These folks took to the internet to confess their biggest secrets they've uncovered, or the darkest ones they've been keeping. From the side-splittingly funny to the deeply disturbing, these confessions are everything.
1. Don’t Ruin The Illusion
While setting up the email on my father-in-law's iPhone, a questionable text came in from a woman he works with. I clicked on the message and discovered a history of texts going back almost a year. They were secretly meeting up before and after work.
My mother-in-law leaves very early for her nursing job, so this lady was coming by later in the morning to "drive him to work". My in-laws have been married for 34 years and are very religious. My wife and her siblings had a fairytale childhood, and telling anyone would tear the family apart.
The ONLY reason I can keep this secret, is because I don't know if my wife would recover from finding out what a horrible person her dad is. I've thought about confronting him privately, but I don't know where to even begin.
2. A Series Of Unfortunate Events
On one autumn day when I was 11, I was told to take out the trash. As I was doing this, I noticed the box of matches next to our grill. Since it was fall, I burned a small pile of old leaves for a couple of minutes and then stomped on them to put out the fire. Unbeknownst to me, all that did was push the embers right next to our house.
The next thing I knew, the house went up the flames. It was terrifying—but that wasn’t the worst of it. The firefighters put out the fire and the house insurance covered the damages, but the authorities were very curious about how it started. They suspected someone jumped to the fence and lit up the leaves to burn our house down.
Unfortunately, this caused my parents to think someone was out to get us. Scared for our lives, they decided to move elsewhere. They lost their well-paying jobs and they lost a lot of money on the sale of the house. For the next solid seven years, we lived in stress and poverty. My parents still do not know that I’m the reason they had to live like that.
3. The Heart-Breaking Truth
My grandmother always told us her dad was a firefighter who had a heart attack at age 35 and passed and her mom had told her a whole story down to the exact street corner he had the heart attack on and I never thought about it, except it did seem a little strange that no one else in our family had any history of heart disease, much less an early demise from it.
When she had terminal cancer, her last wish was to be buried next to him, but she didn't know where he was buried so I told her I would try and help. I did a bunch of research—and made the most devastating discovery.
I found out that he actually didn't pass from a heart attack, but instead just left my great-grandma, moved to LA, remarried, and had a new family. He passed there some 30 years after my grandma thought he did.
I never told my grandma that her dad abandoned her- her last memories of him were good ones and she ended up in an orphanage after that so he did ruin her life.
I'm curious to meet his new family, but I don't think they'd be interested to know he never divorced my great-grandma, so his marriage to their mom was never actually valid.
4. Hot For Teacher
I make good money writing adult short stories—but that’s not the shocking part of my secret. One of my recurring characters is based on one of my professors at university. He recently came across one of my stories and recognized my writing. I couldn’t believe it when he actually sent it to me, offering corrections and tips. He knew it was based on him. He knew I have a thing for him. We ended up hooking up.
5. Mum’s The Word
I donated my eggs to a friend years before I had my daughter and the result was a set of twins. My family doesn’t know because they won’t understand that these are not my kids/their grandkids/their niece/nephew.
If they find out everything will explode and they will probably pester my friend, wanting contact. So I am waiting til my parents pass to tell my brother, since he can’t keep his mouth shut.
6. Serious Warning, Folks
One time I left my younger daughter (the middle child) in a hot car and forgot she was there. My wife and my oldest daughter had gotten out and went into a theater where the oldest daughter had her dance recital. I parked the car about 100 feet away and for some reason, maybe because my wife and daughter got out, my stupid brain just decided to go into kid-free mode.
To say I panicked 10 minutes later when I remembered would be an understatement. I was mid conversation with someone and when I remembered her, I just turned and ran. No explanation. I sprinted to the car, but knowing it was only 10 minutes I knew it would be ok.
There she was. A little sweaty, but just sitting there and looking around. She smiled when she saw me. This memory haunts me. I frequently lose sleep or have to pull my mind off it. The thought of what could have happened and how easy it was to forget her will never leave me. And I am way too scared to ever tell my wife about that.
Always double check for your kids folks. Even if you think you’re good or have a great memory.
7. Blood Is Not Thicker Than Money
I found out about a year ago that after my dad perished, the will named me as the primary heir to his small accumulation of wealth. I was 15 at the time. My parents were divorced at the time and my mom arranged to have all of his life savings put away until I was 18. The problem was I never received any of that money—and the reason why was twisted.
I found out that my mom secretly hid the money from the family and lied and said he barely left us anything. She ended up buying our family house outright with the cash that was meant to go to me and my brother. She also bought herself some nice jewelry and went on a couple of holidays. For a while, I considered getting a lawyer, but I decided to play dumb about everything.
If it got out that she had done this, it would totally tear the family apart again. So now I’m a broke 23-year-old saving up for my own house penny by penny all while knowing for a fact that there’s about $450,000 that should have been mine. My close friend is married to a lawyer and he reviewed my case and my evidence.
The lawyer said that if I took this to court it would be a slam dunk and over and done within a couple of months. I won’t do that to my brother and I won’t do that to my family. But I still have a plan. When I’m 30 and starting a family, I will sit her down and tell her she can quietly work out a plan with me to give me what is rightfully mine.
For now, she actually thinks she’s fooled me. She even goes so far as to lie and complain about mortgage payments. I don’t hate her, I just feel sorry for her. You have to be twisted up inside to do that to your own son and daughter, but here we are. I sincerely hope the lie eats her up at night.
8. Time To Face The Music
In my first year of high school, we had a music competition. I think this was an attempt to get kids to not drop the subject when they got to choose which subjects they’d take. I entered the composition category and fully intended to make my own song. I was into techno at the time and was trying to learn tracker-style music sequencing software.
I procrastinated and didn’t have anything worthwhile, so I ended up submitting one of the demo tracks that came with the software. The night of the contest, I discovered that the only other entry was from a couple of special-needs students who just played the same two chords over and over. I was too scared to drop out because it would mean owning up to my plagiarism.
Needless to say, I won the category, but I felt pretty awful about it. To make things worse, the music teacher played the whole song for the class and tried really hard to get me to take music as one of my exam subjects.
9. This Guy Deserves A Medal For This
Something I will never tell my wife is that she ended a cat’s life. She's very much a cat person. One day, she picks me up from a friend's house. While driving through town, a cat ran in front of us and we heard a thud underneath the car. She screamed and looked in the rearview mirror and we see the cat stagger into a driveway.
She was very upset and convinced she'd ended its life. I told her no, no, the cat clearly ran across the street and is probably fine! She was meeting some friends and I was taking the car home so she asked if I would check the driveway of that house on my way home to make sure the cat was ok. I said I would.
I drove back that way and parked a few houses down and looked in the driveways. What I saw made my heart sink. There is was, a goner. Part of me was thinking just go home and say you seen it happily licking itself, but curiosity got the better of me.
The problem was, it was a gated house that was also a Bed & Breakfast, so I didn't want to just wander in on someone else’s property. Instead, I rang the phone number on the sign at the side of the road. At this point I’m now thinking, what the heck am I doing? I should have been home long ago, but I was on autopilot and just went with it.
The owner answers and I tell him there's possibly a deceased cat in your drive, do you mind if I come in just to check? The guy is like, "Um yeah I guess, it's just I'm out of town and there's no one here. But it's fine if you want to let yourself in the side gate". He also says thanks so at this point I have to do it, I'm too far in now.
I let myself in and walk over and there she is, definitely gone. Oh balls, well I'll just tell my wife the cat wasn't there and we can forget about the whole thing. Except for one problem. The owner now knows there could be a cat body on his property, and when he gets home and sees it lying there, he's got my number and will know I just left it there.
So now I have to make a decision: Do I leave this cat here or do I take it away. If I do take it away, what do I do with it? Across the street is a store, so I walk over and buy bin bags and rubber gloves. I make my way back over and scoop the fluffy deceased cat into a bin bag. Now, I have a cat in a bag, and I walk it over to my car.
People are walking past me on the street, smiling and giving that upwards nod that strangers give. I give a nod back but I'm not fully into it because they don't know I'm walking past them with a deceased cat in a bin bag. I don't feel like taking it into my car because, you know.
So, I Google vets and there happens to be one not too far away, walking distance. I ring and ask them do they dispose of deceased pets, they said they do. So, I make my way down there, in through the front door and ask the receptionist if I was just talking to them about pet disposal. She looks at me, slightly freaked, and says yes.
I produce the bag and say, “Ok, well I have a cat here, can I just give it to you”? She tells me to leave it out by the back door, and charges me 50 quid for the pleasure. I walk back to the car and sat there for at least half an hour, in silence and as still as a cat trying to process the last hour of my life.
