There are plenty of us who hate feeling like someone else is listening to our conversations with others in public. After all, there’s a reason we’re having a conversation with person X (the intended listener) and not person Y (the nosy, creepy eavesdropper), no? Some people feel downright violated from the mere thought of someone else taking an ear to what we’re saying to another person, which is entirely warranted.
That being said, you’d be lying if you claimed never having accidentally overheard a piece of a conversation that was never meant for your ears.
Anyone who isn’t a recluse has certainly been thrust into a moment of selective hearing in the presence of others, especially strangers. We just so happen to pick up certain things in passing, and if the topic of discussion is juicy, we tend to keep listening. These people talked about some of the things they accidentally heard from others, but kind of wished they never did.
The Daily Beast
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#35 My Job Here Is Done
I heard half of a phone conversation. A man said into his phone,
"I ain't doin' this stuff; there wasn't supposed to be no security guard here!"
Overheard by me, the security guard. In a bank that had recently been robbed.
YouTube
#34 We All Gotta Die Sometime
Standing in line at a shop waiting for my coffee. The girl in front of me was talking with her friend:
"Yeah, so I caught HIV from this dude. Its okay though, it's not like I'm going to die right away."
I want some of her positivity.
#33 Wait... So, Who's The Ungrateful One Here?
After speaking with my grandpa on the phone before he properly hung up, I heard him commenting to my uncle how ungrateful I was. I had at that point visited every week for a year and cleaned his entire bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, hallway and living room every single week. Usually bringing some food or dessert with me.
I moved out of town shortly after this
#32 Premature Resignation
Waiting to Skype call my long-distance girlfriend and before the video comes on the audio peaks up, heard her roommate yell to her: "You gonna dump that sorry little boy now?" Yeah, she immediately turned off the feed and broke up with me over Skype text instead. Nice.
#31 The Absence Of Words... Among Other Things
I’d been on holiday for about a month, on the other side of the world to my family. I had FaceTimed my mom and told her what I was up to, found out what was going on back home, just normal conversation. Eventually, we said bye and Mom ended the call, or so she thought. She’d just paused it so the audio was still coming through. I heard my little sister ask her: “Are you crying?” and Mom said, “Not now.” I quickly hung up. I think she missed me and didn’t want me to know she was sad.
#30An Implicit Final Goodbye
It was when I was a kid and it was just my single mom and me living in a house together. She had late-stage ovarian cancer that was getting worse. One afternoon she told me she was tired and needed to go lay down in her room. Totally common with her condition so nothing struck me as odd. I went to her room with a glass of water to put by her bed for when she woke up, but right as I was about to turn the knob to get into her room, I was thrown off guard when I heard her voice and it sounded like she was incredibly emotional and sad. There was no phone in her room and I knew nobody was over at our house visiting. It took me a minute of eavesdropping to realize that she was using a tape recorder to record her last goodbyes to me for after she died.
She died two weeks later. I found the tape. This was years ago and I still haven't been able to get myself to listen to it. The memory of being there while she was recording it, and the memory of my naive adolescent self finally realizing that my mom was about to die is just too overwhelming for me still. But I'm glad to know that one day when I'm ready, I will have a recording of her voice to listen to.
#29 No, It Doesn't Run In The Family
#27 How Quickly You Learn About Backstabbery In High School
Two of my best friends in high-school had a conference call about me. I just happened to be with the third friend they called and overheard how they thought I was annoying and I’m only friends with this other person for popularity.
Stopped being friends with them shortly after this.
#26 You Got The Wrong Guy
On my first day of college, I was waiting on line at the bookstore. Now I know you should never buy books at the college. Two girls were behind me in line talking about a "cute guy in front of them". I naturally took this to think it was me and it raised my ego quite a bit. Until one of them tapped me on the shoulder and asking me to get the attention of the guy just ahead of me.
#25 Yes, People. Pocket Dialing Is Still VERY Real in 2018
My mother once pocket dialed me and I overheard her and my stepfather talking about the house I was living in. I was living in her house which I had an agreement with her that I would pay the mortgage and all the bills and when it was paid off she would sign it over to me. This wasn't anything spectacular, the house was in dire need of major repair and she hadn't lived there for years anyway. Also, we had found out that she hadn't been paying the mortgage for over a year even though I'd been giving her money for it since I was 17. Well, my wife and I had offered her $10k for the house. It had 3k left on the mortgage and was about to be foreclosed on just to try and get her to live up to her side of the bargain we had reached years before. So I heard my stepdad ask what she's going to do about the house. She said, "I don't know". Stepdad reminded her that we offered more than was owed. Her exact words were "I'll give it to his sister before I sell it to him.". So, we found a different house, and sister was given that one. She dumped $40k worth of repairs and sold it for $100k.
