Have you ever been “caught” doing something that looks bad or weird but you were actually doing something completely innocent? Whether you had the worst itch in the world in an inconvenient place, a playful encounter that looked aggressive, or traveled somewhere with an inflatable doll intended to be used for medical training purposes, we’ve all been there.
On Reddit, people are sharing their “it’s not what it looks like” moments.
And you just have to laugh at the confusion.
1. Leg Sciatica
“I’ve suffered from left leg sciatica since I was about 14. Turns out I had something wrong with one of the facets in my lower left hand spine (since corrected with surgery). In high school, I discovered the only way to heal a flair up was to have someone legit dig into my left butt cheek. Instant pain relief as the muscle calmed down and the nerve relaxed. Once in 11th grade, I had my girlfriend over to my parents house and we went downstairs to watch a movie. While we obviously messed around down there all the time, this was actually very innocent. I had a flair up and she offered to ‘massage my ass cheek’ to help with the pain. I laid Across her lap face down while she went to town. Felt soooo good to not have my leg be on fire. Anyway, dad walks downstairs and in the dark, it appears my girlfriend was fisting my asshole. He immediately screams ‘whoa omg I’m sorry!’ And runs upstairs. I had to go and explain what was up. He still thinks she was fisting me. I’m almost 30.” — Awit1992
2. Singing In The Car
“Driving back to college from my grandmas house, holding my hand up to my ear to hear myself better as I practice for a choral performance a couple days from then. Cop pulls me over, is surprised to see that my phone is actually packed away in the back seat when he asks me to retrieve it. Asks me what the hell I was doing, and I get to awkwardly explain the thought process behind hearing yourself better when holding a hand to your ear. After a long stoic pause I panicked and couldn’t think of anything else to say so I went ‘just try it!!!’ And started singing on the side of a two lane highway in the middle of bum f*ck nowhere. He let me off with a warning.” — SynchronizedCalamity
3. Bumping Into Your Wife
“I was walking along one night with my wife and we bumped hips accidentally. I bumped her again, she bumped me back harder and it escalated from there. For my final victory I timed it just right to knock her into a lamppost so she fell over, laughing. ‘Whoop whoop’ a Police car had come up behind us and only seen the killing blow. She instantly started laughing so hard at the absurdity of it that tears were streaming down her face and they grabbed me to stop me attacking her any more (I had been going over to help her up, honest Officer!). It took quite a while for her to stop laughing enough to explain, longer still for them to believe us…” — anomalous_cowherd
4. Campus Alert
“Getting off of work while I was in college. I worked at the student union. As I was walking I get a campus alert on my phone about a sexual assault that happened I was wearing the exact clothing description minus the shoes, heading the same direction he was last spotted and got stopped by campus police. Never been happier that we call campus police dispatch after closing the building. Yes they caught the guy later.” — [deleted]
5. Inflatable Doll
“When I submitted an expense claim for an inflatable doll. NOT a blow up doll, an inflatable person. It was many years ago in the NHS and we were using it in meetings to demonstrate convoluted patient journeys so we could eliminate waste and simplify things. My boss had a sense of humour.” — Kis_Cica
6. “Are You Guys Being Safe?”
“In high school, borrowed my parent’s van to take my gf on a date. We went out for dinner and then to a friend’s for a bonfire. She changed in the van from a skirt/tights to sweatpants in between. Next day my dad pulls me a side and he’s holding her tights. I start saying, ‘it’s not what it looks like’ but he cuts me off and just goes on about ‘I want to make sure you guys are being safe,’ ‘don’t worry I won’t tell your mother’ etc.” — zcmini
7. Eczema
“My manager was working in the office one weekend and had bad eczema. As no one was around he dropped his jeans and started going to town on his thighs. A cleaning lady walked in, took one look at him and walked out again. What makes it worse is on the Monday, his manager wanted to speak to him about a completely unrelated ‘sensitive issue’ — he thought he was getting fired.” — appocomaster·19h
8. That’s Not Your House Anymore
“When I was visiting my home town, I drove past our old childhood home where I’d grown up. Decided to take some photos of the house for nostalgia’s sake. There were a few little kids playing in the front. Perfect: the house is still filled with children’s laughter and all that good stuff. Take out my camera: cue an angry bald man rushing out of the house screaming at me for taking photos of his kids, kids bawling, me driving away in a hurry without stopping to explain.” — Soft-Problem
9. Burning Hair
“At a concert and some dude flicks his roach into the air when he’s done smoking it. The cherry lands right on top of this girl’s head just burning into her hair. I was standing right beside her so I just immediately swatted the burning ember from her hair. She turns around, along with her boyfriend, and are like WTF was that? I tried to explain that someone had thrown a roach into her hair but they really didn’t seem to believe me, just thought I was some weirdo who likes to whack women on the top of their heads I guess? They just turned back around visibly annoyed and walked away. Then some guy behind me is like nice ‘job bro I watched the whole thing.’ Why didn’t you say something when they were questioning me?! Anyways no harm done but it was a funny story.” — Aliquot126
