[SPEAKER_00]: What's the juiciest secret you have?
[SPEAKER_00]: Story one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Throw away account for obvious reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have two sons but my youngest who is twenty-two is not biologically mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the son of my former best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mother was incredibly irresponsible and raising him after we divorced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left her when I found out through an anonymous DNA test when he was seven because he looked just like the guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite everything, I have been the only stable parental figure in his life and have always treated him the same without prejudice.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mother would never admit the truth in a million years and I could never bring myself to shatter his perception of me or her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's the twist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have terminal cancer and will most likely not be around much longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, his biological father, my ex-best friend, has just inherited a massive portion of a family-owned stock annuity that will pay dividends to his descendants when they turn twenty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a life-changing amount of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am torn about what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the only one who knows the truth, though I'm sure his mother knows considering how this all happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now here we are as the world keeps turning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story two, I've been waiting for a chance to share this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell anyone I know because I've been sworn to secrecy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is the craziest secret I've ever heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will probably get buried, but here goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a girl in my hometown who has lived with her male best friend for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is overweight.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is relevant to the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: While he is a classic playboy, long blonde hair, good looks, plays drums and multiple successful bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only know this secret because
[SPEAKER_00]: During a drunken moment of weakness, she confided in a few of her closest friends about something that had been eating away at her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She and her roommate had been secretly hooking up for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is deeply in love with him and wants their relationship to be real and out in the open, but he is ashamed of her weight.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even gave her an exact number of pounds she would need to lose before he would consider dating her publicly.
[SPEAKER_00]: If she doesn't meet that condition, he will only continue seeing her in secret and refuses to make it official.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as bad as that sounds, here's where the story gets even more scandalous.
[SPEAKER_00]: This had been going on for a couple of years when she got pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was afraid to tell him and couldn't bring herself to have an abortion, so she decided to keep the pregnancy a secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of her size, she was able to conceal it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She carried the baby to term, gave birth, and had an adoptive couple lined up, all without anyone knowing.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as I know, I am one of a very, very small handful of people who know about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have never told anyone outside of that group out of respect for her privacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story three, I'm a college student and I'm visual.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day I was on Craigslist looking for a hookup.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's sketchy, but it happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone replied to my ad wanting to meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: The picture he sent was blurry.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was pretty sure it was my friend's dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: To confirm, I replied with a single message containing his name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this ax?
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out it was him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He immediately started asking who I was, became extremely nervous, and even offered me money to keep quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped responding after that and got really anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I never told anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is married, highly successful in his career, and obviously hiding a part of himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just couldn't bring myself to tell his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: It weighed on me for a long time, but in the end I kept it to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has no idea that I know, but it's definitely awkward whenever I'm around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story four.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother and I each had two God fathers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had my mother's brother and a priest while he had my dad's best friend and another priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were very close with these priests growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were both great guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I even had my first communion in my own living room.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day when I was around ten, I woke up to find our priest God parents visiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: My parents in the priest were in the living room watching a VHS tape.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I quickly realized it was something inappropriate.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom made me promise not to tell anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I found out that the two priests were in a relationship with each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not long after my parents divorced.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom later came out and has been in a committed relationship with another woman ever since.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad, who has since passed away, may have also been gay, but that's something I have never told anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story five.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-sister-in-law participated in multiple group encounters.
[SPEAKER_00]: ironic considering she is a devoted Christian with strong opinions about morality.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was also vocal about disapproving of the age gap between me and my ex-girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was ten years older than my ex, and she never hesitated to judge me for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out about her activities when she messed up her computer and asked me to fix it, specifically to recover all her lost photos.
[SPEAKER_00]: While retrieving the files I came across multiple folders, each labeled with different dates documenting her involvement in those encounters.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was always the same group, four women around her age, about twenty, an older woman who appeared to be in her late forties, and four men all seemingly over sixty.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been involved with all of them in various ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the sheer volume of images kept me occupied for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: If only my ex-girlfriend knew why I had no interest in being intimate with her during that period.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story six, one night a friend got extremely drunk and confessed something horrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three years earlier, he had assaulted the sister of another friend while she was blacked out at a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to him, he had been drinking but was fully aware of what he was doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A police reported been filed and a forensic exam was conducted, but no match was found in the system.
[SPEAKER_00]: A month after that party, we all learned she was pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: She chose to keep the baby and our entire circle of family and friends supported her in every way possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone except the guy responsible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so enraged that I knocked him out and immediately called another friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took me half an hour to talk him down from doing something drastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: While our former friend was still out cold, I swabbed his mouth with a cue tip and arranged for a paternity test.
[SPEAKER_00]: A month and a half later, the results confirmed what we already suspected.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend and his parents took the evidence to the police and now our former friend is in prison facing the consequences of his actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how this secret ends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as finally caught up with him, story seven, I used to have a best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had been close since freshman year of high school, always dancing around the idea of being more than friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over time, our bond deepened and we became inseparable.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of weeks before everything changed, she came back to visit our hometown where I still live.
[SPEAKER_00]: During that visit, we finally took our relationship to the next level.
[SPEAKER_00]: If she hadn't moved away, we probably would have ended up together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just fit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after she left, she discovered she had a tumor, surgery saved her, but she slipped into a coma, and later developed conduction of phasia, a condition that affects her ability to process language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before her memory faded, she told me that if something happened to her, I should tell her boyfriend to move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: He still posts emotional messages on her Facebook wall, and her parents seem fine with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her parents never liked me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were ultra-conservative Christians and disapproved of me because I'm Native American and have long hair.
[SPEAKER_00]: She used to lie just so she could spend time with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now even though she lives only twenty minutes away, I never visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't even remember me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe, that's for the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eight, one night my mom had too much to drink and accidentally let something slip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of the divorce decree between her and my dad required them to pay for all of their children's college expenses.
