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.

At work chatting to male colleague who is about 15 years younger than me. Bloke in his 50’s ish wandered up to us and said to me you need to get him to take you on a date, make sure it’s an expensive restaurant and that he pays the bill.
He then walked off, he must have missed my wedding ring.
Guess I should be flattered that he thought I was young enough to date a 22 year old.

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

I don't think I used the word weird about his behaviour and I have no idea if he was autistic or not. Labelling him such without knowing him or having any personal expertise seems wrong to me.
Fwiw. Some colleagues thought he had PTSD from service, the army fatigues, walk and combat boots etc
Others just thought he was just a guy who didn't want anything to do with anyone.
Others thought he was in rush on his way home from long work hours in some mysterious place no one knew about..

Ultimately, no one really knew than and no one here knows now.
His behaviour, whilst not the most common, isn't really why he sticks in my memory, it's the vibe or the air he gave off.
Like he'd walk in the store and the lights would dim slightly, the air turned cold, the atmosphere of the store changed, like it got tense in there, like walking into a room where two people have just had a row.....
I knew I hadn't worded it very well.. 😂

I was a student in London, sitting in Starbucks in Victoria with my friend after an exam. We were on a communal type big table and a blind man approaches and asks if he can sit, so we help him sit down. He starts talking to us and then makes odd, unnerving comments like "I'm not going to rape you" "I only fancy ballerinas you're not my type."

Anyway turns out the poor chap was a well known stuntman who had a horrific accident involving a parachute and suffered brain damage. There are lots of blogs written about him by people who meet him. It was unnerving at first, but poor chap.

I was in a slow-moving queue in a shop, shuffling forward slowly as the queue moved. A man came up to me and said "Excuse me, you do know there's a queue, don't you?" I was nonplussed and said "Yes, and I've been standing in it for the last five minutes". To which he said "Oh, right", and disappeared. It sticks with me because it was so odd - there were people in front of me and behind me, he can't have thought I'd pushed in, and if he really thought I had he would have made more of a thing of it. I wondered if he was just trying to reduce the size of the queue by bullying people out of it.

I was once parked on double yellows as OH went into somewhere, a young policeman tapped on the window. Damn, I thought!
He asked in what part of Germany we lived, we had distinctive British Forcers Germany number plates in those days.
Turned out he'd lived in the same town, gone to the school where OH taught, his mother was an Ancillary in the school, his sister baby sat for our friends and a couple of weeks earlier he had collected our bulk rubbish when he worked on the local bin collection!
Eventually I asked if he was going to book me for being on the double yellows but he'd not noticed that. The older policeman laughed and said he had spoken to everyone he'd seen with a BFG number plate but we were by far the best.
When OH got back to work a couple of weeks later his mother wanted to know Did he look well Did he look like he was eating properly etc etc.

I've told this on here before. Absolutely nuts.

DP and I in ALDI. I am pushing a trolley. Random man looks me in the eyes and kind of lunges at me? What he actually did was try and climb over/in my trolley? This happened so fast, odd thing was my then gym weight trainer appeared from nowhere, pulled this bloke away from me who ran off down the isle, me and gym trainer are looking at each other like WTF??

I turn around and DP was literally 2ft away the whole time, but with his back to me transfixed by the mystery section in the middle of the shop. He missed me almost getting smacked by some random, missed the random save by the gym trainer all because he couldn't decide between a lemon tree or a bloody light up camping chair or whatever it was!

This weekend's events remind me of another strange thing. I can remember, see in my mind's eye, being almost 4, it was late morning, cold and snowy, my brother was in his playpen, there were nappies drying on a huge fireguard, I trailed outside after my mother to get more coal from the place in the side of the house. The woman from across the road came to the end of the path and said to my mother Oh, isn't it dreadful, they've just said on the wireless that the King's dead.
Until her dying day my mother claimed that never happened, my father had brought her a drink in bed before he went to work at about 7am and told her it had been on the wireless.
However, with the Golden and Diamond Jubilees I found that it was not announced until late morning so my father couldn't have told her. Sadly, she is no longer here to tell me I'm still wrong!

A couple spring to mind.

The elderly man who got on his knees and sang an entire rendition of Lady in Red to me when I left a work lunch in a long red coat.

The Asian taxi driver who after asking if I was married went on to give me a lecture about respecting my husband and knowing my place before carrying on to tell me about his uneducated Pakistani wife (his words not mine) and how he wished he had married an English girl like me....

Not so much an encounter as a sighting.

Many years ago, driving down a hill in rural Wales with boyfriend and another friend. Towards the bottom was a gate leading to a field. Leaning on the gate, one foot on the bars, was a youngish chap playing a guitar. He appeared to be singing. On the other side of the gate was the most magnificent white horse, trying very hard to put its head on the guitarists shoulder.

For decades after, one of us would only have to say "Guitar man. Horse." for the paroxysms of laughter to restart. It was a very hippyish/alternative area, but this was special. Quite sweet, too, really.

We went on holiday to a tourist destination in the South West in July last year. Got talking briefly to a family in the local play park of the small town we were staying in. The family were recognisable as they had a DC who was undergoing cancer treatment and unfortunately had lost a leg due to their illness.

Fast forward a couple of months and we were on holiday again, this time in the East of England. Rocked up at a local beach for the day and who was beside us? The same family.

I was in a supermarket, at the edge of an aisle, trying to choose something. Looked up and a young child maybe about 3 years old is running at me full pelt pushing one of those kiddy trolleys. Child could see me and so I didn't think to get out of the way - just assumed she'd stop.