I text my wife and say, “No honey, I couldn't find the cat. She must be fine and ran off somewhere safe, see you at home xxx”. I’ll never tell her any of this story.
10. Note To Self: Always Have Two Bathrooms
The one time when she and I first got together and she spent the night, I made it very clear the next morning that I wanted her to leave. She was uncomfortable and brought it up later because of my behavior. But she'll never know the awful truth.
I’ll never tell her it’s because since I only had one bathroom at the apartment and she was on the toilet that morning and my body runs on its own schedule, I had to poop in a small trash can on the back patio area I had.
I had a high fence so no one could see, but there was a mess I needed to clean, both outside and on myself. But of course, when she’s out of the bathroom she has no idea and is asking about breakfast or whatever while I’m covered in poop. After she left, I tossed my clothes and the trash can in the dumpster and took a long shower.
She also doesn’t know that’s the reason I’ve insisted any apartment we live in has two bathrooms. We’ve lived in four apartments together and every one of them has had two bathrooms, because I’m not doing that again.
11. Small Slip, Big Consequences
I’ve never told anyone this, not even my therapist, and it’s my biggest regret. This happened over five years ago and it still haunts me that I was even capable of this. My girlfriend was talking about breaking up with me after we had been together for five years. The next day, she said she was just in a mood and told me she loves me and that I should forget about that conversation.
We had makeup nookie. But I had an intrusive thought: “If you get her pregnant, she’ll stay”. I quickly realized I’d made a horrible mistake.
The next morning, I slipped the morning-after pill into her coffee. I didn’t feel like too much of a terrible person because she had always been adamant that under no circumstances did she want a child until she had finished law school. But I was in for a surprise. She still got pregnant. It was a nightmare.
She wanted an abortion. I paid for everything, held her hand the whole way through, and helped her however I could. We broke up a few years later, but it was unrelated to the unwanted pregnancy. I still feel like an absolute jerk whenever I think about what I did to her, and what it ultimately resulted in. I want to say I was a naive young adult, but I had already graduated college by then, and I was fully aware that what I did was against the law.
I’m aware that what I did was monstrous, and I have to live with that every day. I want to say that I had no clue what I was thinking, but I absolutely do, and that terrifies me. If I could take it back I would. While she was emotionally, verbally, and even sometimes physically abusive to me, she 100% didn’t deserve that trauma.
12. Not All Heroes Wear Capes
A secret that I am keeping from my husband is that I had his mom removed from my room during labor. We don't have a great relationship and she showed up without asking, overnight bag and all. She said she was staying the night with me in the room. I had been in labor about 20 hours at this point.
The nurse mentioned I looked unsatisfied about it when everyone stepped out. She said, “I'll get it taken care of if you want” and I agreed. She made up a lie about how after 10 pm they don't allow visitors in the room, and it was so my body can be relaxed and not have company.
It worked. She stayed in the lobby all night. I am forever grateful for that wonderful nurse! And she kept the secret from my hubby too.
13. By The Seat Of Their Pants
This happened to me on the job when I was working as a paramedic. We were on the way to a chest pain patient and I suddenly had an intense need to pass gas. There was no way I could hold it in. That’s when disaster struck. Unfortunately, my bottom burp added some weight and color to my white trousers. Since we were on the way to a job, though, there was nothing I could do.
So, during the whole job, I made sure to keep myself turned in a way that ensured no one was ever behind me, including my colleagues, the patient, his wife and son, and later on the hospital personnel. I wore my jacket tied around my hips like an idiot as well. It all worked quite well, but, wow, was that a tough moment.
14. You Do You
I recently quit my job to become an exotic dancer—and it’s had a surprising side effect. First, the only person who knows this is my husband. I have more quality time with my family, I am more financially stable, I’ve gotten into better shape, and I don’t have to worry about budgets or bills as much. If we need something in the house, it can go on the monthly or the weekly lists depending on severity.
If my husband wants a new project, I can give him his guy time. If my kid is sick, I can afford the medicine. I don’t have to worry about money, and neither does my family. During my own childhood, I would agonize over whether we had food, electricity, heat, or tampons. It feels good to be able to provide for my family.
15. None Of Your Business
When I was ten, one of my school friends always told us that her dad was away on a long business trip, but one night on the local news I saw a piece about him. He was incarcerated for embezzlement and wasn't released until we were 20.
My mom made sure I knew that I had to keep this quiet and not tell anyone at school or in our friend group, or else I could make this poor girl's life completely miserable.
It came out when we were in middle school anyway and it still made her life miserable, but at least I delayed it a few years.
Blue convertibles
16. Well, He Tried
A secret I’ll never tell my wife is that I never paid for her engagement ring. I went to a custom jeweler to have her ring made. It’s a beautiful piece, and she loves it dearly, and it certainly wasn’t cheap—appraised and insured for around $10k.
The jeweler was dealing with a lot of family issues at the time, and was incredibly disorganized. I went to pick up the ring and brought my checkbook to pay for it. When she handed me the ring, I took it out and asked her who to make the check out to. She said, “Oh no, don’t worry about it right now, just send me a check in the mail”.
I thought that was strange, but sure okay. She then hurried off to help another customer and I left. I realized a bit later that she never told me what the final price was. For the next six months, I texted and called the jeweler asking, “Hey just tell me what amount to put and I’ll mail you the check”, and there was always a reason she couldn’t tell me, like: “Oh sorry, I’m out right now, I’ll find it and text you later”.
Her shop was a few hours away from where I live, so it wasn’t feasible to stop by and handle it in person. I tried for those six months, but after that I stopped calling/texting and just figured I got the ring for free. I wouldn’t tell my spouse, because I don’t want her to think I took advantage of the situation or that somehow the ring isn’t as meaningful because I didn’t pay for it.
17. Road Trip Gone Wrong
When I was in my 20s, I went on a cross-country road trip in an RV just for fun. I would just drive from town to town eating food and checking out cool stores and places. Livin’ the dream, right? It was a fun way to spend the summer. Well, it would have been—if I hadn’t done something stupid in one of the towns I visited.
I don’t know why, but when I was in one of the stores, I took something that was worth a lot of money. I was caught, cuffed, and jammed in the back of a squad car. On my way to wherever it is they take you, the cop got called to something urgent. He left me locked in the back of the car (with the AC on, what a guy) and went into a business.
I tested the door handle for kicks and it wasn’t locked. I got out of the car and ran a couple of streets over to my RV. I got into it and was able to pull one of my hands out of the cuffs. I started up the RV and drove out of town. I had never given them my name and, luckily, I had left my wallet and cell phone in my RV.
They recovered the item I took but had no way of identifying me. Thankfully, I have never heard anything else about it since.
18. No Regrets
I used to work in a call center for my country's tax agency dealing primarily with benefits. The government here gives regular payments to people under a certain income threshold which isn't that low and so a good chunk of the population here gets those payments.
A frequent type of call we would get at the call center was asking about why they didn't get the couple hundred bucks the caller was expecting to receive as usual. One day I answered a call from a lady who didn't get her expected payment.
We would get all sorts of callers, and you get a pretty good sense of when people were being legitimate and when they were telling you a fake story to play on your emotions. This lady had my internal alarm bells ringing—she called in about the missing payment and was clearly trying to hide the fact that she was severely devastated about not receiving the payment.
It turned out that it was her daughter's birthday the following day, and she was planning on using that money to get her birthday gift which she now had no means of buying. I noticed when she called that she lived in the same city as me, maybe about a 10-minute drive away.
The database we have access to is the government's central taxpayer database... and it has a ton of info on every single taxpayer in the country. Access to any account and any bit of information on an account is highly monitored, and anything you access is strictly and demonstrably need-to-know access only.
Even the slightest mistake will get you insta-fired, and depending on what was accessed your termination can be accompanied by charges. Needless to say, recording any bit of information and bringing it out of the office is a big no-no. But something in me felt...different when she called. I really felt for her.
It wasn't a catastrophic situation like the calls sometimes are, but there are also a lot of callers who are clearly trying to guilt you into getting something. And she was clearly beside herself and actively trying to minimize and hide just how devastated she was that she as a single mother wasn't going to be able to get her pre-teen daughter a birthday present.
After looking into the situation there was nothing I could do to get her the missing payment. And she lived barely 10 minutes from my place... so I decided to say whatever, I'm doing a good deed today, and memorized her street address. After work that day I went to her house and knocked on the door.
She answered, and I told her that I was walking down the street and saw a $100 bill on her lawn as I pulled it out of my pocket and asked if she had lost it. She burst into tears, and through happy crying she told me that I had no idea about the day she's had and how timely this was.