[SPEAKER_00]: They covered most of mine, but I still had to take out about twenty-five thousand dollars in student loans.
[SPEAKER_00]: When sober my mom has repeatedly said that if she and my dad had stayed together, they wouldn't have paid for my education, and she felt bad that she couldn't do it on her own.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's middle class, while my dad is well off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in my mid-thirties now and just found out the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose I could take legal action, but I probably never will.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need the money, but it stings, knowing that my dad fully covered my half-brothers' college expenses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story nine, there was a girl I went to university with who had it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful, preppy, conservative, intelligent, and the classic girl next door type.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been with her high school sweetheart for years, and on the surface, they seemed like the perfect couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: We became friends, and at first I had no idea how different she was behind closed doors.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a chronic cheater, a heavy drinker, and honestly, possibly a sociopath.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, while intoxicated, she bragged to me about how she went on dates with different men every week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually two or three at a time, without her boyfriend ever suspecting a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: On her birthday after a night of drinking, we shared a cab home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting next to her when she suddenly tried to kiss me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a straight woman, so I gently turned her down, but she wasn't happy about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later that night, she hooked up with my boyfriend instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, I cut off all contact, but the craziness didn't stop there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to today, and she's now a well-respected lawyer in my town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was fifteen, my parents split up, but they never finalized the divorce.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad moved out, got a new place, and stopped contributing financially.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day I would go to work from three p.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: to ten p.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my mom assumed I was just out with friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would get mad at me for coming home late and not following her rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: For two years I kept this up.
[SPEAKER_00]: All while my sisters and mom constantly criticized me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They called me lazy, a failure, and someone who never followed rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I was barely holding things together, they had no idea my dad had stopped paying the bills.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was unemployed, and I was the one secretly pulling the bills from the mailbox so no one would realize.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even after two or three years of working myself to the bone, nearly failing school, and enduring all the verbal attacks, I never once told my family the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I never will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eleven, I have a family member in politics, so I've learned some unsettling things over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: For one, federal prosecutors are often more corrupt than the politicians they indict.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many politicians convicted of corruption are actually innocent.
[SPEAKER_00]: but ambitious prosecutors and attorney generals use these cases to advance their careers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The justice system is heavily skewed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Prosecutors hold unchecked power and fewer willing to challenge them for fear of becoming their next target.
[SPEAKER_00]: lobbyists control politicians in a direct way that most people don't realize.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, major organizations like the NRA or AIPAC will approach a candidate running for Congress and say, will donate one point five million dollars to your campaign, but you have to vote for X, Y, and Z. If you refuse, we'll offer the same deal to your opponent and you'll lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Politicians are forced to accept because, without the money, they stand no chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if they have strong beliefs on other issues, they must play by the lobbyists' rules to have any hope of making progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obama had no true, kitchen cabinet, no trusted circle of advisors he could rely on unconditionally, almost every president before him had one, which made his job far more difficult than people realized.
[SPEAKER_00]: He deserves even more respect for what he accomplished under those circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of our foreign policy disasters over the last sixty years happened because of corruption between intelligence gathering and what is presented to the president.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are too many middlemen and that's where critical details get manipulated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when it was falsely claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that Vietnam attacked a US warship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's something that might surprise people.
[SPEAKER_00]: George W. Bush was actually a decent guy who genuinely meant well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot more secrets like these.
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, it's kind of a burden.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twelve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a brother and sister, step siblings, that I never knew existed until I was twenty-six.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, I had just come out to my father's gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That had always been a major hurdle for me because he was a strict military-type man.
[SPEAKER_00]: To my surprise, he was completely accepting, supportive even.
[SPEAKER_00]: But since we were finally being honest, he decided to confess something as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: After divorcing my mother, he had started another family.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had always wanted to introduce me to my brother and sister, but my mom made him promise never to tell me about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he did, she threatened to cut him out of my life completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: She weaponized me against him, and he was forced to comply.
[SPEAKER_00]: I later met my siblings and we instantly clicked.
[SPEAKER_00]: We share the same values, the same interests.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can tell we were all raised with the same influence from my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're only about seven years younger than me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What hurts the most is that I had a lonely childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up as an only child, isolated in my room, barely allowed to play downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always wished I had siblings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone to share things with, argue with.
[SPEAKER_00]: just experience life with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all this time, my mother knew I had exactly that, but she kept it from me out of spite, the real secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: She still has no idea I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've kept quiet for years, but that won't last much longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: My partner and I are planning to get married soon, and I intend to invite everyone from the close family, including my siblings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see the look on her face when she realizes her secret is finally out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirteen, this shouldn't be a secret because it was reported to the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it seems like it is, because nothing ever came of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: A co-worker of mine was murdered.
[SPEAKER_00]: His wife had left him, leaving him to raise three kids on his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did his best, but along the way, he got involved with the wrong crowd, drugs, partying, reckless behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, he was at a party and got into an argument with another guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fight escalated, but my coworker eventually left the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other guy followed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somewhere on a country road, my coworker was run off the road and died in what was officially ruled and accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was horrific.
[SPEAKER_00]: People from the party went to the police and told them what had really happened, but nothing was ever done.
[SPEAKER_00]: After his death, his ex-wife returned and took the kids, stepping back into the role of a mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazingly, they seem to be doing well now.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a decent, hardworking guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know because we used to carpool together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a small town area, and I can't help but wonder who the guy was that ran him off the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he had connections?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe someone in law enforcement protected him?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I do know is that my coworker didn't deserve what happened to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fourteen, a female friend and I went to a house party late one night.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was interested in the guy who owned the house, so she was hoping for something to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had never been there before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a massive white house with three floors in multiple rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: I joke that it looked like something out of the real world.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time we arrived, the party had been going on for hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was already pretty wasted.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were still about eighty people there, scattered throughout the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: We split up.
