8 years ago I was staying at a hotel and sitting alone on a park bench outside when a sudden flashback of really bad memories hit me and I had to cry. After a while a woman walked by me. She noticed and asked me if she could help me, so I told her and she comforted me with a long hug.

A lot has happened since then and I only thought about that encounter a couple of times, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget how a complete stranger was there for me when I needed it.

This was about 35 years ago. It was early evening and I was in a supermarket picking up some shopping etc on my way home. A woman comes up to me and asks my opinion about a lamp shade, I reply “Sorry, I don’t work here.”… then walk off confused. My clothes were nothing like the shop workers.
In the next aisle she’s there again and says something like “O, hi again. We must stop meeting like this or people will begin to talk. Maybe your girlfriend?”

I reply “Ha, yeah, yeah. Anyways, no worries on that because I’m single. See ya.”

At the checkout she’s one till over and waves to catch my eye. Then smiles and says something like, “Well that was fun…I’ll be going home to my dogs then…”

“Have a good night. Bye.”, I say still absolutely completely oblivious.
I’m in my car driving home when all of a sudden I realise what she was doing. What a fucking idiot.

Cashiering once; I like to play with my rubiks cubes and had a 3x3 and 5x5 with me.

Well a very disheveled couple with 3 kids came through, and as I started scanning their items I decided to give one of the kids the 5x5.

For a brief moment I checked them out, and distracted their kids. As they were paying and I was talking with the kids one of them said I was “Really cool”.

But the silent “thank you” mouthed from the Mom as they walked away is why they stuck in my mind. Something about coraling the kiddos, while working my regular job, then being thanked for it felt pretty good.

Back in my hippie days, we used to get a bunch together and go on road trips in my friend’s van . One trip, we ran out of gas in a park about 400 km from home. Checked around the van and no one had any money left. Most of us had to get back to work the next day. Stupid teenagers in an epic time. Some woman came up to us and handed us $20 (enough to fill up the tank at that time) and said, “I just feel like I should give this to you. God bless.” I never forgot that lovely woman whose kind gesture saved our stupid butts.

Over at the other site there was a guy who frequented r/morbidquestions. I think he was a teenager at the time and had some mental issues. He wanted to stop talking and was convinced the only way his family would accept that was if he would cut off his tongue. So he was trying to build a mini guillotine to do that and posting updates and requests for feedback in that sub. This was across a long timeline with multiple versions of the mini guillotine and many people tried to convince him to stop but he went through with it anyway.

There was an update post at some point. He wasn’t completely successful and had ended up in a psychiatric hospital with a reattached tongue but he seemed to be doing better.

There were many people posting weird things in that sub but this actually felt real. He still pops up in my mind every now and then and if it was real, I really hope he’s doing better, wherever he is.

This woman at a music festival whose hairstyle I absolutely loved but I didn’t have the courage to go tell her. I didn’t even have any further intentions as I was there with my girlfriend. I’m just annoyed at myself that I didn’t say anything. I’m a strong believer in sharing any positive thoughts about people with them.

Edit: Oh! And the one time someone sent me a blow-kiss from a passing car while I was waiting for the light to turn green, standing there with my longboard. I don’t even care if she was just fooling around - that never happens to us guys.

when I was in high school I was very self conscious, hated myself, thought I was ugly. I ended up resigning myself and being completely unkempt, never getting haircuts, wearing pyjamas everywhere and ect. but one day in the hallway a girl standing in the corner called to get my attention and told me I had nice hair. I was so astonished that I even looked around and pointed to myself and asked “me?” and she said yep. that was the only time id ever received a compliment from another person until I was 22. and as a result these days my hair is by far the part of myself I take care of the most. it’s halfway down my torso in length because I still haven’t gotten it cut. often when my mind wanders, I wish I could tell her how much she helped me become more confident as a person because of that interaction.

One day I was sitting on a bench and a girl walked up to me and sat down next to me and started talking and she told me about how she had been sexually abused by her uncle and the effects that had had on her life.

She talked for about 15 minutes, and then said, “Thank you. You’re a really good listener” with a very solemn tone, and then she got up and left.

I’ve never seen or heard from her ever again, but ever so often I think about her and I wonder how she’s doing.