She did not refuse the bill when I gave it to her, and then I gave her some cheesy line about how the universe is a mysterious place. So I mean technically was this a gross misuse of our country's taxpayer database? Absolutely. Did I feel bad about it? Not in the least lol.
Ljupco Smokovski , Shutterstock
19. That Escalated Quickly
I had a close friend who loved breaking into vending machines back in the mid eighties to take drinks and change.
He tried breaking into one at an all Jewish school (I'm going to leave the location out) and inadvertently caused the machine to catch fire. This was on a weekend and no one was around. It burnt down almost half the school and caused them to close the school for over a year and probably a lot of money.
The news ran this "hateful act" for weeks and let me tell you, we were sweating that it would get out we were there and he was responsible. Lucky for us, it's the mid 80s and there were no cameras like today.
It was all over the news and in the newspaper. They just assumed some anti-Semitic organization had targeted the school.
Nope, two dumb, poor kids in hand-me-down clothes and bikes trying to get a free Coke.
20. The Wet Bandit
I flooded the hotel on a field trip for school as I'd turned on all the taps in the men's bathroom and didn't understand why they weren't working.
I'd found out later there was a 10-minute cutoff of water supply during that time, but forgot to turn off the taps after turning them all. The consequences were brutal. Coincidentally, a few of the taps had plugs in them that I hadn't noticed at the time.
This caused two floors to suffer a lot of water damage including the girls’ dorm which would cost a lot to fix. (I guess this is why public places moved to push taps rather than manual). Only one person knew I'd entered that bathroom during the time period and he kept quiet as the teacher grilled everyone.
I refused to say anything as I didn't want my family to get fined and also didn't want to be ridiculed so to this day 15 years later I've not told a soul.
21. Hate The Game, Not The Player, Right?
I have managed to create a facade that makes it appear as if I have worked full-time on the project I was assigned to but it actually takes only me half of the time. It was tricky but I have managed to organize things in a way that allows me to do anything except my work at the office. On home office days I mostly play video games.
Whenever I get asked how my work is going, I lie to make it look like I am fully swamped with my work and the schedules and deadlines, etc. A side effect of this was that I got really good at lying and could deceive anyone about nearly anything and most people would actually believe it. I’ve been doing this for two years now.
If my coworkers or boss ever found out that I get paid for a full-time job while only working roughly 20 hours a week, I’d get fired immediately. Additionally, I live in a small town, and getting caught would totally ruin my reputation and any chances at a potential new job. I also just want to say that I don’t feel bad about my behavior at all.
22. The Sweet Smell Of Revenge
When I was around age 10, I was walking home with my dog when he cut the corner and walked diagonally through the yard of this super-mean old lady who lived at the end of our street. She was in her yard at the time tending to some really fancy-looking rosebushes. All of a sudden she sprayed my dog all over with some kind of insecticide or fertilizer.
I should mention that my dog was a very friendly golden retriever who didn’t even go near her and certainly didn’t do anything threatening. I couldn’t believe that she sprayed him with whatever chemical she was using on her roses. I ran back home with the dog and immediately hosed him off. He coughed a bunch but seemed OK.
I didn’t tell my parents because I somehow thought that I was going to get into trouble for letting the dog walk in her yard. I’m glad I didn’t tell them, though, because I decided to get revenge. That night I snuck downstairs, out the half-bath window, and down the street to her yard. Once there, I cut down every single rose bush I could get my hands on.
23. Lucky Break
I got busted with a lot of computers from my work—about $25,000 worth—and pleaded guilty to grand theft. The authorities spelled my name wrong and put down the wrong birthday. I also never gave them my license or social security number. I just kept saying, “I don’t remember it” over and over during my 90-day incarceration.
That was 34 years ago. Every few years, I still do background checks on my name and I’d be lying if I said that my heart doesn’t race each and every time I do it. Nope. Still not there.
24. The Truth Is Out There
When I was a teenager, I had a horrible compulsive lying problem. My “stories” controlled my whole life and I completely ruined most relationships before they even got started. Not to mention, my lying made me worse in the head because I bottled up my feelings for many years. Thankfully, I have recently been getting therapy and meds—but there’s been a dark side to my progress.
As part of the healing process, I chose to upend my life by admitting the truth to those I lied to. Some don’t talk to me anymore, which I can understand. It felt good and also horrible, to tell the truth. If you have a similar issue, please talk to someone. Sometimes I still get the urge to lie, but now after I lie, I throw my shame on the table and correct myself.
25. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even
A couple of my old roommates decided it would be funny to trash my room while I was on holiday in Vegas. I came home to find pizza stuck on the walls, stained sheets, wet toilet paper stuck to the ceiling, and about four unflushed bowel movements in my en suite toilet. It was definitely not the homecoming I had expected.
Being a rather quiet and non-confrontational man, I laughed all of this off, but on the inside, I began planning. I decided to get them where it hurt. So, when they were out one night, I peed into their orange juice. The next morning at breakfast, I happily watched them dig into it. To this day, no one knows about this.
26. A Magical Moment Regardless
If I told my partner my biggest secret, it would go like this: I knew you were going to propose. You left an email up on the computer where you sent a picture of a ring to a friend, asking her if I will like it. I immediately closed the email and went on about my day.
We went on the long trip to Hawaii. One of the days you told me to dress up and I wore this cute white summer dress. I still remember the way you looked at me. You looked at peace. We drove up the coast to the beach your friend recommended. As soon as we pull in, it dawns on you that this isn’t a private beach.
It’s pure madness. People everywhere. I saw the look of panic on your face. I squeezed your arm and said let’s keep driving. I knew what you wanted to do. We grabbed dinner at a mom-and-pop place and found the most beautiful secluded beach after. That’s where you proposed and it was absolutely perfect.
I wont ever tell him that I knew because it would ruin the magic of that day.
27. Frosted Whats?
14 years ago, while IT was working on my work PC, the IT guy had to step away for a moment. I used those precious 5 minutes to exploit admin control—with hilarious results. I went to the most-used company template used by 200+ people over 100,000 times a year and added a little easter-egg in tiny font. It said "Frosted Butts". I don't know why I did it. I just did.
I talked with a coworker who is still there about a year ago. Though I have long since quit, they have used that template millions of times in the last 14 years and it's still there.
28. Secretly Clumsy
I knocked the TV off the shelf. I was walking quickly with a laundry basket half on my hip and knocked into the shelf. The TV came tumbling down and landed upside down on some shoes. I guess the shoes cushioned the fall because the TV worked perfectly.
My husband has told me a thousand times to slow down so I won't bump into things, which I do often. I will never tell him that the TV fell from five feet and it was totally my fault. I also accidentally popped a leg off of my mother-in-law's antique Aueen Anne-style vanity/dressing table. It has seven other legs and I wedged it back in place. No one knows or ever will.
29. Catch Me If You Can
After a semester of community college, I ended up working as a summer intern at a job where even the most junior positions require a minimum of two university degrees. I was given this unpaid position for six weeks as a favor to a friend of mine. And let me just say, I was super-grateful at the time, even though I didn’t know what the future would hold.
I’ve now been at the company for more than 30 years. I’ve risen up the ranks to increasingly complex positions with additional responsibilities. I now supervise people with multiple university degrees and each of them with a wealth and breadth of knowledge in complex subjects where any mistakes will have dire personal, professional, and corporate consequences.
I’ve won multiple regional and national awards for achievements in my field and I’m often called on to mentor younger employees who have more letters and abbreviations after their names than my doctor has. But there’s something that none of them know.
I don’t even have my high school diploma. Nobody has ever asked me about my education.
30. Blame COVID
My husband and I were kept apart for two years during the mess that was the pandemic. During this time I was also waiting for my Green Card which meant that I couldn’t visit him. He came over to visit me once during the two years, and I noticed that he had a dating app on his phone. I decided to sneak a peek into his phone.
I checked his messages and I could see that he had been talking to a woman on there. It was obvious from the messages that they had met up and done the deed. From what I could tell, they only did it once and there weren’t a whole lot of messages after that. I’ve never confronted him about it and I don’t really want to.
Since I’ve been in the US, he’s been super attentive and loving. As far as I can tell there are no dating apps on his phone or computer. I feel that if I told him I know, or told any friends or family, they would push for me to leave him and think I was an idiot if I didn’t. We have a baby boy now and I would never want to disrupt our lives over a meaningless one-night stand.
31. Putting In The Work
I’ve kept this on the down low, but I used to have a drinking problem. I went to detox, rehab, and an aftercare program. Then I went into a halfway house and finally my own apartment in another state, which made things easier. I’m 31 and, honestly, it sucks. I want to break free from lying and hiding, but things always get uncomfortable if I let anyone know about my journey.
