“I Pretended To Be Just As Drunk”: 41 Times Quick And Smart Decisions Saved Lives

Was watching my toddler nephew and he’d found a metal straw somewhere in the house and started playing with it. He was just tapping stuff and waving it around, but I’d *just* read a story on Reddit about a woman who got completely f****d up by a metal straw when she fell and it impaled her face, so I took the metal one from nephew and gave him a soft, squishy silicone one to play with instead.

I’m not exaggerating when I say less than five minutes later, he fell like toddlers do and I saw the silicone straw all smushed into his cheek.

I had to just sit for a while after that, lol.

My BF at the time and I were walking to our car in the middle of nowhere at 3am. Forest on both sides of the street and not another person in sight. A car with 4 sketch looking dudes slowed down to where we were walking I told him to bolt. He didn’t want to so I bolted and he felt pressured to follow me and ran after me. The car stopped and guys came out of the car to yell after us telling us to come back. We did not and didn’t stop til we got to the car and drove back. The men were gone and nothing was there.

He asked me why I ran away because they could shoot us if they had guns. I told him no thug will go after difficult prey. Prison penalties are much longer for m**der and theft rather than just theft and mugging. If we run away if they come near us, they will find someone easier to steal from.

I was out with a friend who had 3 drinks max, I had none. She was acting off so I insisted on bringing her home. I rang the next day and she had no memory of leaving the first bar (1 drink) going in my car to another bar (2 drinks), being taken home or calling her boyfriend. A 14 hour gap in memory. So grateful I don't drink sometimes.

This guy was following us, causing us to increase our pace (which he continually matched). Suddenly a part of me snapped, and I just turned around and stared him down, almost daring him to come closer. He very promptly crossed the road and disappeared.

I’m hindsight I was quite lucky, I don’t know what I would have done if he took that as the opportunity to attack me.

But I swear to god half of these creeps just enjoy seeing us visibly terrified of their presence, and they never expect a retaliation.

When self-check out lanes started popping up in 2012 I was in the long line that breaks into four registers at a meijer. There were three working and one blinking distress. The biker dude behind me told me to go and I told him “no that one is closed” he bristled and says thru gritted teeth “it’s open just f**king go” and I said “maybe you’re not used to being told ‘no’ but YOU don’t tell ME what to do. Ok??” He said “you better shut your mouth and learn your place woman”. At this point another line opened and I went and checked out. After I realized the guy wasn’t around despite having been behind me. I only had two items. He should STILL be HERE. I asked a manager to walk me to my car. The biker was waiting for me in the delivery truck alley (sans groceries) his face when he saw I was accompanied was RAGE he was gonna teach me to sass him. I know it.

Back when I was in college, a friend insisted on me meeting her new boyfriend at a local mall. The guy immediately made me uncomfortable. He was pushy, and controlling not just to my friend but me as well. We hit up the food court for a cheap meal and the man took food off my plate with his fork. When I told him no, he stuck his disgusting bare fingers into my plate of Chinese food to take more- all while making direct eye contact with a sinister smirk on his face.

She insisted that I should give him another chance, and dragged me to another college an hour and a half drive away to visit him. He was even worse on his home turf, suuuper pushy and kept making gross sexual comments to both of us. At one point he made some excuse to get me out of his apartment by demanding I go buy horchata, and shoved me out the door with no idea where I was going.

A half hour later my friend called and asked me to come back and I found him looking smug and her looking like she had been crying. I made an excuse to leave and took her with me. On the way home, she told me that he had put his hands around her throat and tried to choke her while they had s*x and kept trying to do it to the point she passed out which is why she had been crying. I begged her over and over to dump him, and even looked him up on the state circuit court records to show his criminal record.

Eventually I convinced her to dump him, and told her to do it over the phone because he wasn’t safe. She acted like I was overreacting, but did so and when she did he admitted to cheating on her.

Life went back to normal, until a few weeks later when the ex boyfriend made the news. The woman he was cheating with he tried to k**l. He waited until she was driving, took a hold of the wheel by force and turned the truck into oncoming traffic. I know he went to jail and she survived, but nothing past that. I am forever glad I got my friend to break up with him.

I studied abroad in Prague, which is an amazing and beautiful city, but on one of our first days there a friend and I got lost looking for the college bookstore. As we wandered the streets we got further and further from the touristy/populated places. I noticed two men following us, so I made an odd turn to see if they would too. They did and I thought I need to get away from them. I didn’t know where I was going, but I began following the signs to the castle. I knew it would be populated and touristy. As we got closer, then men disappeared and I knew we were safe.

