February 4, 2020 | Casey Fletcher

People Share The Strange Conversations They've Eavesdropped On


Eavesdropping isn't a polite thing to do, but when the conversation is funny, awkward or strange, it can be hard not to listen in. From conversations about exorcisms to Swedish invasions that never happened, these people share the strangest conversations they've "accidentally" listened in to.

Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!

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#1 Train Toilets

A few kids were debating on what happened to the poop after you flushed it on the train. One believed it exploded on impact with the rails, another debated the possibility of it being shot out of the side like a cannon, and another knew it was used to fuel the train.

#2 A 12-year-old's Newborn Kid

I was in line for a rollercoaster years ago when I overheard a 12-year-old and her younger sister talking to two nice strangers, all standing in line behind me. The 12 year old was talking about how she lives on a farm with her grandparents, her little sister and her newborn kid. She goes on and on about her young kid, and how her grandparents home school her so she has time to her raise and take care of her kid and how her little sister is helping too. She goes on to describe how little and precious and sweet her kid is and how much she loves her.

I spent the entire time in line stunned and speechless and impressed by how engaged and unbothered the two strangers were during the whole conversation (asking to see pictures, etc.). It wasn't until we got to the front of the line that I realized she meant kid.... as in a baby goat.

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#3 Your What Now?

At a Chinese restaurant. An old man says to his friend, “I’m telling you my nether regions swelled up like this.” Then he holds his hands apart like he’s holding a grapefruit.

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#4 Failed Proposals34

I was once in a Starbucks in Boston and witnessed a break-up which was immediately followed a failed proposal attempt. It was the craziest thing. The dude was very into her and her body language did not reply in a copacetic manner. He confessed his love to her, she replied that it wasn’t gonna work and she might need some time. He replied, "We have the rest of our lives to figure it out, so you have time."

He got down on a knee pulled out a ring she stood up and said, This is what I am talking about! You don’t listen!” She asked him to stand up. He said with tears in his eyes, “Why? I am still waiting for an answer." She gathered her things and left. The man sat back down and finished his Frappuccino while crying. I refer to the story as the “Saddest Cold Coffee Beverage Ever."

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#5 Crazy Day

Killing time in Starbucks before my bus comes when two well-dressed businessmen walk in. One says, "Hey, crazy day yesterday, huh?" And the other responds, "Haha, yeah. I didn't know you could train dogs to do that!" It haunts me. I have so many questions that will never be answered.

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#6 Suspicious Wife

I once listened to a story a woman was telling her friend sitting next to me in a café. She became suspicious of her husband cheating on her when she was helping him unpack from a business trip and noticed a weird white stain on his shirt. She told the whole story of her Googling how to figure out what it was, which I think included using specific light and stuff. Never actually got to hear the ending though, unfortunately.

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#7 Green Card Divorce

Heard over a cube wall at work: "You promised that we would get a divorce after you got your green card!"

#8 White Man for Christmas

There was a black family in the Christmas decorations aisle. The three-year-old said, "Dad! Can we get a white man for Christmas? The dad, shocked, said: "What?!?" The three-year-old then pointed to the shelf and the dad laughed, "No, no son, that's called a SNOW man."

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#9 Hid the Clams

Didn't hear the full conversation but I walked in on two employees at a convenience store with the conversation ending with the phrase, "...and that's when we hid the clams."

#10 Love the Cat

I was eating beside two older gentlemen at a bar, and I hear one of them say something like, "That stupid cat follows me everywhere. I've told my granddaughter to keep it away from me, but everyone thinks its funny! I can't get away from it!" There's silence between the two, and then the second older man laughs, "You secretly love that little hairball, don't you?" The guy lets out a giant, irritated sigh and sullenly admits. "Yes."

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#11 Lost Teeth

I was on the train listening to a woman yell on the phone that she wouldn’t be able to make it to her dentist appointment because she had left her teeth at home.

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#12 That's How He Lost His Leg

I was pulling up to an intersection with a bus stop right as the light turned green. I crept by this stop and all I heard was an old dude say, "And that's how the dude took my leg!" I look out my passenger window to see him with a prosthetic in his hand, sitting in a wheelchair, facing the other people at the bus stop. I don't know what story they heard, but it was damned good.

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#13 Downstairs Neighbor

In the '90s when people used to use cordless phones you could pick up phone calls on a scanner. This is how I found out our downstairs neighbor was cooking and selling large quantities of drugs out of his apartment.

#14 Might Be in Iowa

Just last week, I was in line for customer service at the grocery store with my girlfriend. Sketchy looking dude comes up to the woman in line behind us, says hi, and she says something to the effect of " I don't think I should be talking to you right now, I don't even know where my daughter is..." They started talking quieter and we couldn't make out all of what they were saying, but we at one point heard her say something along the lines of, "Why can't you just admit that she might be in Iowa? " Unfortunately our turn to get helped came up, and we had to abandon the conversation. I wish we would have been able to hear more.

