This happens when I am an extremely awkward and anxious youth in my late teens, already living alone. I don’t have a lot of money but I take cash out and go to get a few things at the supermarket; it comes to about £3. I hand over the only cash I have: a £20 note. The cashier hands me back £2 and my receipt and goes to start on the next customer, while I stand there, staring at my change, starting to panic.

Cashier: “Is there a problem?”

Me: “Um… I— I gave you a twenty.”

Cashier: “No, you didn’t.”

Yeah, she thinks I’m trying to scam her. And my demeanor does NOT help my case.

Me: “Yes, um, I did. You put it in the till.”

Twenties go into a box under the till, since they can’t be used for change; next to nowhere in the UK accepts £50 notes.

Cashier: “No, I’m sure you only gave me a fiver.”

Me: “I didn’t. It was a twenty. It’s in the till.”

The cashier is now looking at me very suspiciously.

Cashier: “Why would anyone pay for £3 with a twenty?”

I’m starting to really freak out, sweating, and looking even more suspicious.

Me: “It’s all I had! I need the change! It’s all I have until I get paid!”

Cashier: “Uh-huh. Well, I can’t open my till, but I can call over my manager and he can do so.”

I suspect she is either trying to give me an opportunity to leave or to just put me off.

Me: “Yes. Okay. Call your manager.”

She did so. We stood there waiting in the most awful, awkward silence. He finally came over and she explained that I was “claiming” to have paid with a twenty. He shrugged, opened the till, and lo and behold: there was a crisp £20 note sat on top of all the fives. Her shock and surprise that I wasn’t scamming her were palpable. She finally gave me my change and I outright fled from the store.

That was about fifteen years ago. I’m doing a lot better, but I still remember it. And I really can’t blame her, but that time the customer actually WAS right!

This happens when I’m an awkward teenager in the early 2000s. At the time, personal voicemail messages on phones are common and it is not unpopular for people to have jokey ones. Mine is something about how, “I’m not ignoring you; I’m ignoring the world,” or something.

I go to a gym to see if the prices are something I can afford on my pittance of a wage. The staff member I’m talking to kind of browbeats me into starting to sign up for a membership and, anxious and awkward, I don’t really think about the fact that I can’t afford it and just let her railroad me into it. But it turns out I’m lacking ID, so I leave.

Away from the place and without anyone pressuring me, I can think clearly and realise there’s no way I can afford it, and given how this woman has pressured me, I don’t want to call and explain this, so I just don’t go back. I haven’t signed anything, so no big deal, right?

A few days later, I get a voicemail and I listen to it. It’s the same woman from the gym, sounding outright angry, saying, “Well, you’d better stop ignoring me. Get your a*** down to the [gym] and finish this paperwork!”

Yes, that’s what she said. No, I’m not exaggerating.

Once things picked up for me financially, I did join a gym — a different one. And then, when I moved and was close to the first gym, I instead used a college gym. I did finally join, over ten years later, and I love the place, but wow, that woman left a sour taste that lingers to this day.

I’ve spent almost my entire adult life living in rented rooms in shared houses or flats, as was the case when I started dating a great guy. Tensions arose at home due to me dating another man, resulting in me being given minimal warning to try and find another place. Then-boyfriend and I agreed to try to find a place together, and we ended up moving into a ground floor flat with the owner and his wife.

It turned out that the owner was a bit of a control freak. He set off my C-PTSD — coupled with other, unrelated life events — and I became very isolated and afraid of him. It turned out, while he wasn’t aware of everything going on, he absolutely approved of my being intimidated by him. 

However, one day he pushed me too far and my fear evaporated and I started standing up for myself. He reacted so badly to this that we argued over a blown light bulb and he ended up giving us our notice to move out after we’d been there about two years.

This story just about sums up what a pain in the behind he was.

On the day of our leaving, we had a friend — who also rents rooms — come over, ostensibly to help, but really to be there in case things went south, between his experience and his physical presence, since he was broader and beefier than the other three people combined. Our landlord protested him being present; I was ready to stick to my guns but my friend excused himself and stood by the open window to listen.

Our landlord started pulling the furniture out from where it had stood for the entire time we’d lived there and complaining about the dust behind them. He demanded to know why we hadn’t cleaned there. I pointed out that he had expressly forbidden us from moving the furniture.

“That isn’t true,” he claimed.

It absolutely was. I reminded him of the time my boyfriend went to him to ask if we could move the room around and he flatly refused.

“That never happened.”

I pointed out that there were even labels stuck to the furniture saying not to move them.

“That’s not true.”

Of course, it was true! I went over to a piece of furniture and pointed to the label, exclaiming that it was right there!

He rolled his eyes, muttered, “Typical,” and instead started pulling out the drawers to make sure they were all empty.