This guy at the gas station pump next to me was hitting on me. It wasn’t super sketchy but it also wasn’t the best area. He was done pumping his gas LONG before I was. I got in my car, and something just felt off. Idk if I was being paronoid considering I’ve been followed home before, but it seemed like he was waiting for me. So I decided to wait in my car until he drove off except, HE NEVER LEFT. He sat in his car. Eventually he went into the gas station and I zoomed the heck out of there! I have no idea if there was truly something unsafe to that, but it felt off. Better safe than sorry!

Followed into a parking garage on campus by a man who was angry that I made him look bad in front of our grad school cohort because he was unprepared, rude, and extremely arrogant about it. It was late-ish at night. I had the feeling someone was behind me as I was walking and turned around and found that he had followed me in. I never saw him until that moment so I don't know if he'd been following me the whole time or just happened to see me and made the decision.

The look in his eyes was terrifying. I just knew that if I kept going toward my car he was going to try something and if I couldn't get away and fight him off, I was probably going to die. I ran in the opposite direction, making a huge scene. He wasn't expecting me to do that by the panicked look on my face.

University police came and took a report and escorted me home. My department was put on alert. He was booted out of our program 6 months later for threatening his female adviser.

A little over 10 years ago when I was 18, I was walking back home alone around 5pm from the train station. It was a hot summer day and still very bright out. I had my earphones in and was listening to music on my phone. The walk was a short 9 minutes from the station to my house.

On the way back, I was leisurely crossing a pedestrian light. When the pedestrian light went green adjacent to mine, from the corner of my eye I noticed a group of 3 men crossing very quickly. Immediately, I thought to myself how unusual that was when the light had just turned green. This was a suburban area so unlike the city, people aren’t usually in a rush.

As I turned into my street, I could feel the presence of 3 men behind me. There was a lady walking in front of me so I wasn’t too worried, but I noticed her speed was picking up. She turned left into a side street and I kept walking straight.

I turned around to see the 3 men trailing behind me. It was still very sunny but I was alone now. At this point I was 90% certain they were following me because why were they so quick to cross the green light but now walking at a normal speed behind me?

I subtly called my older brother to see if he was home. I didn’t want the men following me to know I was calling someone in case they jumped into action faster. My parents were overseas at the time so it was just me and my brother. He told me he was home but leaving in 15 minutes to hang out with his friends. I explained to him through the microphone of my earphones that I thought I was being followed and pleaded him to come out of our house and cross the road to meet me.

I kept my brother on the phone and decided to cross the road to put some distance between me and the men and to see if they would continue following me. One of them crossed the road and the other two stayed on the other side.

I was 99% certain they were following me but a part of me was still in disbelief because my mum walks to the shops almost every day in my suburb and it’s always been a relatively safe neighbourhood. She still does to this day.

To seal my gut feeling, I bent down and pretended to tie my shoelace. All 3 men slowed down and I had zero doubts I was being followed at this point.

The 2 men on the other side of the road started to drift apart. They went from walking together to triangulating me so I was surrounded. The lone man who was behind me was picking up his pace.

In the distance, I saw my brother finally come out of the house and cross the road. From the moment I called him to when he came out, it was probably only around 3 minutes but it felt like a lifetime. I rushed to him and held onto his arm, relieved I was with someone safe and that I wasn’t alone anymore.

The man behind me realised I was with someone I knew and walked past us. My brother and I watched him and the other two men across the road until they were completely out of sight. I was afraid to enter our house in case they came back and saw where I lived.

During that time, I also noticed the lady who was in front of me at the beginning of the ordeal had come back onto my street. She must have also noticed the men were following one of us and turned into another street to lose them.

My brother sat me in his car and I burst into tears. I don’t know what would have happened if my brother wasn’t home and those men had caught up to me. My brother’s friend came to pick him up for their hangout and he told his friend about the men following me. They circled our block in his friend’s car a few times to see if the men were still around but they were gone.

It was such a short moment and fairly long ago but I still remember what happened vividly. I was afraid to walk to that train station for a while and went to another one after that.

When I was about 14 a guy stopped and offered me a free ride. It looked like a taxi, but when I got inside I realised it wasn’t a genuine one. So I played a ringtone off my phone and pretended to take a call, acted normal and said I was getting a free ride to the bus station in my “phone call”. The guy dropped me off, he seemed annoyed, and gave me a weird lecture on not marrying a rugby player (?). I can’t be sure if he was trying to abduct me, but it was the same time that two women had been attacked near the park he picked me up.

Looking up criminal records of everyone who tries to date me. I've found out that several guys who tried to go on a date with me are convicted r*pists and one was even connected to a m**der.