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#15 Name Dropping

I was eavesdropping on some popular girls in middle school, and the question came up between who they thought they would hook up with in my group of friends. They said my name. Biggest confidence boost I’ve had to this day.

#16 Inappropriate Texts

Two of my students were talking about this guy texting one of the girls, saying they think he's texting her to get to her friend who recently got her phone taken away. I chalk it up to middle school drama and the day goes on. Later I hear the girl who had her phone taken away say, "I think I'm scarred." Something didn't sit right with me about it. I circled back and was like "Hey kid, need to talk to me about anything?" She mulled out over for a bit and asked for a private convo.

Turns out this guy had sent a third girl an inappropriate picture, and oh yeah, he's not a guy their age. It's their teacher for an out of school extracurricular. That was not a fun day.

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#17 Break Up

Dude walking down Collins Ave by South Beach in Miami on his cell phone. He said, "But baby you know I gots to slap you if you piss me off." She had left him and he was calling her to plead for her to come back to him. He sounded genuinely upset.

#18 Drugstore Conversations

A few years ago, I was at a small neighborhood drugstore. I was at the register paying for my stuff, and behind me was a girl with two guys, and they're buying two HUGE boxes of condoms. I'm facing the cashier when all of a sudden I hear the girl say, "We're gonna have a good time! You both are gonna get so lucky tonight, I'm gonna give you guys everything you want!" I looked across and locked eyes with the cashier, we both communicated a silent "OH MY GOD!" to each other as she handed me my items and I hurried out.

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#19 Lost Engagement Ring

Not a conversation per se, but I was randomly looking at my neighbor's laptop's screen in class once, and she was frantically googling things like "What to do when you've lost your engagement ring."

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#20 WalMart Conversations

I work at Walmart so I tend to hear a lot of things I really shouldn't. One time I was stocking and I overheard a couple who looked they were straight from the backwoods bickering with each other. He's pleading that he's sorry and that he didn't mean to. Then he says, "Baby I'm sorry I didn't know she was my cousin, it just slipped in," I didn't know these things happened enough to have an open conversation about it at Walmart.

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#21 No!

A couple sitting on a bench in a park, talking low key to each other. He said something to which she giggled and said, "No." He repeated it and she laughed a bit louder, saying "No" again. After he leaned in for the third time she snapped and clearly said: "NO! I will not pee on you!"

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#22 Don't Eat Seafood

I wish I heard the rest of it, but walking out of a business somewhere I walked past two guys talking and I hear one say: "I don't give a hoot if they kill everything in the ocean. I don't eat seafood anyway." I laughed really hard before it clicked just how staggeringly ignorant that is.

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#23 Sisterly Love

I was watching fireworks a few years ago and heard a dude talking about being with his sister.

#24 Get 'Em In and Out

I had a student job as an interim music director in a Catholic church. While upstairs in the choir loft getting things ready for a rehearsal later that day, I overheard the pastor talking to his parochial vicar (assistant priest) in the area below. The pastor said, "People are complaining that your Masses are too long, you need to move it along." The assistant said something like, "I don't know how to say Mass any quicker than I do."

In a louder voice, the pastor said, "Don't overthink it. Get 'em in, get their money, and get 'em out!" And with that, he left the church, with the assistant just standing there by himself.

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#25 Roommates

“...and they were roommates!”

And I’m just sitting there like: “My God, they were roommates!”

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#26 Just Married

Back in grade school, my mom would pick me up from school then we’d go back to her office and I’d wait there until her last class for the day ends. One time, one of her co-teachers just barged into her office and talked about how tired she was because she had gotten married the weekend before and she and her new husband had been very intimate. They ended up talking about it as if I wasn’t in the room.

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#27 Numb Head

I was sitting in the food court of a mall, eating and minding my own business. A couple passed by my table and all I heard was her say to him:

"... because my head went numb when you were laying on it last night..."

I will never, ever get any context for what I heard.

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#28 Oh, the Irony

On public transit, I heard a girl on her cell phone loudly having a conversation with her friend. She'd just left her boyfriend's family Christmas holiday celebration where she seemingly clashed with one or more of his family in one respect or another about things to do with her relationship with the guy. She'd apparently spoken to him about it, and he suggested they speak to the offending parties and sort out the problem/confrontation...and she tells her friend...

" I told him I was embarrassed to have a conversation with strangers about our personal life like that. Airing dirty laundry in such a public setting. I mean, how crass can you be?"

....she says loudly... on a bus with no less than 30 strangers who can hear this conversation about her personal life/dirty laundry because she can't control the volume of her voice. The irony was lost on her. I ever gave her the 'raised eyebrow' and she had no idea.

