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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Salty_Macaron_1994 on 2025-05-29 05:09:58+00:00.

So today I’m (42F) staying about 3 hours from home on a work trip, and the hotel I booked last minute after checking reviews that said it was good, was really not. The room smells like athletes foot funk. It’s literally the only room and I had to prepay. Ok, cool. There’s a clean bed and I’m tired.

So I run to Walmart to grab a couple things mainly being febreeze and when I come back and park at the hotel, there is now a random case of Bud Light and a travel mug beside my car where there wasn’t when I had left. So, I assume it’s someone in their car. No big deal. Until when the dude says “oh, hey, l hope I didn’t startle ya” as he walks out from beside his tall ass truck, and in return, my dumbass decides to blurt out “damn, and here I thought I was gonna make off with a free case of beer!” Cue the laughter from dude and he hands one my direction and asks if I want one. So my spastic brain decides to ACCEPT THE BEER. Insert facepalm here. My brain also was simultaneously screaming WTTTTHHHHHFFFFFF as I casually said thanks bro, made my night. Lime, WTF?! I’m the most introvert and this is the best that my brain soup can come up with, and literally I’m Sligo g lines like I have never experienced crippling social anxiety.

So I don’t think anything of it, just some random dude sharing beer. Then, as I turn the corner as we go in the main entry, he turns back and asks “oh, I suppose I should give you two.” Now, if everything I had already said out of character was bizarrely out of character, my brain had one more in me that was cosmically ooc - “Nah, one will put me out like a light. Thanks again, man.”

Now, when I shut the door to my room behind me, I didn’t think anything of it. Popped it and had a lil bit. About three swigs in, it hit me- he was offering two for if I had a man along.

While I know that this dude is most likely harmless, I’m laying here awake making a post on Reddit, finding it hard to shake that weird feeling that comes with knowing some rando 3 doors down knows I’m all alone at a dead end road motel on a bay. I suppose I’ve watched way too many horror flicks but I still can’t help but feel like an idiot for my brain awkwardly speaking out of turn from nervousness. I also can’t help but feel like maybe this isn’t the best hotel to sleep with earplugs at as well. It’s a family run joint in the boonies of a popular, yet rural, tourist city. Could use a lot of upkeep, especially on the quality of door locks!

TL;DR my neurodivergent self awkwardly accepted a beer from a random dude and in the processes of the ensuing awkward conversation I realized my responses confirmed I was traveling alone, all at a janky hotel in the sticks and his room down my hall).