Most interactions with strangers are fine. Forgettable, even. Someone holds a door, someone comments on the weather, someone lets you go ahead in the queue, and you both move on with your lives having made no impression on each other whatsoever.
But when a stranger says something that stops the entire interaction, you start replaying it on the drive home. You might even be thinking about it 3 years later. An online thread asked people to share the creepiest thing a stranger had ever said to them, and the results are chilling. Next time, you might be more aware of who is standing near you while you are waiting for a bus. You have been warned.
#21
a old women approached me and told me her dog can talk, tbh the dog look so creepy it almost had human eyes.
4points
The bystander effect is all about witnesses who said nothing. Research by social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané, developed after the 1964 Kitty Genovese case, found that the presence of other people in a situation actually decreases the likelihood that any individual will intervene, because each person assumes someone else will act. The creepy stranger on a crowded train who says something disturbing to a single passenger is statistically less likely to be challenged than if the same thing happened with only one witness. The crowd provides cover in both directions.
#22
A lady drove past me as I was walking on the footpath, we locked eyes for a second.
She then chucked a U-turn, pulled up next to me and told me 'I can tell your special, god told me just then that he has plans for you.' I said 'cheers, catchya later.'
She then chucked a U-turn, pulled up next to me and told me 'I can tell your special, god told me just then that he has plans for you.' I said 'cheers, catchya later.'
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3points
#24
Walking down the street with my girlfriend at the time, and we pass a house where a small girl, maybe 8 or 10 years old, is sitting outside on a fold up chair. It was creepy because she had this hollow look in her eyes, but they still followed our movement. Also she was alone with no toys or anything, so it was like she was just sitting there all spaced out. I assumed she was slow or something, and my girlfriend whispered to me, "creepy...". We pass the house, and keep walking. 5 seconds later we hear "I'm following you..." with that kind of childish inflection that is so terrifying. I turn around and of course it's that little girl.
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3points
The stories people carry from these encounters share a common feature beyond the obvious one: they are almost never resolved. The stranger said the thing and then walked away, or the bus stopped, and one of them got off, or the interaction ended before any kind of reckoning was possible.
The unresolved quality is part of what keeps them circulating in memory, because the brain treats unfinished threat assessments as open files. De Becker's advice for these situations is to trust the feeling, create distance, and do not spend energy trying to be polite about it. You officially have permission to walk away.
Have a stranger's words ever made your hair stand on end? Tell us about it in the comments!
#25
I was 13 and bringing trash to the dumpster after a church youth activity on a Wednesday night. As I get close to the dumpster a homeless man started to crawl out of the dumpster while yelling "people pass away every day".
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3points
#26
That something bad was going to happen to me in 623 days. It's been 378.
3points
#27
The woman who lived next door to my best friends had become senile over the years and just sat on her porch all day. When she was younger, she would have someone bring her groceries and he would come in through the basement door (basement door was on the ground floor, main door was up a bunch of stairs). As she got older she would tell kids - thinking it was the delivery boy - to come into her basement with a big grin on her face. I was 5.
My friends were cousins and lived in a duplex, one family upstairs, another downstairs. One day I was going up the stairs and there was a window facing her home. I happened to glance out the window and she was sitting inside (the first time I had ever seen that) staring into the window I had been walking by. I mean intensely, no smile, no facial expression at all. 5 year old me ran up the stairs faster than 30 year old me ever could.
My friends were cousins and lived in a duplex, one family upstairs, another downstairs. One day I was going up the stairs and there was a window facing her home. I happened to glance out the window and she was sitting inside (the first time I had ever seen that) staring into the window I had been walking by. I mean intensely, no smile, no facial expression at all. 5 year old me ran up the stairs faster than 30 year old me ever could.
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3points
#28
Ok aside from all the invasive street harassment comments, I'd have to say the creepiest yet totally innocent thing was said to me by a shopkeeper in Syria.
We were walking in a street behind the main market area, and all of these little shops and stalls etc are set up and people would call out and try to get you to check out their stuff. This older man was sitting on a stool outside of a tent, which looked like it had some nice rugs or something inside. He sees us foreigners walking by and yells out in English: "We can make pleasure to your eyes inside!!!"
