We all get turned on and turned off by certain things or people, but sometimes, you don't know what or who that is until you actually experience it in the moment. So when someone you don't expect to turn you on does, it can be even more startling and cause you to short circuit.
So when u/AdAppropriate6975 asked, "What did your friend do that accidentally turned you on?" a bunch of people came forward with their stories:
1. "The entire group went clubbing. He was saying something that I could not hear. He bent down and spoke against my ear. I questioned our two decades of platonic relationship in that second.
2. "I went to a friend's house to play DnD. She made us all nachos and chicken. At the end, I went to wash up so as not to leave her with all our mess. As I turned around, she put her hand on my chest, stared me straight in the eyes, and told me I didn't need to help. It was nothing overtly sexy, but she held my gaze and had her hand on my chest just slightly longer than would be expected. Anyway, we're married now.
"I know now that it was more than innocent to her. However, we'd been friends for nine years at that point, and in that time, there had been many hugs/sitting on laps/general friendly physical contact. This was the one that gave me the electric tingles though.
"In nine years, I'd apparently been completely oblivious to all prior attempts at flirting. I'm so clueless at knowing when people are hitting on me, it was mentioned in three separate speeches at my own wedding."
3. "We were joking, and she turned back, grabbed my neck, and lightly strangled me.
4. "They came to drop off food and medicine while I was sick. I was absolutely not in the mood, but I wish I was."
5. "We were at a party drinking, and I got handed a shot. I said, 'This one is going to fuck me up.' He looked right at me and softly said, 'Don't worry, I'll take care of you.'
"I threw that shot straight back."
6. "She dropped me off at the airport. I said thank you, goodbye, and gave her a kiss on the cheek before turning to get out of the car. As I started to get out, she said, 'Is that it?' I turned back, locked eyes, and suddenly, my heart started to ache. Suddenly, I didn't want to leave. We embraced, but it was the first time we did so that wasn't just as friends.
7. "A girl I became friends with on a school trip in high school fell asleep on my shoulders on the ride back.
"I'm still coasting on that memory."
8. "I fumbled a move one night dancing with a friend. I thought he was going to dip me, but he spun me instead. Still, my mistake was enough for him to notice, so he dipped me and said, 'There, I've got you this time.'
"No right to be as hot as it was."
9. "She did that thing that girls do where they tilt their head. She was just listening to me talk about MRSA (we're nursing students) and kind of smiling, listening to me go into depth about the illness for a test review. Then, she ever so slightly tilted her head and kept her very pretty eyes directly on mine. That, mixed with the slight smile, got my stomach in knots, and I just started stuttering like a fool.
10. "She tackled me — not in a playful way, either. She was trying her best to take me down (and generally succeeded). We were always just friends, but in those moments after we'd hit the ground, I sometimes felt a little different about it."
11. "I was pretty good, if not best, friends with someone I never thought I would be attracted to. We were at the bar one night, and I was cold. He took his favorite jacket, put it over my shoulders, and hugged me.
12. "I asked her outside a party if my eyeliner had smudged. She took my jaw in her hands and, gently but firmly, turned my face back and forth to examine my makeup. Then, she lightly patted my cheek and said it looked fine. I couldn’t even thank her, I just nodded.
"We moved on while I gathered myself, lol."
13. "He rolled his sleeves up and reversed perfectly. Yes, it was in a manual car. Yes, he did put his hand on the back of my chair.
"It was a hot summer's day, so he rolled up his sleeves before we got in the car."
14. "I was annoying him, so he picked me up over his shoulder and dropped me on the couch. No biggie.
15. "I am very tactile, and he isn't tactile with anyone else. However, he would always pull me next to him when we were outside and it was chilly, sit into my space at work meetings, and put his hand on my lower back when I was walking in front of or next to him. It was nothing overtly sexual, but the fact he didn't do that with anyone else..."
"Oh, my."
16. "I went out for a drink one night with my friend. A guy who I knew was hitting on me, asking me to go home with him, and being really aggressive. I turned him down, and the guy immediately turned on my friend. He got in my friend's face, saying that it was his fault that I wouldn't go home with him and that he was a cock block. My friend just stood his ground, crossed his arms, and told him to leave in a very calm and firm voice. The drunk guy eventually left, but it was such a turn on to see my friend remain so level-headed and calm in a tense situation when I'm used to guys being so reactive.
"It was super hot."
17. "It wasn't necessarily a turn on, but when I was in art school, we went to a museum with a clown exhibit. One of my classmates — whom I had very little prior interaction with — had a fear of clowns. At a certain point, something spooked her, and she grabbed my arm. I felt like, 'Me big monkey, me keep pretty lady safe.'
"As stupid as it was, I had a little crush on her afterwards."
18. "She showed me how the tattoo on the back of her upper thigh moves when she bends over. I was 19, and she was wearing short shorts. That was enough to make me blush."
19. "A button popped on her shirt, exposing more tit than she ever exposed around me. We ended up getting married. It was a happy accident.
"We're going on 10 years, too."
20. "Helping me put on a tie because I didn't know how."
21. "We were wrestling, and I pinned her down. She said, 'If this were a movie, we'd make out right now.' I didn't go for it.
22. "I was hanging out with some of my guy friends, and they all started kicking a ball around. I sat on the side near some cool flowers I wanted to draw. I wasn’t paying attention, and at one point, the ball started coming toward me. One of the guys ran right in front of me — like inches from me — to stop it. He then spent, like, five minutes checking if I was okay, and then he gave me head pats."
23. "Called me sir. I didn't even know this was a turn on."
24. "We both tried grabbing the same cup and looked at each other.
"We've been together for awhile now."
25. "'Get your butt in the car, we're going to get Chinese food.' He knew I wasn't in a great state of mind, and we had been friends for a handful of years. He drove to find me when I wouldn't tell him where I was. After food, he drove me to the store to get Nerf guns, and we battled.
"I wound up marrying him."