Pride is a strong emotion, but not as strong as embarrassment. Is it cool that you can blow bubbles of spit? Maybe. Is that something you should tell your co-workers? No. No matter how much you may want to. Even though you think your boss might think it’s funny, and then consider you a cooler guy, easier to relate to, and potentially management material…
Seriously, it’s not a good idea.
That’s what these 20 AskReddit users figured out. Even though some of these accomplishments are legit impressive, not all of them are worth bringing up. Cause, you know. Reasons.
1. Crimestopper
I led to the capture of a murderer by recognizing things that were being sold to me as things that I had sold to the guy who was killed.
Basically, I found who killed our best customer and didn’t even get a raise.
So, basically, I was the low level retail slave in this little video game shop that specialized in retro stuff. I was doing my thing one day when this dude comes in, looking high outta his gourd and twitchy as hell, asking if we would buy a large number of games and systems from him. I tell him yes, and he goes out to his car to grab some stuff. Alarms go off in my head when he brings in multiple NES systems and an SNES in the packages that I put them in when I was getting them ready for sale. When he goes out to his car for the second load, I page my boss in the back, and tell him “Yo. Dude. Something fishy here. Call this guy to make sure he’s okay.”
Sure enough, sketchy guy walks back in with his second load, which includes games with our sales labels on them that we had only had in the store twice and sold both copies of to the same collector.
My boss couldn’t reach the other guy, so he sent his brother, the owner of the shop, to his house to check up on him.
He found the guy dead.
Sketchy ended up pleading guilty, I believe, and is serving a sweet bit of time in lockup.
2. Master Bowler
I bowled a perfect game in my junior league when I was 16. Don’t brag because no one takes bowling seriously. Also, it means I peaked 23 years ago.
3. Well, I’m impressed
When I was younger, I got really into Minesweeper. Like, really into it. I would play it over and over, just trying to beat my best times. After countless games, I managed to beat the small mode in three seconds. It was my crowning achievement.
One time I actually did try to brag about it. It was in middle school and we were working in the computer lab. I got done with my assignment, and I decided to play a bit of Minesweeper to pass the time. The girl next to me noticed and was like, “Oh, you actually know how to play that?” Me being the suave ladykiller that I am, responded with “Yeah, my best time is three seconds!” I was met with a blank stare, and then she turned back to her screen without a word.
I haven’t brought it up since.
4. Prolific
I’ve written over a thousand songs for complete strangers on the internet. Most people in my life don’t even know I own a guitar. I don’t think they would appreciate how much songwriting means to me. And I don’t need my coworkers to hear some of these songs, which sometimes are super dark and vulgar.
5. I don’t know what that is, but it sure sounds impressive
I achieved the #1 highest melee kills in the first year of Destiny across all consoles and classes.
6. Dude!
When I first got together with my wife I would go down on her for like 20-25 minutes before she got off.
Now 7 years later I can get her off in less than 3 minutes.
Most people just don’t wanna hear about that, but I’m pretty proud of myself. And every time she seems amazed.
7. Seriously, you’re a good person
In 2007 I got a new girlfriend with a 9-year-old daughter who was abused by two different people and had a deadbeat father. She had all kinds of emotional problems, but was a great kid. I stayed with the girlfriend for a 6 years longer than I should have because her daughter was like my daughter. Poor kid received every type of counselling there was for years. Fast forward a few years and she’s 16 and stable–they moved to another state but we keep in touch. On Father’s Day she e-mailed me and told me that after all the counselling and medications the reason she was able to trust men again was because of me. I never felt like a more worthwhile person than that moment, but I’ve never shared it with anyone before.
8. Fulu-cky you
I work at an aquarium and I am one of two people in the US that have successfully bred Silver Fulu (Haplochromis argens) in captivity this year. The only other person being my supervisor/coworker. They’re not the most beautiful fish but they are currently extinct in the wild which makes what we do important. If anyone wants to know more about Silver Fulu let me know!
9. But how many rings?
I was really good at organic chemistry. I performed a reaction that created more rings in a single step than anyone had ever done before or since, to my knowledge. It was the cover article on Angewandte Chemie, the oldest chemistry journal. I was so proud and then… nothing happened. I feel like I did something incredible and no one noticed. I quit chemistry several years later after an awesome Nature Chemical Biology paper was met with a similar silence.
10. …but isn’t that also kind of a bummer?
When I was in Amsterdam I got a sex worker. She wouldn’t have sex with me because she said my penis was too big. I’m abnormally well endowed, very above average. I’m so proud of myself but at the same time how can I ever brag about it? You have to be a real jerk to brag about your penis size.