It’s really tough because I believe that anyone I tell will judge me and not want to talk to me. This just makes it easier to lie. Not to mention, lying has worked pretty well so far, so why fix what’s not broken? Unfortunately, I also understand how all of this not only hangs over my head but can also eventually catch up to me. I’m just stuck in the middle, I guess.
32. Just What The Doctor Ordered
After weeks of unbearable cramping and bleeding, I found out at the gyno that my ex gave me chlamydia. I was tested prior to us getting together and I didn’t sleep with anyone in between then so I knew it was him. I also found out that a few people he had slept with prior to me had it. He kept blaming me and saying some messed up stuff and we ended up breaking up.
I had known that the relationship had almost run its course anyway, so that didn’t really hit me hard, but a lot of the things he said to me toward the end did. Anyway, I picked up the antibiotics for the both of us. My best friend had taken them before and told me that they give you a horrid stomachache and the worst diarrhea imaginable.
And they definitely did. I decided to wait a couple of days until I was off work and could stay home to take them. I was pooping every five minutes all day long. When I gave the antibiotics to my ex, I was feeling extra petty that day and told him that he should take the antibiotics before work in the morning because I had taken them at night and they had me so wired I was up all night. I genuinely hope he pooped himself at work.
33. WonderBread
I hacked my university’s website and changed the welcome screen from a group photo comprised of students from various ethnicities and religions to a picture of a loaf of white bread.
The administration had embarked on a media campaign to make the school look more culturally diverse, which I thought was disingenuous at best, false advertising at worst since the student body was 96% white and Christian.
The administration was furious, especially when they figured out I locked them out from changing the code. The entire site had to be taken down and replaced. There was a full-on hunt for the criminals who humiliated the community. They never suspected me.
34. Shut Up And Drive
I never passed a driver's license test. When I went for my road test I failed it. I went to renew my learners permit, and upon exiting the DMV I looked at it and saw that instead of them renewing my learners they gave me an actual license. I went to the car and told my Mom, and she told me to get in the car and we left quickly. That was 30 years ago.
35. Knowledge Is Power
I have a spreadsheet that gives me a lot of power, and no one knows about it. It has the social security numbers and current salaries of every employee in the company, all the way up to the President. Someone in HR sent it to me by mistake.
36. Write Or Wrong?
I learned how to write because I wanted to be an author. Anyways, I’ve made more writing personalized smut in a year than high ranking engineers do.
37. Thelma And Louise
I “borrowed” a car with a friend when we were 13. We went on a ride for 300 miles. Then we abandoned it and hitchhiked back. No one ever knew. We had a great time–this was in the 70’s.
38. Joyriding
When I was in high school, 14 or 15 years old, there was a little rover metro we used to “borrow” late at night. We were in a small rural town in the UK with officers about—but that didn't stop us from getting up to no good.
It would be left open with the keys in. We'd take it after 11 pm at night, drive around all night with smoke flowing out of the windows and go on little adventures, fill it back up with fuel, and park it back up before sunrise.
Other people found out about the little car and another friend started taking it and blew the clutch up and messed up the gearbox and then abandoned it about 10 miles away. I still feel sad that great little motor got trashed, and for the old person who owned it.
39. Extreme Couponer
I worked at a big name crafting/fabric store for a while in college. It was kind of fun: I've always been referred to as an "old soul," so I got along really well with all the old ladies that went there. I'd ask them about their projects and what they were working on. It was really nice, and they seemed super excited to share their stories with someone who cared!
Now, this big fabric store chain does the thing where they overprice their wares, but then they "go on sale" for a more reasonable price. Well, the sale price is what the items should be priced as because that's usually closer to what they're worth.
They just use the "sale" thing to make you feel better about spending exorbitant amounts of money. There are sales all the time, and there are coupons on their app, but there are all sorts of weird loopholes and stuff that makes those coupons meaningless.
I worked as a cashier, and you might already see where this is going. The coupons all had the same barcodes and could be used more than once. So, when an old lady would come up to the register and be spending over $100 just for some silly little crafting supplies, I'd be like "Oh look! I just found this coupon! How convenient"!
And I'd give them the "discounted" price. I would also apply those discounts to most of the other things -- the 40% off one item doesn't work on anything on sale... But the whole store is on sale. So these people would be excited to use their coupon, and it wouldn't end up actually working because the thing they wanted was "on sale". So I uh...just bypassed that and entered the product key manually to change the price.
I saved people hundreds of dollars over the time I worked there (it was over the summer and into the fall, so like 4-5 months?). Was it unlawful? Possibly. Was it sketchy and could've gotten me fired if anyone found out? Absolutely.
But the customers were always so grateful and happy, and they were going to make so many cool things!! I wanted to help their creativity grow, not be the reason it got squashed flat.
Also: they had us sweep up all those fake, silk flowers that would come off their wire stems and onto the floor, and we had to throw them away. They were still perfectly fine, they just couldn't be sold, I guess. So instead of throwing them away, I'd put them in my pocket and take them home to scrapbook with or make into cute hair pins... To heck with that wasteful nonsense.
40. This Smells Fishy
I met my best friend in the 7th grade (2006/2007). We would spend almost every afternoon together as we lived in joined neighborhoods. We would 50/50 our houses. His mom would make salmon almost every time I came over because at one time I said it was my favorite (I think I was too nervous the first time I had it (she made it for me).
Now, this was a big deal for his family and they ALWAYS fought over the crispy salmon skin. From 2006-2017 I ate more salmon and crispy skin than I would ever want. I don’t like salmon and I HATE the crispy fishy tasting skin. It’s horrible. I can’t even smell it when my husband cooks it. I hate it.
I still have to lie to my best friend and his angel mother when I see them and she makes me my “favorite” food and tell them how good it is while dying inside. I can never tell them how much I hate it and it’s been too long at this point.
To add to this, I now teach in the same town I grew up in. I had dinner with them after school in December 2022. My best friend’s mom has had a hard go of things between caring for her elderly father with dementia (she herself is in her late 60s) and caring full time for her 4 rambunctious grandkids. This woman went out of her way to make my “favorite” meal that I know takes her a while to make. No one can know.
41. Close Enough
My father-in-law isn't really who he says he is. The truth is that he’s actually his brother—at least legally, he is.
His brother passed at a young age and his dad was too lazy to get another birth certificate. It was back in the day and they lived far away from the office where you apply for papers. So they just used his brother's documents.
Officially he’s named A, but we call him B.
42. This Is Adorable
I’ll never tell my girl that the thing that made me realize that I was in love with her is when I was taking a shower and got done, I walked into the room and she must not have heard me get out. She was laying on her side on the bed with her eyes closed, and she was picking her nose.
I didn't want to embarrass her, so I stepped back out and from a distance and asked where I set my clean clothes as I was walking back in, to make it seem like I was just coming in. She was visibly startled and quickly stopped, but continued to lay there with her eyes closed.
I pretended that I saw nothing, but I couldn't help but smile. It was such an innocent and human moment. I have no idea why, but it made me realize right then and there that I loved everything about her. As silly as that moment was, there was a beauty in it, and I cherish that memory.
43. The Girlfriends Must Never Know
I used to have a private Instagram handle where I'd film my breakfast on any given morning as I poured hot sauce on it. But the value proposition over other Instagram foodies was that I would make all sorts of risque noises as I "shot" hot sauce or what have you all over my over-easy eggs.
I was filming myself giving my morning meal a spicy money shot with EARNEST sound effects. The account was private, and only my friends' follow requests were permitted (not that there was any wider demand to follow it at all). It was a hit in my social circle, bringing tears of laughter to some of their eyes even.
But after I started seriously dating my current girlfriend, I removed all followers and haven't posted or really spoken about it since. Sometimes my friends, when present in mixed company with my girlfriend, will drop a thinly-veiled reference to it, but I've countered with a thinly-veiled threat to reveal to their significant other that they followed it themselves and enjoyed it thoroughly.
It's an enjoyable battle I am waging against my buddies with the risk of mutually assured destruction.
44. What A Lesson To Learn
My girlfriend bought the cutest corgi puppy ever. Once while she was at work, it was late and I was preoccupied watching TV while this puppy was just doing puppy things in the same room. I took a melatonin capsule to start winding down for bed. I failed to notice where I left the bottle for the capsules.
Time passed, and I eventually looked back at the puppy and saw a bottle chewed up. I panicked, knowing it was the melatonin bottle. I quickly grab it and realized it was empty, not one pill to be found. I see the corgi just lying on his stomach watching me. I quickly Googled to see if this was dangerous for dogs, and in general my findings said it would be okay as long as it wasn’t the whole bottle...but it actually nearly was.
