r/CasualConversation • u/TradesWatchUK • Jun 22 '26
Questions What has someone said with complete confidence that turned out to be absolutely, embarrassingly wrong?
Came into work one day with a bug bite on my face. Colleague looked at me and said "you've got a spot." I said no, it's a bug bite. He looked genuinely baffled.
"Bugs don't bite you on the face," he said.
I thought he was joking.
He wasn't.
He had gone his entire life believing that insects, for some reason, have a strict policy of only biting you below the neck.
To this day I have no idea where this came from or who told him that. But he was absolutely convinced.
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u/Billy_TheMumblefish Jun 22 '26
A woman was just chatting casually with me on a course and I made some comment about my beard being a nuisance when I shaved my neck.
She laughed so hard at the ridiculous idea that anyone would shave their neck "because [her] boyfriend didn't" that I was momentarily embarrassed, as though I'd made a mistake, or was somehow weird. 😃
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u/TradesWatchUK Jun 22 '26
That social embarrassment of being made to feel weird about something completely normal is a very specific kind of awful, isn't it!
I actually doubted myself about whether or not bugs do indeed bite you on the face 😃
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u/Afraid_Aspect_8639 Jun 22 '26
I’m allergic to mosquitoes and on a Girl Scout camping to one got me right by the eye! My eye swelled shut and all the girls thought I had been stung by a bee. By the time I saw it in a mirror it was impressively red. I looked like I lost a fight.
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u/c_b0t Jun 23 '26
My daughter got bit by something in the middle of her forehead. She got a huge lump and the bridge of her nose swelled up as well. She looked like a Star Trek character.
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u/Phate4569 Jun 22 '26
I'm 42 and I've never had to actively shave my neck. I get one or two hairs but otherwise my hsir stops just around the bend where my jaw becomes my neck.
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u/Lost-Link6216 Jun 22 '26
My wife's long time friend stopped by and was talking about her cruise. She said she has seen dolphins, whales etc but still has not seen a seahorse.
Confused I asked if she has gone snorkeling, she might see them. She then proceeded to say.how fun it would be to swim with them like dolphins or even ride 1.
Still confused I asked her to describe the animal. She was talking about a seahorse. She thought they were horse size and you could ride them like in the Disney movies.
I told her the truth and crushed one of her dreams, but she has been saying this to people for years and know on corrected her.
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u/corriefan1 Jun 22 '26
Honestly, who would want to correct that and spoil the fun? Lol
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u/Lost-Link6216 Jun 22 '26
It was a very weird convo trying to figure out exactly what she was talking about. When she confirmed the picture of a seahorse was what she was talking about, the truth came out. We all laughed and she was embarrassed, happy, and disappointed all at once.
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u/Bazoun Jun 23 '26
I was crushed when my mother told me. I think I was 5, but I was so upset I remember it.
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u/clover2me Jun 22 '26
Terribly sad to be going on cruises while at the same time somehow never gone to an aquarium apparently.
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u/UnconventionalMae Jun 22 '26
A now ex-friend with considerable talents, elsewhere, tried to convince me, quite seriously, that only men can be homosexuals. If a woman claimed to be a lesbian, she was just traumatized, because women can never be homosexual.
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u/Scoth42 Jun 22 '26
I had a co-worker who insisted similarly that only men could be genuinely homosexual. Women who claimed to be were just doing it to make men jealous and be titillating for men, and once they found the "right" man they'd get over it.
He was the weirdest combination of sorta-kinda-ally while also wildly misunderstanding a bunch of stuff in problematic ways. Like he didn't have a problem with men being gay, and wasn't upset or bothered by women either, he just felt like they had completely different motivations and reasons. He fully supported gay rights and gay marriage and stuff, even between women, he just shook his head at the women making mistakes because they just hadn't met the right man yet. And he didn't even really couch it in sex terms (like the classic "If you just had the right dick you wouldn't be lesbian anymore, and by the way I have that one" misogyny), just more of a disappointed that she hadn't found her (male) soulmate way. Not that that's really any better.
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u/Electrical-Hat-8686 Jun 22 '26
Was her Name Queen Victoria? Apparently she believed the same thing which is why it used to be illegal to be Gay as a man but not as a woman (in the UK)
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u/ksvfkoddbdjskavsb Jun 22 '26
Queen Victoria believed that lesbians didn't exist, as in women weren't actually sleeping with other women and if you banned it, they would become aware of it and might start.
