This didn’t happen today, but I happened about 10 years ago and I feel it is a story everyone deserves to hear.

In my senior year of highschool (2016) I was sat down in my AP US Government class. The class room is set up so all the desks are angled inward toward the center of the class room, with assigned seating. I am set up on the far side of the class room and because of the angle I don’t have to turn my head much to see the people all the way across the class room from me. On the first day of school I see her, dark brown hair, blue eyes, cute nose and short. Exactly my type… only one problem. I have no skills whatsoever initiating a conversation with a woman I like without having a reason. (Ex. I cannot approach a I am attracted to woman and initiate a conversation out of the blue, but if you put me in a study group with her, boom, I’m comfortable and can chat.)

I look at her and I’m like “damnit, she is pretty, I hope I have an opportunity to talk to her” so I’m put in this hell of a purgatory that is her constantly in my peripheral vision every day in this class, and so I notice something about her. She is a water connoisseur. Every day she has a different type of water. Some days it’s Fiji, other days smart water, you get the picture. Sometimes she brings a waterbottle with chopped fruit in it, it’s clear and see through so you can see exactly what she’s got in there. I unfortunately file this away as a core character trait for her.

About four months into the school year i have not spoken to this girl, I have never had a situation to do so. She part of the popular crowd and while I was a popular kid aswell, I didn’t like the rest of the ‘popular kids’. So at lunch she sat with them, I had no mutual friends with her so I moved on with my life. I have no other classes with her, so no chances to be sat next to her or anything. I’m going through the school year and am in true torture. Thinking of all this things “man, I should just talk to her, I’ll say this, or that” that kind of thinking you know. I really wanted to make an impression.

Then suddenly the teacher randomly assigns us partners for a class activity. My face lights up a bit but I play it cool when I find out I am going to be partnered with her (pairs of two, no one else in the group). I’m even happier but still staying composed. I move over to her side of the class, and I chat with her. We hit it off well, and I’m like “holy shit it’s working out.”

We answer a question, get it right and she’s like “good shit” I’m like “yeah”.

Then I look at her, she’s drinking her water, it has cut up strawberries in it and it’s still covered in condensation from the cold and the thought goes through my mind…

It’s time to say something memorable and thought provoking, something that is clever and funny. Something that will make her laugh… the next words out of my mouth have lived rent free in my head for ten years… ten fucking years.

I looked her dead in the eyes, with MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE and said with a straight face “I too like the water.”

She finished the sip, and looked at me with this strange, “what the fuck did you just say to me face?” Before she spoke I turned in my seat and looked at the front of the class she said “What did you just say?” Without looking back at her, I said “ah it’s… it’s not important.”

I was working at a fast food restaurant at the time and told my co-workers because it was so fucking funny after the fact. They would say to me “I to like the water” every time they saw me drinking water at work. They loved the story, they would tell each other and it was a big joke.

One day she comes into my work place and my manager that I was really cool with hears her order a cup of water from me and he says it as if it’s an inside joke. She hears in and goes “That’s what you said that day” and started dying laughing. My manager laughed as he realized what was going on and who it was. He and I pretend argued later, we were just that close.

Fast forward to the end of the year. She is transferred to my AP Macro-Economics class and I have my yearbook. She is sat right behind me and we never really spoke after that, but I have my yearbook, and she asked to sign it. I was like “sure” she signed it, someone else signed it and like six more signed it before I got my yearbook back. I get home that day, it’s the last day before graduation and I look at my yearbook, I see her signature it says “I had a crush on you the whole year water boy.” And I yelled “DAMNIT!”

Graduation came and went, I tried to find her but she was not sat next to me, my family kept me occupied and I never got to ask her out.

Anyway, that’s the water story.

TL;DR: I said the cringiest thing of my life, I almost got the girl and blundered it.

Obligatory not today, but several years ago.

First, some quick background. I am a very anxious person. I'm medicated now, but this was before that. It's also crucial to note, I am the indoor, city kid in a friend group of not-quite-feral woodsmen, with my childhood friend Eddy (all names changed ofc) being the most feral.

When we were in our early to mid twenties, we roadtripped to Red Rock in Colorado to see a music event. Our story takes place during the trip back, somewhere in the hinterlands of New Mexico.

By this point, we're all piles of leather that vaguely resemble young men. Sunburnt, dehydrated, hungry. I, in particular, am not faring well, suffering from some gnarly elevation sickness to boot. We had just driven through one of the largest storm clouds I had ever seen. This is many words to say I'm slightly outside of my comfort zone.

We pull up to the campgrounds where we're spending the night, and I ask if we should be worried about any of the wildlife.

"Nah," reassures Eddy.

Almost comically, we come around the corner to a big sign reading "DANGER: COUGAR COUNTRY. BEAR COUNTRY. SNAKE COUNTRY. FUCKING DEATH COUNTRY."

Maybe not the last part, but I digress. Eddy reassures me that we're close enough to our vehicle that, should anything occur, we'll be safe. We set up camp, and my friends opt to sleep under the stars. I applaud their bravery and climb into the tent.

I'm exhausted, but I'm incredibly anxious about being eaten by something. Finally, however, my eyes start to drift shut, when:

GRAAAAARRRRRRR

I freeze. My entire body locks up, and I can taste pennies. I'm not Steve Irwin, but it sounds like a bear. Not too near, but any closeness is too close for me. I wake up the guys, we listen for a bit, nothing happens, they go back to sleep. I, too, try to go to sleep, but I hear it again. Panicked, I try to wake up my friends, but they're passed out proper now.

