When we’re among friends, we sometimes say mean things about other people. Maybe about people we know well, or sometimes about people we just see walking down the street. Everyone does it – we talk a little shit. And that’s not good, but most of the time it’s not real, right? Shit talk is just that: shit.

That is way different than going out of your way to say something hurtful, particularly to someone you don’t know. That is just unnecessarily cruel and, my BIGGEST PET PEEVE, it is rude. RUDE RUDE RUDE. So if you ever witness something like has happened to these 23 AskReddit users, please, speak up in their defense. Because rudeness does not make anyone’s life better, and it should be viciously snipped in the bud.

1. The Wrestler  

I was the only female on the varsity wrestling team. Small Private school in New England… Lots of all-boys schools wrestled us. Opposing coaches, and parents of opposing teams would yell really horrendous things and our coach never stood up for me. The most horrible thing anyone ever yelled during a meet was some guy I was wrestling’s father.

He was attempting a cross-face because I had him almost flipped over… his father screamed “GO TITLE NINE! BREAK HER NOSE IF SHE Doesn’t ROLL OVER!” (Over-Simplified Context: title nine is the federal statute in America that states if there is no female equivalent in sports, and you make the team, the school, private or public, legally has to let you play. Ice hockey, wrestling, and football are three examples).

Anyway, my mom happened to be at that meet. It was her first and last time attending. She found violence horrible, but upon hearing this comment go unchecked by the refs, she stood up and screamed “LUHHHHHHDK! DONT YOU LET THIS HORRIBLE. LITTLE. WORTHLESS. IDIOT. OFF. THE. FLOOR. LET THE LITTLE COWARD PRICK BREAK YOUR NOSE BEFORE YOU LET HIM SAVE HIS PRIDE. THIS IS NO LONGER ABOUT YOU. HURT HIM FOR ALL WOMEN. HURT HIM FOR ME.”

He then did break my nose quite badly. I felt the click of my septum, and the warm goo trickling into my grinning mouth. The captain of that boy’s boarding school’s wrestling team tapped out that day; his singlet spattered with my blood. My mom never went to another meet. Got a slow clap from my team.

2. High school is rough

Sophomore year of high school- I was walking past a group of guys hanging around their lockers when one of them made a disgusted noise and whispered loud enough: “Ughh, she’s so ugly.” They all laughed.

During the end of my senior year, I worked out. Dressed nicer. Fast forward to my first year in college, and one of those guys tried hitting on me.

3. Prejudice

Wasn’t what the stranger said but what she did. For context I am a young seventeen year old Black boy nine at the time and in grade 4. I was enrolled in an after school day care program in a building next to the school I attended.

That day I had forgotten my flute at school and a staff member in the program accompanied me to pick it up (also Black). As we were on our way back to the building we turn a corner, making eye contact with a woman and her child who stares at us for a few seconds and urges her child into the car as we pass, gets into it as well and locks the doors. About 15 seconds later we both turn around and she’s casually going about her business once more. We both just looked at each other with hurt looks. Keep in mind the staff member has a bright blue shirt with the word “Staff” on both the front and back side.

I think this has stuck with me because it was the first seemingly prejudice act I’ve witnessed first-hand. I may just be young and paranoid though.

4. Hat-Haters

On my 17th birthday I got a jumper dress and a furry kind of communist Russia style hat, which I wore to school (my birthday is in January so it was super cold, hence the hat).

Some girls who I had never met/seen before just laughed at me and started making loud comments about how stupid I looked and ‘Why is she dressed like that?!’. They even followed me around for a little bit. I didn’t think I looked that bad but I took the hat off and I never wore it again.

5. “How things work out”

In eighth grade, a girl who sometimes hung out with my friends and I looked at me and said “You’re so ugly, you’ll never get a girlfriend”. I had already been depressed and not receiving treatment, so it hurt quite a bit.

Once I was over that dark stage, the summer before 9th grade, I started buying nice clothes and got a nice haircut. I transformed the way I acted and presented myself, gained just a bit of muscle, grew several inches, and worked on my posture. Come freshmen and sophomore year, she tells her friends that she likes me and asks me out. I politely decline and went on to date her nicer, funnier, and better looking best friend.

Funny how things work out.

6. The Comeback

Was once walking along the high street. Got tapped on the back by someone saying “excuse me”. Turned around, it was a girl with some friends who said “excuse me. sorry, but your really ugly”. I told her “well it beats being a dick”. The look on her face of ‘oh my God I cant believe he just said that’.

7. OH SNAP

I was sick for a long time, off work, spent most of the time channel surfing on the sofa. After some months I started feeling a bit better and I would get dressed up and go to a casino to play $2 roulette and drink diet cokes and just interact with people.

One night a guy came up to me. He had an accent but I have no idea where he was from. He said, “Why do you keep your hair so short? It would look so much better long. Women who have short hair have no idea that men prefer long hair on them.”

He stood there looking at me, like he wanted an answer. So I said, “I had cancer.”

8. “No offense, but…”

Some friend of a friend who I had just met started talking about attraction, turn-offs and turn-ons and he looked at me and said: “no offense, but I can only see weirdos or sexual deviants ever being attracted to you.”

I have dwarfism, and I’ve never had a relationship or had any indicator of someone being interested me, so that really haunted me for a while, and it still kinda does. It acts like a negative mantra that keeps resurfacing whenever I start to feel hopeful, as if to put me ‘back in my place’. It didn’t help that since that lovely encounter, the only person to actually hit on me was a weirdo who was clearly a dwarf fetishist and had no concern over how I felt about it.

