Some people really like to play things up for sympathy. Most of the time, something bad really did happen, and sympathizing with someone definitely isn't a bad thing.
Sometimes it is super obvious that whatever happened to them was entirely of their own doing, though. This often comes out pretty quickly during conversation.
Below you'll find stories of the most obviously self-made disasters ever, and their after effects.
Redditor Penguin__Farts asked:
"What's the worst case you've seen of someone trying to play the victim when it was all their own fault?"
Organ Failure
During a Sunday liturgy, I gave the priest the proper intonation for the Gloria in Excelsis, but he started chanting the "Sanctus" instead (which comes much later in the Mass).
No one knew how (or if) to respond, so the place fell silent.
Afterward, the priest blamed me (the organist) for giving him "the wrong intonation" instead of simply admitting that he wasn't infallible and had made a simple mistake.
Walk On
My ex wife loves to do this.
She had an affair, left me and our kid for the guy, got a DWI and the car I cosigned for was repossessed.
Every time I hear from her I get to listen to her complain about how she has to walk to work and how she has to borrow lunch money because child support took $129 out of her check and our son never calls her and she hasn't seen him in over a year.
-r4x
Free Ride
A former friend and housemate—who I stupidly let live at my place rent free and who I gave some pretty significant help towards lawyer fees—lost her mind when I started voicing my concerns over her new boyfriend. She was still technically married to another man, and the new boyfriend was into all sorts of cultish, New Age, Spirit Science craziness.
Oh, and they would do things like make these lavish meals in the kitchen and not clean up, or block my car in the driveway. Then she went on a rant in which she compared me to her abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband—because I hadn't put away a container of cinnamon immediately after using it.
When I served an eviction notice to the b-bomb, she gave Academy Award-level performance for melodrama of her own making.
Cat Logic
My cat plays with the closet door and sometimes shuts himself in. Then I get an angry cat yowling to get let out and acts like I'mthe one that locked him in there.
Guilt Trip
My mom consistently tries to play the victim when we (her kids) don't want to see her.
She'll post on Facebook about how her kids don't love her, call extended family members to complain, and just make stuff up so that people think we don't love her or something.
In reality she makes it so unbearable to visit her we don't want too. She tries to treat us like we're still toddlers. First time I brought my wife (yep I'm married) to see her i was going to book a hotel. My mom threw a fit because I wasn't staying at her place. So my wife convinces me to give my moms place a chance, because at this point she doesn't know.
My mom said she'd have the guest bedroom ready for us. In reality it was a twin bed with toy story bedding and a princess sleeping bag on the ground. Well I can barely fit into a twin bed so my wife took it while I slept on the ground. We got a hotel the next night.
During the next couple days my mom:
- Tried to convince us to give her a grandchild
- Bought my wife lingerie (presumably to make her a grandchild)
- Tried to put me in timeout
- Threatened to spank and mouthsoap my wife
- Tried to sleep in our hotel room
- Took us to babies r us to try to convince us to have a kid
And a bunch of other things.
Yet in all this she's the victim of kids who don't love her. I've literally gotten calls from extended family telling me how I have to see my mom more.
I was in line in my car to enter an amusement park. All of a sudden the car in front of me threw on their reverse lights and backed into me hard.
I got out and was talking to the driver, a 17 year old girl, about what I needed—her driver license and insurance info. She kept trying to delay giving me the info because she wanted to call her parents first. Fine, no problem..... she calls her dad and as they were talking she calms down and her face lights up.
She turns to me and says loudly and in a snarky tone while holding the phone towards me to get my reaction:
"Did I hit you, or did you hit me? Because before I backed up, I checked my mirror and my passenger checked hers and you weren't there and then all of a sudden we felt a hit....."
I replied:
"Are you implying I rear ended you?"
"I'm not sure, but I think you might have."
I point to my car:
"Do you see that little thing beside my rear view mirror, that's a dash cam and it's been recording since I left my house and is currently recording our conversation. Now, if you want to go this route, we can, but the police are going to be notified....."
Now she starts crying and says on the phone:
"No dad, he has a dashcam and it's recording everything."
Then come the waterworks, she starts trying to get me to talk to her dad, that he will take care of it etc. etc..... Finally I got the info out of her and had to get the front end of my car fixed.
A dashcam saved my butt. Get one.
Liar, Liar
My best friend's ex-girlfriend. Basically her ex was kicked out of her parent's house when she told them she was a lesbian. She moved in with my best friend since they were dating at the time.