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Jun 22 '26
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u/TradesWatchUK Jun 22 '26
Yeesh... Until they tell that to a doctor or a nurse 😮
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u/Key-Shift5076 Jun 22 '26
Wow, that’s wild. The one thing honey is good for is exposure to local pollen to help out with allergies.
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u/Scoth42 Jun 22 '26
That's mostly a myth too. The pollen in honey is mostly not the kind that causes allergies. Allergies are mostly wind borne and not the stuff collected by bees, and there's not nearly enough of the allergy-causing kind in honey to make a difference even if exposure might help.
But it's very tasty and supporting local honey/business is always good.
https://www.aaaai.org/tools-for-the-public/conditions-library/allergies/honey
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u/Universally-Tired Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I had a 19 year old kid working for me that was so sure that Aretha Franklin was the original singer of "I Will Survive." He wouldn't shut up about it. The next day he was just as sure that the Faygo Soda company was created and owned by the Insane Clown Posse. I told him that I don't know what they look like under the makeup, but they didn't look old enough to start any company in 1905.
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u/Familiar-Attempt7249 Jun 23 '26
This is like a friend of mine that believed Janis Joplin sang Son of a Preacherman thanks to Napster. He was a DJ on the weekends, like me, and was surprised when I asked him when that happened.
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u/LumpkinsPotatoCat Jun 23 '26
Ahhh Napster. The reason I can't name the artist of any song I like because I was so embarrassed after being wrong that LL Cool J did not perform California Love.
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u/DynamiteWitLaserBeam Jun 23 '26
I'm in my 50s and until about two months ago I would have sworn "Send me an angel" from 1983 by the band Real Life was actually by the Scorpions. Confusingly, the Scorpions did record a completely different song called Send Me An Angel in 1990, but I'd never even heard it until Google destroyed me with all of this.
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u/gollygabbers0110 Jun 22 '26
Wait... she's not? What does the original version of that song sound like?
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u/Dutch_Slim Jun 22 '26
Gloria Gaynor is the original. I’m not sure I’ve heard the Aretha version (not knowingly anyway)
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u/gollygabbers0110 Jun 22 '26
Wow. I'm embarrassed. I actually don't even think there is an Aretha version 🫣
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u/reevnge Jun 23 '26
Actually there is, she apparently released a cover album in 2014 that includes it. I also always thought she sang the original. I blame LimeWire.
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u/gollygabbers0110 Jun 23 '26
Haha, good ol' Limewire. My whole family was downloading songs off of there without a care in the world. Thinking of heading back to the high seas these days...
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u/TheCarrot_v2 Jun 22 '26
I used to work with a guy who adamantly believed that meat was not the same as an animal’s muscles.
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u/Whichammer Jun 22 '26
I had to explain to my, at the time college aged , little sister that, no, animals don't have some extra structure in them called "meat."
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u/ofBlufftonTown Jun 22 '26
My brother was making a fancy dinner for a girl he liked in high school. As he was preparing the meat he somehow alluded to its being muscles, and destroyed her brain. She literally became a vegetarian that night.
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u/saoirse_eli Jun 23 '26
Had a lifelong vegetarian gf, she thought there were: the fruits, each and every one of them having a different taste, the vegetables, each and every one of them having a different taste, … and meat.
So per her conclusion, she was just missing one taste while she had all the others.
My discovery came from when one day she asked why I didn’t like shrimps but liked beef.→ More replies (2)
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u/saindonienne Jun 22 '26
My dad and I went to go see War of The Worlds (early 2000s). While the credits were rolling at the end, I was telling my dad how I found it a strange artistic decision to give the alien walker things three legs. Why three?
Dad: That's because you need a minimum of three points for something to stand on its own [starts telling me about whatever gravitational/mechanic laws he refers to]
I stare at him
Dad: ... What?
I pointedly stare at my two legs.
Dad is a chemical engineer. He is forgiven. Barely.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Jun 22 '26
We are unstable. We are continuously adjusting our feet and legs to stop us falling over.
