32 Things People Saw Others Do In Public That Left Them Flabbergasted At How Unhinged It Was

It all started, as often happens, in the AskReddit community, where a couple of days ago the user u/Such_Alternative1975 asked the question: "What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve ever seen someone do in public like it was completely normal?"

Oh, I wish they hadn't done that - because the comments (and there are now over 1.3K of them) have become such a cringe festival that it was damn hard for us to choose stories for you, believe me. But we did it.

Some of the situations described here can be explained by a simple word - alcohol. Or something even stronger and worse. A drunk person's threshold for assessing moral values ​​is greatly reduced, and they are ready to do things that they would never do under any circumstances if they were sober. Moreover, they sometimes sincerely consider what they are doing to be funny or cool.

Alcohol affects people's consciousness in different ways - some fall asleep peacefully after a couple of glasses, while for others, on the contrary, all the fuses in their heads turn off, and their inner trickster wakes up. If you remember the plot of the old comedy The Hangover, you will definitely know what I'm talking about.

A separate category of situations is when people think that they aren't seen by anyone else. And then, it must be said, completely unexpected instincts awaken in many of us. For example, to eat food that has fallen on the floor, to throw garbage past the trash can on the street, and even to commit some minor offense. For example, to break traffic rules...

In fact, much of our life is the result of the so-called "social contract" between people, that is, not the absolute truth, but the result of people's agreement to consider it as such. And we, when we're not seen (or we think that we are not seen), involuntarily protest against these "game rules." And then we're surprised to be caught doing something completely unhinged.

Of course, there are situations when smart people just do some completely stupid things. Why does this actually happen? For example, because sometimes "dizziness from success" happens, people acquire irrational confidence in their own infallibility - and even having made a mistake, they try to convince others that it was not a mistake, or that they had actually planned to do it exactly that way.

"When smart people make dumb mistakes, it usually isn’t because of stupidity, ignorance, or apathy," Donalee Markus Ph.D. says in her article on Psychology Today. "They make dumb mistakes because they’ve been seduced by their own success, and the rewards of success help them develop expectations about how things are supposed to be."

Of the stories we’re telling you today, examples like these make up a significant, if not the most significant, share as well.

Be that as it may, and even if you don’t want to understand the possible reasons why people behave the way they do, I think you’ll find these stories interesting, from the lite odd to the totally cringy. So please feel free to read these stories, and if you’ve ever witnessed something similar too, we're open to your own tales in the comments below!