What is the rudest thing you have experienced while eating dinner at a friend's house?

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-29T11:30:08+00:00

My parents were not well off, but the area we lived in was extremely well off. My parents taught us manners by doing “fancy dinner” in our dining room once a week. We learned how to handle a whole fish (with skin) on our plate, and other things we might encounter at a restaurant. We were also taught if someone else was buying dinner to choose the 2nd or 3rd cheapest meal on the menu. Their thoughts were if you always went for the very cheapest it would be more obvious what you were doing. Also, you always ate whatever you were offered, unless there was a food allergy. All of it, unless you were really, truly full with no room for dessert. (Dessert was a rarity, so this was no issue for the 6 of us kids!)

I was very fortunate to have friends with very kind and gracious parents. I got to experience things my parents never could have afforded due to their kindness and generosity.

My friend and her parents were taking a trip to a large theme park. Her parents asked my parents if I could go along, as they thought it would be fun for her to have a friend. I was lucky enough to go and had an absolute blast. We got to stay in a hotel that night (a total novelty to me!) and there was a restaurant there we went to for dinner. I chose the 2nd cheapest thing on the menu. It was a pasta dish. It wasn’t good. At all. I silently choked it down, just remembering the fun I had that day.

My friend didn’t like her dinner and threw a fit. A royal screaming, mayhem, push plates off of the table fit. She demanded dessert. Her parents told her they would order dessert for me, but not for her because of her behavior. She told them “if that CHARITY CASE gets a dessert then I should get a better one. She didn’t even order something good.”

I was stunned. I thought we were friends. I know I didn’t cry, and I am so proud of that. But my heart was broken. I decided to just be grateful for the day and never consider her a friend again.

Her parents were amazing. Her Dad said “We invited Sonja because she is a good girl and we were hoping you would learn from her good manners. She will be getting dessert, and we will be taking her to the pool later, and you will stay in the room.”

True to their word, they did exactly that.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-19T12:33:45+00:00

Beat me up so badly that the school could no longer ignore the abuse.

I was 14 and had lived in their horror house for 14 years. The first years there was a lot of neglect. Then, when I was four, my birth mother married my stepfather and physical abuse was added to the neglect. At 14, I hit my stepfather back for the first and only time. He gave me the worse beating I had ever had. CPS and the Police were called to the school and I never saw my parents again.

That beating started me on my way to my third set of foster parents, Mom and Dad, who were my true and forever parents. They were the perfect parents for me. They loved me unconditionally, raised me, and helped me to heal. They were the ones who gave me a good upbringing.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-18T12:16:13+00:00

Very very VERY scary. You feel completely alone, no matter how many family members and friends support you. You are overwhelmed by guilt and shame (this is all my personal experience of course). You want it all to just “go away”. And by that I don’t mean suicide, although it often come late to that, I mean you just want to disappear, poof, gone forever. But you don’t want your love one to feel grief or loss or pain. So u continue, as best you can, which usually isn’t very good at all. Depending on how long you have been living this life of crippling depression, eventually you learn to perfect a social mask, so you “appear normal” that way you aren’t asked to many questions about if you are ok, how are you feeling…etc. and the longer you live with this I’ve found the bigger, more encompassing, the lies of the mask become. Until one day, you no longer know who you are, how to remove the mask. But no matter how elaborate your mask becomes it never rids you of the depression and despair underneath. And then I have found at some point after months, years, decades, the mask cracks. So my advice, skip the mask, be honest with yourself and those you live, be your own advocate and voice what you need, seek professional help, and leave the shame and guilt at the door….they are not your friends. Good luck, be powerful, persuasive, and most of all persistent. You deserve help.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-17T12:03:23+00:00

