I am a gamer and a firm believer that something not being new doesn’t mean it’s bad. I bought a secondhand PlayStation 3 several years after the PS4 came out due to a lack of backwards-compatibility, I bought a WiiU the day the Switch came out because I hadn’t gotten a WiiU yet, and I still regularly play games for the PSP, Game Boy Advance, and GameCube. I have not gone a year without playing a game for each of these consoles for at least a week. Combine that with the fact that I DO enjoy new games, and… well, I now have a closet dedicated to storing my consoles when they’re not in use, so the TV stand and my bedside table don’t get crowded.

I say “now” because I didn’t at the time of this story; I had most of my home consoles sitting next to each other below the TV, switching out cords whenever I wanted to play something on a different system than the last, and all of my handhelds were scattered atop or in the drawer of my bedside table. When I decided to move in with my girlfriend, I had a giant storage bin dedicated to storing my consoles and another one that was holding all my games.

This game-hoarding (and I use the term facetiously) got me out of a bad relationship much sooner than I probably would have otherwise.

After we moved in together, [Girlfriend] started giving me “advice” (read: telling me and not letting me say no) about how I should dress and what I should or should not eat, that I should get more exercise and play fewer games, etcetera. This SHOULD have been a red flag, but in past-me’s defense, I am the exact opposite of fashion-minded, and I know my physique is not great; I didn’t put up much of a fight against her decisions. I got a LOT of compliments at work about how my wardrobe had stopped featuring blacks and greys, which probably gave me the idea that her advice was sound.

That is until I return home one day and find all my gaming stuff missing — my home consoles, my handhelds, all my games, and even a pair of headphones with an attached mic.

[Girlfriend] gets home shortly after I’m done turning the house upside-down looking for everything.

Girlfriend: “Hey, [My Name]! You’re back already?”

I’m somewhere between terrified and furious and really hoping this is a misunderstanding of some sort.

Me: “[Girlfriend]. Where. Are. My. Games?”

Girlfriend: “Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped playing video games? I donated them to [Secondhand Gaming Store]. Come on, why don’t we do something together?”

“Donated”?! So, not only did she get rid of all my stuff without permission, but she didn’t even get any money from it?

I don’t even respond to her questions. I walk out the door, ignore her asking me what I’m doing, get in my car, and drive to [Secondhand Gaming Store]. I go there regularly to check out their selection of no-longer-sold-new, and there’s rarely anyone else there; fortuitously, there is no one there today, either. Even more fortuitously, the clerk behind the counter is the guy who has processed 75% of my transactions at this place. He recognizes me when I get there.

Clerk: “Hey, [My Name], come here!”

Me: “Not now, [Clerk], I need to know—”

Clerk: “No, seriously, dude, come back here.”

My anger is starting to lose out to my terror at this point, but [Clerk] asking me to come behind the counter catches me by surprise. I come around the counter… and a familiar pair of storage bins are sitting there, open to reveal all my consoles sitting there in what looks like good condition.

Me: “Thank every f****** god in the Source, you still have them.”

Clerk: “‘Still have them’? Dude, no way was I going to let anything happen to them.”

I tell him what I found when I got home, and he tells me his side of the story.

[Girlfriend] parked her car in the nearest space to the door, carried my bins inside one at a time, and pushed the stack toward the counter. She asked [Clerk] what he could give her for my console collection and my giant pile of games. A red flag went off in [Clerk]’s head: who abruptly decides to sell five different home consoles AND four different handhelds all at once? Especially a PS4, in a year when the PS5 hasn’t even been announced. Combine that with [Clerk] knowing which consoles I buy games for, and he had his suspicions.

The standard procedure when you trade in a game or console to a competent secondhand dealer is that the dealer has to make sure the thing works. This gave [Clerk] a good excuse to see whether this stuff belonged to who he thought it did or this was some freak coincidence with someone off their rocker.

Since turning on a handheld is a faster job than plugging in a home console, he grabbed my Switch and hit the power button, and the screen lit up. When he got to the home screen, he found my account, the username of which uses a variation of my real name. He opened up the eShop and turned it toward [Girlfriend].

Clerk: “Excuse me, miss, could you do me a favour and log into this for me?”

Girlfriend: “Why? Can’t you just get rid of it before you sell it? He’s not going to use it anymore, anyway.”

