39 Times Real Life Was Much Weirder Than Fiction, According To The People Who Lived It

There's a long-standing but very interesting thread on AskReddit. Its author, the user u/llorgge, one day had the brilliant idea of ​​​​asking netizens: "What perfectly true story of yours sounds like an outrageous lie?"

Today, the thread has over 15K upvotes, and the vast majority of its 12K comments were actually written way before the invention of artificial intelligence, so you can rest assured that all the stories told in today’s collection were definitely told by real people.

Yes, some of the stories you'll read in this collection, made for you by Bored Panda, seem completely implausible. And some - especially since we can't verify them - are actually lies. On the other hand, real life often presents us with such incredible plots that no fantasy writer could possibly come up with something similar.

For example, stories about unexpected close encounters with celebrities. After all, many of them date back to the second half of the last century, when even rock stars or famous actors and actresses behaved not like celestial beings but like ordinary folks, without their own special security services or arrogant behavior.

So, situations where David Bowie could simply drop by a friend's house, lie down on the couch, and turn on the TV were actually quite real back then. Any modern celebs? Well, I'm not sure they would behave that way, to be honest...

But how is it that some of us experience completely unbelievable events, while others live their entire lives in complete calm and ordinariness? Perhaps it all lies in how we perceive the surrounding reality. Awkward or mundane, awesome or obvious. After all, in any case, we remain social creatures.

"Awkwardness is really a collective failure - people aren't awkward, situations are. And they become awkward because you don't have the resources to navigate your way through tricky social situations," this dedicated article at The Conversation says. So, depending on how broad a person's social framework is, that’s how strange or awkward they perceive any given situation.

Moreover, many narrators actually tend to embellish the truth, often adding details and particulars that are nonexistent. And no, this doesn't happen because they're inveterate liars.

On the contrary, people subconsciously aren't sure they'll be believed. So, they begin to lie, trying to appear more credible. Sometimes this also happens because the narrator has poor social skills and is trying to add credibility to their story.

However, people don't realize that they're ultimately harming their tale. The authors of this study on social communication, published by the National Library of Medicine, prove that even the slightest misunderstanding in tone and wording can develop into more serious problems over time.

Well, this is precisely why many strange and implausible stories often remain untold forever - people simply don't want to be known as liars and prefer to keep silent about what happened.

Let's consider how much of a positive impact such incredible cases actually have on our lives. On the one hand, the fewer strange situations that happen in our lives, the better for our peace of mind. On the other hand, we only live once, so if we have something to remember - even if it's completely incredible stories - that's also great, right?

Okay, you may or may not believe all the stories told here, but either way, we’re pretty much sure it could be an exciting read for all of you. So now, please feel free to read all these tales, no matter how false they seem to you, and possibly add your own story in the comments below if you have something similar under your belt as well.