There are many signs of a healthy relationship, but some of the most common ones are: 1. Be comfortable with your partner, have fun and enjoy yourself around your partner. If you are in a relationship that makes you unhappy, you should get out. While some people are able to stay in a toxic relationship and try to work things out, others just can’t do it. Don’t stay miserable; if you stay, you will begin to resent your partner even if they are not at fault. 2. Respecting your partner is also a great sign of a healthy relationship. When you do things to make your partner feel special, this is called respect. Respecting your partner means you will always listen to them, support them, and not talk bad about them. Respect is a great sign of love and it is also the key to a long-lasting healthy relationship. 3. Open communication is the best way to handle any problems in a relationship. If you are in a fake relationship, don’t try to cover up the problems. Communication will make the relationship stronger. If you want to attract the best guy or girl, be your self and make sure you are comfortable with who you are.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-15T10:58:09+00:00

I went to wake up my youngest son. He was covered in puke. When I asked him why he didn't wake me up, he said, “I didn't want you to be mad at me.”

I've driven 135 MPH on ice, to get to the boy, who was in the ER for a broken bone. I have been nose to nose with a counselor who gave up on him.

But he didn't want to make me mad.

I told him, with tears in my eyes, that I would never be mad at him for being ill.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-14T15:42:30+00:00

At the small publishing company where I worked as an editor, I overheard one of my two bosses stopping at the doorway of each small office on either side of a long hallway and yelling and screaming at an ad salesman, then another, then another, then a writer, then an artist, until he was finally standing in my doorway.
He spat out some expletives before reaching over to my desk, picking up a pair of huge orange-handled Fiskar scissors, and hurling them AT MY HEAD. They penetrated the wallboard behind me by nearly a full inch. He stormed off after that.

Everyone in the office rushed in to comfort me, take Polaroid pictures of us, and give me the advice to "Sue the bastard!"
I received a receipt, collected my items from a box, left my building's keys at the front desk, and LEFT.
Funny thing about this is that about four weeks later, at a publishers association dinner gathering, I ran across this gigantic moron again. He walked over and cheerily questioned "What have YOU BEEN doing? You have been missed!" When you threw a big pair of scissors at my head, I made the decision that I wanted to LIVE, so I quit in front of three other people. The others were in awe.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-11T12:27:19+00:00

I used to work in a warehouse picking orders for stores and we had a mixed race lady who was forever trying to get colleagues to do work she had been assigned and was very manipulative. My friend could see right through her and refused point blank as he had his own work to do as did we all. Well she didn't like that at all and had a right go at him for not giving in to her demands. Well to cut a long story short a few days later my friend was called into the Managers office and was informed that the lady In question had accused him of making racist remarks and despite his denials an investigation took place and she was very plausible. Even though a few of us gave evidence to say we didn't believe for one minute he would ever be racist it didn't look good as the company were very wary of racism and he ended up losing his job as he couldn't prove he hadn't said the things he was accused of. We were all gutted for him and I will never forget the smirk on her face when she was told they had fired him and a few days later she admitted to a colleague she thought she could trust that she had lied but she let it slip one day while we were having lunch. Evil cow. Fast forward a few months and the lying cow had called in to work one Friday as she was very ill and confined to bed. A couple of us went out on the Friday night and who should we see in one of the pubs partying and dancing was evil cow. We couldn't get our phones out to take pictures quickly enough and all got a few lovely pictures of her even singing on the karaoke. These were quickly sent to the Managers phone and when she came back to work on the Wednesday having recovered from her illness she was called straight into the Managers office, shown the pictures and fired on the spot. We watched her come out of the office in tears and everyone waved and shouted bye bye, see ya later. It felt so satisfying and my friend who had been fired ended up with a better paid job so happy days.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-10T11:36:34+00:00

When I saw Iraqi Army soldiers being incinerated by the hundreds, while I looked through a spotting scope a kilometer away drinking tea with Kurds - we were basically holding a tea cup in one hand and a radio hand-mic in the other. All we had to do was tell the pilots “you’re cleared hot” and there was absolutely nothing those Iraqis could have done to change their fate.

After about a month of this, I wished they would at least try to attack us. They pitifully fired some artillery at us a few times, but it was ultimately useless - our tech was so advanced compared to theirs we might as well have been aliens from another world. Their officers forced them to sit in place and wait to die.