[SPEAKER_00]: She went to flirt with the guy she liked, and I hung out with a couple of people I knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a little while, I saw her heading upstairs with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I figured she had gotten what she came for.
[SPEAKER_00]: About an hour later, she texted me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something bad happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked her what she meant, and she replied, I double banged.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was confused and asked her to explain.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me to meet her in the upstairs bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I found her, she explained everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had gone upstairs and slept with the guy she liked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Afterwards, she left his room to use the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when she went back, she accidentally entered the wrong bedroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took off her clothes and got into bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guy in the room, who she assumed was the same guy, initiated round two, and she went along with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until halfway through that she realized something was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Specifically, she noticed that the guy's size had changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when it hit her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was with the wrong person.
[SPEAKER_00]: The house was confusing.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been drinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both guys look similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, she panicked but didn't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, she just finished and left as quickly as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that night on, the second guy has been nicknamed The Mystery Bang.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the only person besides her who knows this ever happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifteen, my best friend is a high-ranking manager at a university.
[SPEAKER_00]: He works in the president's office, suit and tie every day, the whole professional image.
[SPEAKER_00]: What no one knows is that he spent most of his late teens and early twenties in prison for drug dealing and nearly beating someone to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he served his time, turned his life around, started a small business to pay for his undergrad degree, and eventually completed post-secondary school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many workplaces don't require a criminal record check.
[SPEAKER_00]: They simply ask if you're bondable, meaning are you currently involved in the justice system for a crime you haven't been pardoned for?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was able to apply for jobs without issue, as long as they didn't require a background check, like office jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, obviously, no one at his work knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story sixteen, one of my close friends is secretly hated by everyone else in our group.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she has no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: They constantly talk behind her back and call her a liar.
[SPEAKER_00]: They believe she lied about having cancer, even though she has a small scar from the surgery and there are pictures of her in the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think she lied about her job as a professor because they couldn't find her listed on the school's registry.
[SPEAKER_00]: because they googled the wrong school.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the girls in our group recently got married, and despite thinking my friend is a liar, she still had her in the wedding party.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you ask someone you believe is a pathological liar to be in your wedding?
[SPEAKER_00]: A week before the wedding, my friend's appendix burst, and she had to be rushed to the hospital so she couldn't make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they claim she faked it just to get out of going, saying she forgot to buy her dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: For her birthday her parents booked her a hotel in NYC and got tickets for all of us to go to a football game, spending hundreds of dollars even though they aren't wealthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't go for health reasons, but I texted her the day after to ask how it was and she told me no one showed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel terrible for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a wonderful person and has no idea why everyone has been treating her so badly since missing the wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm torn on whether I should tell her what they've been saying or just stay out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they've been calling her a liar for six years.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the only person in our group who believes her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been friends with some of these girls for fifteen years and we're all in our late twenties, early thirties.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is some high school level drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story Seventeen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a secret relationship with my best friends neighbor who was significantly older than me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It started when I was fifteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would sneak out of his house when I was staying over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes pretending to be too drunk to go home so he could crash at their parents' house.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked every day and eventually when I turned eighteen, we slept together.
[SPEAKER_00]: My best friend and their family never knew, and I will never tell them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They see this guy as family like a brother, and I know it would destroy them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are very judgemental about anything that doesn't fit their worldview.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, I've kept this secret for almost ten years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I could bring myself to tell them now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see each other anymore, although he has tried to cheat on several of his girlfriends with me whenever I was single.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eighteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about my good friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the sake of the story I'll call him Bob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bob has a serious issue with being alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He always needs to have a girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just turned eighteen a few months ago and is currently dating a sixteen-year-old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that bad, except he moved her out of state with him for college, without anyone signing over custody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's facing the possibility of trafficking charges.
[SPEAKER_00]: His response to everything is, I asked a cop, and my response is always, that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Too bad there isn't just one cop in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: In reality, he probably told the cop,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she's not living with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's staying with a family friend, completely neglecting dimension that they're truly active and that he's likely lying about her age.
[SPEAKER_00]: He keeps acting like this problem will just go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The state he moved to does have Romeo and Juliet laws.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think those override federal laws about transporting a minor across state lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: To make things worse, he got into a fight with his roommate called the cops and now law enforcement is fully aware that his underage girlfriend is living with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching this unfold thinking, dude, I love you, but I warned you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-nineteen, a friend of mine grew up in a strict household with two helicopter parents who planned his entire life, including his wedding day.
[SPEAKER_00]: He became frustrated and couldn't take it anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he met a girl he was really into, and she convinced him to run away with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: The police searched for him, but he never went back home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was worried but knowing how miserable his parents made his life, I figured he was better off.
[SPEAKER_00]: A while after he disappeared, he contacted me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and the girl had run away together and he was teaching himself to be an artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: The police eventually found him, but since he was an adult, they treated it like someone moving on with their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: They respected his wishes and kept his parents out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he and his wife have a couple of kids and are happy together.
[SPEAKER_00]: His parents still have no clue where he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year I went on a training seminar out of state with a coworker in a few others.
[SPEAKER_00]: We shared a room, and like a couple of idiots, we got completely wasted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started telling crazy stories, trying to one up each other for laughs when my coworker suddenly said that his wife is also his sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even showed me childhood photos of them together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He explained that they fell in love and decided to live as a couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, they even told their mom, and for whatever reason, she supports them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next day after we recovered from our hangovers, he realized what he had told me and begged me not to say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I was weirded out, but I kept my mouth shut.
