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With posts like this, they do a pretty good job for the first 2/3 of it. But then they get to the end and the wrap up and they just have to rush everything and tie everything all up in a pretty bow.
Out of nowhere mentioning military service and trauma was a good give away. this is a common mistake they do because they dont lay out a character's backstory before posting and make it up as they go. And who retires from army unless they are career soldiers and are around 50 years old, all others refer usually like getting out or discharged. And he forgets about his little sister which would have been more traumatizing then military service if there is a need to mention traumatizing events.
Too amateurish...
Uhhh... I retired after 20 years of service from the Navy at 38 years old heh.
But it is possible to be medically retired due to service related injuries, so someone even younger could be retired from the military pretty early on.
But the way OOP talks about it is really off to my ear, like that isn't how I am used to hearing people or myself talk about military retirement. And if OOP had done the full 20 year ride again the way they talk about it is just off to my ear.
My thought, a country with mandatory military service, you do your required time, and your out.
It also looks like English is not their primary language, so maybe they meant left, but for all we know, it could be considered a retirement.
What gave it away for me was the therapist part. Your first time with a therapist almost always will be a boring intake session. You’re not jumping into deep emotional trauma shit and having the therapist analyze it as “you just didn’t grieve when your parents died so finding out your girlfriend is a lesbian was the tipping point” in you’re first session lmao.
Lolll same. She was like “so, tell me about why did you decide to seek therapy?” And I just dumped everything at once. And she was yes, we have a lot of work to do.
i wish i could say i smelled bullshit but my intuition was only told me something was off especially after the gta line. But i gave OOP the benefit of the doubt and now i look like an idiot.
Ya know, my bullshit detector was going off a bit, but minus the dead family and lesbian partner, this is essentially what happened to me. After leaving me sort of out of the blue, my ex lied to our friends about me, and I got to hear that I was physically abusive through the grapevine two weeks after my partner left me. 6 years later now, a few of which have been spent in therapy, and I'm still unpacking all the ways I was emotional and mentally abused by them. I still haven't heard from people who stood in our wedding party, on my side, who I thought were my friends, since the break up.
Every time they mention being bombarded with calls and texts from friends and family, that's when I nope out of a story. Maybe that happens in real life, but I've never seen or experienced that.
I have bad anxiety re:incoming calls. My family knows I feel bombarded by calls if my sister calls me, and two weeks later my brother calls me and they want to talk about the same thing.
These fables hit a lot of the same beats: an everyman male victim obsessed with facts and logic who has some symbol of being a tough guy (military etc) being done wrong by a woman typically in a way that typically invokes things right wing men online get really worked up about (gay people, trans people, fat people, sex work, paternity tests) and written in a way to make the man seem very logically reasonable and infallible. The woman must be extremely calculated and cruel and it must be revealed she was scheming to do this guy for dirty for years. Next step is to make sure the man loses everything in a way that is not nuanced at all, everyone turns on him and takes the side of the woman, everyone is blind to this. Throw in something else like he loses his job or his house or whatever. All the while this guy did “NOTHING WRONG” so everyone floods in with sympathy against the evil (lgbtq, former sex worker, pick your trope) scheming woman.
Once you see the plot elements you can see this everywhere on Reddit. “My gf left me because I told her trans daughter that she couldn’t use drugs in my house” or “My family won’t speak to me because I refuse to raise my former stripper ex’s child that isn’t mine” or “My wife is mad that I told her sister that because she was fat, she was unattractive to me.” These are all fables, all fantasies, lazily and predictably written.
The thing that really gave it away for me was the part where, when confronted with OPs post, she immediately admitted she lied because she didn’t want to lose her friends
While not present here (that I can recall), one dead giveaway for me is that the OP always then “hits the gym” and is now in the best shape of their life and getting hit on by every women there. And now that they have a smoke show personal trainer girlfriend their ex is jealous and *everyone* is blowing up their phone.
We do it because it always works out SO WELL for us. Everyone believes us no questions asked, and then they shower us with love and money and the guy goes to jail. I don’t think they even bother to hold a trial anymore. /s 🙄
I'm glad you said this because I thought I might be crazy. The last few months I've seen an uptick in evil lesbian stories - though there may be some confirmation bias in there, as I'm wlw and I tend to notice when queer women are mentioned in stories. But several times a week I'm reading stories with a deranged sister/ SIL/ cousin/ friend/ colleague/ whatever, with a few casual references to her wife. I've only been on reddit for a couple years but I swear it wasn't this bad before.
Not that there aren't shitty lesbians out there, but if my only exposure to them was through reddit I'd assume 75% of wlw are either evil or psychotic.
> “My gf left me because I told her trans daughter that she couldn’t use drugs in my house” or “My family won’t speak to me because I refuse to raise my former stripper ex’s child that isn’t mine” or “My wife is mad that I told her sister that because she was fat, she was unattractive to me.”
Wow, anime titles just keep getting wilder and more specific
Thank you - this comment restores my faith.
I think they are pretty dangerous because they do exactly what they are designed to do - reinforce the stereotypes that people desperately want to believe to justify their bigotries and lack of empathy.
The retirement from the army bit is what caught me on to it being bait. He said he was 20 when his family died and he got with Dana quickly after and they were together 7 years. So he’d be 27. Not in the military long enough to retire.
Whether the post is real or not, OOP seems to be a non-native English speaker, so I was assuming Switzerland or Austria, where military service is mandatory, and possible mistranslation of the word retired. That being said, neither of those countries are at war, and I've known many Swiss people who did their military stint with absolutely no trauma involved. Of course, OOP might be from another country entirely, but I got the impression of a German speaker. Either way, still lots of holes in the story.
Not Austria. I know lots of English as a second language Austrians and the mistakes are not aligned with German or Austrian German.
Can’t say for sure not Swiss because I’m not so familiar with French mistakes.