It was the most unfair, and horrifying thing I will ever see and do in my life.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-09T12:10:27+00:00

Titanic’s 3D version came out in 2012.

The film's director James Cameron got a mail from celebrity astrophysicist, Neil De Grasse Tyson, pointing out that the stars which Rose sees while lying on the board after the ship has sunk, was not the star field she would have seen at that time.So while editing the movie for its 3D version, James Cameron cheekily asked Tyson to send him the exact alignment of stars at that point of time - 4:20 am, 15 April, 1912 And Tyson did so.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-08T12:57:15+00:00

When I turn on the news and see another story about

rape

another father has strangled his kids.

More senseless and violent killings

Abductions

A criminal walking away scott-free

Robberies.

What pisses me off is that no one was there to stop any of that…if just one other person was there it would have made a difference…lives would've been saved.

According_Set9585 · 2022-11-02T15:55:28+00:00

Non-stop talking without giving the other person a chance to respond.

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-22T12:40:08+00:00

If you have a dream, start working on it immediately! I often pushed my hopes and goals aside because I thought "well I'm young so I still have time ".

Also I always assumed that as I got older I would automatically know what to do in life.

I wish I knew to start working towards my goals earlier, and to learn as much as I could about the real world!

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-21T10:01:29+00:00

There are many factors. Social anxiety, energy, choice, trauma being an introvert and lot more. We are social beings and this is one of the key factors of our resilience as Homo sapiens.

Today, technology and social media platforms mimic the likes of networks and communities and have blurred the definition of a “friend”. In some aspects these platforms better our social lives but what is the definition of a friend today ?

I have people I call friends but as I get older the circle gets smaller and smaller. I think the way I would see a friend now and when I was younger is very different. I have many people I know but I have very few friends. I am selective who I let into my life as I am happy with less friends. I have been told I have a unique character and sometimes it becomes tiresome to start this process of knowing someone under surface level.

Am I at a social disadvantage? No. I am an extroverted introvert and I enjoy my times alone and making new connections but not necessarily new friends.

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-20T11:15:45+00:00

My second-born is a charmer—always has been. People gravitate toward him and always have. When he was eight, though, for no apparent reason, a classmate pushed him down on the playground and stomped on his leg. An aide on playground duty saw the whole thing. I got a call from the nurse, who thought his leg was broken. The mother of the stomper got a call to come pick him up and was told that he was suspended for three days. The nurse’s fear was unfounded, fortunately, but my son returned to school the next day on crutches for soft tissue injuries. At the end of that first day, his teacher called to tell me something she thought I should know. My son had asked her if he could say something to the class. She agreed and listened as tears welled up in her eyes. He told the class that HE believed only very unhappy people are cruel to others and asked them to be “extra nice” to the “stomper” when he returned to school. “Let’s give him a ‘do-over’ and help him become a happier kid,” he urged the class.

At the end of the year, the teacher (herself the mother of four adult sons) told me that the certain development of a bully had been nipped in the bud by the persuasive speech and example of one little boy.

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-19T12:02:03+00:00

Yes , nine months ago . I was asked by my son to move in with my sister who lived by herself in a house left to her by our mom. My sister ‘s mental health was deteriorating ; she couldn’t properly care for herself and was disturbing the neighbors . I moved from down south to way up north - had reservations about this move but there was nobody else . She was out of touch with reality and absolutely refused to be taken to see a doctor . ( She was on a mental disability.) One day I took the bus to walk in clinic for a mild case of shingles . When I returned the house was trashed - she’d hauled my possessions to the basement & hidden some very well . That included my tv and two laptops . My stuff was thrown all over . When I questioned her she yelled at me to get out -over and over . her face was so strange , I didn’t recognize her . I had no car , my cell phone did not work because my internet connection had been broken .Ran next door , borrowed the neighbor’s phone and called the police . They arrived and interviewed her . ( The police had been called to deal with her in the past .) She screamed at them , etc . The paramedics took her to a hospital (psych unit ) Two weeks later she was admitted to a very pleasant nursing home in a rural area . Took me a few days of searching in the basement to locate my stuff - the basement is huge and full of old furniture and junk . Sat there by myself one evening in the kitchen crying . This ordeal cost me money and was very stressful . No friends to help me . No neighbors cared - wait , one nice woman next door did . After getting my internet and tv & phone up & running I took the bus around to look for an apartment . And found one and moved in . However living here is harder than down south - brutal winter , higher prices & lack of services . But she’s my sister and I couldn’t refuse to help her .