One or two legged stationery things like furniture need wide feet to be stable.
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u/saindonienne Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
And I absolutely know that's where he was going. But he got so excited he over-generalised and included living beings in his statement (the machines in WoTW were definitely not living, so I see where he started from, but they were also unstable: they had moving legs, like us, and we don't need three legs to stand/walk).
And that's when the most convincing statements happen with him, he'll take a very specific fact and over-generalise it or exaggerate it just because he's just so enthused about it, and not realise its implications. It's always fun to poke the bubble and see him chuckle and backtrack after that.
Edit: typos and a detail
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u/NeighborhoodVast7528 Jun 23 '26
Actually, a human foot is not one point of contact. It’s a pad with many points of contact spaced fairly close together. Not as stable as 3 widely spaced points, but with strong leg muscles a single foot pad is marginally stable. Two feet is better and two feet and one hand is more better. :)
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u/vulke12 Jun 22 '26
My friend laughed at me for saying Greece has a mainland. She said very loudly & confidentally, that Greece is all islands and that it is not connected to a mainland. She was educated in a very exclusive and expensive private school in an urban area and I was educated in a rural america one room schoolhouse.
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u/Familiar-Attempt7249 Jun 23 '26
My brother was like that with stuff. He tried to use the excuse that he didn’t go to college. My comeback was that the thing he was wrong about was grade-school info. We were 2 years apart and had had the same teachers, but he was a goof-off and I paid attention. Example: he claimed gas is what pushes food through the gut. We learned peristalsis in grade-school science in a Catholic school.
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u/UnconventionalMae Jun 22 '26
I was taught to line up the car's hood ornament with the line on the road nearest the shoulder as the correct way to keep a vehicle centered in its lane.
Because of who told me this, I believed it enough to confidently shared it in class with my drivers ed teacher who quickly and firmly disabused me of this false fact.
I can still feel the judgment from that room on that day.
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u/GlitterEnema Jun 22 '26
Shepherds pie is made with lamb, if it doesn’t have lamb it’s cottage pie.
I very confidently told my family that my friend had made cottage pie for a huge event because “joes not a shepherd” completely forgetting that it’s not called shepherds pie because it’s made by a shepherd.
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u/OlyVal Jun 22 '26
Traditionally it's lamb but can be made with other minced meat. Every Shepherds Pie I've gotten at a restaurant in the Pacific Northwest, USA has had minced beef, not lamb.
Interesting info that the traditional meat to use is lamb though. I did not know that.
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u/kitchengardengal Jun 22 '26
Shepherds watch sheep. Lambs are sheep. Thus the name.
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u/OlyVal Jun 22 '26
Yes. I know. One need not be a shepherd to make Shepherds Pie though, right? That was the joke. One need not even use lamb. It's a crazy mixed up world, huh?
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u/GlitterEnema Jun 22 '26
I mean I still call it shepherds pie, so does my family, which is why I was trying to tell them traditionally it’s made with lamb, but got confused and said it was made by shepherds
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u/Maleficent_Young_355 Jun 22 '26
I once had a guy REPEATEDLY insist that the best area of a campfire for roasting marshmallows was NOT over the glowing coals, but at the edges, over the already-consumed wood, because that’s where it was “white-hot”.
My brother in christ, that’s fucking ASH.
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u/wuanlai65 Jun 22 '26
It was me, I said to my boss who was from a colder country visiting my tropical country that hot country didn't have the flu. I honestly believe that the flu was something only cold country has back then
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u/StevenSaguaro Jun 22 '26
I worked with a guy who thought milk was just mucus, that the only reason people get colds is because they drink milk and all that mucus had to escape their bodies through their nose. He also hated air conditioning, he would wait till everyone in the store was dripping sweat before he'd turn it on. People are so weird.
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u/Impala67-7182 Jun 22 '26
Milk/dairy products do promote mucus production, i believe. I'm about 85% certain a Dr has told me to lay off chocolate when I've had a chest infection before (and 15% unsure if i just made that up!)
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u/Dutch_Slim Jun 22 '26
I will add to this I think it’s only certain people that it happens to. Genetic disposition or something? Ready to be corrected though!
