Moved to a neighborhood not to long ago, and the first person I meet was an older woman in her 50s. She told me all about her drug use and how sometimes she ends up outside naked and asked if I would help her back inside and put clothes on her. This was all in 5 minutes of saying hello. -Horribleheadaches

Visited a coffee shop for the first time on holiday. Barista commented on my tattoos. I said thank you. She told me she's not allowed to get tattoos but she cuts herself to enjoy the pain and that's nearly the same thing. I found a different coffee shop for the rest of the holiday. -kyridwen

Chatted with a huge middle-aged dude in a bar once who after about 2 minutes, told me that he had been in prison for bashing his dad's head in with a hammer. His dad used to beat his mom and one day he'd had enough of it. -RVT223

Temporary coworker tells me she was kidnapped, raped and beaten by her ex husband. Burned with cigarettes, hands shoved in the garbage disposal, head beaten with a hammer. The incident resulted in a baby she somehow still has. And they’re not even divorced because he won’t sign the divorce papers. I work in a small town gas station, I’m trying to check out customers and she’s reciting a true crime episode to me. The conversation started with mascara recommendations. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever heard -whydidithavetobeme-

Stuck driving a coworker out to a remote gas plant to do a system install. He was kinda f**ked up but assumed it was just socially awkward IT way. Nope. He starts telling me about him and his dad collecting nazi memorabilia and how proud he was of his German grandparents. Trying to make other small talk and he would just trail off answering questions and start singing to himself. Thought for sure I’d end up on the news and a manhunt would be conducted. -Dice_to_see_you

Second best story - met the neighbour right after we moved in and she started telling me about them wanting another kid but doing the deed was hard because she was overweight, and had bad knees and it just made it difficult. I’m a guy who never met her and have my kids playing mere feet away so I can’t call her batshit crazy. -Dice_to_see_you

Oh, I have another one. Girl I worked with but didn't really know beyond her name. Told me she liked to hold her boyfriend's penis and do the aiming for him when he took a piss. -kyridwen

A customer explained to me the benefits of a coffee enema to heal everything from my acne to preventing cancer. I couldn't get her to leave me alone for an hour because it was dead and no one was there to help. I worked for a skincare counter in a department store.

Like if you don't need my products because cleaning your a** with coffee fixes it, why are you here? But she went on about how she started her kids on these and did their enemas until they could do theirs on their own. What. Then she also grabbed my hands and kept saying promise me you'll try it. Promise me. She left after I promised. No, I didn't try it. -TenaciousToffee

A guy told me during our first shift that his youngest daughter was suicidal, his eldest daughter's boyfriend was terribly abusive, and his wife was sleeping with someone at her work. Apparently he’d just gotten out of jail after flying home from out of state, beating the sh*t out of his daughter's boyfriend, his brothers, and his dad, driving to his wife’s work and beating the sh*t out of her boyfriend.

Then driving to the hospital to hold his daughter's hand after she had attempted suicide until the cops arrived to arrest him for aggravated assault. -mitch1832

Had to get my picture taken for a visa so went to a local photography shop that took the pictures and printed them out for you right there. I had been talking to the guy as he worked on other people's photos and when I finally got my picture taken he started opening up about his family. Apparently his son was killed 3 years ago in a car accident and he was telling me how much I reminded him of his son (going to school for engineering, 1st generation college student etc.) The son was killed in his senior year so didn't even get to graduate, he even showed me pictures it was heartbreaking.

To make things worse he said he had a degenerative muscular disease and doctors had given him about 2-3 years before he'd be bed ridden. He then went on to say his daughter was taking care of him and how she isn't married yet and deserves to live a young person's life and man, it really put into perspective how bad some people have it. I still think about that guy to this day and hope he's doing well. -EA721

I made the unfortunate mistake of inviting my old neighbour over when we were having a party. He had like five gins in my kitchen and confessed to an unsolved murder in Nunavut, Canada. He's in jail. -_HossBonaventureCEO_

