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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Admirable_Friend3202 on 2025-07-10 14:04:37+00:00.

I went out for a walk in a park in the evening. It was dark already, but the park pathways are always lit, and the place I live in is pretty safe. So I was feeling comfortable walking, maybe even too comfortable. A man was sitting on a bench, and he started talking to me. I was trying to be kind, ignored all my instincts to go away, and talked to him. It seemed like he had some issues, as his sentences were super unclear and he seemed kind of hectic, but it was like there was inner turmoil in him, nothing that would suggest he would harm me. He offered me strawberries, and when I refused, he started insisting. That was alarming, and I started feeling uncomfortable. Maybe I should not have stopped to talk to him? Why did I put myself in this situation? I took one strawberry and he took one as well, ate it, so I decided it could not have been poisoned or laced with something, as he would not have eaten it himself. We parted ways then, and I safely came back home.

Fast forward to the next day, I see a headline in my local news: a man with open tuberculosis ran away from the hospital. And the man in the picture is the freaking strawberry man. Open tuberculosis is highly infectious, and it can be caught by even talking to the person. So now I am waiting to see if I get any symptoms. If I get it, I am fucked. Good job me, ignoring all my instincts and the lessons learnt since I was a kid - don't talk to strangers and NEVER take anything from them. GOOD JOB!!!! So maybe this can be your reminder, always be careful and trust your gut. Better safe than sorry.

TL;DR - I talked to a stranger who gave me a strawberry, and the next day I found out he was a runaway patient with open tuberculosis. Fun times, yeah?