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.

I've written about this before on Mumsnet.

Visiting a boyfriend who was at Uni in a small Welsh town (pontypridd) in the mid 2000's. Got off the train and was walking back to his when saw one man pissing into another man's mouth at a bus stop, from a distance. It looked like a game of, how far away I can go before I miss your mouth. Another man was laughing. In broad daylight. I think it was late Friday afternoon.

It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. Both men appeared to be willing participants. I wondered if they were on drugs.

I wrote to him about 10 years later to ask if it really happened or did I dream it? He wrote back to say yes it happened.

Not an 'encounter' as such. But yesterday I was in the kitchen at work when I saw someone moving about outside. We have glass walls, covered in a Manifestation so you can't see much. Anyway, this person was staggering up and down, and didn't seem well. Then they backed up against a wall, and next thing a cascade of wee was gushing down, pooling all over the floor. I could only see the person's lower legs (fortunately!) but am pretty sure from their position it was a woman.

On my way home from the shops, had a load of bags, stopped outside a corner shop to put my purse away was bending over when a lady comes out the shop called me a c**t kicked me and walked away. A car driving by pulled over to ask if i was ok. Very strange.

I’ve thought of another.

In Bali I was in the north visiting a temple at the coast. There were fewer tourists here and more locals. I was on my own as the people I was travelling with had gone on to Australia but I was going back to UK in a day. A family approached me with their camera and didn’t speak English. I assumed they wanted me to take a photo of them so I agreed. But no they wanted me in their photo. I agreed 😂. I guess I was just caught off guard and it was amusing to me at the time.

My DS2 seems to be a magnet for strange encounters. Our best one was in a supermarket in Crete, where a man stopped us to explain in broken English that he (DS2, who was 10 at the time) was actually an angel and could he please pray with him?

We made our excuses and scarpered, urgently. DS was really unsettled by it for weeks.

I think this thread clarifies that getting on any type of public transport in London is a risk.

I've posted this before on MN, but I ended up buying a very expensive Louis Vuitton handbag for a stranger (his money, I had to go into the shop and physically buy it) in Paris. I was young and alone and the man accosted me in the street and put over €1k of cash in my hand and pushed me into the shop with an image of the bag he wanted. He was Chinese and at the time there was a limit to how many bags chinese people could buy in LV (as they get replicated). It was so so odd. It took ages, I had to sign papers and show my passport, and while I was In the shop I started to panic about whether this man was a gangster and had eyes on me.

When I finally left the shop, the man hurriedly ran up to me (clearly thought I'd done a runner with the cash), snatched the bag and the €50 change out of my hand and walked away. No thank you, no 'keep the change'. Utterly utterly mad. It was my birthday as well, I was so angry at myself for not just telling him to fuck off in the first place.

@JemimaPuddlegoose Please don’t think that people on the autistic spectrum are the only people who behave like the man described. People suffering from depression or anxiety also behave like this, and also some ex-prisoners also find reintegration very tough. This man gave the poster the heebiejeebies, but she wasn’t disrespectful or making fun of him.

@whiskersonkittenss en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-eyed_children

you should read that!

"Christ on a bike" just made me laugh out loud

I was visiting the uk from Australia in the 70s. I got on a bus in Sheffield and the conductor came for my fare. I asked (in my very Aussie accent) he looked at me and changed from broad Sheffield/Jamaican accent to flawless German for about three minutes. I was totally nonplussed and said I didn’t speak German. He blinked and went straight back to his normal accent.

Years ago, went down to the DLR platform at Bank station and there was a fairly old man stood there wearing a very smart suit jacket and tie but also no trousers. Just a pair of stripy boxer shorts. Also wearing grey socks with sock suspenders and smart shoes and an umbrella.

No indication that it was any kind of prank or similar - he was on his own, and got onto the train and that was that. Always wondered where he was going and what he was thinking of…

My main question- what’s a Manifestation?

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles thank you for clearing up that little mystery. Thirty four years that’s been bugging me!
Now if you can just tell me who the guy with the flowers was…

When my daughter was about 3 we went to a children's play farm.
While in the play area she started playing with a little girl of the same age.
They had never met before but got along really well.

The next day we were on another day out, about 50 miles away from where we had been the previous day.
While in the play area there, the very same little girl came along and started playing with my daughter again!
Obviously they were too young to realise the coincidence of it all and neither seemed surprised to see the other!