At first she told my bf that she was too depressed to find a job. My best friend was okay with that even if it meant she'd have to work more, which she did. She even found a second part time job.
For the next six months, whenever my best friend asked her if she found a job she'd always get the "I'm too depressed" response. Eventually my best friend finds out her girlfriend cheated on her. Her excuse for cheating was "you're always at work and never have time for me. I need someone who will be there for me."
My best friend kicks her out and then her ex blames her for having to move back in with her parents. The kicker: turns out her parents never really kicked her out, she was just tired of them telling her to get a job.
False Witness
I once witnessed a car accident where a lady blew a red light and another car (whose light had clearly turned green) didn't see her and hit her broadside. (The innocent driver had her view obscured by my vehicle also entering the intersection—I was able to stop, but she couldn't.) After the impact, witnesses stopped to help, and the lady who ran the red light tried to argue she was going through on a yellow and that her neck hurt.
Apparently she had the nerve to attempt a lawsuit over it, because I was later interviewed (deposed?) over the phone by crazy lady's lawyer who tried to trip me up by saying another witness claimed to be the same place I was. Too bad, man. I was right there, and there's no way in heck you can paint me as an unreliable witness for your client to steal money from an innocent for her own stupid mistake.
Customer Disservice
An employee was being fired for a multitude of infractions at a coffee shop. He had been caught by management calling customers things like 'dumb *ss' and 'stupid f**k' under his breath and several customers had also reported the behavior.
He was constantly late or would leave early or beg others to cover his shift. Instead of restocking or cleaning the area during down times he would take out his drumsticks and 'practice', which annoyed the other employees and customers.
During inventory counts we noticed whole pallets of sandwiches or baked goods were 'missing' as well as bottled drinks, etc... We were mysteriously out of huge 5 lbs bags of the espresso roast. The numbers were not adding up.
He was subsequently fired after being caught bad mouthing a customer while a visiting manager was also in the cafe (the guy didn't know it). The guy blamed all the issues on everyone else:
- late to work turned into 'I missed the bus' or 'my roommate forgot to wake me up in time'
- leaving early turned into 'well I got a call for a gig/there was a concert I wanted to see'
- food missing turned into 'I didn't have money to eat and it's the companies responsibility to ensure I'm fed while on the clock'
- calling customers names turned into 'they misunderstood me' Management said 'what part of calling a customer a dumb f**k is a misunderstanding?' followed by 'not my fault they're so sensitive'.
All this dudes problems were blamed on everyone else and all his issues and situation in life was blamed on everyone else.
Us employees stopped inviting him out because at bars he would order drinks and tell the bartender one of us was covering and skip out or leave rapidly before check was presented to us. He would also walk around tables when people got up to dance or talk in a group and guzzle down their drinks. He was an all over sh*tty person.
Found out after he was fired from our store he was hired by a Starbucks in the mall—who failed to call for a reference or check even though our store was listed as previous place of employment. He was caught stealing money and food from there too.
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Teachers have heard every excuse in the book from students who were trying to pull a fast one. We all know the classics: 'dog ate my homework,' 'my car burst...Oops...
An older lady walked into a construction area where she knew she wasn't supposed to go just to snoop around when the workers weren't there and then sued because she slipped on a plastic floor covering. She worked there. She knew the area was off limits. Did it anyway.
Wedding Bell Blues
My mom ruined my courthouse wedding, called me selfish and made fun of my shoes on my wedding day, and made me swear to her that I wouldn't tell our family I was getting married until we had a big ceremony.
Then proceeded to go behind my back and tell people anyway. She is now genuinely surprised that I am upset and going around crying to all my aunts and uncles about how her only daughter will not speak to her.
🎵 At The Car Wash...🎶
A woman rear-ended my car in the car wash of all places. She failed to put her car in Neutral and rolled right into me.
She then proceed to yell at me and insist that it was my fault for "not going fast enough".
After we finally convinced her that the track always goes the same speed, she decided to blame the CAR WASH EMPLOYEE for making the track too slow.
Too Late
Sometimes my children ask me why they've met my mother but never met my father, I tell them he died a long time ago when I was a kid. In reality, my dad used to be an abusive drunk, and my mother had to kick him out because he used to beat on us kids.
We used to spend weekends at his new house but around the time I turned 10 he told my mother to stop dropping us off, and gave her a shoe box full of all the pictures he had of us. We tried calling him on holidays every now and again, but he finally just told us to stop contacting him altogether.