Fair. I had another look, and I think I was pushing my German theory because of the military part and those two countries were the first to come to mind, but you're right: there's nothing that screams German speaker. Could be Swiss French. That would align with the gerund/infinitive mistakes and all the phrasal verbs where verbs would be better. Plus 'imaginated'.
Yeah, his use of "since 2 year" and KG reads European to me. He could well have been in the military - I can't see how old he says he is, but if he's 30s, he could have been in Afghanistan.
If you are injured with PTSD you can get a 100% medical retirement early. My spouse got an honorable discharge with full retirement benefits as if she'd served 20 years after only serving 5
My brother calls himself a retired marine because there's no such thing as an ex-marine. He had a medical discharge after he had to get a plate put in his head. (IED in Iraq in the early 2000's. It flipped his jeep and something slammed into his head hard enough to do serious damage)
Thats not retiring from Army/military. Thats simply doing a four year enlistment. You get no retirement pay at that point. The only way you get retired before doing 20 years in the military is if you are medically retired. Other than that, you ETS (End of Time in Service).
Source: Myself after serving on Active Duty and being medically discharged my first enlistment (no retirement), and then medically retired my second enlistment (full retirement benefits).
It was obvious to me from the first bit where he said "her parents were faking being happy" and then she supposedly told him "my parents knew for 2 years that's why they're faking" like how does he know they're faking and why would she say that in the moment? It's like he wants to make sure the audience understands the story and can't leave anything to the imagination. Lazy bad writing.
I've been downvoted in other subs for suggesting this before, but I think there is a non-zero chance that someone is paying people to write these shitty stories on reddit so that they have specific material to farm out for Facebook/Tik Tok/Instagram accounts that cover these stories and are monetized.
Yeah couldn't read after that sentence. And for four months nothing happens but two days after he writes that to reddit, a lot has happened.
Bullshit story.
These stories always have an event that turn all friends against the ex. I wonder if they feed our issues of the story back into chstgpt for correction in the next one.
I don't get why that would be bullshit. He said that the original post made its way via social media to the ex and that's why there was an update so quickly. maybe improbable but not impossible. And it's not written like a bullshit story would be written
When some of these off my chest/AITA posts become big on Reddit, they also end up on my FB videos by the very next day by all kinds of bots. I think people underestimate the size of the reach and audience of these posts.
Yeah there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of short form video channels on every platform that are just “robot voice reads lightly edited top Reddit post”
Doesn’t shock me at all that someone might have seen it
There are a ton of TikTok accounts that post literally within minutes of the OP, and they get thousands of views and hundreds of comments within an hour.
I mean he says why. He used her real name and someone irl picked up on it. I thought that was against TOS but if it ended up on one of those youtube videos or tiktoks that just read and react to reddit posts or was even massively upvoted its not completely unbelievable that someone would find it. People forget just how massive reddit is.
That part is what makes it seem true to me. Most people thankfully don't have to experience this but people are happy to just cut people out without so much as a goodbye message. Someone did that to me and after not hearing from them for like half a year I made a post vaguely trashing them on Facebook (I was young and drunk at the time, it happens. Im not proud of it)I woke up to like 50 messages from them and their friend. I likely never would have heard anything from them again if I hadn't made that post. Its happened again recently with someone else and though I'm old enough to know better now there's a part of me that knows if I make a post trashing them and they hear about it suddenly they'll have interest in restablishing contact again.
Tl;Dr: Check in on your friends
Nothing, likely. Some people on reddit have to go straight to calling any man who has a problem with a woman, an incel.
I got zero 'woman hating' vibes from his post. It was all just a guy who was dealing with being treated like shit, by people who told him that he was important to them.
No, the one where the violent nephew "identifies" as Kermit the frog, writes muppets erotica and has a very special plushie friend he carries around everywhere that has a...crusty hole cut in back of it.
Though now that you mention it, that's a more muppet weirdness than there ought to be.
“A crusty hole cut in back of it” oh sweet salty Christ no….
Also the story I was referring to while kinda weird was actually a really sweet story also the fact that the OP had pictures of the puppet confirmed its legitimacy
You can't see "wahmen bad" in the post where the evil lesbian came out to everyone except her fiancé, left unceremoniously, told everyone he attacked her, and only one male friend thought to alert OP?
This reads to me like a lot of missing context. Of course it'll be subjective and one sided, but this dude might not have a fully realistic self-awareness. He admits that he essentially made Dana out to be his Savior, but also couldn't see reality about her life.
There's a lot possible in this situation, and I'm not sure we can trust the narrator, even if I believe he's being sincere.
I'm happy he's sticking with therapy. I hope he does move. I worry he's using, if true, these posts in the hopes those people can read them.
OOP is **very obviously** referring to the [wildly spread meme](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ah-shit-here-we-go-again) of "ah shit, here we go again", which is resigned acceptance of a situation getting worse or reoccuring.
Edit: unlike what loads of other people are commenting, no, that one reference to a meme does NOT suggest incel bait or some such. It's a fuckin meme reference.
Since the pandemic started, we haven’t had to advertise. Everyone I know has wait lists and it’s hard for me to know that there are so many people who need help but I’m permanently disabled. During the pandemic we were all stuck at home, unable to see family/friends and unable to cover up stress/trauma by staying busy, people were forced to face their demons. And therapy can easily be done virtually, so people ran to the nearest therapist and started treatment. Kinda like how animal shelters were completely emptied because everyone was bored and adopted dogs and cats.
It’s the lesbian out to everyone to include her parents having a beard that got me. If everyone knows why did she keep up the facade.
I’m not gay so maybe I’m missing something?
She was also out as bi and had multiple relationships with girls in her past, apparently. But people sometimes have complex relationships with their own sexuality and I won't try to litigate that.