For some dumb reason I kept this to myself, hoping nothing bad would happen. I told myself if he got sick by the time she got home I’d come clean, and we’ll do something about it. But if he survives then it never happened. The whole night he was just lethargic. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to my girlfriend coddling him like a baby standing up, while his sleepy eyes caught glances at me.
My heart sank and I just prayed he’d be okay. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “He’s just restless," not knowing anything that had happened. To this day she never found out, but our beautiful dog is alive and well. I know it was super irresponsible, and honestly one of the dumbest things that I did.
I love our dog so much, and from that day I told myself never again would I hesitate or be careless with him.
45. Take The Money And Run?
I’m a trauma surgery nurse and I found a devious loophole in my job. I’m now making almost as much as some of the doctors. I basically work smarter, not harder. My coworkers, and even my boss, don’t know. My boss just adds up the hours but never sees the amount I’m paid—only the payroll department knows what I’m actually making.
What I’m doing is kind of hard to explain, but nothing I’m doing is against the law. We have about 3,000 employees at my hospital and I’m a casual call employee. I pick up trauma shifts from traveling nurses, but I’ll charge them $100 to 200 a shift for picking it up. They get paid so much that they are happy to pay me that.
As permanent employees, they get paid double to work a trauma shift, plus a bonus and multiple differentials. Since I’m casual call, I get a 15% differential that other employees don’t get. Then I get extra because of my master’s (even though I’m doing a regular RN’s job and not a master’s level job). All of that then doubles when I work a trauma shift.
In 2022, I only worked for about 25 hours per week. My other coworkers, in the same position, working 40 hours per week, make a quarter of what I make for four times the work. If the other nurses find out, no one will want to work full time and the administration will reconfigure how I’m paid. I’m going to quietly ride this out for as long as possible.
46. Kids Are Cruel
I used to get bullied because of severe eczema on my face. I had no eyebrows and my skin was very flaky and red, which earned me the nickname “Alligator Girl”. I am now on medication, which has made me totally unrecognizable. My glow-up has given me a bit of imposter syndrome and I have experienced some pretty privilege. I live in fear of people finding out about my unattractive past.
47. You Win Some, You Lose Some
I made $4000 from $100 in a month from gambling in stocks. I proceeded to lose just about all of it shortly after.
If my family knew that I was trading at that time and that I lost $4k - I would never hear the end of it; especially since we’re deep in poverty and need just about every cent we have. I’m personally not too bothered by it anymore and I’ve chalked it up as a funny story and learning experience.
48. Grand Theft Napkin
At a movie theater, I’ll often take dozens of napkins from the dispensary that I’ll hold on to, keeping them in my vehicle for “road napkins”.
I expect to be raided any day now.
49. The Heart Wants What It Wants
During COVID, I got so bored during lockdown that I made a Selena Gomez stan account on Twitter. I had a cute anime profile pic and everything. All my mutuals thought I was their babygirl. The funny part is that I’m also a truck driver who looks like a lumberjack and an oil rig worker. In other words, I’ve held my masculinity to high standards, so if this ever gets out…
50. Putting In The (Self) Work
I am not actually in therapy. Not because I don’t believe it doesn’t work or help me. I am 25 and have spent more than 16 of those years with different therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists dissecting and analyzing my thoughts and feelings. The problem is that my parents don’t accept any form of self-discovery unless they think it comes from a professional.
I have grown more in the past two years from being 8,000 km (5,000 miles) away from them and just writing down and processing my feelings than I have from any doctor they’ve sent me to. So I came up with a plan to fool them.
My parents never acknowledged my growth until I started falsely using the phrase “my therapist told me to”…
Ever since I started doing that they have had nothing but praise for how hard I’ve been working on myself and how much better I’m doing. They have finally understood things I’ve been trying to explain for almost a decade just because I told them that my therapist said it instead of me.
It isn’t costing any of us any money but if they found out they would definitely freak out.
51. Snitches Get Stitches
I shared a physics class with twin brothers who were disruptive, nasty, and sociopathic. When they finished school, they were often in and out of prison. One of them even served time for trying to bump off some guy. One time, these brothers burned all of the trees on a sacred plot of land near where I lived.
I knew it was them. One of them took a reel of phosphorus from the school lab. They’d been fascinated with it since we had done an experiment earlier in the week. The authorities knew that the fire had been started with a reel of phosphorus tape. I told the principal. If the twins ever found out that I did this, I hate to think what they’d do to me—even 25 years later.
Thankfully, they’ll never know and I spend the majority of my time in two different countries anyway. so even if they did find out somehow—oh, let’s face it, they wouldn’t be smart enough to find me. Law enforcement was able to prove that it was them and they confessed. Their excuse? They wanted to see how fast it would all burn.
52. Give It 20%
I only really work one day out of a five day week. If there are deadlines, I work more. I look busy and do enough to not get fired. Everyone thinks I am constantly overworked and behind schedule. I'm not.
I don't volunteer for extra work or step up when they need an extra pair of hands. Why? Because I don't get a raise, a title bump, a thank you, or any form of recognition.
I no longer put forward my ideas (and I have really good ones). Any passion or enthusiasm I had was just ended by the narcissistic, demeaning, delusional boss who I have the misfortune of working for.
53. Saved By The Belly
I cheated during the German version of a high school diploma.
If I had told anyone important up to two years after passing, I would have had the diploma taken away, i.e my university would have kicked me out.
I had written as many points on my belly with a sharpie that I could think of beforehand.
As we were allowed one short toilet break, I used it to check the things I couldn't answer.
I passed with flying colors.
54. This One Is Interesting
Something I would never tell my partner is that I make a bunch of gibberish vocalizations when I’m home alone. I have no clue why. It’s just some weird fake language I’ve been spewing since childhood. Something like this: “Sabio ni’ontas kartesh ki’tovan? Sargo ket’seeva, praish”?
I do this, constantly, in a sort of Russian/Arabic hybrid intonation. Almost entirely meaningless and 90% improvised apart from a few words that have attached themselves to specific objects/emotions over the years. It sort of reminds me of the The Sims.
Like we know that reality/perception is just electrical signals in the synapses of our brains…how do we know they’re not just neural nets in someone’s instance of Earth Simulator? My brain tells me to talk gibberish when I’m alone, why is that? I can’t possibly be the only one, but I definitely can’t tell anyone I know about this. Even though it’s literally been my whole life.
55. Smelt It, Dealt It
Dearest husband, remember when we were engaged and visited your mom in the hospital, and she let a toot go that was so rank your eyes watered and we still talk about it 20 years later? That was me.
56. Cheating Hearts
I had a very romantic affair with an older married man. It was awesome. I had known this man for a few years and he was very handsome for his age. He was in his 50s and I was 32. He took care of himself and was exceptional in the bedroom. He would whisk me away to different countries and was always a complete gentleman.
I do not condone sleeping with married men or women, and would never do it again. In my defense, he was a good stress release from the abusive on-again-off-again relationship I had with my ex. His wife was an annoying and emotionally abusive Karen, but I believe they’re trying marriage counseling at the moment. Did I mention that he is a politician?
57. From Side Hustle To Main Gig
I was recently fired from one of my jobs because they found out I share naughty content on an online subscription service. I told my husband that I was let go because I stood up for myself in front of the wrong people, which was an incident I had been reprimanded for the day before. I paid for my kids' Christmas with that money and I plan to continue so that I can make up for the lost income stream.
58. Take To The Grave
My father caught my grandfather cheating on my grandmother in the 1990s. For reasons unknown, the lady in question revealed their 40-year affair and gave my father picture proof that she had been dating my grandfather since the 1950s. My grandfather was violent when he was younger, so my father decided to keep the affair a secret to protect my grandmother—but he still used it to his advantage.
My father threatened to show the picture to my grandmother if his father ever became aggressive again. Unfortunately, my father passed before he had the chance to tell her the truth. My grandparents are still married, and this secret would do some crazy damage to our family today—especially since my grandfather now has dementia, and would ironically be blissfully unaware of it all.
59. That Escalated Quickly
The biggest secret I've kept from my partner is about when I tooted. It escalated to ridiculous proportions. Like, hent checking the entire house, as well as asking the neighbors if they smelled anything, because he thought “it could be a gas leak”. The whole time I knew it was a waste of time, but I couldn't say anything.
Cast Of Thousands , Shutterstock
60. Ignorance Is Bliss
Early on in our relationship, I made breakfast for my then girlfriend and her kids using some pancake mix she had in the pantry. After making the pancakes and serving them, I went to mix up a little more to make mine...and I realized there were some maggots in the dry mix.