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#29 Work Gossip

It wasn’t a weird conversation, but an exceptional coincidence. I was halfway around the world in Greece, eavesdropping on three girls gossiping about one of my old coworkers over dinner. What are the chances?

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#30 Phone Vibrations

I was really young and a group of around twenty-year-olds were sitting behind us in a hockey game. One chick said, and I quote, “My phone just vibrated so hard in my bra I almost sh*t myself.” Not the weirdest, but still makes me laugh to this day.

#31 Craigslist Boyfriend

I was at a dumpling restaurant and the two young women a few tables from me were talking about Craigslist hookups, BDSM, stuff like that. How could I not listen in? My favorite like was when the one was talking about a guy she saw every week for that domination stuff “but it’s not like I want to date him or anything.”

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#32 A Fuschia

This happened the other day and only just remembered. I was cycling home and overtook some young lads, at a glance I'd say about 13-14 years old, mouthing off to each other. But as I was cycling past I genuinely overheard: "Oi, mate, mate. You know what I'm going to get when I'm older and have my own garden? An EFFIN' FUSCHIA."

I... I just couldn't.

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#33 Zombie Jesus

On the bus outside Sunday school with two preteen boys:

"And then he ate their brains for his dinner."

"Dude, that's not what happened."

"It is, he rose from the dead and then he ate them!"

"Yeah, he came back from the dead but that doesn't mean he was a zombie."

"Then why did they call it the last supper?"

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#34 Swedish Invasion

In high school, I was in the school cafeteria line and overheard a couple of students talking about war. One guy was confidently explaining how he was sure that Sweden was going to invade Finland soon and that he was planning going back there to defend it with his dad and uncle. His dad was from Åland island and at their family estate, they would set up the first line of defence. This was in Sweden in 2007, the invasion never happened.

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#35 Family Gossip

I overheard my mom gossiping about me and my brothers to my dad. We really tick her off.

#36 A New Level of Stupid

I was in the cafeteria at work and two women were discussing their children. One of them declared that it was obvious that her son was gay because he was "showing all the signs." The boy was TEN weeks old. Not ten years old. Not even ten months old. This dumb woman saw all the signs of her son being gay while he only was ten weeks old. I wanted to confront her, but you cannot change that level of stupid.

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#37 Studying "Alone"

I once sat on my balcony (3rd floor) at 2 a.m. to listen to a guy (ground level) who discovered his girlfriend was cheating on him (4th floor). He climbed a tree and saw her topless with a guy with her light on. I opened a beer and took a seat. “You said you were studying. You don’t study with your shirt off!!”

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#38 Spaghetti Apology

In the library and a girl on the phone says, "Baby just come over I want to make love to you, and make spaghetti, I know I can't change the past but I can change your future."

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#39 Just Wanted to See Santa

I was spending the night at my mom's house for Christmas. Her birthday is on the 25th, and we usually go to a movie for it, so it was just easier for me to spend the night so we could go out the next day. Anyway, it's about 2 a.m. and I'm outside when suddenly I hear one of the neighbors yelling, "What are you doing outside? Get your butt back in." Immediately after, I hear a kid yell in protest, followed by, "Dad, I just wanted to see Santa land on the roof!!"

This kid snuck out of bed and out of the house at two in the morning when it was probably like 20F outside, just so he could see Santa. It was really adorable, but also pretty hilarious.

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#40 Neighbor Tickles

I was walking in the gym and I heard a kid I previously had a crush on say, "Bro you got booty tickled?!" And then another respond with, "But she was my neighbor!"

#41 Baby Daddy

I was on lunch and I was sitting in a small room away from everyone else. I usually have my headphones on but the wire tends to slip out of my phone from time to time. As the cord came out I heard a co-worker crying and talking to someone on the phone. She recently discovered she was pregnant and wasn't sure who the father of her baby was. She guessed it was one of our co-workers that she had an on and off relationship with and was going to tell him that he was going to be a father when they were meeting up in a few days. That was about a year ago and to my knowledge, he doesn't know that he may not be the father.

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#42 Weekend Exorcism

I heard “Oh yeah, I had to go get an exorcism this weekend.”

#43 Funeral Arrangements

Not strangest, but one that stuck with me was an old man and what I assume was his wife sitting in front of me on a bus, casually talking about death. They had no fear. They were talking about funeral arrangements, what they hoped would happen to their family and so on. And they talked about it for hours. It was a Greyhound cross country, and sadly it was pre-cellphone so I didn't even have something to stick in my ears to block it out much as I really wanted to.

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#44 Why Pay Someone?

I only caught a snippet of it, but heard a man say, "Why does he pay someone to do it if he can just pee on himself??"

#45 Being Honest

I was behind two ladies in church. The first lady said quietly out of the side of her mouth, “I have a very unladylike itch," to which the second lady whispered back, “That's okay, I just farted.”

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