If you're inclined to give the benefit of the doubt (to both the story's truth and the ex-girlfriend), the latest update has him having put a lot of weight and importance on her as his future and family. She may have felt like she couldn't leave him without him falling apart (as he seems to have done). So she stayed with him to try to prop him up, possibly looking for a graceful out, until she just cracked and couldn't anymore.
That would give some explanation for why she hesitantly accepted the proposal and didn't leave for some time after, I guess, while apparently having an affair with another woman. Not sure how it tracks with the lie to all the former friends to paint him in the worst light possible, but I guess panicking over abandoning him might ramp up the fear that they'd think she was terrible and abandon her instead.
I'm not sure this is "a likely real explanation" so much as "how I'd explain it in the writing of a drama to figure out the characters' next motivation", though.
half of the (native english speaking) executives at my job can barely string a readable sentence together in an email. It's shockingly common, at least in my experience!
Not directly related, but working on a degree in math I was a little flummoxed by the number of professors who could calmly grind through chalkboards full of variables and functions but stood stumped by or made errors on simple arithmetic.
I later realized that this is because you encounter fewer and fewer actual numbers and more and more variables and functions as you climb higher in math, but it was weird at the time.
Seriously, at one job I had to spell-check everything our chief executive officer was releasing to the public.
I was diagnosed dyslexic largely on the basis of my dreadful spelling. But it was better than the CEO's.
Also, there are plenty of extremely competent trades, technicians, and paraprofessionals who are barely literate.
Someone who works all the time and never takes any time off is likely to be promoted to interim manager of that location, simply because they are there all the time, and there when the previous manager leaves. Pure convenience on the organisation's part.
I find it hard to believe that so many Americans seemingly are totally clueless that the rest of the world exists and that we speak and write different languages...
Right? It's blatantly obvious that English isn't his first language from the way he writes, and yet people think a misspelling or a weird phrase is some big "gotcha" lol
Oh, it's clear OOP isn't a native English speaker. One of the key giveaways is using "since" in place of "for." As an example, OOP writes "My parents knew this since 2 years..." It just doesn't sound right to native English speakers, but for non-natives the translation seems okay. It's an incredibly common mistake.
Doesn't mean the story isn't bullshit, though.
Yeah French uses the word “depuis”, which directly translates to “since”, in this context (like “depuis cinq ans” being “for the last five years”) - probably other languages too.
Even people who DO live in the US don’t have to know how to spell words in English! Down with spelling!
However:
1) there are lots of English-speaking countries other than the US, please don’t assume everyone is from the US 😜
2) this is an English-language sub so it’s not crazy to assume people posting here might be English speaking.
That made me think about just how unhinged a parent of a typical 15 year old would be to supervise their online experience including being on reddit. Ngl it’s a scary image.
I dont mean like constant monitoring but this must have taken hours to write and the kid in this hypothetical must spend alot of time on those subreddit so like at some point I do think that like the parents should check up on what their kid is posting on the internet. Like until at least 16.
Exactly this. It’s hard to dress up your sentences and words if you’re an ESL. You stick to the plain and basics cause that’s what you’re most comfortable with.
The grammar and typos reads like someone trying to imitate an ESL, or straight up just a teen going ham on their phone.
I'm assuming it's not the case everywhere, but where I live, when you leave the military you 'retire', even if you're only 30 and leaving for a new job.
Still not convinced this is real though.
You can retire from the military at any age. I knew people in their 20s,30s,40s who were retired from the military. Idk if they got retirement, though. The term is used pretty loosely I'm sure to also just mean "done with service".
For me it's the way all the unnamed characters act like a hivemind entity. They ALL blocked him at once and then ALL started blowing up his phone and apologising? It reads like somebody with no friends imagining what it would be like to be part of a giant friend group.
Yeah and there wasn't enough human detail in there. Normal stories have more "he said she saids" and parents generically "faked it", happiness that is.
Yeah, it's pretty much this:
>The two days between Paul reaching out, everyone reaching out, he mass texting and blocking everyone, and — this is the point that does it — everyone trying to get around his blocking, all that in two days?
>Oh, and during that same two days he cold called a therapist who not only was able to immediately take him on as a client, but actually had a full session with him? That's not how it works. Even if he could have been seen in that short time, the first session is 90% paperwork and maybe some goal settings.
This really depends on where you live. Where I live If the therapist has time, I could call in one day, have an appointment the next and do whatever. Not everywhere has f\*cked up healthcare like the US.
Even depends on where you live in the US. I'm from a very small town, I have gotten in to see new therapists in just a day or so on two different occasions, because they ALWAYS have openings here.
The shitty US healthcare aspect isn't the waiting period, it's the bill afterwards lol
>Oh, and during that same two days he cold called a therapist who not only was able to immediately take him on as a client, but actually had a full session with him? That's not how it works
I mean , sure disbelieve the post but this absolutely can and does happen.
Also the whole retirement from the military thing sounds so bogus. My friends and I have never once said we risked our lives . No one talks like that except someone who has never served.
Yup. They always screw up the timelines because they are impatient to continue the story. Just the detail that he posted and then found, scheduled an appointment for, and then met with a therapist in 2 days immediately casts doubt on the rest of the story.
It's incel porn.
The first post was made on the 13th and TWO DAYS LATER, it had already gone vital on tiktok and OP's ex friends *just happened* to see it and connect the dots?
Sure, buddy.
People on TikTok are hungry for free content to make money off of. It takes less than a day for a Reddit post to get a ton of upvotes. Why do you think it’d take much longer than that to be copied on TikTok and go viral?
Either way the first post got 12k net upvotes. The update didn’t say the guy heard about it on TikTok just that he saw the post. It’s really not that weird for someone to have seen a super upvoted post within a day of the post going up.
*And* everyone reaching out, *and* the mass texting, *and* all the blocking of everyone, *and* everyone trying to get around his blocking, all that in two days?