[SPEAKER_00]: I eventually decided that it's his business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that's what they want for themselves, I won't stir up trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the full story of how they ended up in that situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I think I'm fine with letting that mystery stay unsolved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend had a one night stand with a mutual friend's best friend from Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_00]: They used the good old pullout method, and nine months later, she had a baby that looks exactly like him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She already has one daughter, and unfortunately, her previous relationship ended because she had an affair.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's too ashamed to tell my friend, and they live about three states apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: The real plot twist, she's been battling brain cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: If she dies, the child will never know who their father is, unless we say something.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wants her parents to have custody of the kids, so I feel like it's not really my place to interfere.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend is also in a serious relationship and just started his first job.
[SPEAKER_00]: This news would probably destroy him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not sure if anyone will see this, but back in the early two thousands, my aunt asked my mom to take in her daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom agreed and even paid for her college.
[SPEAKER_00]: It became clear pretty quickly that my cousin was manipulative.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a few years, she and my dad started getting too close, so my mom kicked her out of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: My siblings and I have avoided her ever since.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year, my grandfather passed away, and this woman started coming around again, supposedly for grieving and support.
[SPEAKER_00]: She took advantage of the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few months later, I found out that she and my dad had gone out to dinner together at a restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to now, I recently got a new job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I immediately called my dad to tell him.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was on a plane at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I waited to tell her in person when I picked her up from the airport.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I did, she told me that my cousin had already called her to congratulate her on my job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I blurred it out everything I knew about her in Dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom is furious, but they've been married for over thirty years and are in their sixties.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't want to tell my siblings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would crush them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story, twenty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made an account just for this because it's a pretty wild story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three years ago, some guys from the neighborhood
[SPEAKER_00]: who were known for dealing drugs and some other nasty stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're telling everyone they were going to beat up a friend of mine if he showed up at a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: No real reason, just intimidation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was actually scared of them because they had no problem stabbing someone or beating them within an inch of their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to my friend and asked if he was planning to go to the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just said, yeah, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him what I had heard and all he said was, I don't really care.
[SPEAKER_00]: John will be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he just walked away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone at school knew John.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was huge at least two meters tall, but he was friendly and never got into fights.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't get why my friend fell so safe just because John would be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later at the party my friend showed up and so did the guys who had been threatening him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody said a word because we were all scared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just when they were about to start beating him up, John stepped in.
[SPEAKER_00]: He leaned in and whispered something in their ears.
[SPEAKER_00]: I swear I have never seen someone go pale like that before.
[SPEAKER_00]: They look terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: John motion for them to follow him outside while pulling out his phone and making a call.
[SPEAKER_00]: I caught a glimpse of his face, and even I felt my stomach dropped.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd never seen that look on him before.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few of his close friends followed them out, and me being curious, decided to see what was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I saw blew my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guys who were always threatening people and acting tough were now standing outside, heads down, silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then two SUVs pulled up.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guys were shoved into the cars and they drove off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two days later, I heard they were found in the hospital, with almost every bone in their bodies broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out John is the son of some big shot criminal, probably mafia.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the friend they threatened, John considered him family.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people now know John isn't someone to mess with, but no one talks about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because despite what happened, everyone still likes him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously a throwaway account.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had S with one of my best friends wives multiple times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our affair started before they were married.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they were still together and continued after they got married, he has a job that keeps him away for days or weeks at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: She and I used to go out drinking with a group of mutual friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing led to another and, well,
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we realized that we had real feelings for each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had been extremely attracted to each other for years, but circumstances never allowed us to act on it until then.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never told my friend, and eventually we ended the affair.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both felt incredibly guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: We care about him deeply, as far as I know no one else knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never told anyone this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have lied directly to my wife's face about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It all happened before I met her.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was still single, so technically I didn't cheat on her, but deep down I know I cheated on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I betrayed his trust in the worst way possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not proud of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-four.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was having a fling with this girl for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: After about two months I found out she was married and that her husband had cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully now in remission.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as I learned the truth, I broke it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right after that, she told me she was pregnant and that the baby was most likely mine since she and her husband hadn't been intimate.
[SPEAKER_00]: either because of his chemo or something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she didn't want me involved in the baby's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow she convinced him it was his and now they're supposedly happily together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every now and then I go to her Facebook and see pictures of the little girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now three years old with blonde hair and green eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have blonde hair and green eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: She looks exactly like I did as a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same features, same dimple, same everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're both brown-haired and brown-eyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know she's mine, and there's nothing I can do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to work as a security manager for a large Swedish retail store.
[SPEAKER_00]: After my shift one night, I went out for beers with a co-worker.
[SPEAKER_00]: We took his car and left mine at the store.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few hours later around one or two a.m., we went back so I could pick up my car.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time of night, only the warehouse replenishment crew was downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of my security guys was upstairs monitoring the alarms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I had twenty-four seven access to the building, I let myself and my friend in so we could use the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I was walking down the hall, I glanced through the staff cafeteria door window, and there was my security guy, pants down, watching porn on the staff cafeteria TV, going at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He froze, probably heard me in the hallway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned around immediately, locked eyes with my friend, and we noped the hell out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next time I saw him at work, I acted like nothing happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a little weird about it, but we never spoke about the incident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-six, not really a juicy secret, but definitely an interesting one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really good at internet stalking people, like wearingly good.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend knows this and asked me to look into a guy she liked.
[SPEAKER_00]: just to see if he had posted anything that would be a major red flag.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I obliged and things escalated fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through his name, I found his Facebook, my space, Spotify, LinkedIn, Steam, and then Jackpot of all Jackpots, his Reddit account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like any good friend, I started scrolling through his posts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of it was harmless, just general internet chatter.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then bam, a deeply personal comment he had left on a thread.