#24 The Coach Bus Is Where The Magic Happens
I was on a coach bus traveling to another state and I woke up to someone whispering “Hey remember what we said earlier?” I thought they were about to argue again since they were going back and forth about something earlier only to hear muffled sucking noises. At first, I was like what? Then was like OOHHH.....
#24 Embrace Your Flaws
I guess it wasn’t so much an accident as it was an inevitability, but as I was entering my dorm one day freshman year of college, a girl who was sitting in the courtyard shouted to her friend who was right behind me “THE DOCTOR SAYS NOTHING IS WRONG WITH ME, I JUST HAVE AN ABNORMAL NIPPLE.”
22) At Least She Tried To Keep The Christmas Spirit Alive
I was around eight or nine years old, it was early morning around Christmas time. I was laying in bed and I could hear my mom talking to somebody on the phone downstairs. She was talking loud enough for me to hear every word she was saying and she ended up confirming my suspicions. Santa was not real. She said something along the lines of "If '[my name]' wants to still believe in him then I will let him." Later that day, I was snooping around the Christmas tree looking at presents and I saw a few gifts for me that were from Santa. This was at least a few days before Christmas so the secret was out. My mom really dropped the ball that year.
#21 The Brutality...
I overheard a girl that I basically fell in love with, talking with her friend like: "You know, he's cute but I think we will just stay friends". I overheard that literally seconds before I was going to invite her on a date.
#20 A 500-Mile False Alarm
I was 14 and I overheard my mother talking with a doctor about my younger sister's cancer treatment, I had no idea she had cancer, she had no idea she had cancer. As soon as she got off the phone I asked her what was going on, she burst into tears, I burst into tears.
My little sister was eight at the time and had been ill for months, so I helped my parents talk to her, it was very upsetting. Shortly after, we took her to a clinic 500 miles away, spent a week there, no cancer, no leukemia, misdiagnosed, she had an abscess that caused her symptoms. Easily treated, but I'll never forget hearing the phone call.
#19 Question It, And You Go To Bed Hungry
When I was nine, I overheard my mom telling the maid not to "tell the kids that we're eating horse meat for dinner".
#18 So, What Happened To The Dog?
I was on a cruise and reading a book in one of the lounges. This very upset woman sat sort of behind me, and her husband was with her. She was crying because their vet had some bad news about their dog, and she was trying to call the vet. She told the husband after she got off the phone that she needed 15 minutes to listen to a song by herself and collect her thoughts. He asked if he could get her anything and she said no, she just wanted to be alone for a minute.
Once he left... she called her BOYFRIEND and started giving him grief about girls liking his pictures on Instagram and how jealous she was and was making plans to sneak off to call him later. Scumbag.
#17 Unfit To Be A Grandmother
I had my son and about two months after he was born I was called a lazy mother by my own mother. A couple months later, she was on the phone with one of her friends claiming I abused my son because I let him cry a bit longer than she deemed necessary.
I was outside her door at 2 AM to bring him back to bed. I was 21 and was shell-shocked by being a mom so suddenly. I didn't find out I was pregnant until I was almost five months along. I was rushed into a lot of things.
#16 Wanting To Get Ahead
#15 Lolli-Not
As my friend and I were walking through a parking lot, leaving a farmers market, we heard a toddler screaming and shouting, “I WANT A LOLLIPOP! I WANT A LOLLIPOP!” Over and over. The very stressed out looking mother snapped back at him with not only, “You’re never getting a lollipop...EVER.” But follows that up with, “You’re an embarrassment.” Not even you’re embarrassing me, just “You’re an embarrassment.” My friend and I held our lips really tight until we got to our car.
#14 Don't Mind Me, Just Scanning Some Stuff Back Here
I used to work in an office with mostly women. At one point, one of my jobs was scanning large files in the back of the filing room. So many times two or more women would come in, not think anyone else was in there and proceed to talk about their sex lives. I was using a high production scanner, that thing is not quiet. Not sure how they didn't know I wasn't back there. Some of the things they would say were vile.