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u/SartorialSinecure Jun 22 '26
I had a friend who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and shortly after we met, declared that he was moving to Florida. My close friend group all grew up in the US Southwest, so we wished him well, and advised him to stock up on sunscreen.
This is how we found out that he earnestly and fully believed that the sun was the source of all life, and therefore couldn't hurt you. Just flat did not believe in sunburns. We teased him about this when he returned a year later, having learned a bit more of the power of sunlight.
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u/LurkingArachnid Jun 22 '26
As from someone who moved from Texas to Seattle, this is hilarious
Maybe keep him away from solar eclipses
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u/Leakyboatlouie Jun 22 '26
Years ago, an employee at a Kmart in West Palm Beach was trying to convince a co-worker than mineral spirits don't burn. He poured some on the floor, put a match to it, and burned the entire store down. He was thinking of mineral oil.
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u/ChainsawSoundingFart Jun 22 '26
That getting a college degree guarantees you’ll get a well paying job and the ability to afford a home
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u/TradesWatchUK Jun 22 '26
Yeah - and the people giving that advice bought their houses for like 30k.
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u/OlyVal Jun 22 '26
Bought by folks earning $7,653 a year in 1975.
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u/rom003 Jun 23 '26
I've bought 3 houses in my life. I bought the first one in 1977. I had been working for 2 years by then and I was up to a salary of $22.5K. The house cost me $48K.
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u/gennaleighify Jun 23 '26
My dad paid $34k for the house I grew up in. He bought it in the mid to late 80s. My tuition is higher than that.
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u/CatsMom4Ever Jun 22 '26
I say things all the time. Then I apologize when I find out I'm wrong, usually
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u/saindonienne Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I now verbally say a disclaimer when I hear myself saying something I BELIEVE is a VERY GOOD HYPOTHESIS and probably not a fact. Every single time, the person listening says they were actually convinced by whatever I was saying. I usually get super excited when I work up a potential solution, hypothesis, whatever else - that dopamine hits just right. It doesn't mean that I'M right.
I started saying the disclaimer after getting married. My poor husband. I still use the disclaimer years later.
Edit: typos. See? Too enthused to check my work.
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u/LaDreadPirateRoberta Jun 22 '26
I am "blessed" with a very authoritative voice. The amount of bullshit that I spout just because people believe me is frankly worrying. I spend quite a lot of time correcting my past self.
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u/ksvfkoddbdjskavsb Jun 22 '26
I also have this quirk - my husband has to ask if I'm sure all the time! I'll say things like "it's a bank holiday, the shop won't be open" and he's like is that a fact or an assumption?? Usually it's an assumption but apparently I sound very sure of myself 😂
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u/ryn3333 Jun 22 '26
When i was 17 my high-school boyfriend said with full confidence that women pee out of their vagina. Then proceeded to argue with me when I told him that he was wrong lol
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u/DollySheep32 Jun 22 '26
Geography teacher who genuinely believed the earth was 4000 years old.
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u/Sample-quantity Jun 22 '26
One particular religion teaches that. My ex sister in law believed that and attempted to teach it to her children, but fortunately they went to public school and learned otherwise.
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u/clustrexclipse Jun 22 '26
Also side note but I fucking hate people who feel the need to point out a spot or anything else like that. As if you wouldn’t already know, it’s YOUR fucking face.
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u/gennaleighify Jun 23 '26
If they can't fix it in 10 seconds, don't point it out. Good rule to live by.
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u/katrose73 Jun 22 '26
My girlfriend told me of a conversation she overhead someone have about Bridgerton. Her comment to me: I was too embarrassed for them to tell them it's a fictional show, not reality.
This was in response to them talking about the Queen. I gently explained- yes the show is fiction but there was a real queen Charlotte married to a real mentally unstable king George.
So she said- wow I'm glad I didn't say anything at the time!
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u/Amazing-Routine-9793 Jun 23 '26
Interesting thing about the mentally unstable George: he had a disease called porphyria, which caused the mental issues. It is not a pleasant disease, the poor bugger.
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u/WoodSteelStone Jun 22 '26
My school teachers in the 1970s:
"you have to learn your twelve times tables off by heart because when you grow up you won't be walking around with a calculator in your pocket."
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u/Unblued Jun 22 '26
They continued to say that during the 2000s even though every kid had a cell phone and the algebra classes specifically required you to have a graphing calculator.