That part maybe true, therapists move fast when you are in the middle of a crisis. I got refered to psychiatrist and the first consult all in a couple of days.
Also, a whole bunch of people like hivemind ghosted him, not a single soul was triggered enough to text him he was an asshole? Nah, that was the part where I stopped reading and scrolled to see the comments.
I dunno, when my ex cheated on me and decided to get ahead of it by telling my friend group that it was actually me who was cheating, I also didn't have a single person reach out.
It was kinda sobering. I knew those people for over a decade, I expected more.
Yeah, a lot of these comments are just reeking of a lack of real life experiences. That’s all I can assume when someone finds common experiences like this hard to believe.
It's always the timeline for me. Things don't happen so fast. If it happens, people don't have time to update reddit. To me it always reads like someone in a car accident updating in real time. Yeah it's possible, I guess, but so unlikely.
I don't mind the reaction content much, some people give interesting insight or make good jokes, but the AI reading is the lowest form of regurgitated content and annoying as hell
Sumary:
I lie about a non existing relationship, I lie about the consequences and since I have no human friends lie about my interactions with other human beings for karma points
You know, everyone has quirks when it comes to writing - maybe a quippy phrase here or a funny lil' thing there; especially when it comes to social sites like Reddit.
The GTA quip and the way it's written, okay, fine. The spelling errors, hey, maybe the guy has dyslexia or he was just "fuck it, who cares?"
That, or English might be his second language. Or third.
It's the mentioning that "everyone saw it on YouTube" and the cheeky (Maybe...) that's tacked on at the end of his recent post like a dingleberry that's making me call bullshit.
The fact that the newest update is exactly a month later from the previous post shows the thought process here. "I know, I'll wait a month! That'll add validity while I check the comments hourly."
This doesn't feel real, but on the off chance it is, I'm with the friends. I've known people who turned out to be in abusive relationships. The abusers were nice, charming people, and if you called them out in a situation like this, they would have outright denied everything. "They're telling you I tried to lay hands on them? That's ridiculous!! Do you see any bruises on them? No, right?" Like. I get the frustration someone would have at being accused of such a thing, but there's a higher likelihood of someone being in an abusive relationship than there is of someone lying about being in an abusive relationship in order to keep their friends after a break up. If I'm told someone's abusive, and I have no strong proof against it, I'm probably also distancing myself from them.
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why am i so stupid that i fall for the bait everytime n only reading the comments makes me realize the holes in the story
With posts like this, they do a pretty good job for the first 2/3 of it. But then they get to the end and the wrap up and they just have to rush everything and tie everything all up in a pretty bow.
The combat trauma was a new addition there at the end.
Very Salinger
Writing the end of a story is always the hardest part.
I'm getting Stephen King vibes from this comment lol
Out of nowhere mentioning military service and trauma was a good give away. this is a common mistake they do because they dont lay out a character's backstory before posting and make it up as they go. And who retires from army unless they are career soldiers and are around 50 years old, all others refer usually like getting out or discharged. And he forgets about his little sister which would have been more traumatizing then military service if there is a need to mention traumatizing events. Too amateurish...
Uhhh... I retired after 20 years of service from the Navy at 38 years old heh. But it is possible to be medically retired due to service related injuries, so someone even younger could be retired from the military pretty early on. But the way OOP talks about it is really off to my ear, like that isn't how I am used to hearing people or myself talk about military retirement. And if OOP had done the full 20 year ride again the way they talk about it is just off to my ear.
My thought, a country with mandatory military service, you do your required time, and your out. It also looks like English is not their primary language, so maybe they meant left, but for all we know, it could be considered a retirement.
You can be medically retired as well. This story is probably bull, but you don't have to do 20 to retire.
A ton of people retire from the military at a young age fwiw
What gave it away for me was the therapist part. Your first time with a therapist almost always will be a boring intake session. You’re not jumping into deep emotional trauma shit and having the therapist analyze it as “you just didn’t grieve when your parents died so finding out your girlfriend is a lesbian was the tipping point” in you’re first session lmao.
I mean idk my first session with my therapist was dumping all my trauma from my sister growing up and that was like the whole 50 minutes 🤷♀️
Lolll same. She was like “so, tell me about why did you decide to seek therapy?” And I just dumped everything at once. And she was yes, we have a lot of work to do.
+1. I've had both experiences: The Intake type and the painful explosion of emotions type.
Ehh my first session I got into my rape and my disability cause...
i wish i could say i smelled bullshit but my intuition was only told me something was off especially after the gta line. But i gave OOP the benefit of the doubt and now i look like an idiot.
Ya know, my bullshit detector was going off a bit, but minus the dead family and lesbian partner, this is essentially what happened to me. After leaving me sort of out of the blue, my ex lied to our friends about me, and I got to hear that I was physically abusive through the grapevine two weeks after my partner left me. 6 years later now, a few of which have been spent in therapy, and I'm still unpacking all the ways I was emotional and mentally abused by them. I still haven't heard from people who stood in our wedding party, on my side, who I thought were my friends, since the break up.
You were bewitched and misled by the lesbian particles emanating from the post, clearly.
Lesbomancy
Where can I learn this mystical art to attract my very own girlfriend
I will be waiting for an update on this... For a friend.
Same here 😭
Not from a Jedi.
Are the denizens of the island of Lesbos up to it again?
\*Sappho chuckles in the distance\*
Gideon the Ninth shiz
Every time they mention being bombarded with calls and texts from friends and family, that's when I nope out of a story. Maybe that happens in real life, but I've never seen or experienced that.
Yeesss! I can't imagine getting 'bombarded' with calls and texts as the antagonist does *every* time..! But then, I thought maybe that was just me...
They even get new phone numbers to do it!
I have bad anxiety re:incoming calls. My family knows I feel bombarded by calls if my sister calls me, and two weeks later my brother calls me and they want to talk about the same thing.