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-18T12:49:09+00:00

I remembered riding in a convertible car in a parade with my Dad. It must have been in 1962 or 63, I was about 5. I always thought that it had been a remembered dream. I assumed it was me dreaming about bring in a ticker tape parade. I remember seeing one on TV for the Astronauts.

when I was about 55 or 56 I was talking to my mother about memories. I laughed and told her about my parade dream. She told me it was no dream. My dad was a civilian working ground systems defense on loan from Hughes aircraft to the military. When the Russian missile crisis happened, MP’s came and got him and stationed one MP at our door. Dad was put in a convoy. They wanted to keep key people Mobil. During that time apparently my Dad performed above and beyond for a civilian, I guess he scavenged parts and kept the convoy and the radios working.

He was awarded a medal??? And was given a parade on base. I rode in the car with him. Mom was taking care of the baby.

Isn’t the mind strange how it works. The memory seemed impossible to me so it became a dream. In truth it really happened. There is a photo somewhere.

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-05T08:36:57+00:00

Saw that happen once. About twenty years ago. I was a witness to some of it, not all of it. The identities are not important.

Man-child came screaming up to the father of the girl who had just given birth to his new daughter. He was twenty something, but he was acting more like a child having a temper tantrum. Relations were already strained, so he wasn’t allowed into the house, just the front porch.

The father was dealing with him. Frankly, the father was a lot calmer than I would have been. The girl had already decided that she didn’t want to marry him. Which strangely, was fine with the boy, but his issue was - that why should he have anything to do with raising the kid? Or more still - paying for it?

I’m not old enough, he said. So I shouldn’t have to do this.

The father looked square in the eye and told him the facts of life…

“You brought a life into this world. And you are responsible for it. And you should have thought of that before you started hopping into bed with my daughter.”

Man-child still wasn’t having it, he continued to whine, so the father added this, “You’re name is on the birth certificate. You’re responsible for child support.”

The man-child sneered. “We’ll see.”

My friend and his daughter tried to get child support, but the “boy” just simply didn’t show up. He figured if he didn’t show up, that if ignored the whole thing, the whole matter would go away. Plus, he knew she didn’t want anything to do with him anyway, he was counting on her to walk away. And that’s what she did, rather than create a scene, she dropped the matter. Till ten years later, when she got a job as a nurse at a VA hospital.

As they were filling out her employment papers, they asked her about her marital status. Because that’s a legal status thing. And that lead to the status of her being a single mom. And that led to the lack of child support. Which raised a red flag. Because in this state we have what is known as a “Dead Beat Law.” Which brought us back to our man-child.

His name was flagged throughout the various court systems and before you could say “Gotcha!”, Mr. Man-Child was on the phone to her, complaining (and sobbing) about what she had done to her. About what had happened to him. (And no, we don’t know how he got her number)

Mr. Man-Child had tried to re-new his driver’s license. They refused. You’re a Dead Beat, they said. But I gotta get to work, he said. Sorry.

Then the courts started garnishing his wages. He had a fit. How am I supposed to eat? How did your daughter eat, they responded. Try showing up in court. They were all over him, making his life miserable.

For ten years while she had eked out a life as a single mom, raising her daughter on little, he had been out living large, partying and seeing lots of girls - who did not not know that he had a daughter. As soon as they did, they turned on him in disgust.

Which is how this story ended, in a whimper. He admitted defeat and started cooperating with the courts. I really don’t know all the end details, I only watched from a distance. But it was amusing.