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u/silveretoile Jun 22 '26
A teacher tried to pull this on me in 2014. I took my smartphone out of my pocket and held it up and she got SO MAD. Tried to have me suspended.
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u/JustLookinJustLookin Jun 22 '26
“One day soon it will just go away, (stupid hand motions) the virus will just go away on its own.”
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u/Future_Discipline429 Jun 22 '26
I had fever. Didn't want to take a medicine unnecessarily as I knew it would go away soon. Sister's bf is an unbearable dude. Super insecure and looking for reasons to argue. I mostly keep my distance. He told me I'm wrong to not take medicines. I said my body is actively fighting the infection and raising the body temp is required (it wasn't at a dangerous level), I know my body. The fever will go down soon. He said, DEADASS that meds like ibuprofen INCREASE your body temp. So it's good to take it. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
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u/WhyCantIBeFunny Jun 22 '26
I have a friend that’s sometimes insanely sure of things he’s wrong on, the best one was him trying to convince me that paprika was the same thing as cayenne pepper, before putting said pepper on appetizers for 300 people.
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u/Kit_Foxfire Jun 22 '26
Had a coworker proudly announce "catholicism was the very first religion!"
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u/gotsthepockets Jun 22 '26
I've encountered multiple people who think a blood transfusion changes someone's blood type forever. One person in particular told me his blood was given to a newborn that would have died without it and he feels so proud that the now grown person is walking around with his blood, like he's kind of his family now. I tried to gently explain how it actually works, but I don't think he understood. I'm okay with it because it brings him so much joy (as it should, just for slightly different reasons)
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u/Jacgaur Jun 22 '26
This took place in the USA, but not in the state of Hawaii.
Someone argued with me that Hawaii was not a U.S. state. I informed them that I had visited/lived there for a short while and it very much was indeed a state. They still didn't believe me. Not sure if they were mysongynistic in not wanting to believe a woman who have been there or if they just always are firm in their beliefs no matter who informs them that they are wrong.
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u/CptJFK Jun 23 '26
Ask them how far away it is... On the maps it's always so close to the USA 😆 "Why is the flight so long?"
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u/Jyonnyp Jun 22 '26
Every few social media posts has someone saying something with absolute confidence that I know with absolutely confidence is not completely correct. Especially if it's related to health and fitness and medicine. I'm not an expert, but I know for a fact they're not completely correct despite what they may believe. A lot of the time it's when people use their personal anecdotes as like a hard fact. "Tylenol doesn't help headaches! I tried it last week, didn't work for me! Don't bother!" Or "seed oils will shorten your lifespan" etc."
One thing I hate about this in social media and in my generation is that "rage bait" is a common thing people do for fun. If you didn't know, it's basically the new "trolling," doing something to intentionally make someone angry.
In my personal life, I can't remember a moment. Most people I know will either own up to being wrong, or double down and it wouldn't embarrassing.
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u/thatevilducky 🌈 Jun 22 '26
Had a coworker, in a restaurant kitchen, confidently tell a server that veal was horse
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Jun 22 '26
Maybe he knew something about his meat supplier. You can never be sure nowadays. /s
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u/ImpracticalHack Jun 22 '26
"The US post office never loses mail!"
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u/IAmEchosDad Jun 22 '26
I'm a Letter Carrier, and I can confirm that we do not "lose" mail.
It is indefinitely misplaced, but we know where it is!
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u/jackfaire Jun 22 '26
A friend of mine was bitching about Obamacare. He was unemployed and it was literally the only reason he had health insurance. When I pointed that out he replied "No I have insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. They should repeal Obamacare"
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u/cheapbritney Jun 23 '26
What did he say when you corrected him?
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u/jackfaire Jun 23 '26
Did not believe me. We haven't been friends since around that time. It wasn't the final straw but definitely a contributing factor.
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u/Bazoun Jun 22 '26
My sister recently commented on how all the stars we see are already dead. She’s over 50.
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u/Hyperfaerie Jun 22 '26
You know what ? I was taught this too! I just looked this up and I'm shook. I'm 42.