Yes, she made it clear that these were not her things that she was trying to pawn off to him. [Clerk] refused to buy anything unless she brought the owner in with her, to which [Girlfriend] angrily demanded that he stop complaining and just take the goods from her. Eventually, [Girlfriend] got fed up with the argument.

Girlfriend: “Fine! Take them for free, then! I’m just trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff he doesn’t use! If you’re not gonna pay me for his stuff, that’s your fault!”

Yes, [Clerk] stressed, she did in fact say, “…pay me for his stuff…”

I thank [Clerk] and the Twelve about a hundred times each while I check my stuff for visible damage and find none. [Clerk] helps me carry my stuff back out to my car, and I call a friend, who agrees to let me crash at his place for a while. I take the gaming stuff to him first and then drive back to [Girlfriend]’s place and give her seven hells while I collect everything I own that will fit in my car.

Girlfriend: “Get back in here! Get rid of all that gaming junk, get back here, and apologize!”

Me: “I’ve got a better idea. How about you stop trying to decide what I’m allowed to enjoy and how I spend my free time, and I don’t treat you like a selfish b**** who cares about no one but herself?”

I would like to say that [Girlfriend] screamed at me because she’s human and a loud wordless vocalization by a human is usually described as a scream. But [Girlfriend] has a fairly low-pitched voice, and it genuinely sounded more like a roar. I turned around, got into my car, and drove away.

[Clerk], thank you again; I owe you big time. And [Girlfriend], f*** you with a greatsword.

My husband and I usually spend Thanksgiving with a close friend instead of going to our families’ homes. This year, our friend’s fifteen-year-old son invited his girlfriend, also fifteen. She is about as mentally stable and secure as most fifteen-year-old girls. She thinks [Son] should only do things they can do together, he should always hold her hand, and he should absolutely never talk to any other women.

As the only woman at the meal that [Son] is not related to, I am obviously a threat and she treats me as such. I was seventeen when [Son] was born and babysat him a lot growing up, so we are pretty close, but I’ve never looked at him as a prospective boyfriend.

I stopped drinking several months ago because of a complication with one of my medications, so I have been trying out different non-alcoholic substitutions. I bring a four-pack of this substitution to the gathering and put it in the garage. [Son] and [Girlfriend] are sitting out there by themselves. [Girlfriend] sees me and starts crawling in [Son]’s lap and trying to kiss his neck.

Me: “Hi there.”

Girlfriend: “Bye there.”

She waves me off.

Me: “What’s going on?”

She sits back in her seat and glares at me while [Son] gives me a fist bump and laughs.

When the meal is ready, we are all seated at the table. [Girlfriend] strolls in last, drinking one of my non-alcoholic beers and looking right at me.

Friend: “[My Name]…?

Me: “Yeah, that’s mine. What are you doing, [Girlfriend]?”

Girlfriend: “It’s not real beer, so it’s not illegal.”

Friend: “It’s also not polite to help yourself to things that aren’t yours.”

[Girlfriend] shrugs and keeps drinking.

Son: “Sorry, [My Name]. I’ll give you some cash for it.”

Girlfriend: “Why?”

Son: “Because you just stole that!”

Me: “Let’s just eat.”

Girlfriend: “It’s basically soda, anyway.”

[Girlfriend] chugs the rest of the drink. I don’t know if you know what happens when you down a carbonated beverage in a few seconds, but [Girlfriend] learns. She burps so loud, I think her throat is sore. [Son] laughs out loud and [Girlfriend] glares at me.

Throughout the meal, [Girlfriend] continues intercepting dishes as I ask for them, talking over me, and just being a classic mean girl.

When dessert comes, I bring out my pies and set one at each end of the table. When they come to her, [Girlfriend] picks one up and shouts. The glass plate lands on the floor upside-down.

Girlfriend: *With mock sadness* “Oh, no! It was too hot.”

The pies have been cooling for several hours by this point and are not hot at all. I’ve had enough, but I’m not going to yell.

Me: “That’s why grownups touch hot plates and children wait their turn. Go get—”

Girlfriend: “I’m not a child!”

Me: “Go get some towels to clean up.”

Girlfriend: “Kiss my a**, you ugly whore.”

Friend: “Hey! Absolutely not! You can go call your mom and have her pick you up.”

Girlfriend: “F*** you, too! This b**** is—”

Son: “Shut up!”