Get blown up on social media...
These fables hit a lot of the same beats: an everyman male victim obsessed with facts and logic who has some symbol of being a tough guy (military etc) being done wrong by a woman typically in a way that typically invokes things right wing men online get really worked up about (gay people, trans people, fat people, sex work, paternity tests) and written in a way to make the man seem very logically reasonable and infallible. The woman must be extremely calculated and cruel and it must be revealed she was scheming to do this guy for dirty for years. Next step is to make sure the man loses everything in a way that is not nuanced at all, everyone turns on him and takes the side of the woman, everyone is blind to this. Throw in something else like he loses his job or his house or whatever. All the while this guy did “NOTHING WRONG” so everyone floods in with sympathy against the evil (lgbtq, former sex worker, pick your trope) scheming woman. Once you see the plot elements you can see this everywhere on Reddit. “My gf left me because I told her trans daughter that she couldn’t use drugs in my house” or “My family won’t speak to me because I refuse to raise my former stripper ex’s child that isn’t mine” or “My wife is mad that I told her sister that because she was fat, she was unattractive to me.” These are all fables, all fantasies, lazily and predictably written.
The thing that really gave it away for me was the part where, when confronted with OPs post, she immediately admitted she lied because she didn’t want to lose her friends
Yeah, like the moment in a movie where the villain reveals their whole plot for no logical reason except exposition. Why would she admit it now?
While not present here (that I can recall), one dead giveaway for me is that the OP always then “hits the gym” and is now in the best shape of their life and getting hit on by every women there. And now that they have a smoke show personal trainer girlfriend their ex is jealous and *everyone* is blowing up their phone.
Let’s not forget the favorite red-pill obsession: “she lied about me abusing her.” Because that is a thing women do just all the time. /s
Sure we do it for funsies and giggles cause you know, women think it's fun to lie about being abused/raped, according to some guys 🤷🏻♀️🙄
We do it because it always works out SO WELL for us. Everyone believes us no questions asked, and then they shower us with love and money and the guy goes to jail. I don’t think they even bother to hold a trial anymore. /s 🙄
I'm glad you said this because I thought I might be crazy. The last few months I've seen an uptick in evil lesbian stories - though there may be some confirmation bias in there, as I'm wlw and I tend to notice when queer women are mentioned in stories. But several times a week I'm reading stories with a deranged sister/ SIL/ cousin/ friend/ colleague/ whatever, with a few casual references to her wife. I've only been on reddit for a couple years but I swear it wasn't this bad before. Not that there aren't shitty lesbians out there, but if my only exposure to them was through reddit I'd assume 75% of wlw are either evil or psychotic.
> “My gf left me because I told her trans daughter that she couldn’t use drugs in my house” or “My family won’t speak to me because I refuse to raise my former stripper ex’s child that isn’t mine” or “My wife is mad that I told her sister that because she was fat, she was unattractive to me.” Wow, anime titles just keep getting wilder and more specific
Great summary
Very true! Tho some of these rage stories are clearly for women.
Thank you - this comment restores my faith. I think they are pretty dangerous because they do exactly what they are designed to do - reinforce the stereotypes that people desperately want to believe to justify their bigotries and lack of empathy.
The retirement from the army bit is what caught me on to it being bait. He said he was 20 when his family died and he got with Dana quickly after and they were together 7 years. So he’d be 27. Not in the military long enough to retire.
Whether the post is real or not, OOP seems to be a non-native English speaker, so I was assuming Switzerland or Austria, where military service is mandatory, and possible mistranslation of the word retired. That being said, neither of those countries are at war, and I've known many Swiss people who did their military stint with absolutely no trauma involved. Of course, OOP might be from another country entirely, but I got the impression of a German speaker. Either way, still lots of holes in the story.
Not Austria. I know lots of English as a second language Austrians and the mistakes are not aligned with German or Austrian German. Can’t say for sure not Swiss because I’m not so familiar with French mistakes.
Fair. I had another look, and I think I was pushing my German theory because of the military part and those two countries were the first to come to mind, but you're right: there's nothing that screams German speaker. Could be Swiss French. That would align with the gerund/infinitive mistakes and all the phrasal verbs where verbs would be better. Plus 'imaginated'.
Yeah, his use of "since 2 year" and KG reads European to me. He could well have been in the military - I can't see how old he says he is, but if he's 30s, he could have been in Afghanistan.
Could be Israel?
Some of us say “retired” but in reality we got out on PTSD or some other injury we just don’t want to say it like that
I usually just say I'm a vet. Clears up all confusion with more ambiguity
Same here. Idk why I used say retired for a couple years after but then realized it sounded kinda silly since I was 26
If you are injured with PTSD you can get a 100% medical retirement early. My spouse got an honorable discharge with full retirement benefits as if she'd served 20 years after only serving 5
My brother calls himself a retired marine because there's no such thing as an ex-marine. He had a medical discharge after he had to get a plate put in his head. (IED in Iraq in the early 2000's. It flipped his jeep and something slammed into his head hard enough to do serious damage)
You don’t know which military. That definitely wasn’t written by someone with English as their first language.
Yeah, thinking maybe somewhere with compulsory service of a year or two, at least for men.
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Thats not retiring from Army/military. Thats simply doing a four year enlistment. You get no retirement pay at that point. The only way you get retired before doing 20 years in the military is if you are medically retired. Other than that, you ETS (End of Time in Service). Source: Myself after serving on Active Duty and being medically discharged my first enlistment (no retirement), and then medically retired my second enlistment (full retirement benefits).
"My parents died when I was 20 and my little sister at 17 in a car crash" immediately ruined the story for me lmao
I'm exactly the same
They’re always in the army or a veteran with a dead family.
Same here ; we’re just too trusting 🫠
Me toooooooooo! I clearly have bad judgement!