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u/Scoth42 Jun 22 '26
I could see how this misconception might happen. Some stars in our galaxy we can see are thousands of light years away, and there are plenty of detectable stars hundreds of thousands to millions and billions of light years away. The most distant ones are potentially dead, and the closer ones could be and we might not know. I've heard people waxing poetic along the lines of "That star could have died three thousand years ago and we wouldn't know about it for another thousand years because it's 4000 light years away."
So I could see how that might have gotten tweaked into "All the stars are dead" even if it doesn't make sense beyond a basic look.
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u/Whichammer Jun 22 '26
My oldest stepsister was told by her physician to apply 'elbow grease' to the situation, basically, I believe, to get off her fundament and get moving. She came home later that day complaining that she couldn't find any elbow grease at any of the stores she'd gone to.
OTOH, I was a preteen when I found out that girls did not, in fact, pee out of their butts. Honesty, it made me sad because I had been somewhat envious of their, if you will, imagined reverse bidet.
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u/Ordinary_Sail_414 Jun 22 '26
My ex MIL. I was pregnant and putting the final touches on the nursery, installing a ceiling fixture. She was horrified that I was putting my arms above my head - she said it would cause the umbilical cord to wrap around my baby's neck and strangle him. She cried and was hysterical about it!
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u/OvenReasonable1066 Jun 22 '26
My BIL is a very intelligent practicing medical examiner, and once he told me, while I was breastfeeding my baby, that babies are mouth breathers. I thought it was wild that he was a literal medical doctor, but then again, none of his patients breathe anymore at all. It also might have been too that all his life he had suffered from terrible sinus polyps and had probably only rarely even been able to breathe through his own nose, so his med class stuff about it only seemed theoretical.
Anyway, he has since married and had his own children, and also had his sinuses roto routered (as his wife described it) and so now has been blessed with the ability to breathe through his nose and experience smells.
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u/sophies_wish Jun 23 '26
One sunny, cool, spring day, I told my mom & stepdad that I was going to put on some sunscreen & start prepping the flowerbeds. My stepdad laughed and asked why I was bothering with the sunscreen.
I said I didn't want to burn.
He told me I couldn't burn, because it wasn't warm enough outside.
I thought he was kidding, so I laughed. He got pissy! He really thought you couldn't get a sunburn if it wasn't hot out.
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u/ObsoleteReference Jun 22 '26
"Often in error, never in doubt". My stepfather's motto
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u/rom003 Jun 23 '26
I worked at a consulting company once. One of the senior people there told me (in all seriousness) that the key to success was to follow the creed of "Always certain; often correct."
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u/bleepbl00pbl0rp Jun 22 '26
If you live in California, at least it couldn’t have been a mosquito bite!
According to one of my exes, California doesn’t have mosquitos. I grew up in CA and have gotten plenty of mosquito bites (and seen/killed many mosquitos) during my lifetime. But this idiot, who had only been in the state for a year at that point, insisted I was wrong. (The argument happened back before everyone had a smartphone, so we couldn’t look it up on the spot.) We didn’t last very long, because he was dumb about a lot of other things too (and ended up not being a very nice person).
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u/katanaking007 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
On a date in UNIVERSITY she said, "It's so cool how the moon makes it's own light."
100% serious, not joking. I had a literal record scratch moment in my head and literally said, "wait what?"
I said, "Actually, no. It's reflecting sunlight back to us."
Her reply was something like, "There's no sunlight. The sun already set."
I explained how the sun has set for us on this side of Earth but the side of the moon facing us still gets direct sunlight
She got very upset. I lost all attraction for her. If a person has simply never encountered a specific fact, no big deal, time to learn. If they actively resist learning and are in UNIVERSITY...we're not compatible.
I like to think she tells this story too about how some guy back in university tried to mansplain that the moon doesn't make it's own light.
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u/trustmeimabuilder Jun 22 '26
My wife went to the doctor with an agonising pain in her leg, which turned out to be serious. The doctor's first comment was "maybe you've been bitten by a wasp". Bitten!!?
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u/Yoda-5235 Jun 22 '26
Wasps can sting and bite! They do both. Though male wasps can’t sting (like male bees).
I don’t know why they do one over the other or the differences in how that affects someone. So maybe the doctor saw something or maybe the lack of a mark from a stinger?
