting his (presumably) wife walks up and smiles at me, then hears what he is ranting about and yells "oh for gods sake John!!" and storms off. Lol poor woman, must've been a common occurrence for them!

Another weird one was shopping in a major homewares/appliances store, for a mattress for DD. Salesman was very lovely and helpful, helped us to test out several mattresses. Then all of a sudden we somehow got onto the topic of DD's depression (he asked I think), and he tells us that he used to be a top doctor, but then discovered a treatment for depression that cures it, and that he is the only doctor in the country who knows how to do this treatment, but because it's so effective the government wanted to cover it up and so barred him from practising as a doctor ever again, but if I wanted to know what it was he could maybe organise for us to do it overseas in secret. He kept going on and on about how amazing he is at it, but wouldn't actually say what it was. I quickly left and went to another shop instead!

This fits two of mine . My son was born in 2001 and is doing exceptionally well at his placement year job and my other son born 2005 missed his GCSEs due to covid.

At the hairdresser's mid cut, a man comes in and asks if he can hide there because the ghosts were following him.

The hairdresser said, "no sorry you can't stay, but I think the ghosts have gone away now"

bloke nods and leaves.

My carer lives in a block of flats, a couple of floors below him is 'Shouty man', shouty man obviously has problems but the things he shouts can be hilarious.

Examples include, "everyone wanted to call me father, even Zues wanted to call me father, father of Rome!"

He apparently, "Can't do anything for those religious women"

That may have been part of the TV series 'The Groovy Fellers'

'It follows Roland Rivron (playing a martian) and Jules Holland on a trip around Britain in a stolen Roll Royce and two very sharp pin stripe suits.'

I think you can still see it on YouTube.

Plenty of folk act differently without having ASD 😏😁

Man approaches me on a train saying he thought I was in his seat. I said no, this is my seat I have preboooked. He wasn't convinced and kept going on and on so I showed him my ticket and pointed out the physical number by the seat but with a rather less friendly tone. He just shuffled off. I mean at least check your own ticket before insisting I am in 'your' seat.

The sounds like the three identical strangers account...

Where separated at birth triplets - two randomly come across each other at college!

It's now on Netflix

www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/28/three-identical-strangers-the-bizarre-tale-of-triplets-separated-at-birth?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I used to take the train into work.
Each day a woman would board the same carriage as me and dry retch for a good 15 minutes before she got off at her stop.
This happened every day until one day when she actually vomited.

@IamtheDevilsAvocado ah yes I've seen that!

Well you've got to admire her persistence!

or maybe she had a fur ball? Our cat's like this sometimes!

I was in a small alternative music club and my friend was up dancing. I was maybe 21. This guy sat beside me. He said something like “I’ve killed people. Will you make love to me?” I was scared and freaked out. He didn’t do it in a threatening way, more in a gentle tone which was more troubling. I said I had a boyfriend and he eventually left.

I'm laughing way more than I should at this 🤣🤣