11. Good job, man
I quit heroin. I’ve been clean almost 7 years now, and am a completely different person. Most of the people I spend time with don’t know about my past drug use, so it isn’t exactly something I want to bring up. But it is my proudest achievement, and the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I also think past a certain point in sobriety, people quit wanting to hear about; at six months and a year clean, my family was hugely supportive. 7 year clean date? I’m sure they’re all super happy I quit slamming dope, but they probably won’t even realize what day it is. Which is fine, honestly- I got clean for me, not for validation.
12. To be fair, tires are pretty…exciting
Grew up in a small farming town in the midwest. I got out of there, and in college I was part of a choir and got to sing in Lincoln Center in New York with a full Orchestra. So I tell this story to my hometown friends. It’s followed with, “yeah, that’s cool, so I got a new set of tires for my truck at Walmart yesterday.” Other friends listening, “cool lets go see them.” I had a once in a life time experience, something these tools couldn’t understand how great this was. They were more excited about tires for a truck.
13. That’s legit pretty cool
I’ve been practicing lucid dreaming, and can do it every once in a while but no one really wants to listen to what you did in ‘fake life’.
14. Nearly Homeowners
My fiancé and I have managed to save nearly $11000 for a down payment on a house! We’re so close to buying our own home, I’m so excited!
No one cares. His dad is unhappy about it because he doesn’t want us to move out (we pay rent which helps with the mortgage), his mom wants us to move in with her, our friends already have their own homes so they just think we’re behind the times.
But I’m proud of us.
15. Secret Shakespeare
I’m a produced playwright. Among other things, I spent several years working on a full-length poetic prose stage adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. A lot of people shook my hand afterwards, telling me that they cried, that it was the best show they’d seen in years, that it was amazing.
It’s something I very rarely talk about with the people I interact with day-to-day. They don’t even know I like theatre.
16. I always wanted to learn the slide rule
One time in college I forgot my TI-89, and I had to index an x-ray diffraction pattern with a slide rule on a timed exam. I succeeded and got an A- on the exam. But nobody cared, and all of my friends just think I’m weird if I tell them I know how to use a slide rule.
17. To be real, this sounds like the farmer’s accomplishment, not yours
I once picked the absolute best package of strawberries the world has ever tasted. I’ve had organic strawberries, I’ve been to strawberry farms and picked them myself, I’ve had home grown berries, I’ve had them all.
But this one time, I went to the grocery store, saw a particularly promising box. I raised the carton to my nose and smelled it and it was so perfectly sweet that I knew I must have this carton. They called to me with their fragrance, promising a beautiful mouth orgasm.
And did they ever deliver. They were perfectly sweet and tart and I didn’t even need to eat them with sugar or cream. They were perfect on their own.
I have never had strawberries like this again. Not even close. Each time I get strawberries now, I’m just left with disappointment.
18. “Love will find you”
It is how I met the most amazing woman.
I was designated driver, owed it to my friends to take them out and didn’t want to be there. One of my friends started talking to a girl and because I had nothing else to do I chatted to her friend. I stood no chance as she was way out of my league. She could have been a model but preferred to study. I was relaxed and we just talked. Someone jokingly said, you two are going to marry. Everyone laughed.
By chance I called her the next day. I had nothing to lose. She had just had a minor fender bender some hours before and I simply asked if she was ok? She said some time later that she took an interest in me simply because I was the first person to ask how she was.
We have been together for decades. I still pinch myself as to how this ever happened. It was just meant to be.
Love will find you. Get out there and make friends. The rest just happens.
19. Again, don’t know what that is, but good on you
I beat a professional hearthstone player, and it was his first loss in the mode he was playing. Unfortunately, I only have a couple friends that play.
20. Filial piety for the win!
I have kind of a corny way of trying to think of myself as a good person (sometimes a struggle, I feel I have done things in the past I can’t atone for properly).
I was set to inherit a moderately large sum of money from a relative to passed and realized through conversation with my parents that their share would not even cover their debts. In fact, due to medical expenses during a mix-up with their insurance they were likely to have to sell their house and radically downsize.
My wife and I don’t have a lot right now — I work part time and am in grad school and she stays at home — and had been daydreaming about paying off bills, having a cushion, buying a house.
Well she very strongly agreed with me that we couldn’t really enjoy that stuff while my aging parents faded into near-poverty. We have no kids, I have great credit, and after graduation have well-paying work lined up. I called my mom and employed my best persuasive skills to get them to agree to accept our share of the money. It was not the easiest thing — they didn’t want to take so much away from their son and it wasn’t exactly fun per se making a spirited debate case in favor of giving away all my money! However, they did agree and the relief and happiness from them was palpable despite their prior stoic front about the situation.
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You rock! Thanks for reading!