When he left the room, my friend poked his head through the window. He had been just about crying trying not to laugh loud enough to be heard, and he said that he thought I’d been exaggerating how much of a pain the landlord was. 

NOPE! Not at all. This story is one single perfect example of just how he was.

My boyfriend and I had decided how much of our deposit we’d be willing to say goodbye to, just to be rid of him; we said he should take the last couple of week’s rent out of it. We got a little more than our minimum back and off we went.

In the years since, we’ve gotten married, we’ve stayed close friends with the friend who was there, and my mental health has enormously improved.

I just pity his wife, who was as lovely as our landlord was petty and controlling.

I’m a transman. Before realising I wanted to transition when I was twenty, I struggled with my sexuality, believing myself to be a lesbian, which my parents — of course — passed off as a phase, before I realized I was “sort of bisexual.” (My actual sexuality is more complex than that, as I understood some years later.)

After I’ve been living as male for a while, I have a long-distance relationship with a lovely woman for a couple of years. It fizzles out, and a while later, I start talking to a sweet guy online.

Here is how my mother and my stepfather take that.

Mother: “Oh, did I tell you that [Older Cousin] is getting married?”

Me: “No? I didn’t even know she’d been seeing anyone since she broke up with her last boyfriend.”

Mother: “Yeah, he works in the medical industry. Quite well off. He’s called John.”

Me: “Huh. I’ve been talking to a guy called John who’s interested in me.”

Mother: “Wait. Really?”

Me: “Yes?”

Mother: “I thought you were straight now.”

Me: “What?!”

Mother: “I mean, after [Ex-Girlfriend]—”

Me: “I’ve always been into both men and women! That hasn’t changed because I finally had a longer-than-brief relationship with a woman!”

Mother: “Oh. Well, how do you know he’s really into you?”

Me: “…”

Mother: “I mean… what if he just wants—” 

She gestures towards my crotch.

Me: “Because. He’s. Gay.”

Also, I don’t think most straight men want to sleep with someone who is a man, and both looks and sounds like it, simply because he has a vagina. Come on, now.

After I get with this guy, this happens.

Mother: “I told your dad—” *meaning my stepfather* “—about you and John.”

Me: “Oh?”

Mother: “Yeah, he didn’t get it.”

Me: “What’s not to get?”

Mother: “Well, he doesn’t understand what the point of being a man is if you’re just going to have a relationship with a man anyway.”

Me: *Pause* “Oh, my God.”

Anyway, “John” and I eventually got married, once we were legally able to. He’s pretty fantastic. My parents behaved terribly on our wedding day, and that was the final straw on top of a whole bale of being awful. I’ve cut ties with them, and that’s also been pretty excellent!

This story is part of the bisexual-themed roundup!

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Read the bisexual-themed roundup!

My mother and I have always had a troubled relationship, but after my mother had a period of ill health, on the run up to our wedding, my now-husband and I — also male — tried to patch things up.

My mother doesn’t know what it is to be poor; her parents had a decent amount of money — not rich, but definitely comfortable — and while she’s a complete penny pincher I never had the impression as a child that she was struggling or tightening her belt.

My husband and I, however, were poor. Dirt poor. We barely scraped by on benefits for several years due to my being disabled and my husband being my carer. So, our wedding was as cheap and DIY as we could make it while still feeling like an “occasion.”

My mother offered to buy flowers — actually, insisted, despite us not wanting them due to my husband’s hay fever — but much more appreciated was her offer to pay for a hotel room for the wedding night. Our best couple of friends were taking us for a single-day honeymoon, so that was nice! We still had to get home to drop off our wedding stuff and pick up our stuff for the next day before going to the hotel, but as we lived in a shared house, it helped the whole thing feel like one event.

My mother asked us which hotel we wanted; there was one literally two minutes walk from us, and one in the town centre, which involved our best friends picking us up and taking us there as we didn’t drive. We knew nothing about either and were going frantic with getting everything done, so I asked her to look into them and give us some information. She came back and said she went for the one in the town centre “because it was ten pounds cheaper.”

As it turned out, the one near us was much quieter, had a four-star rating, and had breakfast included. It would have allowed us to drop back home that much easier. Instead, we had to pay out of pocket for breakfast, listen to loud drunks passing through the town or drinking at bars, and had a far smaller room, and of course, we couldn’t get home easily.

It feels petty to complain about it; she still paid for the room for us. But I’m still a little bitter that she just looked at the price tag and, despite being very comfortable, financially, and never helping us out in that regard, took the worse option for ten freakin’ pounds less, leaving us to spend money we hadn’t accounted for in order to have breakfast in the morning.

By the way, we’re doing much better now. I’m self-employed and my husband and I have a great relationship. And as this story is really the tiny tip of the iceberg, I’m no longer in contact with my mother.