9. That’s rude AF!

I was at Reading Festival a few years ago and while watching a band there were a few ‘bros’ behind me. They didn’t seem interested in the bands and while I was dancing I felt something being poured on my head.

I turned around and some nobhead with a fake tan was pouring beer on me and laughing with his friends. I said something like ‘why would you do that?’. He just said ‘shut up you idiot’. I was pretty hurt, mainly because it played on my mind and I felt I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the band.

I just couldn’t understand why they would even go to a music festival.

10. A Poor Excuse

Guy gave me a poor excuse of why I should let him in front of the queue, once I said no he just whispered “pffff, immigrants”

I just turned around and looked at him and said out loudly “What have they done this time?”

11. People are rude. So rude.

I worked as a salesperson in this little fashion boutique. This lady came in, looked at the ring section and kept insisting that I try the rings on so she could take pictures and send them to her daughter. Then she proceeded to yell when some couldn’t fit me, “No. My daughter is not that fat!”. Repeatedly. Then she stomped off.

The next day, this lady came back, with her daughter, looking at the rings again.

Before they left, without buying anything again, she pointed at her daughter and shouted loud enough for the whole store to hear, ” See, she’s not fat like you!”

I wish I was making this up.

12. Mis-handled, teach.

When I was a kid a classmate called me a b—–d. I told the teacher he called me a bad name. She said “no he didn’t because it’s true.” That’s the moment I realized I was different and not having a dad wasn’t normal.

13. “What I’ve seen”

I served as an Infantry Marine and am very proud of my service. My family is from South Asia and I am a pretty brown dude, but just like any one of y’all, I consider myself a proud American and when I came home after my time in the service was up, someone at my community college called me a terrorist.

I didn’t think some words would ever shake me after having gone through so much, but man, that stuck with me. At that moment, I didn’t even have a response, just this intense anger and frustration In my head and all I could think of was “I wish you could see what I’ve seen”.

14. Freddy

I was working in a haunted house to help raise money for an organization that dug wells in 3rd world countries without clean drinking water. I had put on about 40 pounds after a 6 month depression where the only people I talked to were the pizza delivery drivers.

Anyways, I got assigned to be Freddy Kreuger. It was a great time, until a drunk group came through and this one guy comes up to me and grabs my stomach with both hands and said “wow, Freddy you’ve become a real fatty”.

Luckily, one of the managers heard this and kicked the group out. But, I’ll admit it, I teared up. Really emotional time in my life, and I was doing something good, and this douche pissed all over it.

15. Nice my ASS!

Nicest girl in high school, and I mean nicest, she was known for being utterly amazing and nice and I truly liked her as a person, she said to me one day in ceramics class “You are truly the ugliest person I’ve ever seen.”

I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t, she continued to reassure me that she wasn’t joking and she was being serious, that physically, I was the ugliest person she had ever seen in her life. It took a few years to rebuild my self esteem and confidence after that one.

16. “And they all laughed”

I was walking down the street when I passed a group of guys around my age. As I passed them I heard one of them say “she’s not bad from the back”, then another said “yeah, but she’s ugly from the front!” and they all laughed.

Even though they were complete strangers, it hurt a lot. I don’t really have much self-confidence anyway, and it made me hate myself even more. I’ll admit, I cried over that a few times.

17. Realization

I think I was in 8th grade. Held this door open for a man that was carrying a box and he said, “you’ll have to move aside. You’re not as thin as you think.”

The doorway was pretty large. This strangers comment was the first time I realized I was fat. Thanks guy.

18. Skype

My freshman year of college. My roommate was on a video Skype call with his girlfriend. I walked behind him and she saw me in the video, she instantly said “ew, gross, who’s the fat guy?” (She didn’t realize I could hear her)

I can think of many hurtful things people have said to me, but that’s always stuck with me, and lowered my self esteem. Just the idea that someone’s first impression of seeing me is that I’m “gross”

After that my roommate wore headphones whenever talking to her.

19. The Not-So-Racist Banker

I’m a banker for a major bank and was called racist two times. One was because he wanted to cash a $2000 check with NO IDs and another because he overdrew his account 3 times and I was only able to reverse 1 of it for him. (kicker: one person was Chinese…I am Chinese also).

20. SCARY WOMAN, JEEZ!

I was six years old, waiting outside the front of my school, waiting for my father. A woman (mother of one of my classmates) stalks up to me, looks me (all 45 inches of me) up and down and sneers.

Mother: My daughter tells me you’re a vegetarian.

Me (meekly): Um…yes, I am.

Mother: If you don’t eat meat in the next two years, you will die.

Walks off without another word. I am permanently scarred.

21. Acne

I used to have quite a bit of acne when I was in my teens and early 20s (I went on Acutane when I was 24). I was somewhat used to being made fun of for it, but there was one day when I was at work that I’ve never forgotten.

Earlier in my shift a little girl asked me what was wrong with my face and her mom was really sweet and just said “you’ll find out soon enough hunny, everyone does!” Which obviously made me feel better…. it was later in that same shift that this older man just looked at me while I was working and I looked up and he just said “why don’t you just wash your face?” Oh gee, is THAT’S what’s wrong?! Ugh. So upsetting.

22. LOL, classic

I hope you get a cancer and die.

League of Legends, those were the times.

23. “You miserable idiot!”

Most hurtful AND best thing a stranger has said to me all in one situation!

My girlfriend and I were walking down the street holding hands on our way to an NBA game (I’m a girl too, yes). An older couple was walking towards us and the woman grabbed her husband and pulled him away from us while she muttered, “Disgusting beans”… and her husband jerked his arm away from her and said, “At least they’re happy you miserable idiot!”