You know that feeling you get, when you realize you’ve walked into somewhere you don’t want to be? It might be uncomfortable, it might feel dangerous, or maybe it’s just off and you’re not sure why.
Whatever the scenario, the best thing to do is to listen to your gut and go – which is exactly what these 14 smart people did.
14. You definitely don’t want to be there.
My ex best friend convinced me to go to a concert with her. I told her I couldn’t because I had a long drive the next morning and didn’t want to waste gas or go to bed too late and she said it was fine, she would drive and would get me home right after the concert. Went to the concert, it was fine. I was ready to go home but she told me she wanted to go to an after party with the band because her crush would be there. I agreed because she REALLY wanted to get with this guy, the chances of it happening seemed high, and I wanted her to be happy.
Turns out the afterparty was at a decent hotel. Underage kids were straight up walking in with handles of alcohol and it was really obvious what was going on. The receptionist was eyeing everyone but nobody gave a fuck. My friend and I got to the room and… we were the only girls there. Around 40 drunk college guys and 2 girls both under 110lbs. I’d never experienced being looked at like a juicy steak until that moment. I told her we had to go but she was hellbent on staying with her crush. I couldn’t convince her, so I called my mom (the most awkward phone conversation of my life) and had her pick me up.
Turns out the receptionist called the cops soon after I left and the party got broken up. I think some people got charged.
13. How big was the stone?
Crazy guy on the LRT train CTrain taking a stone out of his mouth and saying he “killed a guy with it”, but it was self defence so it’s okay right?..
Yeah, that was peak “I gotta get the hell out of here” for me. Plus he smelled like puke, that didn’t help either.
12. Sometimes family isn’t worth it.
I had been renting a house from my sister. I paid my bills every month precisely on time for 6 years, no delays, no missed payments, etc. About 6 months ago my sister lost her job. She decided to drink her (not insignificant) savings away and not look for a job, and then when things got tight she started using my rent check to pay her rent instead of the mortgage on the house I was living in. I didn’t discover any of this until a letter showed up one day from some attorney saying pay up or we foreclose in 30 days.
Fortunately things dragged out long enough for me to be able to afford to move, but that was the last straw — I had to get away from family. This was not the first time I had been forced to rely on them and gotten screwed, but it is definitely the last.
11. Something not right about that.
Happened a few hours ago. Was in the park with my younger brother just playing football, having. nice time. Suddenly I see a man looking over in our direction, however I can’t be too sure because I don’t have my glasses and I don’t want to scare myself for no reason. He’s carrying a orange bag so it’s easy to see him.
I ignore him and brother and I start walking around randomly (not following the path, backtracking, just not walking ‘logically’ if that makes sense) kicking the ball to each other. The last time I went to this park on the 1st, a man of the same build/ethnicity followed me so I felt myself getting paranoid. This man kept his distance but for instance we went into the basketball area and he would come to the entrance and lean against the gate just watching us.
He could go behind the trees (it was clear he knew his way around this park) and follow us which I wouldn’t notice if it wasn’t for his bag. I wanted to confront him but I was with my younger brother and didn’t want to cause trouble.
I wasn’t really scared but more angry and frustrated. The man suddenly starts getting braver and walking faster towards us, and so we decide to quickly run home even though we were only out for 15 mins.
10. I just choked on my drink.
When my (now ex) husband called to me to tell me the reason why he was late for dinner was because he was arrested for mast*rbating in public. I got out. I’m too old for that sh%t.
9. Why is it always Waffle House?
Grabbing some Waffle house in a not so good part of town around 2 am after work. Dude whipped out a gun and was screaming at the chick he was with…definately my most gotta get the fuck out of here moment.
A few years later got a job as a 911 call taker.. same waffle house got shot up. So there is that.
8. Smart girl.
My parents divorced when I was 7 years old, and their time with me was split down the middle week by week. Except it wasn’t. My mom constantly made excuses why she couldn’t take me for the week. This went on for years. Examples include: Going on a road trip with her brand new boyfriend in his 18 wheeler, “working too much”, and other bullshit excuses. When she did take me, we were constantly moving houses, staying at her other new boyfriends houses(with me sleeping on the living room floor with just a pillow, while she was in his bedroom with the door shut right by the living room).