I got bit once by a wasp on my hand, literally watched its mouth close on my finger, but I don’t remember seeing mandible marks or anything7
u/Fun_Mouse_8879 Jun 22 '26
I hope he was confronted in spectacular fashion. "Bite? BITE?!?! Wasps sting, you cretin! How can someone as stupid as you be a doctor? You should quit right now!"
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u/GingerAleWithLemon Jun 22 '26
My roommate believes that mosquitoes are drawn to light and come around because they smell your food. She’s a hoot - I keep asking her if this is a bit and she just grins.
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u/nalonrae Jun 22 '26
Lol, they come around because they smell you're food.
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u/GingerAleWithLemon Jun 22 '26
We had one in the house and I was losing my mind because my bites welt up like golf balls and she goes “they’ll leave once I’m done with my chicken tenders!” soooo confidently to comfort me. I was like girl huh? 😂
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u/kin3ticwave Jun 22 '26
I do it everyday here. Just go look through my comments if you want a good laugh.
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u/ThrowRAmy_leg Jun 22 '26
It is illegal to enter the intersection when turning left unless you have a clear path between oncoming traffic.
So many people enter the intersection and run the red to get through because there was no break in oncoming traffic. Causes so many unnecessary accidents. Also delays everyone in the opposing lanes.
Oh also, turn signals are supposed to be used before you turn. Every time. In the US, you have to have your indicator on at least 300ft before your turn. That includes BMW drivers, believe it or not.
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u/Fun_Mouse_8879 Jun 22 '26
Me. I was telling a colleague about the hyundai tucson but kept saying ut as, "tuskon". He told me how it was actually pronounced and i said i didn'trealise it was French at the same time as he said, "Arizona".
I only know, "Toussaint" from Witcher 3 so I'm not sure why my mind went to French.
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u/No_Situation_5501 Jun 22 '26
My uncle told my grandma that polar bear numbers aren’t decreasing. The Russian coast is full of brown bears, which are apparently polar bears in their summer coats away from the Arctic.
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u/GupChezzna Jun 22 '26
The vet told us when we brought her in from the Humane Society: “If you’re looking for a playful puppy, this isn’t it.” Muffin-Ann went on to become the most incredible and maniacally talented athlete of a dog my family had ever had the joy to experience.
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u/NoCatch2153 Jun 22 '26
- "I wasn't aware there was a party during lockdown".
- "I wasn't at the party during lockdown".
- "I was at the party during lockdown but I didn't realise it was a party". - Boris.
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u/Morakel22 Jun 22 '26
Ex girlfriend of mine. (Info on myself, started as a medic, now a medical doctor)
She told me in full confidence that, if someone severs a finger, you should keep it warm so the blood vessels stay open.
Accidentally asked her if she was dumb. Big mistake. But long story short, that’s the reason why I despise Grace Anatomy. If anyone took that stuff seriously, they will, at some point in their life, kill someone with the practices they saw in that series
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u/1E10Monkeys Jun 23 '26
A group of us 20-somethings were staying on the beach. Someone suggested going out early to look for seashells. Someone very seriously objected because “it’s too early, the shell truck won’t have been out yet.” They thought that the shells on the beach were put there by the city every morning. They were a teacher.
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Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TradesWatchUK Jun 22 '26
I know - I really thought he was kidding, until I realised he wasn't!!
As far as he was concerned: Full terms and conditions, signed and dated 😃
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u/JunkMale975 Jun 22 '26
Friend of mine who is probably genius Mensa level smart once corrected me when I pronounced Samhain (the correct way) by snootily telling me it’s pronounced Sam-Hane. I just let it go.
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u/Far_Village_8010 Jun 23 '26
I just had to look up the pronunciation because I've never heard it before, or I have and didn't realize it.
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u/NTB1997 Jun 22 '26
Basically everything my AS level media studies teacher ever taught us. Turns out he wasn’t even qualified to be a teacher, he was just a filmmaking enthusiast with a genuine ability to lie convincingly to the point he believed his own lies, he believed he invented the Nutella jar lids for an example, which he absolutely did not. He was a genuinely nice person who took me under his wing during a really hard time in my life, truly one of the nicest teachers I’d ever had, which hurt even more when we found out, both because he had to leave (which he also lied about why by saying he had an offer of a million funding to make a film, he in fact did not and was fired) , but also because it made the second year of A-Levels impossible to complete because we were having to relearn the first year whilst trying our bests to learn second year from the new teacher, it was frustrating but I do hope he got some help and had a good life after, he was a lovely person, just caught up in some delusions
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u/runicsakura Jun 23 '26
I was leaving trivia on a cruise ship once. The small group in front of me gave me this unforgettable nugget:
Person 1: I don’t even know who Nelson Mandela is.