They were pretty much done eating, and telling me how good they were, so I decided that ignorance was better than telling them. Taking that one to my grave.
61. Secret Stalker
My secret from my guy is about how we really met…He thinks a mutual friend decided to play matchmaker, which is true. But there's way more to the story. A friend of mine sent screenshots of my his dating app profile saying, “I’ve just found your future husband”.
Some light googling led me to discover we shared a mutual friend; I spoke to him and he played matchmaker. Six years later, I’m never telling him that I basically stalked him first.
62. Secret Shopper
Almost 20 years ago, when I was about nine years old, I used my mom’s credit card information to buy some toys from a random website. The site was obviously 100% fake but I was a kid and didn’t know much about anything at the time. The next day, my mom freaked out when she found out that there was a $500 transaction she didn’t make.
The people at her bank wanted to look at my computer, but, thankfully, she told them that I couldn’t have done it because I didn’t know anything about credit cards or online shopping. Just a few days before my little mistake, she had been traveling, so to this day, she believes that someone in Perú had taken her credit card information.
63. Secret Snacker
I had food intolerance until I hit puberty. For the first 13 years of my life, I could only eat chicken, potatoes, rice, beans, and bread. I was not allowed to eat anything else—and no spices either. So every time there was an event or a party, I would bring my own chips and that was all that I was allowed to eat.
Eventually, though, I would eat what the other kids were eating. From there it developed to taking banned foods from the supermarket so that I could them out myself. I did this for many years until the doctor told me I no longer have food allergies. If I had been caught back then it would have backfired pretty hard on me.
64. Prom Crashers
When I was a senior in high school, I went to prom with a group of friends. I had bought a single ticket, not a couple’s ticket. One of my friends knew a guy who wanted to go to our prom but couldn’t because he went to a different high school, so I let him walk in next to me and pretended he was my date. Thankfully, nobody looked closely enough at my ticket to realize it wasn’t for two people.
65. He Didn’t Start The Fire
This happened to me when I was in fourth grade, back then we had a special needs kid in our class. He would often have sudden outbursts and overall was quite the hassle. Anyone, one day we had to get matches from our homes for a science experiment, and me being the chaotic kid I decided to try lighting a match in the classroom, which caused quite a stir.
And when the class was interrogated about what happened and who did it, I shifted the blame to the autistic kid, and due to his previous records and tendencies, they didn’t doubt me in the slightest. The autistic kid got a temporary suspension, while I got away scot-free.
I made it through the whole year without anyone suspecting a thing, and the next year I moved schools, so the chances of them finding the true perpetrator is impossible.
Am I proud of it, no. I exploited a person’s disability for my benefits, and I feel like a terrible person for doing it. As a kid I didn’t think much of it, I just thought I got away with it and that's all, but now that I am more grown and mature, I realize the absolute gravity of the situation. I could’ve gotten this poor kid expelled for something he had zero involvement in.
66. Road Ragers
I was involved in a road rage incident that caused an accident, and I fled the scene.
I was at a red light waiting to turn left when a motorcycle pulled up to the car in front of me and they started talking through the window. I honked as the light had been green and I waited at least 30 seconds but I didn’t wanna miss the light because I was on my way to one of my college classes.
The car drove off but the man on the motorcycle began spitting on my car and yelling at me. I honked and flipped him off, and he turned left and I quickly followed. He then proceeded to cut me off, screaming at me, and brake-checking me. I refused to let him get away with it—so as soon as traffic let me I did the same to him, and when I cut him off he must have hit the curb and crashed.
I didn’t make any contact with him, but I did cause him to crash and I just sped off. I saw a fire truck pull over to help the guy… I do feel pretty guilty about that. Since then I don’t engage with people on the road anymore, it’s not worth it.
67. Finders Keepers
A customer came in a couple of days ago and paid with a gift card. The register had trouble with the CVV code on the back and froze for a couple of seconds. Before I had the time to fix the issue, the customer had taken their groceries and left.
Now I'm sitting there and thinking she must have scammed me with a gift card without any balance. I put the gift card back in the register and thought nothing of it. At the end of the shift I let curiosity take the best of me, and I took it home. When I got home I checked the balance, and there was 550 dollars on it.
I have decided to use it all to pay for food and necessities for the rest of the month. I should point out that I am a struggling student, working two jobs on the side. Not that it makes it any more ethical.
68. Sleep Struggles
A secret from my girl? I sleep better alone than with her, even though she loves sleeping together. Although I haven’t told her, I believe she suspects it because she has been making suggestions such as sleeping more at my place, since we don’t live together at the moment.
Usually, we pick up two twin mattresses and push them together on the floor. We have separate blankets. I’m really sensitive to heat and hardly feel cold, whereas for her it’s the opposite. She feels cold frequently, sometimes even when I’m hot. Compromising on a room temperature is often complicated, especially since she sleeps poorly when I turn the fan on.
No matter what, I sleep so much better when I am alone, but I would hate to tell her that.
69. Oh, Snap!
The secret I’m keeping from my spouse is that I chipped our wonderful granite quartz counter (that he picked out) and filled it with white putty. I will take this to my grave.
70. Card Sharks
In 2006, here in Canada, there was a huge oil drilling boom in Alberta. Lots of young guys my age went out to Alberta to make $10k/mo+ doing manual labor jobs.
Several of my friends went. I stayed home because I was making a living playing poker at the time. One of my friends was injured on the job out there and invited me out there to play poker with him. There were tons of poker games going on everywhere, lots of young guys with tons of cash.
We spent the entire winter cheating at poker. We had a dozen tricks. Most of it centered around the idea of loading the bottom of the deck and base-dealing each other’s cards (mechanics grip). We had some good communication tricks, and we did it very well. We could make a couple grand per night.
We never got caught. It was a crummy living. We slept in a van or hotels for the winter and ate gas station food for a while.
71. Who’s The Boss Now?
I came into work one day and a female coworker had been using my computer to Facebook chat. She had gone home and accidentally left her Facebook up. So, seeing how it was my office and my computer, I read through some of the IMs. She had been sleeping with her boss for months and the conversations were VERY intimate.
Oh yeah, my boss is married. In one conversation he laughs about how the female employee left "five minutes before my wife came home". Now, the boss and I are even as far as rank goes, but we rarely get along and haven't for years. I've always thought he was a loser and this confirmed it.
This took place about three years ago. We've had several head-to-head arguments since then and I've always known I could ruin his life if I wanted to, but I've always taken the higher road. He has no idea I have that full conversation still on my computer.
72. Facebook Family
I found out my father isn't my biological father.
My real father passed a few years back and I never got to meet him while he was alive. Apparently, my mother was in love with him and once my parents split for a brief period in the early '80s I was conceived. Once I was born, my mother left him and continued with my father.
The twisted part? Nobody knows I know, and I found his kids and family on Facebook (I haven't spoken of this to them or sent a friend request). Occasionally when I'm feeling down I go view their profiles and see how their lives are going. So I have two younger half-siblings I've never met. I doubt they know I exist.
I'm scared of telling my folks I know in fear of reigniting fires that have burned out or hurt our relationship deeply.
73. You Can’t Pray A Lie
In my junior year of high school, I had to write a six-page paper on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ugh. During Spring Break, I found out that my sister had the same assignment two years prior. I asked if I could use her paper, which she had got a 91% on, and she told me it was fine as long as I denied that she had anything to do with it if I got caught.
So I changed about 30 words to better fit my writing style, updated the MLA format to the present (it had changed slightly in those two years), and copied it into a new document (in case the metadata was ever looked into). I ended up getting a 99% on it and aced the course. My sister, to this day, still claims I owe her one.
74. Unexpected Consequences
A year ago, my secret would have been “people finding out that I’m bi”. I lived 36 years of my life as a hetero man with a wife and two kids. Denying that part of my identity did me no favors. In March, I came out to my partner of 16 years. It did not go well. My already fragile marriage was ruined. I may have lost my wife but I didn’t lose anyone else.
My daughters, father, mother—everyone that mattered understood and accepted me. I now have a new partner who loves and accepts me for who I am. I was able to keep the house and I get to co-parent our beautiful girls. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. This won’t work for everyone, but sometimes it’s healthier, to be honest.
75. Savage
I used to get along with most of my coworkers, but not this one particular person. To say I hated her would be an understatement. This one time, she took her wedding ring off and left it on her desk at work. What I did next was absolutely heinous.
I found it and sold it for gold at the pawn shop. Unfortunately, I only got like $60 bucks for it.
76. Swipe Right?
A little while back I downloaded Tinder to try it out. The tenth woman who came up was a friend's wife.