I didn’t have a bed or a room for almost 3 years. Around the age of 15, we were living in an insulated shed behind my older sisters house(no lie) with no bathroom and just one bed and a couch. She lost her license, she lost her job, and lost her car. So I had to rely on my very understanding friends to get me places.
One night I walked into my sisters house to go to the bathroom, and there I see my mom passed out on the toilet from being to drugged out. That was when I found out my mom had a painkiller addiction. I had to pick her up and take her to her bed. I tried talking to her about it the next day, and she acted like I just accused her of murder. She yelled at me and told me that I was a jackass and that she couldn’t believe that I would do this to her.
As a 15 year old who was always naïve towards my mom, I was super confused as to why I was getting blamed for what had happened the night before. I finally smartened up, packed up the little that I had, and walked to my dads house. This was 10 years ago. About 5 years ago is when I cut all communication with that side of my family. They kept acting like nothing was wrong and that she didn’t do anything. She never once apologized, and insisted I was to blame.
So naturally I put the blame on myself, but then I realized that the child is not supposed to be the parent. It wasn’t my job to fix her. She should’ve provided for me, and she didn’t do that. I still think about that situation a lot when talking to my youth students, and it helps me give them some guidance.
Never ever blame yourself for your parents shortcomings.
7. Beyond weird.
This was like 5 years ago, I was 24 years old; got way too drunk at my local bar and ended up going back to this guys apartment. It was decorated by somebody’s grandmother for sure…there were candelabra’s everywhere. He lit ALL of them; then sat me on the couch and proceeded to go through all of these old family photo albums specifically looking at pictures of his siblings and cousins as children.
No joke he was getting so hard that I could see the album start moving up and down. Then he asked me if I had any pictures of when I was a child or my siblings when they were children….
Never sobered up so fast and booked it right the F out of there.
6. Never go to the secondary location.
A bit of backstory, a friend of mine borrow few hundreds from me, after a month, she asked me to meet her at the atm. I thought she wanted to pay me there and then. Instead, she asked my to get inside of her car which I did because it didn’t seemed shady at first and she was a close friend.
During the ride, she said she wanted to bring me into a meeting and pay me there. I quickly surmised that it was probably MLM and the money borrowed was her capital and her act of paying me was for the audience and she was probably intending to recruit me.
After the car stopped. I noped out and walked back 3 KMs to my uni.
5. What a nightmare.
I hit a tricky spot because the house that I was living in was being sold off by the owners. I wasn’t able to find a place I could afford in time, and ended up having to go live with my dad.
My dad had always been a little…cagey about describing his living situation. I understood he was living in a very poor area because it was all he could afford at the time, but I wasn’t prepared for the hell hole he’d stubbornly insisted on trying to make something of.
There’s no heating system. All heat came from a dangerously clogged fireplace that triggered my asthma like crazy.
There’s no running water to anywhere in the house. Just the main in the basement. That means any water for cooking, cleaning, hygiene, or even just to flush the toilet needed to be carried by bucket up at least one flight of stairs if not two.
No electricity either until I paid off the overdue bills. That meant until I got that figured out, there were no lights, no appliances, nothing. Phone charging was done by risking leaving them in my dad’s running car. If I wanted anything more than that, I had to bike two miles away to a better part of the city to use the wifi and electricity at Starbucks to charge everything, including power banks for night time use.
Holes in the walls. Holes in the ceiling. And by holes I mean I could look down and see the living room through the upstairs linen closet floor. Heat pretty much was constantly escaping the house even when we got electric heaters for our rooms. It also extended to the roof, so there was constant water damage to my dad’s room.
Ontop of all this, my dad took in an abusive hoarder that proceeded to fill his house with garbage. My dad being overly empathetic, and possibly afraid of being alone, refused to kick him out.
I lasted three or four months before finally shipping the hell out to another relative in a completley different part of the state. It sucked because it meant leaving behind everything familiar to me. But honesty my life improved greatly once I got a new living situation and job figured out up here. I don’t regret leaving. I shudder to think about having to try to spend another winter there.