#13 You Have Been Terminated
A guy talking REAL loud into his phone about the employee he was going to fire. The conversation started before we boarded, was momentarily disrupted by the flight, then resumed the second we landed. To be honest, that employee probably got lucky getting away from that dude.
#12 Dodging A Bullet
I used to be in the Army, I was in the bathroom and a squad leader and the platoon sergeant came to use the urinals and I overheard them talking about how PT the next morning was just going to be all the NCO’s smoking everyone else because one guy got a DUI. I went to sick call instead of dealing with that. Definitely wasn’t the worst thing I overheard, just a story I chuckle about every now and again.
#11 You Got It Bad
A coworker comes in after three days off due to sickness. Proceeds to tell another coworker, a good friend of hers that she used a bucket for all her bathroom needs those three days, a poop bucket as it were. The debilitating sickness that caused this? The common cold.
#10 A Sad, Mystery Text
I found a phone on the seat next to me on a night bus. The person who dropped it had just finished typing but not sending a text message: "I miss you so much - I cry all the time". I truly meant to contact someone to try to return the phone but it ran out of batteries and locked. Never found out whose it was.
#9 SO MUCH POTENTIAL!
Passed two people on the street: "Oh I have the most amazing story to tell you..." I was in a hurry, so I had to keep walking away, without hearing what was about to be told.
#8 Have You Guys NOT Heard Of Seniority?
My dad directs high school plays, and one year I overheard that the main part was being given to the lone senior girl in our cast. She was also super shy, not great at remembering lines, and overall not a beloved cast member. I talked to my little brother who was not in the play, and he was able to casually mention how it's more important to have a strong lead actress than make the seniors happy. Honestly, I have no idea how my parents weren't aware that line was fed right from me. Anyway, a sophomore ended up getting the part and all was fine and good. And then I saw the senior crying about how she didn't get the main role. And then I felt like a mean person.
The play was great though.
#7 Seriously... Get It Checked Out, Man
Sitting in a park overhearing this guy talking about his infected toe, the other people looking at it and their comments confirming its nastiness.
#6 Thrown For A Loop
I went hiking to some native American ruins. I live in Arizona with two of my oldest friends from college. One guy I really looked up to as he was just a cool dude, taught me guitar basics when I first met him, etc. So we get to the trail and boom, not five minutes in I find a perfect, unmarred arrowhead. I'm excited and they're giving me high-fives and excited with me. We split up and as I'm about to crest a little ridge I hear him say: "I can't believe [my name] found that, the one person we didn't even want to come and he finds one right away" I turned around and just kinda walked back to the car, always kinda had esteem issues or at least doubts that people enjoyed my company. Hearing that from someone I considered one of my closest friends threw me for a loop.
#5 First Experiences Aren't Always Peachy
When I was about nine years old, our old family cat had been missing for about a week and I heard my parents saying they'd have to say something (to my sister and I) soon because he'd probably died.
Not actually horrible in a malicious sense, but it was the first time I'd experienced any bereavement and didn't really understand the concept of death so it came as a shock.
#4 Screen-Peeking Is A Lost Art, But Not To Hairstylists
As a hairstylist, I can see everyone’s texts. I don’t creep but I’m above your head looking down so I see things. I have seen a woman freak out about her having an STD when she was about to fly overseas to see her Internet boyfriend the next day. I have seen naked pics being sent/received.
#3 Money Longer, More Like Money Launder
I overheard two congressmen talk about how would they launder $700,000 that they recently acquired through corruption. They were in a coffee place talking in a foreign language that I am fluent in.
#2 The First Million
Started working in the financial district in NYC and on the way to the train overheard some (very young looking) dude-bros in awkwardly fitting suits talking about how much money you could hide from your spouse before it was “not okay”. I heard, “The first million, that’s just your spending money... they don’t need to know about that...” and that’s when I realized this is when douchebags are born.
#1 Like We Said: If It's Juicy, We Don't Stop Listening
Accidentally overheard two people discussing their affair and how to hide it from their spouses in a mall once. And before anyone asks, yes, I walked past them multiple times because I just couldn’t get enough of the drama.