[SPEAKER_00]: His older brother had died at a young age, and he had never told anyone about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mention it to my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just sat in the back of my mind, along with some other insecurities he had shared in his posts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over time we became friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one night we got drunk and had one of those deep emotional conversations, and then he told me about his brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said I was the first person he had ever told.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just sat there, drunk his hell, trying to act surprised.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think all I managed to say was, oh God, that's horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: But inside I was panicking because what I really wanted to say was,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found your Reddit account.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a terrible person, and I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I knew that would be a massive invasion of privacy and could mess up his friendship with my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't internet stalked anyone since.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, maybe just a quick check to make sure no one's a serial killer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no more finding people's Reddit accounts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad is kind of a banana.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and my mom split when I was around two or three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, a lot has gone down between them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mostly fights about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both my parents remarried about twelve years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though they had been with their partners much longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love both my step parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: My step dad can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, but I still love the guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: My step mom though.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it weren't for her, I probably wouldn't be alive today.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a story for another time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this woman, not in a weird way, but on the same level as my actual mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, my dad loves to parade around on Facebook, posting about his perfect family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Him, my stepmom, their twin boys, my little brothers, and then me whenever I visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He makes it look like we're all super close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Behind closed doors, though, he's a total prick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't put in much effort to see him anymore, but I'll drop everything to visit my stepmom and my brothers.
[SPEAKER_00]: She calls me often to vent about his outbursts in idiotic behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gotten to the point where she has told me many times that as soon as my brother's finished school, she's leaving him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been saying this for two years now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two more to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would leave now, but she saw what my dad put my mom through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how much of an emotional wreck it turned me into as a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't want that for my brothers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I agree with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fully support her decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've already told her that my home is open to her and my brothers if they ever need to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad has no idea this is happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if he doesn't wake up and realize what's coming, he's going to end up a very lonely old man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of my stepmom and my brothers leave him, I won't even make half the effort I do now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It hurts because at the end of the day, he's my father.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the fact that he's such an asshole to the point where his own son sees a woman he's not even biologically related to as more of a parent than him.
[SPEAKER_00]: leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story, twenty-eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm thirty but my middle-aged mom is having two affairs, and it hurts me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It hurts because my dad isn't well, and if he ever found out, it would devastate him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, he might have a heart attack or a stroke.
[SPEAKER_00]: The craziest part?
[SPEAKER_00]: She's cheating on him with her female best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mom doesn't know that I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out about a year ago, and I even learned details of what they do together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Details I never wanted but unfortunately got shutters.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are two straight, married, good Christian women in their early fifties.
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole life, my parents have been openly homophobic and deeply religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was thirteen, my mother backed me up against the kitchen counter and told me that if I ever came out as gay, I'd never see her or the rest of the family again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wouldn't love me anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to hide the fact that I'm by, along with my relationships and I still hide it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here she is, sneaking around with her married best friend every time she goes over for coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know what coffee means, Mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: My sisters and I grew up playing with her friend's daughters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We took vacations together and spent almost every day at their house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I can't even look at that woman without sneering.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never liked her in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about her always felt off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: My buddy started dating a girl he met through a mutual friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally days after hanging out with him as a couple, I was watching one of those in the VIP videos.
[SPEAKER_00]: When suddenly, I noticed one of the girls dancing around looked familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend's girlfriend had a pretty unique face, so I paused it and took a closer look.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a few moments, I was almost one hundred percent sure it was her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Naturally, I did some digging.
[SPEAKER_00]: I searched the name of the video on Google and cross-checked it with her name.
[SPEAKER_00]: On a form, I found references to her in three other videos.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing explicit, just some fully nude and girl on girl scenes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since this was back in early, two thousand fourteen, and the last video I saw was from two thousand eleven when she would have been eighteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I decided not to tell my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: He really liked her, and she was always kind to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've since broken up, but I still haven't told him because honestly, what good would it do?
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd think it would be awkward hanging out with someone while knowing a secret like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But surprisingly, I barely think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, since I live in Miami, where a lot of those kinds of videos are filmed, she's not the only person I've recognized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in sixth grade, I spent a lot of time at my best friend's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I noticed that his parents were never there together.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mom was one of the kindest women I'd ever met.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his dad was really cool too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I found out that they were divorced, but didn't have enough money to live separately, which seemed reasonable.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a while, his mom finally got her own place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my friend started living between the two homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when he told me the real reason why they split up.
[SPEAKER_00]: His dad had met his step niece at a family reunion and started a relationship with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lived on the West Coast, but eventually my friend's dad moved her into his house in the Midwest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they're planning to get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the only one outside their small family circle who knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty messed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty one.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my acquaintances from work has a wife who is pretty well known on certain adult websites.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment I saw her, I knew exactly who she was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent a couple of days researching user names on forms and sites.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the user names matched his nickname, so I was positive it was him.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are videos and pictures of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them are very explicit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most shocking part?
[SPEAKER_00]: My buddy actually enjoys the attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has posted on multiple forms openly admitting that he likes having friends as see her photos in watch her.
[SPEAKER_00]: In one of his posts, he even said he has a computer in the guest room, loaded with her pictures and invites his friends to stay over while leaving it on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was curious, so I emailed him anonymously through one of those sites.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, it was him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even validated their address when I asked how I knew them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, every time I see them, I drop little off-handed comments just vague enough to make them wonder.
[SPEAKER_00]: The wildest part?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's well-respected in the community and holds a position at a local church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never posted on Reddit before, and this is probably going to get buried, but I have one of the weirdest and grossest secrets ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me start with a little backstory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year, my freshman year of college, I lived in a dorm with my good friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's call him Brad.
[SPEAKER_00]: On April Fool's Day, I decided to pull a harmless prank.
[SPEAKER_00]: I unscrewed his people, dropped a bunch of tick-tax through it, and left a note that said, I hope this doesn't tick you off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brad laughed it off, but he told me he'd get me back next April Fool's Day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to the last day of school before summer break.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the chaos of moving out, I accidentally left behind a backpack I really liked in Brad's room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him to hold onto it and give it back when we return for the next semester.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the start of the semester, Brad gave me my backpack back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used it every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: For my books, laptop, everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, Brad and my other friends kept taunting me, saying things like, you'll never know what to expect on April Fool's Day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brad has something huge plan for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea what they were talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Months passed and more people found out about this prank.