Sat on an Amtrak across from a very sweet older man, who within twenty minutes was telling me about the purpose of his trip to Maryland: to meet his biological father, who he had discovered via 23andMe, to discuss changing his last name, which was the condition of becoming being the sole inheritor of his father’s estate. And that he was feeling a little guilty about that because his three half sisters would be excluded from their father’s will because he “finally had a legacy.” Woof. He disembarked twenty minutes later, and I have thought about it constantly for the following four years. -mom_jean

Bartender for a while. “I’m here to meet a man to cheat on my husband with.” -Oh_Archie

Once me and my friend met a dude at a party, and his icebreaker was “crack prices in the Bronx are up lately.” -unrulystowawaydotcom

Hitchhiking through New Zealand, I got picked up by a semi driver. Awesome guy, but an hour into the drive started unloading every bit of personal information he could. How he’s cheated on his wife, screwed the company out of money, stolen items… It was like I was a priest in a confession booth. When I asked him why he told me all of that, he said it’s been eating him up inside for years and telling me helped get it off of his chest. He said I had no idea who he or anyone he knew was, so it felt like I was the perfect person to unload on. -birdizthawerd

A girl I was dating mentioned that her dad was sleeping with her older sister, and that she would soon be next. That made me “the competition”. -ReasonablyConfused

Used to work at a ski resort and was working in a different area than I normally work. Well this lady who I was working with found out I was slightly acquainted with her fiance and proceeded to tell me all about how his family hates her and is mean to her and all about his substance abuse issues. I don't remember all the details because it was a few years ago but she unloaded on me with every issue of her relationship and I'm like I'm just here to work. I didn't really even know her fiance. I avoided that lady after that. -beau8888

My favorite ever was some stranger outside a bar. Seemed normal enough until she said "My husband and I used to do meth, but we don't anymore." I applauded her on this and then she followed up with "Yeah, now we only have meth weekends." -FaintCommand

New roommate told me her current boyfriend got kicked out of college for sexual assault and was under investigation for another case of sexual assault. Wanted my opinion about it within like two hours or meeting. Completely disregarded that my opinion was “run”. -Ohnoimgonnarunoutofc

Started talking to a homeless guy outside of the grocery store. Learned he was fresh out of prison for shooting his brother who had slept with his (ex) wife. -jreeman

yesterday i was walking with a friend of a friend after my friend left me. He started telling me benefits of nofap and his "pervertness" OUT OF NOWHERE, like telling me how it had affected him and his life personally. He told me how he masturbated in a train sitting with all his friends in such a way nobody noticed. Then he goes on telling me how he asked his father for help, for which his father asked him to drink buttermilk because apparently it reduces the "addiction". -qwertypad1

Hired an older plumber (in his 60s) at the company I worked at when I was an apprentice and I got put with him during his first week. Within 10 minutes of meeting him the small talk topic of his choice was that his mail order Thai wife had died a few months ago and that he's been plowing through prostitutes, and he recommends hiring a Cambodian woman as they are by far the best in bed. -Slignig

I was buying an AC at Home Depot during Black Friday sales. There were none on the shelf so an employee was helping me get the display model. He carried it all the way to the cashier for me. I thanked him and wished him a happy holiday season. A shadow crossed his face and he looked me straight in the eye and told me he killed someone a year ago during the holidays. He ran a man over and killed him.

It was ruled an accident but he said he won’t ever celebrate a holiday again because of that. Edit to add more info and answer a couple questions: I thought the employee was f**king with me as well. I did some searching online when I got home and found the news article, and he did indeed hit and kill a man. It was a super raining evening and just starting to get dark. The person killed was heavily intoxicated and veered into the oncoming traffic. -MySillyUmmm

After like a few hours of meeting a new coworker at my job one of the first things she told me was how much she hated her husband and how twice a day she tells him how much she wants to divorce him. She also showed me a picture of her ex-husbands and laughed manically as she told me how she never loved him and that she just married him to spite his mom. I've met her husband she's with now and he's super cool and makes literally 5k a month at his job so I was genuinely confused and terrified to work with her after that. -Jamongler

This happened to my wife. We had just moved into a new house and the lady next door came over to introduce herself to my wife. As she was talking she informed my wife that her husband was mad at her because she had farted when he was going down on her. -ItsMyView