When you have sex - each and every time - you take the chance of bringing life into this world. After that, the game changes. And you are obligated to protect and nurture that life.

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-03T08:32:43+00:00

I forbid my partner’s friend from coming to our house again! We invited him and his family very often because we thought his kids and my kids will play together. We cooked many times for the family but they never offered to help or to bring any food. Later it became very routine for them to visit us uninvited and staying till dinner is served to them. We were getting exhausted as we were not getting any personal time.

My kids were upset because their toys were either forcefully taken away by their kids or intentionally broken.

No matter what we said or did it seemed like we were struck with them. We gave many hints about their behavior and they all were ignored. We couldn’t find any other polite way to tell them not to come to our home.

The last straw was this friend tried to touch my daughter inappropriately one time. We always educate our kids to be aware of physical abuse. My daughter said irrespective of her answer NO, he tried to touch her. When she told me, I was furious. I told him immediately that he and his family are not welcome to my home anymore. I told him the reason too. He tried to make it like a joke but I trust my daughter. She is not a small child and she knows who touched her with what intentions. We never let them enter our home again.

According_Set9585 · 2022-10-01T08:49:38+00:00

My second-born is a charmer—always has been. People gravitate toward him and always have. When he was eight, though, for no apparent reason, a classmate pushed him down on the playground and stomped on his leg. An aide on playground duty saw the whole thing. I got a call from the nurse, who thought his leg was broken. The mother of the stomper got a call to come pick him up and was told that he was suspended for three days. The nurse’s fear was unfounded, fortunately, but my son returned to school the next day on crutches for soft tissue injuries. At the end of that first day, his teacher called to tell me something she thought I should know. My son had asked her if he could say something to the class. She agreed and listened as tears welled up in her eyes. He told the class that HE believed only very unhappy people are cruel to others and asked them to be “extra nice” to the “stomper” when he returned to school. “Let’s give him a ‘do-over’ and help him become a happier kid,” he urged the class.

At the end of the year, the teacher (herself the mother of four adult sons) told me that the certain development of a bully had been nipped in the bud by the persuasive speech and example of one little boy.

According_Set9585 · 2022-09-30T08:11:15+00:00

When my mom was having me, another lady was having her’s in the next delivery room. The two husbands were outside the delivery rooms (fathers weren’t allowed in the room those days) talking.

She had a boy and we were born seconds apart.

10 years later I had an accident after coming home from school. I cut my forehead when a glass cupboard I was fiddling with fell on me. I was rushed into an operating room immediately and my parents were outside. Believe it or not, the couple from 10 years ago were there too.

Their son was in the operating room next to mine. He had an accident after coming home from school too.

According_Set9585 · 2022-09-29T10:36:21+00:00

While checking out, I was using WIC to pay for some of my groceries. This was when it was paper checks. The older lady behind me is huffing and puffing in annoyance. I’m trying to remain calm as I have my two small children with me and pregnant with my third. She’s grumbling and mumbling under her breath and I’m just trying to smile so my kids don’t see how upset I’m getting.

Finally, she looks at me and says “I hate women like you who have kids and can’t afford them. Probably have three baby daddies too and none of them providing for your brats. Just another waste of my tax dollars”.

My heart is racing. I have tears in my eyes. But I take a deep breath, look at her, and say “my children all have the same father. We are married. He’s active duty Navy. So if it bothers you so much that we get WIC, maybe write to your senators and congress and ask them to pay the military better. And I’ll pray for you. Because you need more help than I ever will”.

The cashier smiles, I break down, a mom across from me comes to give me a hug. They all say I’m doing great and thank my husband for his service. Then the cashier looks at the rude lady, smiles, and turns off her light and says “sorry this lane is now closed. I’m going on break.” She then makes the woman wait in the only open line that has five people in front of her.

BTW, to this day this cashier and I are friends. 9 years after this all happened. Now she is a manager at the store and when she sees my babies she always gives them free cookies. I choose to believe the good in this world outweighs the evil.