[SPEAKER_00]: They kept making cryptic comments saying I'd never expect what was coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally one of my friends couldn't take it anymore and spilled the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brad took my backpack home over the summer and did things to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He defiled it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside outside, you get the idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst part?
[SPEAKER_00]: I had been carrying it around for months completely oblivious.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I finally looked at it closely, I noticed weird faded stains all over it, and the absolute worst part, all of my friends knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: They saw me walk around with that thing every day and just let it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: To this day, Brad has no idea that I found out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm keeping it a secret because I want my revenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but when I do, it's going to be bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-thirty-three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mine aren't that shocking to anyone besides myself and the people involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here are a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: An ex-co-worker of mine tells everyone she has four kids when in reality she has five.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had her first at sixteen and shortly after she had a son.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's religious and anti-abortion and not wanting to give this child up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother adopted him and has been raising him as her own.
[SPEAKER_00]: This means my coworker is essentially Jack Nicholsoning her kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's being raised to believe she's his sister when, in reality, she's his mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: A friend from high school moved out of state shortly before I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: After they left my mom, who was friends with our landlord, who was friends with their parents, told me that their parents put something like fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars plus in a savings account for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They won't let them know until they feel their mature enough to handle it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so tempted to tell them.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the two boys I was close friends with as a kid is adopted, but he doesn't know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, he lives right next to his biological grandparents, and he does know them as his grandparents.
[SPEAKER_00]: His adoptive parents built a house on the grandparents' land and lived there, pretending these people are just extended families so he never questions his adoption.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, when we were kids, he used to have a habit of, well, let's just say, not making it to the bathroom in time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also have a story involving aliens, but you'd all think I'm crazy, I swear I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's weird, and now that my son is turning three today, I feel afraid for him because of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have two brothers, technically, stepbrothers, same dad, different moms, but we never consider each other that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both are in their forties.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them is gay but has a wife and two kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hides it from his extremely religious mother, who would disown him if he ever came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: People always ask how I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And aside from the obvious signs, his interest mannerisms and certain things he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: My other brother confirmed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I was born, he even came out to my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my dad told him, you're not gay, you just haven't met the right woman yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: His first experience was when he was fourteen, with two other guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lived in the keys for a while and still dreams of going back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's unhappy, drinks a lot, and I just wish I could help him escape the life he's stuck in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one day when his mom has gone or his kids are grown, he'll finally be free.
[SPEAKER_00]: My other brother, let's call him M, is suspected to not be my dad's biological son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even my dad always had his doubts.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my dad was a good man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saved my mom and her three kids from an abusive father, and even if M wasn't his biological son, he never cared.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loved him just like the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: M acts like us, but doesn't look like us, whereas my other brother, S, is the spitting image of our dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as work concerned, Emma's family and nothing changes that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another brother, let's call him B, is a former addict, though he's doing better now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out his fiance was cheating on him with his best friend before he did.
[SPEAKER_00]: My sister went to drop something off at their place while B was at work, and she saw his fiance's clothes all over the floor, along with the best friend's car in the driveway.
[SPEAKER_00]: His clothes were there too.
[SPEAKER_00]: She immediately left and told the rest of us, but not B.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to tell him, but my family convinced me not to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually he found out and was furious that no one had told him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked me directly if I knew, and I had to lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate lying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even small lies keep me up at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still feel guilty about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's wild is that all three of them, be his ex-fiancee and his best friend, are still really close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be even lives with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have two kids together and a third on the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how he does it, but I guess he has nowhere else to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Drugs will ruin your life, and once you break your family's trust a billion times, it's hard to rebuild.
[SPEAKER_00]: My own secret?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a history of addiction too, not hero thankfully, but narcotics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started taking benzodiazepines in whatever else my mom left for me when I was eight years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad was dying of cancer and since everyone worked, my mom would leave me pills to keep me calm while I took care of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: By eleven or twelve I had moved on to stronger substances.
[SPEAKER_00]: This went on until I had my son at nineteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We planned him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't an accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since then, I've been on suboxone and have no desire to go back to that life.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my sisters had an accident in Jim class in high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another sister got caught in a DUI checkpoint as a teenager and was arrested for possession of marijuana.
[SPEAKER_00]: She did smoke, but the weed wasn't hers.
[SPEAKER_00]: It belonged to the same family friend who later dated my brother's ex fiancé.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had too many DUIs and would have gone to prison, so she took the fall for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luckily since she had a clean record, the judge letter off and it was expunged.
[SPEAKER_00]: My uncle was arrested when he was younger for dealing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The police told him they'd let him off if he gave up his supplier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead he went to prison because the supplier was our biological grandfather.
[SPEAKER_00]: My family's full of alcoholics and addicts, but we'd still give you the shirts off our backs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do hate a couple of my uncles, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're loud, rude, and leech off my sweet grandma.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're in their forties and fifties, still living with her, using her money and giving nothing back.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's disgusting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, a lot of us don't visit as much as we should, because we don't want to be around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we still go sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our grandma shouldn't have to suffer just because her sons are awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have plenty more, but I don't know if anyone would even be interested in hearing them.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are, I'll post more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha-ha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-thirty-four.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm related to someone who ran for governor of a province in the Philippines in the early two-thousands and lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: The election was so corrupt that she ended up fleeing to Las Vegas and staying with a friend who was struggling with depression for a couple of years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, it was the most dangerous election in the history of her political dynasty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Armed men patrol the streets, a bombing occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was absolute chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both sides had their own enforcers, though she tried to rain hers in and keep things peaceful.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point during the campaign, she visited a village where a twelve-year-old girl was being kept in a cage and exploited.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to intervene confronting the girl's father and demanding he do something.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got defensive, angry even, but he was voting for the opposition, and nothing she said could change his mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: He reluctantly claimed he'd address the situation, but when she returned, nothing had changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when she explained how elections really work there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whole villages are bought off.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gave me a full rundown on how votes are secured, how money exchanges hands, how people are pressured into compliance.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you win elections.