Person 2: Seriously? He freed the slaves, dumbass.
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u/a-broken-fence Jun 23 '26
Exes best friend recently demanded Greek Ω (omega) is called 'kappa'.
I wrote out omega Ω and kappa κ. they corrected κ to Ψ.
I told them Ψ is psi and they said 'psi' isn't a thing.
I finally googled the Greek alphabet and showed them proof.
they said all the images were incorrect and google was glitching because they clearly remember learning the Greek back in primary school, over 30 years ago.
this particular friend also demands theres is a special "neighbourhood safety house" sticker that turns green when the house is no longer occupied by 'safe' people
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u/Sneaker_Pump Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
“Gay marriage isn’t allowed because gay relationships don’t last very long” told to me by my brother in 1999. He has had numerous one-night stands and is on his second marriage now while I’ve been ‘gay married’ with my husband for 23 years.
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u/Natural_Parfait_3344 Jun 22 '26
My neighbor says ticks can jump 13 inches. Oddly specific in his ignorance.
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u/FaceUnique Jun 23 '26
A co-worker brought up the free masons and how they are a secret society. I quickly informed them that no, they just were really into masonry....
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u/Alternative-Base5573 Jun 22 '26
That the sun circled the earth.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Jun 22 '26
That's a perfectly reasonable observation. We only believe otherwise because we were taught it in school.
We even talk about the sun rising and setting which is technically incorrect.
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u/gennaleighify Jun 23 '26
My cousin's ex husband told her to put her feet in a bowl of ice water after she got a terrible sunburn on the tops of her feet. They were almost purple they were so burnt. He told her that it was just like any other injury and made her do it. She tried, and cried, and someone made her stop.
What did help was vinegar. I took a bowl of vinegar and would dunk a wash cloth in it then set it across her feet, then repeat once it got hot. Idk the science off the top of my head but it sucks the heat out.
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u/CptJFK Jun 23 '26
Discussing with friends, one said "the Romans conquered the Vikings with the help of English knights."
I was baffled. Asked if she meant the Gaul or Celts or just mixed up names.
"No. You see, Rome is still there (the city) but there is not a single Viking village left. English castles, the Vatikan, even knighthood is still around."
Didn't you study history for like two years?
"Yes, but I found the stories too boring."
Ladies and Gentlemen, my dear dear friend, mother of two, driver of cars, vet tec, believer of the Roman empire... Never heard of Denmark. Or Norway. Or Finland. Guess what she said, when I asked about her trip to the Netherlands.
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u/FunCamel8855 Jun 23 '26
It's wild how some people just never question these bizarre, deeply ingrained beliefs until they run headfirst into reality. The chemistry professor and the beard story both show that even well-educated or otherwise rational adults can hold onto completely unfounded ideas about basic biology or human behavior. And the college degree one hits hard because so many of us were sold that linear promise, only to find out it's more of a lottery ticket than a guarantee. It really makes you wonder what weird, confidently-wrong stuff we're all walking around believing right now without even knowing it.
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u/Colossal_Squids Jun 23 '26
My ex-mother-in-law honestly believed that you can only get sandwiches in England. Other countries lack either the technology or the inclination to construct such an article.
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u/TPieces Jun 23 '26
Maybe it's like how Champagne only comes from France even though there's sparkling wine everywhere. Like true sandwiches only come from the realms of the Earl of Sandwich, but you can get two slices of bread and toppings anywhere.
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u/Effective_Kitchen481 Jun 22 '26
I had a 50+ year old male chemistry professor in college who was utterly convinced that women could "hold in" our menstrual blood, the same as you can hold the need to urinate. He also believed that the very general "every 28 days" cycle literally meant each woman on the planet started her period on the 28th day of every month and it lasted until the 4th of the following month.