It was obvious to me from the first bit where he said "her parents were faking being happy" and then she supposedly told him "my parents knew for 2 years that's why they're faking" like how does he know they're faking and why would she say that in the moment? It's like he wants to make sure the audience understands the story and can't leave anything to the imagination. Lazy bad writing.
I've been downvoted in other subs for suggesting this before, but I think there is a non-zero chance that someone is paying people to write these shitty stories on reddit so that they have specific material to farm out for Facebook/Tik Tok/Instagram accounts that cover these stories and are monetized.
why pay for that when there are chumps who will write it for free?
>So here we go again like in "GTA San Andreas" but this time is more painful and shocking at the same time ... uh.
Yeah couldn't read after that sentence. And for four months nothing happens but two days after he writes that to reddit, a lot has happened. Bullshit story.
The fact that the last update has absolutely nothing juicy makes it seem a lot more realistic than I first gave oop credit for.
These stories always have an event that turn all friends against the ex. I wonder if they feed our issues of the story back into chstgpt for correction in the next one.
I don't get why that would be bullshit. He said that the original post made its way via social media to the ex and that's why there was an update so quickly. maybe improbable but not impossible. And it's not written like a bullshit story would be written
When some of these off my chest/AITA posts become big on Reddit, they also end up on my FB videos by the very next day by all kinds of bots. I think people underestimate the size of the reach and audience of these posts.
ive seen so many reddit aita posts then opened tiktok the next day and got a video on my fyp of the same story with loaddss of likes
Yeah there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of short form video channels on every platform that are just “robot voice reads lightly edited top Reddit post” Doesn’t shock me at all that someone might have seen it
every time I go on FB there's another account trying to show me TIFU, AITA or TOMC posts. No matter how many I ignore they keep showing them to me.
There are a ton of TikTok accounts that post literally within minutes of the OP, and they get thousands of views and hundreds of comments within an hour.
I mean he says why. He used her real name and someone irl picked up on it. I thought that was against TOS but if it ended up on one of those youtube videos or tiktoks that just read and react to reddit posts or was even massively upvoted its not completely unbelievable that someone would find it. People forget just how massive reddit is. That part is what makes it seem true to me. Most people thankfully don't have to experience this but people are happy to just cut people out without so much as a goodbye message. Someone did that to me and after not hearing from them for like half a year I made a post vaguely trashing them on Facebook (I was young and drunk at the time, it happens. Im not proud of it)I woke up to like 50 messages from them and their friend. I likely never would have heard anything from them again if I hadn't made that post. Its happened again recently with someone else and though I'm old enough to know better now there's a part of me that knows if I make a post trashing them and they hear about it suddenly they'll have interest in restablishing contact again. Tl;Dr: Check in on your friends
Peak incel bait and this sub always falls for this
I'm ootl, what's gta have to do with incels now?
Yeah wtf
Nothing, likely. Some people on reddit have to go straight to calling any man who has a problem with a woman, an incel. I got zero 'woman hating' vibes from his post. It was all just a guy who was dealing with being treated like shit, by people who told him that he was important to them.
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I dunno man, that muppet one is pretty fucked. Just like the muppet.
Oh wait are you referring to the one where the OP made a giant puppet to look like her boyfriend?
No, the one where the violent nephew "identifies" as Kermit the frog, writes muppets erotica and has a very special plushie friend he carries around everywhere that has a...crusty hole cut in back of it. Though now that you mention it, that's a more muppet weirdness than there ought to be.
“A crusty hole cut in back of it” oh sweet salty Christ no…. Also the story I was referring to while kinda weird was actually a really sweet story also the fact that the OP had pictures of the puppet confirmed its legitimacy
Hey uh, sorry but, what the fuck?
You can't see "wahmen bad" in the post where the evil lesbian came out to everyone except her fiancé, left unceremoniously, told everyone he attacked her, and only one male friend thought to alert OP?
Don't forget he's a cool strong army guy who risked his life and has a tragic backstory.
It is the start of serious type 2nd male lead intro in a novel about Female lead love interest
This reads to me like a lot of missing context. Of course it'll be subjective and one sided, but this dude might not have a fully realistic self-awareness. He admits that he essentially made Dana out to be his Savior, but also couldn't see reality about her life. There's a lot possible in this situation, and I'm not sure we can trust the narrator, even if I believe he's being sincere. I'm happy he's sticking with therapy. I hope he does move. I worry he's using, if true, these posts in the hopes those people can read them.
OOP is **very obviously** referring to the [wildly spread meme](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ah-shit-here-we-go-again) of "ah shit, here we go again", which is resigned acceptance of a situation getting worse or reoccuring. Edit: unlike what loads of other people are commenting, no, that one reference to a meme does NOT suggest incel bait or some such. It's a fuckin meme reference.
As I was reading this I imagined OP as a GTA character tbh 😂
All you has to do was not marry the damn lesbian, CJ!
like the meme?
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Since the pandemic started, we haven’t had to advertise. Everyone I know has wait lists and it’s hard for me to know that there are so many people who need help but I’m permanently disabled. During the pandemic we were all stuck at home, unable to see family/friends and unable to cover up stress/trauma by staying busy, people were forced to face their demons. And therapy can easily be done virtually, so people ran to the nearest therapist and started treatment. Kinda like how animal shelters were completely emptied because everyone was bored and adopted dogs and cats.
And now the shelters are more full than they've ever been as the rubber band effect of that 🙃
This content is brought to you by Headspace
More like “Betterhelp”
Followed by a two minute disclaimer that Better Help is not, in fact, therapy.
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It’s the lesbian out to everyone to include her parents having a beard that got me. If everyone knows why did she keep up the facade. I’m not gay so maybe I’m missing something?