[SPEAKER_00]: She once joked about infiltrating another campaign just to record and expose the corruption, but she also admitted that things had escalated to such a disturbing level, that only the most ruthless, power-hungry person could win, and she knew she couldn't play that game.
[SPEAKER_00]: We visited the governor's palace, and right outside was this massive sprawl of lamp posts that were always on blasting pop music, twenty-four-seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was around two AM, and the whole place looked like something out of a dystopian movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the top wealth while the surrounding areas struggled, turns out the governor's brother ran the local electric company, so they had the luxury of unlimited power.
[SPEAKER_00]: The governor himself had deep ties to some criminal organizations.
[SPEAKER_00]: She called him an autocratic freak.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could add more details, but some of them are tied to actual news stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to make this too obvious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say the new administration did everything possible to make her family's political dynasty look as corrupt as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uncovering conveniently planted evidence, rewriting history, the whole deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She also told me about a friend of hers, the daughter of a governor from another province.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her father was so feared that he supposedly had bodies buried on his property.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even burned down an entire village at one point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Law enforcement never did anything because money talks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually someone took matters into their own hands and assassinated him.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many stories like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, none of this is surprising.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the Philippines.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as an American hearing all this firsthand was surreal.
[SPEAKER_00]: What makes it even crazier is that if you look up these events online,
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is so sanitized, as if none of it ever happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is polished and praised, filled.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is far darker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just hope politics in the US never reaches that level.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I've learned anything, it's that corruption is like a cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once it spreads too far, rooting it out becomes nearly impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend had an affair with her boss.
[SPEAKER_00]: It got messy when his wife found out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had to resign from his job and ultimately decided to stay in his marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even after everything, they just couldn't seem to end things for good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been a cycle of a few weeks of happiness, followed by a huge argument, then long periods of swearing each other off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rinse and repeat, I know the guy pretty well, so my friend confided in me about everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, I'd run into him and he'd casually ask about her, sending his regards, acting like everything was normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: when I knew they had just hooked up again days ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend knows that if this ever got out, it would completely ruin his reputation and marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though he's been treating her poorly, I have to act like I don't know a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this has been going on for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: What my friend doesn't realize is that the guy has actually confessed everything to me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: They both think the other would never tell anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in reality, I know both sides of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: T. Hill sometimes wonder if the other still thinks about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just shrug and pretend I don't know a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-six.
[SPEAKER_00]: My best friend accidentally ended up working under his fiance in a new department at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: A group of new supervisors had been hired and sent to the corporate office for training.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unbeknownst to them, only the top performers would be selected to lead a newly formed department.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, management at our location hand-picked the best employees for the department and awarded them raises for the transition.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had planned to surprise her with the news of his raise when she returned, and she had planned to surprise him with the news that she was selected as the department supervisor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once they realized what had happened, they were nervous about how their relationship would be perceived by the company.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they made a decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: They kept their relationship a secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had already set a wedding date before all of this unfolded, so they went through with it as plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: She simply kept her maiden name to avoid suspicion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now two years later, they're still married, and as far as their employer knows, they're just coworkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story, thirty-seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grandfather might still be alive if it weren't for my grandmother.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though I was too young to remember the details and it's always been a touchy subject.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he got sick in two thousand three, he weighed a little over four hundred pounds so his knees were already in bad shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember visiting him in his hospital room, talking with him like normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I had to leave for school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our later, my mom picked me up early, saying it was time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I got back, he was asleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: His breathing filled with that eerie death rattle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Supposedly in the hour I was gone, he had started screaming in pain because of his knees.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my grandmother told the doctors to put him on a high dose of morphine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what ultimately killed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not long after he passed, my grandmother almost immediately started dating his best friend from high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always wondered if he could have made a full recovery if she hadn't intervened.
[SPEAKER_00]: She passed away earlier this year, and I never got the chance to ask her about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But honestly, I don't know if I would have wanted to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story, thirty-eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: The KKK seems to be on the rise in my state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either that, or they've always had their own towns that no one ever talks about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was out driving for no real reason and ended up lost in a small town.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, nothing seemed too unusual, just a lot of foot traffic, all white.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not unheard of in certain areas, but then I started noticing things that made my stomach drop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I was lost, I kept driving in circles.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I began noticing the signs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The town looked like any other small place, except for the fact that every business had unusual spellings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost like an inside joke I wasn't in on.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only chain business I saw was a KFC, but it was shut down and its marquee read closed.
[SPEAKER_00]: At this point I was starting to panic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't planned this trip well, and my gas was running low.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no choice but to stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say that the exchange at the gas station confirmed my worst fears in the most terrifying, Stephen King horror novel kind of way.
[SPEAKER_00]: The real nightmare started when I tried to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bridge I had driven in on was suddenly blocked off, and I couldn't find another way out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sun was going down, and the town had a banner across the main road announcing some kind of event that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember exactly what it said, but it was disturbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I realized they were following me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All white cars, trucks too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I was in a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brain tried to rationalize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I was in a coma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I had imagined the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, this was real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, in sheer desperation, I found a stretch of road that didn't look welcoming.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was unlit with construction equipment everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was the only way out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took it without thinking twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much more I could elaborate on, but honestly, I still get chills just thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-thirty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Throw away a count.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is my first real secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: When my mom was in high school, she was really into new age stuff and had terrible boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had a boyfriend who was over thirty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally fine with my grandparents somehow.