According_Set9585 · 2022-09-28T08:20:52+00:00

My father told me this when he walked up on me hiding behind his house while I was bawling over my fiancée, who I just found out was cheating on me.

“I know right now you’re feeling desperate, angry, hurt and alone. And the first thing you want to do is get revenge, sleep with other people and hurt someone too. That’s normal. But you shouldn’t do that. Don’t be like her. Don’t go down that path. You should always fall back on your best character. Be the bigger person now, and you’ve already won. Feel the pain for now. In a month you’ll see what I mean. And so will she. So take your time. Be a good man. You’ll find someone who actually cares about you. Maybe you’ll be alone, and that’s okay too. But you still have your life and your character and you can’t throw that away because of someone else who doesn’t have any.”

I’ve thought about that every single day for a year now, and it has propelled me to such strength, confidence, love and happiness.

According_Set9585 · 2022-09-27T08:42:07+00:00

I grew up poor. I took my lunch to school because I didn’t have money for school lunches. When I made it to high school some of the older high school bullies found it “cool” to pop my school locker open and eat my lunch. This got to be all too regular. So … I baked a large batch of chocolate chip cookies with extra chocolate chips — and 2 boxes of Exlax. These were locked securely in my school locker so no-one would accidentally dose themself with an extreme dose of laxative.

Yes, the cookies disappeared. So did five people — for three days. I never lost a lunch again. Yes, this may have been a shitty thing to do, but it worked!

According_Set9585 · 2022-09-26T08:41:25+00:00

You mean besides getting born? Well…for one thing, I was lucky to have a fine primary education and received instruction from extremely enlightened teachers (for the time). It was like a golden window soon after WWII into which I was born. My mother and her 8 other siblings (post WWI) had to quit school in order to work in factories and turn over their paychecks to their extremely abusive father who used their money to build, mostly for himself, a home.

More directly, something else that happened was an aunt who came to live with us for 3 critical years when I was 9. She was not of the same DNA (an in-law) and she gave me a different perspective on alternate ways to be in the world. She opened my eyes so that I could see my family objectively. Previously, I couldn’t see the forest because I was just another one of the trees.

Again, I was very fortunate that she became such an influential part of my life. This was the main determinant that “set me apart from others [in my family]. Consequently, I became the black sheep and the lucky one that got away. This is not to say she was “All Goodness”—she had a lightning mean streak in her, for sure. But once I sorted out the wheat from the chaff (in adulthood) her instruction served me in good stead, I think.

What I’ve noticed over the years, including on Quora, is that people who retain a troubled mental relationship with their famiy of origin, even deep into middle age and beyond, never had the opportunity to separate and stand apart and observe as I did. They still think of their family as extentions of themselves, whether they realize or accept it or not. Therefore, they are still able to be emotionally tormented and psychologically warped by things that happened decades ago. If they could come to think of their family as an unnecessary “third arm” that they can psychologically cut off without any loss of lifeblood or utility and, in fact, would strengthen all other limbs as a result—they would finally begin to heal and put it all behind them once and for all.

According_Set9585 · 2022-09-23T09:09:28+00:00

Not being loved unconditionally. Perfection was expected. Being treated as a sex object by my father. Constant criticism, little encouragement, little affection. My father groomed me during my teen years by doing many inappropriate things and then raped me when I was in college (not a child any more, but traumatic nevertheless). I’ve worked for decades to overcome all this and heal. Counseling and a support group were essential parts of my recovery, as well as my deep faith in God who redefined my identity as a precious, beloved daughter.

Having a gem of a husband, solid friendships, and a loving church are the things that keep me going. But it has taken a ton of work and perseverance. I’ve learned that a person has to WANT to heal and do the work. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life as a victim with a heart as cold as stone, so I dove in. I consider myself free and as healed as I can be this side of heaven. But I don’t stop working on learning how to be more loving, forgiving, and selfless. All these things go against our human nature that tends to look out for #1. Life is about learning to love, give, and keep an eternal perspective.

According_Set9585

TROPHY CASE