Going about 35 mph on my dirtbike and hit a jump that launched me and the bike about 12 feet in the air. I missed the landing and was about to absolutely face plant while on the bike. Midair I threw the bike out from me and just took the fall. Beyond blessed to walk away with just scrapes. No broken bones or anything. But that was the one time my life actually flashed before my eyes,

Back when we were teenagers (I think like 13/14 ish?), my friend and I were out on a snow day. These two men parked up a car next to us, approached and started chatting to us, we were polite initially but they wouldn't leave us alone and I just got really bad vibes. I grabbed my friend's hand and just ran as fast we could back to her house (about 0.5 mile away) down some alleys that cars couldn't go down. I insisted we go inside and we went into her house.

Sure enough maybe 15 mins later, we saw the car driving around our neighbourhood. The men seemed really mad and were just going around knocking over people's snowmen, peering into people's houses, like they were looking for us or something. It was really scary. We reported it to the police.

Once while a friend and i were on a walk, i noticed a man in a green truck staring at us a lot. made me feel uncomfortable. i pointed it out to my friend, and we kept walking. i stayed a bit on edge and aware.

later, about 40 minutes, we had made it to a street which no houses or businesses faced. this was unlike the other one, which was quite busy with business and the mall. we kept making our way to our friends house, by this time we had bags of food in our arms.

i notice that a silver car has pulled over ahead of us, facing us. my friend didn’t seem to think it mattered, but i was getting some really bad vibes and listened to them. i told my friend to stop, and had her run away from the car with me.

now, i know to run past the car in these situations so they can’t lean out and grab you. though i didn’t want to run past and already stopped car because i feared they’d hit us down with a door or something and grab us that way.

once we started running, the car sped after us. we started screaming, dropped all of what we were caring and my friend lost her shoe. i have us fake turn into a court, the car falls for it and makes a turn to go in. at that point i scream and physically direct my friend to turn around and run the other way. for a moment the car drives the wrong way on the street to try to get us, but another car starts coming and they instantly turn into the other lane and speed off. we call the cops, and run all the way to our friends house.

the cop didn’t end up believing us, and made us seem crazy or drugged out. told us this wouldn’t happen to girls our age (15) and only happens to small children. i knew she was wrong and hated that she said that.

later, my dad came and picked us up so we didn’t have to walk back. we were traumatized. didn’t know what to say. my friend still stayed at my house, as we didn’t want to be alone.

to this day, walking where cars can drive makes me anxious and i’m very aware of my surroundings. sometimes too much. so glad we’re safe.

On holiday in Turkey two 17 year olds, my friend went every year so knew a lot of the guys there who worked the bars and stuff. This one guy (A) was extra letchy with me and one (B) with her, so one day B is trying to get us to go to his apartment with him to find A. My friend started to walk with him and I stopped dead in the middle of the street and refused to budge. I knew she would never go without me, so she stayed with me and B got *irrationally* angry. He had something planned that day and it wouldn't have ended well for us if I hadn't trusted my gut and refused.

My friend was messing around on the curb of the footpath, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a fast-moving vehicle. I didn't know for definite if the car was headed toward us, but I grabbed my friend anyway, and I yanked her away from the road. A second later, it sped past us. If I hadn't instinctively grabbed her, I think she would have been hit by the car. If the driver was going at a slower speed, it might have just grazed her, and she would have been okay - maybe she would have just lost her balance and not hit the car at all. But the speed the driver was going was far too fast, and it could have been dangerous. She could have been hit or fallen hard onto the road.

A female cop went after one of my friends, saying he was being 'aggressive'. I already had my phone in my hand but I hadn't started filming yet. I yelled 'I've been filming for the last minute, it's obvious he didn't do anything!' and suddenly the cop was professional again. ACAB, baby.

Going to the car on a side street around 9pm, a man approached from one of the more main roads and asked my bf if this is his car and if he could give him a jump.

As I had just been carjacked at gunpoint 6 months prior, I was wary and the gun he was holding in his pocket did not help my unease.

I just said NOPE and briskly walked in the other direction. Thank GOD my bf just follows me because I straight up nearly left him to die. He trailed a few feet behind me as I called the non emergency police.

In debrief, he has such a kind soul he didn't think the guy was up to anything. He saw me start to walk away from the car and figured I wasn't ready to leave so he just followed. I figured he would follow me. Bless him for his reliability.

F*****g trauma.

Managed to get my kiddo and her friend off the swings and away from a man naked apart from a dressing gown and clearly under the influence at 10am in a park. Promised them sweets. Gtfo of there, called the police.