10. Shooting Range
“A few years ago, I was walking my dogs and they spotted a squirrel and yanked me off my feet. My glasses broke in the fall, I hit my face and scraped my hand quite badly. Cut to a few days later. God knows why but the wounds have swollen, most of my face is covered in bruises and one eye is black. I went with my brother to the gun range; it was a previously-planned trip but I can only imagine what the owners thought, seeing a battered-up woman come learn to shoot.” — PitatoShoes
11. Drug Deal
“A co-worker hit my vehicle and rather than go through insurance, I gave him an option to pay in cash to avoid an insurance hit. A couple days later he was paying me in the parking lot at night (night shift workers) and the manager comes out of the office and heads to his car. Came over to see wtf was going on. Totally looked like a drug deal was going down.” —Faduuba
12. Why Do You Have A Hatchet
“Invited my friend on a hike, needed to get my bottle from the trunk. Forgot that I had to move some painting supplies earlier. The face ‘when your tracksuit-wearing Eastern European friend open a trunk lined with garbage bags and rolls plastic wrap and a hatchet in the middle of woods’ was priceless but do not recommend. Hard to argue ‘is no problem, just had to move messy things, do not worry.'” — NoMickeyMouseBusines
13. “Your Luggage Is Vibrating”
“When I was 16 my boyfriend’s (now husband’s) parents took me on a beach vacation with them. His dad was kind enough to carry my luggage to my room and his face was bright red. I just thought he was hot. But my boyfriend came in and goes ‘soo.. my dad says your luggage is vibrating.’ I had one of those handheld face washing devices that you put a little makeup remover pad on in my bag and it had turned on. His poor dad thought I had brought a vibrator, so I actually had my bf take it down and show them what it was so they wouldn’t think poorly of me lol. We all had a great laugh.” — Pharm-Poet
14. “Are You A Serial Killer?”
“I brought a hammer to the office to hang a whiteboard. I left it in my laptop bag, and forgot to take it out at home. Days later my boss came up behind me asked ‘do we have a hammer in the office?’ Without thinking, I reached into my bag and and handed him the hammer, still looking at the computer screen. A few seconds later I realized my boss was still standing behind me. I turned around and, he was just standing there staring at the hammer. He said, ‘Seriously?…you carry a hammer with your laptop? Are you a serial killer?'” — tinkrman
15. Wheelchair Confusion
“I was in a relationship with a girl who was paraplegic and needed a wheelchair. We made a cosplay of the lamia from Monster Musume and we went into a part of the convention center that was empty to get a couple shots of the costume before going out into the crowd. At the time we didn’t know it was technically off limits. So I help her out of the wheelchair and lay her down so she can get comfortable and I was wheeling her chair off to the side to be out of sight for the photos. I always f*ck around too much and I was pretending to run away while taunting her (I did it all the time and it always made her laugh). I think I said something like, ‘good luck trying to leave without your wheels’ and before I could turn around to see where I was going I was getting wrestled to the ground by the convention center security. We cleared it up and slap on the wrist for me cause we were somewhere we weren’t supposed to be. Security guards got in more trouble cause they’re not supposed to touch people, but their hearts were in the right place since they thought I was robbing a girl who couldn’t walk.” — AmpedEnding
16. “I Didn’t Know You Were Talking To The Dog”
“I live in not the best neighborhood in Brooklyn and a few weeks ago I was walking my girlfriends small black 3 legged dog late one night. There’s a lot of guys that hang out by a busy corner drinking/smoking on their stoops, one of them went to take a leak by a buildings trash area. He was facing the building with his back to me. So, as he was peeing, Pepper (the dog) decided she was going to be stubborn and just sit down. I kept trying to get her to get up so we could go home. As I was calling her and telling her ‘come on, let’s go’ the guy peeing locked eyes with me through a mirror that was in the trash pile. ‘Ey, yo WHAT the FUCK.’ He couldn’t see the dog I was talking to because she was 10 ft behind me in the shadows. He thought I was trying to fight him WHILE I was watching him take a leak. Not at all the case. As he was zipping up and turned around Pepper hopped up and trotted by and broke all the tension. He was like ‘oh sh*t, my bad! I didn’t know you were talking to the dog.” We laughed about it and carried on our separate ways.” — FlatbushRocknRoll
17. Theater Kids
“Theater kid in high school, had a scene were I had to tie a girl to a chair with a specific knot so it looked real but could be undone super quick by her just tugging something and it all coming undone. Any way I’m practicing the knot with her in the class room during an off period so I could get it right. Cue gym teacher walking in to the room to ask theater teacher something and seeing a girl gagged and getting tied to a chair while we were the only two in the theater class room. Fun times.” — tiggers08
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