AIBU to ask what's the worst thing you've ever overheard someone say about you?

[Buttercup212]

Just that really. Luckily I haven't overheard anything about myself yet, but it occurred to me today that it must happen fairly often and I'm just curious to be honest! Also, if it happened to you, did the relationship survive afterwards or did you fall out?

When I was 18, I overheard my mother telling her friend how lovely my new boyfriend was and that he was "far too good for her".

That's awful! Perhaps your mum was envious of you which led her to say something vindictive (although obviously that would be no excuse !).

Mocking my speech impediment when I was stood round the corner and couldn’t be seen. My friend had been doing a silly voice for a while. Friend 2 said “Does SHE know you do that voice?” and then of course I learned

That must have been really hurtful. At least you learnt the truth about those so called friends and hopefully did waste anymore time on them.

A coworker told my boss, right in front of me, that I was ugly. He looked shocked and I was hurt. I know I'm not pretty but that was rude.

I swallowed it and acted like I didn’t care because I was too invested at that stage in being part of the fun, popular group. I cringe looking back, I really sold myself cheaply.

My flatmate, while on the phone to her friend, said about me: "She doesn't have any friends and she never does anything fun!"
I wasn't even that bothered because it was basically true - I'd just moved abroad so hadn't made friends yet, and I guess we just had different ideas of fun. 🤷‍♀️

I was on the phone trying to arrange an appointment with a customer but my system was playing up and it was taking much longer than usual. I booked it in and the woman thought she hung up on me. She began talking to her husband about how thick I was and how I couldn’t book an appointment because I was that thick!? I stayed on the line in hope she would realise how thick she was for not hanging up.

At work, I overheard someone say they had bumped into me in a different part of the building we worked in. Other person said "XenoBitch is such a dog".

Getting ready for a night out on a hen do, someone who I didn’t really know said far too loudly that I was ‘dressed to get a good shagging’. I was wearing a very standard dress for the hot country we were in.

“She’s clearly helping herself to the money.” Said by a relative of my mums who had learnt that I had POA of her finances (as well as health but that was irrelevant to the narrative). I didn’t hesitate to put them straight but it was still horrible to hear.

When I started a new job at 20 I was one of three women out of around 300 members of staff. I was also the youngest women by many years.
I once overheard a group of men in the kitchen saying that I was up myself and they bet I was a right slag on a night out and other stuff along those lines. "Pretty but thick" was mentioned. Really hurt my feelings as I absolutely wasn't up myself at all and actually had very little confidence at all, plus I had a partner (now DH) so wasn't a "slag" in any way and had never given them any reason to think I was. Nor am I thick and was extremely good at my job.
I didn't say anything (being young and scared) and they were all always extremely nice to me outside of that conversation. One of them asked me out a month or two later 🤷‍♀️. I like to hope it was stupid male banter and showing off, but it still stings a bit years later and I remember how much my heart hurt listening to it. It was a really toxic workplace and I was constantly catcalled and touched up.

@Wildflowerswildhorses That's so horrible and mean! I can understand why you would be so upset and shocked, but he sounds like a complete idiot and not remotely worth listening to. I'm sure it said far more about him and his own perverse need to assert himself by putting you in your place in front of your boss, than anything to do with you or your appearance.

when I was a student teacher, I heard my mentor at my second placement tel another teacher that she wouldn’t want me teaching her kids. Has always stuck with me.
I complained to the university and was moved placements. Just retired after 25 years in teaching but I will never forget how that teacher made me feel.

Walking past a girl in my year when I was 13, I heard her say about me "She's got monkey lips and can't talk properly".

When I was 14 I overheard my one of my two best friends saying they’d had enough of me; I was so boring and “sad” it would be easier if I just killed myself so they didn’t have to dump me. They dumped me anyway, despite the hassle to themselves, the following week on my birthday and literally neither of them ever spoke to me again.

Later, I discovered I am not boring (though perhaps I was indeed a “saddo”). I am kind, funny, intelligent, witty, gregarious and charitable. It was their horrible bullying for three years that had sucked the life and personality out of me.

True to form, the universe hasn’t punished them and they are living wonderful lives without a backwards glance.

When I was 14/15 someone referred to me as ‘The Elephant Man’. That wasn’t great. Also a couple of years earlier than that I walked round a corner at school to find one of my friends doing an impression of the way I walked to amuse a sizeable audience of other girls (she had her back to me and said ‘Look at me, I’m MassiveBackstory!’ while the rest of the girls could all see me approaching!).

Yes at work about 20 years ago. I'd been suffering from depression and had received some shocking family news which I had kept to myself at work. One of my colleagues, who had always made it plain she didn't like me, was on the phone to another member of staff, and looked towards me, and said "She's got a face like a slapped arse as usual", then gave me a horrible smile as she carried on her conversation. If that happened now, I would say something but, at the time, I felt so down and so fragile, I couldn't say a thing. I was distraught. Since then, Ive always given the benefit of the doubt to people who seem miserable or negative because you don't know what might be going on in their life.

Overheard two woman debating whether I'm faking my visual impairment because I dared to open something

Newsflash: we can hear you. Not everyone with a visual impairment has impaired hearing

I used to listen in on my mum’s phone calls on the landline by picking up another phone in the house. Anyone else do this?

I had just had my first formal school dance with boys (all girls school, about 11 years old) and she was telling my aunt how ugly the dress I had picked to wear was and how I had no idea how odd I looked. The whole incident altered my brain chemistry.

I found out recently that someone who bullied me dreadfully in high school was recently awarded an OBE for ‘services to disabled people’

The main theme of the bullying was my being a ‘spastic cripple’ due to being a wheelchair user.

That wasn’t something I overheard though, obvs, I just wanted to share.
I once overheard someone tell her friend that she was to ‘shoot her’ if she ever ended up looking like me :(

I helped out on a kids camp in my late teens and one of the adult leaders said that no one liked me and no one wanted me there.

I was driving some friends to a weekend away, one of them was having some issues so I made a suggestion. I happened to look in the rear view and she was rolling her eyes and mocking me talking from the back. Ot still stings even though I know she's horrible.

When I was 15 I worked in a restaurant and all the chefs, in their 30’s and 40’s used to make jokes about me having big hands amd
calling it man handling etc. I’ve hated my hands ever since.

My dad, when I was 14, and I’d done something really fantastic and brave and won a great accolade for “she was better than I thought she’d be, I thought she’d be rubbish.”

Fucking crushed the last bit of self esteem I had to hear that. I was badly bullied at school and it took a hell of a lot for me to get up in front of hundreds people and act in a short play that I’d also written. He also wouldn’t belive I wrote it. He said I must have stolen it from someone.

Then, I took the award from the arts festival into school to show my drama teacher.

As I walked out the room, she burst out laughing and said to another teacher, “well, that’s her peaked in life then, who does she think she is?”

So two crushing comments about the same thing. I never bothered again, I’d already been through so much and I just gave up.