[SPEAKER_00]: They slept together regularly and nobody saw an issue with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward about forty years.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom has moved away, is married, has three kids, and has completely left that phase of her life behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the wild part.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grandpa still hangs out with her old boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grandpa is in his seventies now, and her ex is in his sixties.
[SPEAKER_00]: They meet up at least three times a month to watch football, as if nothing about their past connection is strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who else knows about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom obviously does, but she never talks about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only pieced it together a few years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a long history of terrible emotional boundaries in my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty, my dad is cheating on my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: His old job required him to move around a lot, and he took full advantage of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's cheated with multiple women, probably way more than the usual numbers you hear about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's even streamed some of it online.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a controlling angry man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He manipulated me into staying at home, mostly to act as a buffer between him and my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also uses me as a way to keep their marriage from completely crumbling.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom recently lost her job and is buried in debt so he thinks he can control everything and treat us like garbage without consequence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in my twenties still living at home because I only recently got a job that will allow me to move out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saving up a little extra before I make the leap.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has no idea that I know what he's been up to.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has no idea that I have proof and he definitely doesn't know that I've set up a dead man switch.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anything happens, a package containing all of that proof will be sent to my mom, as well as multiple relatives.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he makes my mother cry one more time, he has no clue how fast his entire world is going to come crashing down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two of my best friends from college had a baby and gave him up for adoption.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one knows except for me and one other person.
[SPEAKER_00]: They managed to hide the pregnancy.
[SPEAKER_00]: She never carried large, always wore oversized shirts and somehow pulled it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: When her due date got close, they told their families they were going on a trip together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was during the holidays and since their families lived nearby, no one questioned it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they secretly returned to our off-campus house that we had rented for the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone else was home for Christmas.
[SPEAKER_00]: The timing was perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: She went into labor as expected and he rushed her to the hospital, which was only ten minutes away.
[SPEAKER_00]: She delivered a healthy baby boy, but they knew they couldn't take care of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She asked not to see him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knew that if she did, she changed her mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw him just once.
[SPEAKER_00]: Immediately after they completed the adoption paperwork, they were in their senior year, so both over twenty-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And within a couple of days, she was back home.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had no complications which helped.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time we all returned for the spring semester, no one suspected a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the craziest part.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three of us lived in that house with them, and none of us ever realized what had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were close friends, yet they managed to keep it a complete secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nine years later I went to visit him and during lunch he just came out with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I have something I need to tell you, and you really can't tell anyone else, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: One other friend knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's only because he had stopped by the house right as they were about to leave for the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had no choice but to tell him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But other than the two of us, no one else, not even their families ever found out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to this day, we've never said a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will probably get buried, but I had to create an account just to get this off my chest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up until recently, I was best friends with someone I had known since I was nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went through everything together.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was dealing with an abusive father in middle school,
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family even took me in for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mom was like a second mother to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: For reasons unrelated to this confession, we no longer speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been really hard, but I think it's for the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: The secret?
[SPEAKER_00]: The man she believes to be her father, the one who raised her, is not her biological father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mom and her dad separated years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And during that time, her mom had an affair with the man she was actually in love with.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one her wealthy old New England family had forbidden her to be with.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when she got pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead of staying with the real father, she went back to her husband and he raised the child as his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: They eventually divorced for good, but no one ever told my friend the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's almost thirty-one now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know all of this because when I was living with her mom and stepdad during college, her mom got drunk one night and told me everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her little sister even knows, but no one told her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate that they put this on me because I know she deserves a truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the worst part, the man she believed to be her father passed away from cancer last winter, and she has been grieving so deeply.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the truth is, he wasn't even her real dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It tears me up inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could tell her, but it's not my place, especially now that we don't even speak anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: story forty three this is going to be frustratingly vague but i have to say it a major beloved non-profit in my city one that people praise as a force for good is led by a man hailed as a genius of his time and in many ways he is
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the truth, he's also a predator.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has been caught multiple times streaming inappropriate material involving minors on his work laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, he was even warned to stop because the FBI was going to start tracking the nonprofits network.
[SPEAKER_00]: But despite this, no one has fired him.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has truly stopped him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is so powerful and well-connected with donors who know nothing that people just look the other way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's older now and people assume he isn't a threat anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: but this nonprofit has a children's education program.
[SPEAKER_00]: There have been multiple lawsuits against him over the years, cases involving allegations of abuse, and yet they either got settled or mysteriously disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've searched online, and the only mention of it is on a random blog where someone wrote about having dinner with a group of professionals in the same industry, apparently during the conversation, someone casually mentioned the accusations, and everyone at the table laughed,
[SPEAKER_00]: as if it were common knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: The blogger was outraged, wondering why there had never been any major news coverage of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is, everyone in the industry knows, and they still work with him because collaborating with him is considered a once in a lifetime opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me sick that I know this and just keep it to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: But honestly, I don't even know who would believe me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And no, I'm not basing this on rumors.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have firsthand verified proof of what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was dating an IT guy at the company.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what's on his laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-four.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my culture, siblings trust each other with everything, including financial access.
[SPEAKER_00]: When my friends' parents immigrated from Greece, they started setting aside cash for the future, just in case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward twenty years, and they had saved nearly three hundred thousand dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: since the bank account was in Greece.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father gave his brother full access, just in case something ever happened and the family needed him to handle finances.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year my friend's father decided to check the account because he was finally ready to buy a vacation home for the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when he got the shock of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The account was completely drained.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out his brother had taken the money and planned to put it back eventually.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst part?
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend and their siblings have no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just think their father hasn't found the right vacation home yet, and that retirement is still a few years away.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they ever find out the truth, it would cause an all-out family war.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father was furious at his brother, but ultimately forgave him after just four days of fuming.
[SPEAKER_00]: His reasoning?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother needed the money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally don't think I'd be able to forgive that easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, the father has started drinking a lot more since this happened.