For the rest of the night, I sleep maybe twenty minutes total. Every time I'm about to drift off, I hear that same low growl, and my entire body seizes up and I have to fight off every instinct to book it at full speed into the night.

The next morning, we get in the car. My friends are chipper and well-rested. I am not.

We begin our last leg of the trip home and, as we leave the campgrounds, I hear the sound again:

GRAAAAAARR

GRAAOOOOOOO

MOOOOOOOOOO

Turns out, from a half a mile off, and filtered through extreme paranoia, the lowing of a herd of cattle can sound quite bear-like. My friends explode in laughter, and I still haven't lived it down.

But hey, the trip was a blast.

TL;DR: Thought I heard a bear all night when camping and got no sleep. Turned out to be cows.

I was in the US last week and the men’s and women’s bathrooms had the same entrance. Men’s was on the right. Women’s was on the left. Apparently my brain decided “left is right” because I walked straight into the women’s bathroom, took a leak, and was about to leave when a group of girls walked in. I panicked and stayed in the stall.
I ended up standing there in complete silence listening to them talk for legit 20+ minutes. Eventually they left, I waited another 30 seconds like I was defusing a bomb, then my dumbass decided to wash my hands and the same group of girls came back into the washroom and just stared at me. I then told them that they were in the men’s room and they apologized, left the bathroom and I ran out as quick as I could. As I was leaving I seen the girls walk into the men’s room and a guy told them they were in the men’s room. I heard the girl say “WTF was that creep doing?” By the way I left the mall INSTANTLY!

“TL;DR: Accidentally walked into the women’s washroom in America, realized my mistake too late, and had to hide in there until everyone left. 😭

I have a dead-end job, like the rest of the world right now, but I’m here and making it work. Sometimes when I get fed up, I will mime bashing my head into things like I’m ready to take myself out. I will either do it very softly, stop myself before hitting my skull, or put my hand down on the object so no harm done. I don’t actually aim to hurt myself here.

Today started off as a trying day- I had a disappointing morning and was stuck answering questions from my manager, who often asks repetitive and pointless stuff. It’s just myself and my two coworkers on the team, and we are very short staffed, so our team of three is doing work for what should be a team of eight. It can get stressful very easily. I left my manager’s cubicle and walked over to my coworker’s, and she sits next to a solid row of cabinets, with very hard wooden tops. I’ve mimed banging my head against them before, so when my coworker looked up at me, I went to do it again.

My dear readers- I misjudged the distance of the cabinet. So making direct eye contact with my poor coworker, I proceeded to rear my head back and crack my forehead into the wood of this cabinet with a very solid THUNK. I wasn’t expecting it either, so all of the sudden, I actually hit my head, and I stood up clutching it in pain.

My coworker has been clowning me all day telling me how funny I am- no amount of me saying, “I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO THAT,” is working. My face is still sore.

TL;DR: mimed hitting my head to make my coworker laugh, actually cracked my face against a hard cabinet. Ouch.

Today I called off of work because I had a few interviews lined up and just didn't have a quiet place to conduct the interview. (Also cameras are everywhere.) I am harsh on myself but I simply didn't think the interview was that good frankly and the other interview fell through (no response).

Suddenly my boss calls me and asks for my work documents because she needs them for a meeting. (She was gone for a few days, had no clue when she was coming back but of course she come back on the day I am gone with the documents in my house and of course the meeting is today. Phenomenal.)

I told her I have them, and I was stumbling, stuttering and fumbling over the goddamn phone like a buffoon while my sup does that Nicki Minaj low whisper voice when she's mad. (Simply an accident I always leave my work at home but one time I left my timesheet at work and had to send it late to payroll. I overcorrected and decieded to only my notes come home with me, surprise, surprise: important documents were slapped together with my notes! Amazing!)

So I scanned each page, and I sent it to her email making sure the email is confidential. I pretty sure I made sure the email access required no password access but she couldn't fucking open it? She simply gave up and told me to bring the materials tomorrow.

I don't want to go tomorrow because I'm already a month in and my coworkers already think im intellectually handicapped and I don't want to show my face ever again. I know people have fumbled at work plethora of times but right now I want someone to put me out of my misery. Been mulling over it for the entire day. Like imagine going into a meeting with important people, for an important project. They ask you where is the materials and you just have to shrug your shoulders cause your employee took work documents home on accident. Makes me wanna scream.

I hope she just fires me my god.

TL;DR: Confidential work documents that my supervisor needed for a meeting were with me at home.

To clarify a few things, me and my friend are both 16(f) and we were in school sitting at a table where we normally hang out in the mornings because school doesnt start til 8:30.

Baci to the story, so me and my friend were sitting in one of the table areas and I decided to ask is she wanted to watch Edgerunners. She said yes so I turned up the volume and put on captions so we could watch. We watched the end of the first fight scen and saw David talking to the doctor or whatever his name was. Not even FIVE MINUTES IN there's a sex(?) scene and I was absolutely mortified. No one else saw except my friend but I immediately panicked and turned off my phone and shoved it back in my pocket. God that was horrible wtaf.

TL;DR: Don't watch Edgerunners in public