77. Forbidden Love
One of my good friends' wives is in love with me. They have been married and have three kids, and she has told me that she is willing to leave all of that to be with me. If that info got out, I know at least four people whose lives would be turned upside down. Doesn't make it better that I'm a chick and am 15 years younger than she is.
78. Not The Sharpest…
I teach high school.
A solid C student who is a good kid with not quite enough sense comes up to me after class. "Mr. Deradius, I was fishing this morning and forgot I had this in my pocket. I wanted to do the right thing".
My eyebrows instantly raised—he proceeded to hand me a pocket cutter,
The district has a zero-tolerance policy. It's unclear what will happen to this kid (depends on whether it has happened before), but it will be some pretty bad mojo.
The last thing I want is for this kid to learn first-hand at this point in his life that doing the right thing will get you fed into the wheels of a terrible bureaucracy where you will then be ground into dust. I knew I had to find a way around this.
So I told him about the policy and what would happen to him if I weren't me. Then I put the cutter in my pocket (wondering to myself if I'll get fired if I'm caught with it) and give it back to him at the end of the day, with a statement along the lines of: "I never saw this, you're going to go straight home and never bring this back to school, and we're never going to speak of this again".
Very, very rarely do I break or bend any rules or laws. I drive five miles under the speed limit. I felt guilty even doing this. But in this case, I could not in good conscience turn this kid in for doing what he was supposed to do.
79. Pro Snorkeling Tip
My biggest secret is that I pooped in the ocean while snorkeling off of Hawaii. That's not all. That was the reason for all the beautiful fish swarming around us all of a sudden (bon appetit, dear fish). Yes, indeed, it was magical. And I kept the details all to myself.
80. Secretly Dumb
I’ll never tell my spouse that I failed school. I had to take a basic education course before getting into university, and then it took me eight years to graduate from a three-year degree.
81. I Got You, Bro
Me and my identical twin brother are both juniors at our uni, he's a outgoing, social frat who's always the life of the party and drowning in poon. I, on the other hand, find solace in the quieter things, a small, close group of friends, picnics at the park, low-key get-togethers at my girlfriend's house, nothing large, unlike my bro.
Well, one night my bro had too much to drink and just started to go a-wall. He got into some fights, threw a TV through the window in his frat house…
And got caught on camera sucking face with a guy.
First off lemme say that I don't have anything wrong with gay people, they're no different than heterosexuals. Me and my brother were both raised this way by our parents and he shares the same view. However, his socialite status would shatter if he was discovered to be the dreaded, earth-shattering, dog-kicking, male-into-males that all of his "in-crowd" friends blindly hated.
So I did what any loving brother would do, I told everyone that it was me, not him. My friends and girlfriend knew the truth, and didn't care honestly, however, my brother was amazed I would do something like that. Seeing his face light up like that made all the jokes and ridicule worth it!
Twins-From the womb to the tomb!
82. Like Father, Like Son?
When I was a senior in high school, I started dating a guy a year younger than me. Right before we split he confessed that his dad and my mother had an affair.
I didn't believe it until I confronted her one day and she admitted it. She begged me not to tell my father. 14 years later I still haven't, but I was spoiled and used it as blackmail every chance I got.
83. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
I know for a fact my mother cheated on my father, and who she did it with. However, I know that life is complicated and people don't live in a black-and-white world. Furthermore, I was young and don't know the full context of their relationship. As a child, I was angry, but as I've gotten older I've seen that life is about choices. Sometimes people make bad ones. It doesn't always make them a bad person (I'm not excusing the behavior). It just makes them a person.
My parents are long since divorced for other reasons, but here's the plot twist—my dad is still madly in love with my mom. It would crush him and my younger sister if he ever found out. I'd rather my father continue to reminisce on the good times he and my mother had rather than tarnish everything because 'I need to tell someone'.
84. Bed Of Lies
My friend's husband is under the impression that he is the first person she’s been with. She cheated on him a couple of months into their relationship. Now they're married, he has no idea and is one of the nicest people ever which makes it worse.
85. Which Witch Is Which
My mother-in-law is hyper-Christian and very anti-LGBTQ+. She is very proud of her relation to a Salem witch trials judge. I am married to her amazing son and his parents have no idea that I’m bi, agnostic-ish, and a witch. My husband knows this and totally supports me but she has no clue. I occasionally attend Bible study with her for the gossip and connections.
86. All In The Family
Last Christmas I learned that my older sister and I are technically only half-sisters. My sister’s biological father tried to start a relationship with my mom that resulted in a pregnancy and ultimately didn’t work out. That biological father is in heaven now and I didn’t probe into his identity or his demise in case it was painful for my mom.
My mom raised my sister as a widow at my grandmother’s house during the 80s. When she met my father in the 90s, they really clicked. Shortly after, they got married, moved into a new house, and had me. My mom told me to never call my sister my half-sister and just pretend that all of this doesn’t matter. If anyone asks about the 10-year age gap, I just tell them that it’s a long story.
87. Adult-ish
I feel like I’m pretending to be an adult every day. I do not, whatsoever, feel like an adult. I work 40 to 50 hours a week for a multinational manufacturer in a very fast-paced environment, people come to me for answers all day, I own a vehicle and have my own place, and people say things like “You always have your act together” and “You’re so responsible”. But there’s something that they don’t know.
I have bills and responsibilities like every other functioning adult out there, but it feels like I’m pretending. The absolute truth? Ninety percent of the time I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. I Google everything. I am incredibly awkward when I talk to people. I feel like I’m just this kid running around playing dress-up with a bunch of real adults.
88. Would-Be Whistleblower
I used to work in a chain hotel in the burbs of a Midwestern city while I was in high school. It was a pretty easy job, but there happened to be a government-owned plant down the road that was going through a privatization process. The company that was buying the plant had a lot of their execs stay at our hotel during the process.
Well, one day a guy in a suit comes down late in the evening and asks me if I can fax some documents for him (late 90's alert! Fax machines in use). I ask him if he wants to wait for the confirmation and he says no thanks and just leaves.
Well, I go back to the office and start loading the documents into the fax machine and start browsing through and…holy cow. All the pages I'm sending are reviewing all the malfeasance, gross negligence, and environmental disasters that had been covered up at this manufacturing plant. Crazy stuff was going on like just dumping chemicals into the watershed that fed into the nearby town, chemical "storage" ponds whose dams would break, and on and on and on.
I could have totally screwed up a lot of people's days by making a copy of that and dropping it off at the local newspaper, but I was a coward and just dropped it in the trash bin and went on with my day.
89. Meet The Parents
I was the other guy in an affair. That's bad enough, but I also crossed the line to the point of no return—I ended up getting her pregnant. She gave birth to her in December. The husband still does not know. I regret my stupid decisions and now have to live with my mistakes and the weight that it brings.
I 'made a name for myself' so to say with the mothers of old classmates. I was a booty call for 6 mothers whose children I graduated high school with.
90. Still In The Closet
I have had affairs with three active and two retired NFL players. I'm a guy. I met the first one through a response to a Craigslist ad and he introduced me to the others.
Three of them are married or engaged to women. Announcing what I've done would ruin several lives, maybe even careers.
91. An Expensive Hobby
One of my biggest secrets from my wife is how much I’ve spent setting up a saltwater fish tank. She called me crazy for spending 1,000 bucks on lights. She doesn’t know the half of it.
92. Truth Hertz
I work at a business where the owners have been breaking the law for several years. Let's say it's a car rental, though it isn't. The law says the business is only allowed to lease cars to persons that will use the cars for extended periods, let's say month to month. These leases are also much cheaper than say, a daily rental–$15 monthly vs $13 a day. So the amount of money the business can make is capped.
They've been breaking this rule for I don't know how long, a long time. Leasing the cars for $13 a day sometimes even more when there are a lot of people in town for events, and they need to rent cars.
They make a considerable amount of money. God knows what kind of taxes they've been avoiding from underwriting their profits.
They've been investigated a few times but can provide very primitive fraudulent documents that say they only lease for extended periods.
If I were to turn over the computer files that say otherwise, they would owe a certain city a fortune and have to close their business. I've considered turning them into the authorities or blackmailing them. Why? They don't pay me well. They pay me peanuts.
I probably won't do either though, as I'm almost certain they'd hire some nefarious fellows to harm me and people I care about.
93. Everyone’s Guilty
At the end of eighth grade we all had a giant, I mean a giant project of writing all these papers, including immaculate bibliographies, and putting them in a binder. It was infamous. Even in sixth grade, we all heard horror stories. We technically had all year to do the project, but being eighth-graders we waited till the last possible moment.