Girlfriend: “What?”

Son: “Go home.”

[Girlfriend] leaves the table and is picked up a few minutes later. Her mother is apologetic. It sounds like [Girlfriend] is a terror at home, too. As they leave, [Girlfriend] looks out the car window and waves, tears streaming down her face. [Son] turns away and walks back inside. We can hear (Girlfriend) screaming down the block.

Son: “When are girls less crazy?”

Me: “Ohhhh… probably a ten-year minimum.”

Son: “Oh, my God!”

I’m sitting with my boyfriend of six years, and we’re about to watch a movie.

Boyfriend: “Hey, I need to talk to you.”

Me: “Is it about how you’ve been cheating on me with my best friend?”

My boyfriend is shocked.

Boyfriend: “How did you know that?!”

Now I was shocked. I was just making a joke, but this was better. I told my boyfriend that we were done and he needed to leave.

He left, and I confronted my best friend. She admitted to it, and I haven’t spoken to either of them since.

I used to teach tenth-grade English. One day, I assigned a twenty-minute writing prompt on the students’ dream life.

In my seventh period, I had a couple who had been dating for about three months. The boy was completely head-over-heels in love with his girlfriend, but he had some “unique” ideas.

After the twenty minutes were up, I asked for volunteers to share what they had written and the boy stood up to read his paper.

Boy: “My dream is to live off the grid in either Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska. I want to live in a cabin that I built with my own hands. I am going to have a farm and grow my own food, an orchard where I grow my own fruit, and cattle, chickens, and pigs that I’ll raise myself for meat. I’ll be living hours away from any real towns or cities and just have a completely free life where I can do whatever I want and be totally self-sufficient. My wife will help me build our cabin, she’ll bear our children right in our cabin, and we will homeschool them and teach them to live off of the land.”

Girl: “Um, I will definitely not be having our children in a cabin! I will be having my children in a hospital.”

Boy: “Honey, we’ll probably be three or four hours away from any hospital. Maybe more if we choose Alaska.”

Girl: “I am not giving birth four hours away from any sort of medical care!”

Boy: “You won’t have a choice. I won’t be able to get you to a hospital! You’ll be fine, I promise! I’ll know how to deliver a baby because I’ll have to help our cows have their calves.”

Girl: “Yeah, I don’t think this is going to work out.”

Surprisingly enough, they were no longer a couple the next day. He was much more heartbroken about it than she was.

My boyfriend takes me to a restaurant for my birthday. It’s a very expensive restaurant but still casual clothing. My boyfriend always dreamed of taking his love there, so he has saved up for it. I have no fashion sense, and the fanciest outfit my boyfriend has is a nice sweater and good jeans. When we enter the restaurant, we notice people staring. It’s not a large restaurant, so it’s easy to see we are out of place. The staff treats us nicely, but we do not feel welcome.

After the appetizer, we get on to the main course. My boyfriend asks for fish and I ask for meat. We get what we ordered and start eating. Halfway through the meal, the waiter comes by and asks if everything is all right.

Me: “Yes, the food is amazing.”

The waiter turns to my boyfriend.

Waiter: “How is your meal, sir?”

My boyfriend doesn’t answer. He just keeps on staring at his plate, carefully chewing. He does nod a bit, so we assume he doesn’t want to talk with his mouth full.

Me: “He loves it, as well.”

The waiter leaves. Ten minutes later:

Boyfriend: “This fish is amazing! I mean, delicious! Here, taste it! This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted! We have to let them know that; that chef is amazing!”

Me: “Well, the waiter already knows; surely he told the chef.”

Boyfriend: “The waiter? When did you talk to him?”

Me: “Eh, about ten minutes ago? He visited our table?”

Boyfriend: “No, he didn’t… Did he?”

Me: “He was standing right next to you. He asked you if everything was all right?”

Boyfriend: “No… When… You mean…?”

Me: “You didn’t notice the waiter standing next to you?!”

Boyfriend: “You tasted this fish! It is pure heaven! I didn’t notice anything!”

When the waiter passed by again, my boyfriend profusely apologised for not noticing the waiter and unintentionally ignoring him. The waiter promised to tell the chef his dish was so good that my boyfriend forgot about the world for a moment. After that, the staff was a lot more chill with us (I guess the ice broke) and we had a great time.