She didn't - she rammed the trolley right into my leg - my knee collapsed and I ended up on the floor. The mother then noticed what had happened and came to retrieve the child. Didn't make eye contact with me, didn't say anything, just hurried away.

It was very odd.

I'm seeing a lot of mentions of Asda on this thread 🤔😁

Oh and lots of weird incidents with men involving trying to do sport, but a small selection:

In the local swimming pool, lane swimming, a not very fast male swimmer was in the fast lane doing breastroke but not sticking to the lane order, just swimming up and down one side. He swam into me twice and the second time got really aggressive and started shouting at me. Pool attendant doing nothing as usual. Then at the end of the lane, he started being confrontational, one of the things he said was "I bet I'm younger than you". Perhaps this was very important to him. Anyway, I ignored him and completed my swim, got changed, paffed about and when I left, he was waiting for me to continue the argument. Fortunately, DH had been at the gym and was also waiting for me, and had no idea that some random aggressive stranger was doing the same thing. We just ignored him and he actually followed us to our car shouting and muttering.

Out running in a local woods and I got chased twice by the same loose Alsation. The second time the owner, a guy in his late twenties, was actually nearby and watched as it tripped me up and I fell onto my knee. I asked him to keep his dog under control and got a load of abuse back, except it was very gaslighty, practised sort of abuse, accusing me of all sorts (I can't even remember what) and then he started filming me on his camera phone while blocking the path back to the car park while doing a running commentary about what I was supposed to be saying/doing. I'm afraid I spoilt his video by repeating very calmly that "there is a stranger blocking my path back to the car park and his dog is snarling at me". After about 5 minute of this he moved slightly to the side and I was able to get away.

This one involves a woman. In the same woods, running again, another loose dog but this time in the car park, followed me to my car, jumping all over the place, scratching the car. Eventually a woman ambled over and when I say she was dressed like a barbie doll, I do actually mean that she was dressed as you would for fancy dress if you wanted to be a barbie. She was entirely in pink, it was some sort of velour leisure suit, she had peroxide dry crisp hair and a pink sun visor to finish it off, thick thick make up, and she was wearing high heeled trainers which really limited her ability to walk. Again, I asked her to get her dog under control and she responded by criticising my "squeaky voice". Perhaps she was envious as she herself had a rather deep timbre, as I pointed out to her saying that I had a perfectly normal woman's voice. She looked crestfallen and sort of slunk off at this point.

I later heard from friends that these woods are notorious for people going to try and pick up randoms and the loose dog tactic might have been a way of trying to strike up conversation. I've actually moved away from that town and had no such weird incidents since.

There has been a few, one that sticks out was about 20+ years ago, I was handing out promotional flyers for free accommodation in a backpackers overseas when I turned round and there was this guy whose face was about 2cm from mine, his face seemed like it had worn white face paint on it, he stuck his tongue out with food all over it and made a weird noise before walking off laughing, It really freaked me out.

I have a doppelganger that appears to follow me around the world.
Its been told to me by so many people that they just saw my look a like in a town 30 minutes to a few hours away that very morning.
From Toronto, to Nepal, Perth, Czech republic, Copenhagen, Johannesburg, Dakar, and more.

They appear to age the same as me too, I've had this for 45 years.
Last one was me in York station and a woman tells me she's just seen me on the Bristol train.
I've never met them, but I really would like to.

My husband and I owned a shop on an industrial estate, I was stocking the shelves at the front of the shop, and the large roller shutter was up as it was late summer and hot. A young lady rushed past the front of the shop with a pushchair (still a good 7 or 8 meters away) and glanced at me, I carried on with my work. She did a U-turn with the buggy and called out to me if she could read my fortune. I politely declined and explained I was a bit busy but thanked her. She then rather bored and impatiently told me that I "was surrounded by love and happiness", I smiled and thanked her and she carried on. A week later I found out I was pregnant after a year and a half of trying. Probably a coincidence, but a nice memory.

Years ago when I was late teens I was at the supermarket when I saw a lady struggling to pack her bags whilst her tiny baby was screaming. I went over to offer my help as no one else had. She sort of sagged as she said yes. But instead of moving so I could pack her bags she unbuckled the baby from its car seat and thrust it at me. At that point I had no dc and hadn't ever held a new baby before so I stood there rocking and shushing the baby who did calm down but I was terrified I would drop it!
Down the line after having children I can totally see how your brain is so exhausted that you might do that!
After she had finished she looked at me holding her baby and a look of confusion passed across her face! I think she was having the same realisation

25 years ago, walking around Tooting Common when I lived in South London, I spotted a bloke with a beard, dressed in a short red leather skirt and a fishnet top, cycling round. Apparently he worked ‘out of a tree’ on the common. Took me slightly aback.

@AllyCatTown
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
I travelled around Indonesia for a couple of months years ago and experienced the same thing, mostly on Java at the more popular sites.
I must have had my photo taken with random families 3 or 4 times in half an hour on the top of Borobodur.
My travelling companion and I used to muse over how many Far Eastern/South East Asian mantelpieces had our photos atop them and how the owners explained who we were to their visitors (as they didn't even ask our names though perhaps they invented names for us later down the line).

I’m sorry @SkiingIsHeaven, but i
laughed way more than I should have at this

This happened to me in India too. Very odd, I thought it was a robbery distraction technique at first but it wasn’t.

Sounds like a psychopath

It's not often that I genuinely laugh out loud but this is beautiful! 😂

Above comment was in reply to this ^

Years ago I was in a museum with my husband and kids when a random woman sidled up to DH and hissed "Leave my boyfriend alone" at him. She then sidled off but followed us at a distance, glaring.