My dad has since found better work, and has his own apartment. So I’m greatful he got out of that hell hole and left the abusive hoarder far behind.
4. Sometimes you just know.
Probably walking in Gastown, in Vancouver BC. My mom and I were looking for her sister (missing, homeless, that whole dtes life).
Dude in his 30s or so walks up to us, dressed normally, sort of business casual, and we look up and are about to say hi, when he covers his eyes, and starts counting down really slowly and drawn out. Nope. Big ole nope. We backed up and he followed, eyes still covered. He got to 4 or 5 and my mom just grabbed my arm and yanked me away towards people.
The downtown east side of Vancouver is something else. A really tight knit family of homeless mentally ill possible drug using men and women. Many by choice, but not all. My naani used to live in a sort of hotel there, so I know it well, but that rattled me.
3. And he still brought her home.
The guy that I met… College educated, handsome, retro digs in Long Beach Ca. Articulate, funny, packed a picnic for our blind date complete with cloth napkins. Went back to his place and the kitchen was a hoarders dream… at least 6 FULL SETS of dishes, dirty, sitting in neatly stacked piles everywhere. Pots and pans, the same thing.
Hundreds of dollars worth of iron cookware stacked on the floor, rusting. Instead of washing dishes he would buy more….
Noped the f*ck out.
2. Ew.
When I was 19 (F) after graduating from my 2 year college (I was studying film), a professor that I, and many other students, looked up to a lot asked me to travel with him to Colombia to finish a documentary he was working on. Having traveled with him internationally in the past for class trips I thought it would be a great opportunity. It was an all expense paid trip so how could I not?
So I traveled from NY to South America all by myself, and once I got there he gave me a tour of our air bnb that went like this; “so here’s the office, kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. There’s just one bed, I hope that’s okay”.
I tried to keep cool and slept head to toe the first night. The next morning he sits me down to talk and after his long intro he final gets to the point. He asked that the next part stay between us and started with “so I’ve only ever been with my wife”. That was the moment that all the hairs on my body stood up and I was like “I NEED TO GET THE F*CK OUT OF HERE”
So that evening I told him that while i was “flattered” I wasn’t interested and thought it was wildly unfair for him to do that to me. I tried to be polite because I didnt know what to expect at that point. The last thing I wanted was for him to get violent.
He backpedaled the entire time (all of which i have an audio recording of) and I slept on an arm chair in the living room the rest of the stay. Also for reference, my professor looked like a small Venezuelan Gandalf. Long white beard and all!
1. Strange, to be sure.
When I first moved to where I’m living now, it’s across the river from a college town/city with a Main Street that is littered with restaurants and bars. So one night a couple friends and I went out and decided to bar hop. Nothing crazy, just wanted to check out the different places
Walked into one hole in the wall joint with only a handful of people in there. Everybody’s head turned and looked at us like we were from another planet. Weird vibe immediately. Bartender approaches slowly, asking how we’re doing and what he can get us. We order our round of drinks, bartender very slowly says “is that all?” Again, weird vibe but whatever.
Random guy (later found out to be the “owner”) comes and sits next to us and starts chatting us up. Where we’re from, what we’re doing in the area, if we’re “cool”. Lots of weird conversation starters. At this point, we want out but our drinks haven’t come back yet. So we get our drinks and try to keep to ourselves. Guy keeps asking if he can “get us anything. Anything at all. Off the menu”.
It’s at this point, I realize that the two women at the other end are doing coke OFF THE BAR. There’s also now two large men standing against the wall right behind us, just grilling us. Not wanting to make a scene we all shared a “let’s get the f*ck outta here” look, talked amongst ourselves for a minute, finished our drinks as fast as possible, paid and left. The “owner” was trying to talk to us the entire time were paying and making our way to the door, trying to keep us there as the two large men slowly close in. We got the f*ck out and said NOTHING until we hit the other side of the street.
When you know, you know, right?
Tell us about a time your gut had you hightailing it out of there in the comments!