Needless to say...we did not go into his tent.
We were walking in a street behind the main market area, and all of these little shops and stalls etc are set up and people would call out and try to get you to check out their stuff. This older man was sitting on a stool outside of a tent, which looked like it had some nice rugs or something inside. He sees us foreigners walking by and yells out in English: "We can make pleasure to your eyes inside!!!"
Needless to say...we did not go into his tent.
3points
#29
A stranger farted loudly while maintaining eye contact with me. I've never felt so intimidated in my life.
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3points
#30
not exactly a stranger; rather my cell phone. i sent a text yesterday then put my phone in my pocket without locking it. when i pulled my phone back out it was still on the same text thread and in the line where i would typically type, it just said 'i see you'.
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3points
#31
When I rode the bus. One night as I got off. A Mexican lady stood up, pointed at me, and screamed "EL DIABLO!!!" Never ran so fast in my entire life.
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3points
#32
Not me, but my parents. We had a party with the extended family and there was this old woman who told our families fortune.
She said my mom had been cursed by my grandmother(which grandma later admitted to) and would always struggle in life. She was told not to cut her hair because that's where her strength came from.
She said my dad would be rich, but never truly happy.
And for me, she said "watch him and be careful with his mind."
I'm not really one for psychics, but it still creeps me out.
She said my mom had been cursed by my grandmother(which grandma later admitted to) and would always struggle in life. She was told not to cut her hair because that's where her strength came from.
She said my dad would be rich, but never truly happy.
And for me, she said "watch him and be careful with his mind."
I'm not really one for psychics, but it still creeps me out.
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3points
#33
I was at work, standing at the checkout, when a customer came. I rang him up, he took two steps before stopping. Then he turned to me, looked me in the eyes and said "God loves you" with a calm, almost cold voice... that was so creepy.
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3points
#34
“You look like my daughter.” It would be less scary if it was a sober person saying that.
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3points
#35
not that creepy but when i was in the psych ward, one of the more psychotic patients walked up to me outside (i was alone) and started asking me questions about me being possessed by the devil? then a few hours later i got an epileptic seizure and he went like full on nuts because ofc he thought i was completely possesed and the he get sent to the closed ward.
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3points
#36
so I was at SeaWorld and I was going on the ride mantas if you don't know is a upside-down and I was scared so I was like I am going to lose my life the worker said one day you will.
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3points
#37
A guy at a gas station came over to me as I filled up my car and started pestering with questions about where I was going. I lied and said “I’m going to meet my friends, they are waiting for me” and he asked “can I come with you” and I said “no no it’s closed invite haha” and he said “that’s okay, I’ll wait for you to leave and then I will follow you…” I hid inside the store til he left.
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3points
#38
One grandma grabbed my hand and put it on her forehead and said "your the one" WHAT DOES THAT MEAN.
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3points
#39
The creepiest thing a stranger ever told me happened when I was walking home late one evening. An old man sitting outside a small shop suddenly called me by my name. I had never seen him before, so I stopped and asked him how he knew me. He smiled and said, “Your mother still leaves the hallway light on for you, doesn't she?” I laughed nervously and asked him how he knew that. He ignored my question and said, “When you were little, you used to cry every night because you could hear someone walking around your room after everyone had gone to sleep.” My smile disappeared because that was actually something I remembered from childhood, but I had never told anyone about it. I asked him who he was, and he stood up slowly, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “I'm sorry I couldn't protect you back then.” I immediately walked away without saying another word. When I got home, I asked my mother if she remembered anything strange about our old house. She went completely silent. Then she asked me, “Who told you about the man who used to stand beside your bed when you were sleeping?” I told her about the stranger, and she started crying. She said that when I was four years old, I used to describe an old man who stood in the corner of my room every night. But the part that still scares me to this day is what my mother told me next. She showed me an old family photograph and pointed at a man standing in the background. It was the exact same stranger I had met that evening. Then she whispered, “That's your grandfather. He passed away three years before you were born.”
3points
#40
I guy grabbed me at a park when I was like 10 and kept screaming “you’re my daughter you’re my daughter, why did you leave?!” His daughter had passed away along time ago and I apparently looked like her.
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3points