I thought of her earlier tonight. I was 16, I was on the pediatric ward to get rounds of IV antibiotics to treat the MRSA infection in my lungs. Because I was the oldest kid on the floor by a lot and was supposed to stay in my isolation room while other people were out and about the nurses let me hang out with them (while wearing a mask and gloves) at the nurses station in the late evening. One night it was dark and quiet and all of a sudden I heard the most primal scream I’ve ever heard in my life to this day. A woman burst out of a room down the hall and threw herself screaming against the wall. I was ushered quickly into my room. The next day I asked about what had happened and they told me they weren’t supposed to say but because I had witnessed it, and was upset by it, they told me the why. Her child had just received a terminal diagnosis. She still haunts me, that scream… I’ll never forget it. I hope wherever she is now she’s found peace.

Saw a girl walking across campus, and she was glued to her phone texting or whatever. I also remember she was in Ugg boots, they were in their hay day, this was like 2011. Anyway she fully inadvertently kicked a squirrel while walking and didn’t notice. Squirrel bolted away, I feel like I was the only one who noticed

Two come to mind.

College. There was a platter of leftover bagels on a table outside one of the classrooms. Looked like the students had had their bagels and were now in the lecture hall learning, with bagels. No one else was around. I went to pick one up and this lady comes bustling over and says “they’re not for you!!”. She picked up the platter of leftover bagels and took the whole thing into her office down the hall. Really important to save $2 worth of bagels from my thieving appetite, I guess.

I was doing a cross country road trip in my youth. We stopped at some gas station in like Missouri, and I chatted with the guy working the counter. He was probably in his late 30s, early 40s. I told him about how me and my friends were doing a summer road trip. He got a little faraway look and said he’d love to do that, to travel with friends. I thought about being fuck-it spontaneous and telling him to quit his shit job and come with us, but his vibe was a little off. I wonder if he ever traveled.

It was a calm summer night. My brother, his girlfriend, and I were in the city, walking under the streetlight.

My brother had just bought a full-sensor camera that took amazing pictures at night. To try it out, we decided to walk around the city, talking and occasionally pointing at things to take pictures of.

As we were walking, there was a similar group walking in front of us. It was two guys and a gal. They were in their 20s or 30s.

At some point, the strangers did something unusual, something light-hearted. They giggled and moved to the curbside. They hunched over and playfully hid behind a car.

My brother saw this and immediately started to take pictures.

As we saw the scene, we realized who they were hiding from: an older couple that was walking toward us all (my group and the strange group).

My group realized what was going to happen: the strange (and giggly) group would surprise the couple.

My group slowed down a bit, and we just let the scene play out. Surely enough, when the couple was close enough, the giggly and hidden group jumped and surprised the couple.

The street suddenly got filled with laughter. Smiles. Kisses. Hugs. Eyes lovingly looking at each other. It was such a heart-warming sight.

It was obvious they loved each other and hadn’t seen each other for a long time. I don’t know for sure, but I think the hiding group was the children of the older couple. A part of me thinks this was the first time in half a decade that the whole family could be together.

As we walked past them, I told my brother that all of the strangers would probably like to look at the pictures.

He walked up to them, briefly interrupting their greeting. He lifted his camera and showed them a picture. They looked at the camera and huddled around it. They were very happy.

They asked if my brother could send the pictures, to which my brother accepted, of course. They exchanged contact details and thanked my brother.

We all wished each other a good night, and my group resumed our night walk through the city. I imagine the other group laughed a bit more and started catching up.

Today, years later, I am still awed at this experience. It gives me goosebumps and gets me teary-eyed. It was so lucky and beautiful.

I have a few but this is the first one that comes to mind. I was visiting New Zealand. I was in a grocery store and asked where the bathroom was. I was pointed in a general direction and headed to the door I calculated as the correct one. When I opened it there was kind of a foyer before the bathroom proper. A woman was coming out. I’m male so I stopped and asked if I was in the wrong bathroom. She stopped and looked around the bathroom to figure it out for a few seconds and finally just sort of gave up and said, “oh, who cares.”

Coming from a country (US) that was actively trying to dictate where trans people could or couldn’t pee, I sort of loved her in that moment for cutting through the bullshit.

This fire fighter I met at Occupy Wall Street. He was a first responder during 911, one of the few from his house that was still alive then. He suffered injuries and was unable to continue as a fire fighter. He had just been fired from his job as a toll booth operator because of his 911 injuries.

I often wonder if he is still alive, and if he is how he is doing.

None of them, to be honest.

Which is refreshing to think about because it means that I don’t have to worry quite so much about what random people might think of me.