This happened over 20 years ago, I don't spook Easily but this still unnerved me.
We had just moved into our house maybe not even a year. My husband was out. It was dark but not too late maybe 9pm.
There was an knock in the door and I'd already heard a knock next door and some talking.
I looked out the window and thought it was maybe a new neighbour.
When I opened the door, there was a thin person of indeterminate sex, glasses long hair feminine clothes and a bandage on their neck.
I just said hello and this person said 'can you give me some money please? I need to get back to my unit. I've tried to cut my throat.'
They then pointed to the house across the road and said 'I live at number 7'.
I said I couldn't help them and closed and locked the door.
I waited until they'd gone then knocked next door and he confirmed that the person has called there and also that our road didn't actually have a number 7 (just space where there had been houses before the war, our road was heavily bombed.)
I just think it was some poor very mentally ill person but very unsettling.

A stranger once came up to me on a dance floor and told me I was his Da Vinci and then starting apologising before walking off. At first I thought it was a compliment but they way he was apologising afterwards makes me think it was an insult. I am still annoyed I didn’t say anything back and still don’t know what it meant years later.

Not me but my sister.
She used to work in a charity shop.
One day a lady came to the till area to purchase something. My sister had never seen this woman before.
As dsis was popping the items through the till this woman said to her ‘I don’t want to frighten you but there is a lady next to you talking away, you can’t see her but I can!’
Obviously this startled my sister and she said to the lady ‘Oh, that’s scary, I am not sure I am comfortable with this’
The lady then said ‘I am so sorry to frighten you but you know this lady, she is talking to you and calling you by a strange name’
My sister asked what this strange name was and who was the lady.
The woman then described our nan to a t (nan had passed a year or two before this time) and then mentioned my sister’s family nickname, a name that only our immediate family know about and use, no one else knows this name.
Still to this day, 20 + years later we can not make sense of this encounter.

I am paranoid and I would think he was hanging around to skim my card or get my details so I would have not used that cash machine. I always try and use the machines in a bank but that is getting harder and harder! Luckily I get paid cash quite a lot from my clients so I usually have some handy! My husband thinks I'm mad when I have my paranoid meltdowns so please don't be like me it's hard to deal with!

It must have been a beat for men to meet random strangers in the woods and have sex with each other. If you had been a man on your own you probably would have had an offer.
The reason I know this is I live near a big piece of wild parkland with a creek running through it and a bike path along one side.
Lots of families and cyclists use it on the weekend but I was puzzled why it was so busy during weekdays and overnight, mainly tradesman and single men in cars driving in and out. My brother enlightened me - showed me a site on the internet where it was listed!

Adam the Techno Viking (I live in Edinburgh. If you know, you know.)

In the 1980s I was working as a nanny in London. I had been to visit my sister who was also a nanny in Islington. It was quite late when I was travelling home. Got on the platform at Angel to wait for the tube to King's Cross to change for Finsbury Park. There was a man staring at me.. Properly boring his eyes into me on the platform. He then came and stood really near me on the train. I got off at KC and so did he... He was following me. Luckily there were two lines to FP and I managed to lose him. As I was rushing down the escalator to the second line I tripped and landed in a heap at the bottom. A man in front turned round and helped me up... I must have looked scared as he asked me if I was okay. I explained what had happened and he came and kindly stood with me till my train came in and waved me off. I saw both sides of London life that night... Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers....

In a cheap pub chain restaurant in summer. Was with a female friend and our children. Sat in the beer garden, 2 (presumably a couple) people sat near us and started talking about the children. They started talking photos. We both felt uncomfortable. They told us the children were hot and physically started to peel off cardigans whilst taking photos. We walked out. Wft.

Yes - I've got two kids on the spectrum - they would do this kind of thing. I'm always worried that they'll be seen like this (and for people who get to know them, they're the kindest, funniest people - they just don't really do small talk - not unlike their Dad!)

Some years ago I was in a naice London store (Liberty) and fancied a cup of tea. Went to their cafe which was super busy but the server asked a woman sitting on her own if she minded me sharing. No problem. Sat down, smiled hello, said “Thankyou for sharing the table” no response from her so waited for my tea and cake, checked my phone etc. She suddenly leaned over the table and hissed “ The person who sat there before you was very interesting. We had a wonderful conversation about trees in Nigeria” then she sat back in her chair and glowered at me. I have never eaten cake so fast.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles could she have been pregnant?