Many pulled multiple all-nighters in a row. Kids from the high school who had already completed the project sold their papers and bibliography lists. It was pretty brutal for that level of schooling.
I showed up for school one day and the girl whose locker was next to mine was not present. She was cute and often hit on me so naturally I asked where she was.
She had been expelled. It was a private school with a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism, and the teacher discovered one of her papers had been copied directly from Wikipedia. She was instead-gone, and it was kind of a big deal because her father was a big guy in the city government.
The real tragedy here... all of us plagiarized. All of us. We just changed words and sentences around so that they wouldn't match the Wikipedia articles. She was doing the same thing but forgot to alter that one paper.
94. Gave Away The Glory
A girl in my high school took a bunch of advanced placement courses early and pulled far ahead of the class. The yearbook took her photo early senior year to put her in the yearbook as valedictorian.
I took my advanced placement classes later and so near the end of the year, I was informed that I was the valedictorian. They asked me to come in and have my photo taken to replace hers in the yearbook. I would also be replacing her speech at the grad ceremonies. This would have been great news, if not for only one problem—she had been a friend of mine for 13 years: she was in my kindergarten class. No one even knew she was valedictorian, she was so quiet and introverted.
I refused. I refused to take my photo and I refused to give the speech. I wanted HER to have some glory, for once in her life.
They kept her photo but relabeled her as "top senior". And she gave a really good speech. I was happy with the knowledge that I was on top and was happy that she got to shine for one single day in her life.
95. An Unbreakable Bond
In 2013, it was my first semester of college. I had an anthropology class at 8:30 am and I’m not exactly a morning person. Apparently, this girl I sat next to wasn’t either. It was one of those things where we just saw each other and knew because we were both absolute zombies. We had an unspoken bond: “No one else will understand how much we want to sleep, so let’s just hang with each other”.
We stayed pretty true to that, too. We’d often go for food after class, so, understandably, we got close. But we were both super-religious and thought every form of attraction was some kind of sin. So, as close as we got, we were always kind of awkward with each other. When we got an assignment to go do interviews, it felt natural to go with each other and just help out.
So, we got mine done pretty early in the semester but hers took a bit more planning. We had to drive about two hours to this mountain city where her grandfather lived to talk to him. I didn’t drive at the time, so we took her car. There was about three months’ worth of romantic tension built up between us by then, so the drive was slightly uncomfortable.
Once the interview was completed, we had dinner in a small pub. It was about dusk, and both of us said that we wanted to wander into the forest for a bit before heading back. Just to take in the atmosphere for a while, you know? So we parked by the side of the road and went down into the trees. It was extremely beautiful.
We lived in the desert, where most of the vegetation we were used to was a few palm trees here and there but this was amazing. No sound from the city, no smog from the cars, just people, trees, and silence. She ended up brushing up against me to get past some roots, but in a way that felt almost deliberate. I tested it back by brushing up against her at times when I didn't necessarily need to.
We finally decided to say “screw it” to all our pious fears and just decided to have fun.
I wasn't a virgin at that point, but I had made a lot of really dumb decisions up to that moment, which was why I was as religious as I was. She was a virgin, despite being a few years older than me. There was that feeling that it would last forever and that we would always belong to each other.
Afterward, during our walk of shame to her car, things were obviously awkward. Now, the drive back home was uncomfortable for pretty much the opposite reason as when we were headed up there. The silence gave me a lot of time to think, though. I decided that I was just gonna tell her exactly how much I loved her. Except I chickened out and didn’t say anything.
I don't know why I didn't tell her. I guess because I was freshly 18 and have always been kinda bad with people. It was Friday and I knew I’d see her again on Monday—that would be my moment. Monday came, and I was excited and nervous. I even dressed better than I normally do. She didn't show. We usually didn't question when the other person didn't show, so I didn't think much of it.
When she missed the whole week, I started getting concerned. I tried texting and calling her, but no replies. She missed a second week. That Friday I asked the professor. Turns out, he had just got the news and was going to tell the class before he began the lecture. On the Sunday after our forest escapade, she’d been in a car accident and didn’t make it.
For a while, I didn’t react. I didn’t believe it.
I didn't know anything about her family outside of her grandfather, so I used what I could to find her family. I showed up at her brother’s work. He could see that I was pretty shaken as I spoke, and I could see that he was getting kind of agitated, so we decided to wait until his shift was over to talk. He told me about how happy she was in the days before the accident.
He said that she’d been pretty depressed, but had just started to get out of her room more, was getting along with her parents, and was generally more fun to be around. Then he told me that someone had been driving while inebriated and hit her from behind, wrapping her car around a tree. That was what did it. That was the moment that I really felt the impact.
For days I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t WANT to do anything. I failed all but one class that semester. My entire life was basically falling apart. Through all of it, I never really told my parents, friends, or anyone. All they knew was that I was in a pretty bad place.
I’ve had a few attempts at relationships since, but it was hard for me to not feel guilty whenever I got close to someone because I was still in love with her.
I got rid of my belief in God and His “plan”, because how could I justify her senseless demise at the hands of some irresponsible jerk? Since then, I’ve met someone else who has helped me get over my grief. I’ve been pretty open about my baggage, as she was about hers. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with my existential awareness too, I guess. So I’m in a much healthier place overall.
96. Sometimes They Start Young
I accidentally took a bag of shredded cheese from the store. I was seven or eight months pregnant and I had my two-year-old with me. He was sitting in the seat part of the shopping cart. I gave him the bag of cheese to play with and didn’t realize that he somehow ended up sitting on it. As I was loading my groceries and putting him into his car seat, I saw the contraband.
For about two seconds I considered going back into the store to pay for it. I then realized that I was completely OK with being an outlaw. I was also way too tired to walk back into the store at that point. Sixteen years later I’m still sleeping well at night. I now realize why my mom NEVER took us to the store. I’m one of seven kids, so it was her only alone time.
97. A Sight To Remember
When I was a teenager, I was woken up in the middle of the night by some chaos going on in my house. I came out of my room and was shocked by what I saw. There was my dad, tearing through the house wearing nothing but his Red Wings jersey. He was holding his semi-automatic and headed towards the front door.
My mom swept me out of the way and locked us in my sister's room. Apparently, someone tried to break into my window but didn't realize that my parents' window was right beside mine. My dad woke up, grabbed his piece, and chased the dude down the street.
He was completely unclothed, running with a weapon at 3 am. He was screaming, "I'm going to find you, you schmuck"! I'm pretty sure every neighbor called emergency by that time.
Eventually, law enforcement officers came, with their helicopter–the whole nine yards. What they told us chilled me to the bone. It turns out the dude was a wanted felon. He had stood outside my window long enough to have puffed half a pack of smokes. The only reason he didn’t get into the house was because we had storm windows.
That's what he was trying to pry off when my dad woke up. They did eventually find him hiding in a neighbor's shed. At the time all this happened, my dad was in his 30s and was 6'2". He was a construction worker with a shaved head and a goatee. He was very menacing looking when he wanted to be.
Thank god no one had security cameras at the time because the image of this angry, unclothed man, running down the middle of the road in work boots, already kept the neighbors' tongues wagging for MONTHS. This happened in the mid 90s.
98. Indebted On My Big Day
I got a credit card for my 18th birthday and was told not to use it because it wasn't "active yet". When I landed my first real corporate job a year later at 22 years old, the company ran a credit report on me and found out I had a $350K line opened. I was completely confused. He showed me the credit report printout. When I saw the bank's name, I remembered that my dad had accounts with them but didn't think anything of it.
When I got home I called the bank and inquired about the account listed on the credit report and that's when I found out the dark truth. My father had tricked me into signing a co-mortgage, and not credit card paperwork on my 18th birthday. I had received debt on my big day. I was angry and sad. My older sister and my mom were at his house for dinner and that's where I confronted him.
I didn't pay a single cent. It was the first time that I can remember standing up to my father. I called him out in front of the family and I threatened court action. I also called the bank and informed them of the situation. It was all resolved less than a week later.
99. Kids Text The Darndest Things
When my six-year-old daughter was using her mom’s phone to text me emojis and she accidentally pasted in my wife’s last text to her lover. It read: “It’s a holiday weekend so work will be slow tomorrow. I can get out around 1:00. Do you want to do something other than bang? Something outside?” Marriage over, just like that.
100. Daddy Issues
This was one of those revelations that haunted me the very moment it came out. It was a case where my client, a mother, was trying to get a restraining order against her brother for harming her kid. The entire time, she’d been super dodgy about the kid’s father’s identity. Well, in the middle of open court…she confessed that the brother was her child’s father.
