overheard

You can be out, just mindlessly strolling down the sidewalk, perhaps even with the slight tracings of a smile on your face, when suddenly you overhear someone spew something so profoundly clueless that you're stopped in your tracks. You might stand there, paralyzed in troubled wonder as you try to figure out how someone could ever end up so lost. But then, you either let it go (recognizing that everyone says something dumb at one point or another), or actually try to let them know what's up. Of course, if you choose the latter approach, just be ready for defensiveness. Such a response tends to accompany blind ignorance. 

Sometimes we're just not thinking and sometimes people are really just flat-out stupid. There are a lot of really dumb questions that get asked. People have almost too many stories about dumb things people said to have their intelligence questioned.

Someone on AskReddit got a thread going about the stupidest things that people have ever overheard in public. You never know what kind of mindless jargon you might overhear while out and about. We're pretty sure that context wouldn't even be enough for making sense of some of these. 

Maybe it's better to be a heavy sleeper, so you don't hear your parents and friends say damaging crap about you. Maybe it's better to hear it and know what they think? Either way, people really need to do a better job of keeping things to themselves. Here are things that people overheard through paper-thin walls as well as the kindest things people overheard about themselves.

Taking a break from all the fails, to enjoy some good old wholesomeness. Compliment gossip is where it's at. Yes, let's all just spread nothing but words of praise about each other, and see what the picture ends up looking like. You never know how much someone might need the extra boost of confidence. Just a little bit of kindness can go a long way. 

Not everyone has a very good brain. Some people have decent ones, but they're not exactly working for them all the time. We live in a world where people can sort of believe whatever they want, and sometimes people have a personal resistance to wanting to learn, which leads to all of us hearing some really dumb things.

It might be time to look for a new place to live if this is gonna become a regular thing. Bob, Carol and Angie have a lot to work through. For some crazy roommate stories, here's times people discovered their roommate was a psycho, and here's a guy who battled his terrible subletter who tried to pin him with damages.

Twitter users are sharing various things they've overheard in public restrooms. You never know when you might hear someone behind a bathroom stall door, complaining about mistaking a cigarette for a tampon. 

Having roommates is one thing, but if your walls are thin enough, you may find yourself living with more people than you expected. In this situation, you have to learn to live with hearing the successes, failures, arguments and farts of everyone in your building. You may even share a moment with complete strangers.

This off duty cop intervened like a true hero when he overheard a full-fledged douche mistreating his date. At one point it sounds like he heard him threaten the poor, terrified lady by telling her he knew where she lived cause he picked her up. The cop proceeded to handle the situation like a professional, and get the guy's information. After the date from hell dipped, the cop invited the shaken woman to sit down and finish her meal with his family. 

When you overhear just a little bit of someone's conversation and it ends with something like "and that's how I met my dad" your mind will do somersaults to try to figure out what the hell these people are talking about. Here are some of the strangest things people are willing to admit they witnessed.

We have some prime examples of blatant stupidity run amok. These people clearly fell through the cracks, and this is the result. Fair to say that if I was out walking around, these shining moments of ignorance wouldn't fail to stop me in my tracks. You just never know what kind of stupid you might hear while you're out walking around. 

Here are some awesome and distinctively LA conversations. You've got Instagram influencers getting shut down, health nuts reaching their breaking point, and sad people aggressively trying to ignore their problems. For more funny stuff people weren't necessarily supposed to hear, here's more funny superficial conversations overheard in LA.

People say weird and dumb stuff all the time. And sometimes, someone's listening.

Contextualization wouldn't have even helped some of these. 

Never know what you might catch wind of while you're out and about NOT eavesdropping.