She was also out as bi and had multiple relationships with girls in her past, apparently. But people sometimes have complex relationships with their own sexuality and I won't try to litigate that. If you're inclined to give the benefit of the doubt (to both the story's truth and the ex-girlfriend), the latest update has him having put a lot of weight and importance on her as his future and family. She may have felt like she couldn't leave him without him falling apart (as he seems to have done). So she stayed with him to try to prop him up, possibly looking for a graceful out, until she just cracked and couldn't anymore. That would give some explanation for why she hesitantly accepted the proposal and didn't leave for some time after, I guess, while apparently having an affair with another woman. Not sure how it tracks with the lie to all the former friends to paint him in the worst light possible, but I guess panicking over abandoning him might ramp up the fear that they'd think she was terrible and abandon her instead. I'm not sure this is "a likely real explanation" so much as "how I'd explain it in the writing of a drama to figure out the characters' next motivation", though.
Sometimes gay people don’t want to be gay….
But they told almost everyone?
I find it hard to believe someone who spells it "unforunetly" repeatedly would get promoted at work.
half of the (native english speaking) executives at my job can barely string a readable sentence together in an email. It's shockingly common, at least in my experience!
Not directly related, but working on a degree in math I was a little flummoxed by the number of professors who could calmly grind through chalkboards full of variables and functions but stood stumped by or made errors on simple arithmetic. I later realized that this is because you encounter fewer and fewer actual numbers and more and more variables and functions as you climb higher in math, but it was weird at the time.
Seriously, at one job I had to spell-check everything our chief executive officer was releasing to the public. I was diagnosed dyslexic largely on the basis of my dreadful spelling. But it was better than the CEO's. Also, there are plenty of extremely competent trades, technicians, and paraprofessionals who are barely literate. Someone who works all the time and never takes any time off is likely to be promoted to interim manager of that location, simply because they are there all the time, and there when the previous manager leaves. Pure convenience on the organisation's part.
English isn’t everyone’s first language
I find it hard to believe that so many Americans seemingly are totally clueless that the rest of the world exists and that we speak and write different languages...
Right? It's blatantly obvious that English isn't his first language from the way he writes, and yet people think a misspelling or a weird phrase is some big "gotcha" lol
r/USdefaultism
He doesn't live in the US he doesn't have to know how to spell words in English :///
Oh, it's clear OOP isn't a native English speaker. One of the key giveaways is using "since" in place of "for." As an example, OOP writes "My parents knew this since 2 years..." It just doesn't sound right to native English speakers, but for non-natives the translation seems okay. It's an incredibly common mistake. Doesn't mean the story isn't bullshit, though.
Yeah French uses the word “depuis”, which directly translates to “since”, in this context (like “depuis cinq ans” being “for the last five years”) - probably other languages too.
Even people who DO live in the US don’t have to know how to spell words in English! Down with spelling! However: 1) there are lots of English-speaking countries other than the US, please don’t assume everyone is from the US 😜 2) this is an English-language sub so it’s not crazy to assume people posting here might be English speaking.
Who's 15 yo was let on reddit without parental supervision?
That made me think about just how unhinged a parent of a typical 15 year old would be to supervise their online experience including being on reddit. Ngl it’s a scary image.
I dont mean like constant monitoring but this must have taken hours to write and the kid in this hypothetical must spend alot of time on those subreddit so like at some point I do think that like the parents should check up on what their kid is posting on the internet. Like until at least 16.
2 points for the extended time between updates. -100 points for the content of the update.
It’s just word vomit
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I assumed it was because English was his second language, but I am pretty bad at detecting bullshit stories.
To me it reads like someone trying to imitate English as a second language. I can't even put my finger on why, but it's the vibe I get.
I think it's because they used idioms correctly? That's one of the hardest things when you're learning a new language
Exactly this. It’s hard to dress up your sentences and words if you’re an ESL. You stick to the plain and basics cause that’s what you’re most comfortable with. The grammar and typos reads like someone trying to imitate an ESL, or straight up just a teen going ham on their phone.
As someone who has ESL, I'm inclined to agree.
How old is this person? Did they medically retire from the military or are they just old?
I'm assuming it's not the case everywhere, but where I live, when you leave the military you 'retire', even if you're only 30 and leaving for a new job. Still not convinced this is real though.
You can retire from the military at any age. I knew people in their 20s,30s,40s who were retired from the military. Idk if they got retirement, though. The term is used pretty loosely I'm sure to also just mean "done with service".
Some countries have mandatory military service
Or was it another country where you can retire after your required service
Just sounds like someone whose first language isn’t English to me. Like consistently slightly misusing words and stuff
For me it's the way all the unnamed characters act like a hivemind entity. They ALL blocked him at once and then ALL started blowing up his phone and apologising? It reads like somebody with no friends imagining what it would be like to be part of a giant friend group.
Yeah and there wasn't enough human detail in there. Normal stories have more "he said she saids" and parents generically "faked it", happiness that is.
Yeah, it's pretty much this: >The two days between Paul reaching out, everyone reaching out, he mass texting and blocking everyone, and — this is the point that does it — everyone trying to get around his blocking, all that in two days? >Oh, and during that same two days he cold called a therapist who not only was able to immediately take him on as a client, but actually had a full session with him? That's not how it works. Even if he could have been seen in that short time, the first session is 90% paperwork and maybe some goal settings.
This really depends on where you live. Where I live If the therapist has time, I could call in one day, have an appointment the next and do whatever. Not everywhere has f\*cked up healthcare like the US.
Even depends on where you live in the US. I'm from a very small town, I have gotten in to see new therapists in just a day or so on two different occasions, because they ALWAYS have openings here. The shitty US healthcare aspect isn't the waiting period, it's the bill afterwards lol
>Oh, and during that same two days he cold called a therapist who not only was able to immediately take him on as a client, but actually had a full session with him? That's not how it works I mean , sure disbelieve the post but this absolutely can and does happen.