Last year my mother passed away, and he decided to reach out to me and expressed he had changed and wanted to make things up to me. I told him it was ok, I filled him in on how I was doing in life and sent him pictures of my children...but I expressed I was already a man, and don't need a father anymore, but he was forgiven for the 20 year absence.
He then proceeded to tell me that I'm horrible for pushing him away and abandoning him, that he was dying and just wanted to fix things. So I just explained to him, it's already forgiven but he abandoned me and I had no time for his foolishness. I wish things would have been different, but he's too much of a bad influence to allow in my children's lives.
Friends Don't Let Friends...
Facebook drama from a few years ago, this girl was leaving a bar drunk, and she backed her car into the car of someone she was an acquaintance with while exiting the parking lot, then the next day went off on him for telling the police he saw her do it, when he knew she was poor and could have just said he didn't see it and had his insurance pay.
She kept digging a deeper hole and all the replies were like "don't drive drunk", it was glorious.
Competition
I quit my job and set up my own competing business with my ex-employer after he failed to pay me for 2 months claiming non payment from the clients.
He had a massive go at me after I confronted him with receipts from the clients to show payment and he accused me of making him look bad in front of his clients and that he didn't owe me the money because "some people are bosses and some people are employees" hence why I quit the job and set up for myself because last time I checked, slavery is illegal in the UK.
I also warned a few of my ex coworkers to be careful and not let him rack up debt with them because of what he did to me (they are nice people with young families and don't deserve to be taken advantage of, like he did to me).
I take him to court to try to recoup the money he owed me for the work I completed and the judge ruled in my favour for the full amount of just over £4000. He then plays the victim card with everyone he knows and says that I made him and his family homeless despite the fact that he never paid me a penny of the money owed.
£4000 is like 5-6 months rent in a decent neighborhood in my city. Honestly blows my mind every time I think about it.
Short story: The dude stole over £4000 from me, never pays me back, blames me for making his family homeless.
Creeper
This guy got upset saying we were always talking about him behind his back. He would creep up to the door in our apartment and stand there listening to our conversations. Of course we would talk about him!
He owed 2 of us over 600 dollars and refused to pay it. And then WE were the bad people because we would talk about it, in our own apartment, not knowing he is creeping around the door.
You Can't Handle The Truth
My crazy college girlfriend cheated on me and then blamed me for causing problems in our relationship by being "obsessed with the truth" as I figured out what had happened.
Self-Made Man
Local business owner/friend asked a lot of his regular customers to invest in his new business in Atlanta, by buying shares. I bought in, knowing we wouldn't break even for at least three years, but that he could sell religion to the Pope. Had losses for two years, break even at three as predicted.
Four years in, he closes the Atlanta store and opens in another town, but this time he's doing it all with "his own money". Bullsh*t, he's doing it with the inventory and proceeds from the Atlanta store. Even has a shiny new house, cars, the works for his new venture.
He's shocked to the core, and hurt, I tell you, hurt and disappointed! when all the share holders took him to court.
2.
When I was teaching, I had a student I adored who had some behavior problems. I did everything I could to support him. One day, we were taking a test and he was talking. I reminded him several times that talking during a test is not allowed, and I would have him go in the hallway if he continued.
He continued talking, so I told him to go into the hall. He called me autistic on his way out (His favorite insult) and so I wrote him a referral. I called his parents and they didn't answer, so I sent an e mail explaining what happened, that he got a referral, and that I hope we can work together to help him manage his reactions.
His mother responded saying that My behavior is UNACCEPTABLE and that she is done speaking with me and I will hear from her lawyer. She went all the way up to the district level to complain about me, telling all sorts of lies and making me look like a horrible person. I don't teach anymore.
Reversal Of Fortune
I was in a crowded parking lot, driving around looking for a space. There was one car ahead of me. The car ahead of me stopped, so I stopped as well. (I'm not sure why she stopped because there were no empty spaces and no one was pulling out, but whatever).
Then, before I even had time to react, her reverse lights came on and she came flying backwards towards me. I didn't even have time to honk. She slammed into the front of my car, got out of her car, and started screaming that I hit her.
When officers arrived, she was crying and shaking and complaining that her neck hurt. And cursing me for slamming into the back of her car.
Thankfully, two people had been walking through the parking lot when this occurred and told the officer what really happened. Later, the driver of the car that hit me, tried to tell her insurance company that I knew the witnesses and that's why they lied. I didn't know the witnesses by the way.
At any rate, if the witnesses hadn't stuck around to give statements, I'd have been screwed.