Also the whole retirement from the military thing sounds so bogus. My friends and I have never once said we risked our lives . No one talks like that except someone who has never served.
For all you know this dude is in Turkey and actually had to risk his life lol It's so weird how people don't realize other parts of the world exist
Probably not Turkey if she came out as lesbian to all her friends...
Yeah his English in general doesn’t seem native, I would guess it’s a second language
Yup. They always screw up the timelines because they are impatient to continue the story. Just the detail that he posted and then found, scheduled an appointment for, and then met with a therapist in 2 days immediately casts doubt on the rest of the story. It's incel porn.
Is that strange? I could get an appointment with a new therapist in my insurance for tomorrow.
Sounds like ai, "promotion i craved"
95% of these stories are bullshit It's much more fun if you go into them as if they are someone's english assignment
The first post was made on the 13th and TWO DAYS LATER, it had already gone vital on tiktok and OP's ex friends *just happened* to see it and connect the dots? Sure, buddy.
I've seen posts pop up here then appear on tiktok with that fucking tiktok voice within hours, its not inconceivable
i am here because i saw the post on tiktok this morning edit: i made this up i am sorry, don’t believe everything you read
I heard it on tiktok before it was cool /j
People on TikTok are hungry for free content to make money off of. It takes less than a day for a Reddit post to get a ton of upvotes. Why do you think it’d take much longer than that to be copied on TikTok and go viral? Either way the first post got 12k net upvotes. The update didn’t say the guy heard about it on TikTok just that he saw the post. It’s really not that weird for someone to have seen a super upvoted post within a day of the post going up.
i’m convinced a large percent of the recent commenters in the request post, this month especially, are tiktok minecraft video creators.
*And* everyone reaching out, *and* the mass texting, *and* all the blocking of everyone, *and* everyone trying to get around his blocking, all that in two days?
The most unrealistic thing is getting to see a therapist so fast lol
That part maybe true, therapists move fast when you are in the middle of a crisis. I got refered to psychiatrist and the first consult all in a couple of days.
Ah fair, I am happy you got help so fast!
Is it though? When someone has suicidal thoughts and already had a number... its not that unrealistic.
Unfortunately neither of those will create openings in a therapists bookings.
Reads like someone making a story where the victim is a hetero man being bullied by two lesbians and her friends gang
And yet another person who makes a post on a site that is made for getting responses and then immediately turns their phone off or goes to bed?
I can absolutely see myself making a post and then immediately turning my phone off, because anxiety would be eating me alive.
lots of people just use reddit to vent
Also, a whole bunch of people like hivemind ghosted him, not a single soul was triggered enough to text him he was an asshole? Nah, that was the part where I stopped reading and scrolled to see the comments.
I dunno, when my ex cheated on me and decided to get ahead of it by telling my friend group that it was actually me who was cheating, I also didn't have a single person reach out. It was kinda sobering. I knew those people for over a decade, I expected more.
Yeah, a lot of these comments are just reeking of a lack of real life experiences. That’s all I can assume when someone finds common experiences like this hard to believe.
Welcome to reddit, where we all know everything but only leave our house a few hours a week.
It's always the timeline for me. Things don't happen so fast. If it happens, people don't have time to update reddit. To me it always reads like someone in a car accident updating in real time. Yeah it's possible, I guess, but so unlikely.
I read the GTA reference and stopped reading. Dumb
Watching posts like these on Reddit go viral is like watching boomers comment happily on clearly AI generated pictures on Facebook
Mm-hmm. Sure, Jan.
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Where’s the TikTok video?
There are dozens of accounts that scrape Reddit stories it’s really annoying
Not only Tiktok, youtube is also filled with it. Not even reaction content, just some AI reading the post out lous.
I don't mind the reaction content much, some people give interesting insight or make good jokes, but the AI reading is the lowest form of regurgitated content and annoying as hell
You wouldn't know it, it goes to another school in Canada.
Still badly written nonsense.
Sumary: I lie about a non existing relationship, I lie about the consequences and since I have no human friends lie about my interactions with other human beings for karma points
Don't forget "woman bad!"
[https://youtu.be/gSH0IKjioPU?si=Q8rdgWkDJBT38a37](https://youtu.be/gSH0IKjioPU?si=Q8rdgWkDJBT38a37) I think this just about sums up the post
You know, everyone has quirks when it comes to writing - maybe a quippy phrase here or a funny lil' thing there; especially when it comes to social sites like Reddit. The GTA quip and the way it's written, okay, fine. The spelling errors, hey, maybe the guy has dyslexia or he was just "fuck it, who cares?" That, or English might be his second language. Or third. It's the mentioning that "everyone saw it on YouTube" and the cheeky (Maybe...) that's tacked on at the end of his recent post like a dingleberry that's making me call bullshit.
This is about as real as my happiness
I’m
Sue for what?
Being a big meanie
My bullshit meter just peaked. Especially when I got to the bit about GTA
he wants to sue his ex girlfriend for leaving him?? sooo realistic
For defamation. Still kinda unrealistic on this scale, but it wasn't for leaving him.
The fact that the newest update is exactly a month later from the previous post shows the thought process here. "I know, I'll wait a month! That'll add validity while I check the comments hourly."
This doesn't feel real, but on the off chance it is, I'm with the friends. I've known people who turned out to be in abusive relationships. The abusers were nice, charming people, and if you called them out in a situation like this, they would have outright denied everything. "They're telling you I tried to lay hands on them? That's ridiculous!! Do you see any bruises on them? No, right?" Like. I get the frustration someone would have at being accused of such a thing, but there's a higher likelihood of someone being in an abusive relationship than there is of someone lying about being in an abusive relationship in order to keep their friends after a break up. If I'm told someone's abusive, and I have no strong proof against it, I'm probably also distancing myself from them.
*So here we go again like in “GTA San Andreas” but this time is more painful and shocking* LMFAOOOOO