39 Stories of People Who Clearly Have No Idea How the World Works

A recent AskReddit thread asked Redditors to share stories of people they knew who clearly had no idea how the real world works.

Their stories are honestly kind of insane.

My cousin and I were talking one day, and I mentioned that I had a horrible sense of direction, whereas my brother could be dropped off in a cornfield and find his way home.

She replied that it was easy to find your direction, just remember “Never Eat Shredded Wheat,” and you will know where North is.

I laughed and said that was for remembering the directions in order, not for finding which way was which. 

We argued for 20 minutes until I told her to show me how it works.

She stands up and point forward and says “Never Eat Shredded Wheat!” and points to the direction she was facing when she stood up. “That’s North!”

So I told her to face me and then find North. She does it again… “Never Eat Shredded Wheat!” and points at me and says “that’s North.”

So ask her if North just changed? She says no. “But North was that way a minute ago?”

She looks confused and says “Why didn’t that work?”

I told her it was because she was an idiot. –jmsturm

Guy sold his Rent-a-Center TV…

…And couldn’t understand why they threatened to charge him for theft. –maaritt

My brother wanted to be a “game designer.” I asked how that was going and what he had been doing.

Mom had gone to Walmart to pick up some art supplies so he could get “Designing.”

He did not really know what coding was in terms of game design and did not know graphic design.

He thought he could simply just draw up some swords and guns and shields and someone would pay him to do this for a living. With zero experience.

He’s almost 30. –jenniferjuniper

My little brother was adamant that he would grow up to be an actor all through high school without trying to pursue any acting-related things.

Quit drama club freshman year and never looked back. Didn’t work towards getting into an acting program in college.

Spent more time on his video games than acting, but I guess he was just banking on being discovered and put into roles due to handsomeness.

It’s hard enough to make that dream work for people who are actually trying. –reallifegarnet

This next story is actually a little sweet.

I worked on a group project with these two girls in high school.

We had met up at a library over the weekend and when I pulled into the parking lot one of them said something about my car.

I said “Yeah, I love this car but someone keyed it in a parking lot all down the passenger side. Look how deep it is!”

I told her I couldn’t fix it beyond some touch-up paint either because that would require sanding it down and all that.

She looked me dead in the eye with a look like I was crazy and said “Well why don’t you go buy some elbow grease? I hear that fixes everything.”

Dead serious.

Girl had heard about “just give it some elbow grease” and got it into her head that this was a product you could buy to fix just about anything.

She did not contribute much to our group project. –MountainMantologist

They lived with a dark bedroom for 7 days waiting for the real estate of their rental property to come and change the light bulb.

–abar991

Had a woman call into work (banking) and ask for her mortgage payoff.

It was like 40-thousandish…. she said there was no way that was right because her payment book only had 3 more coupons in it and she thought it was done when the coupons were.

She couldn’t comprehend that she had a 30-year mortgage and that she didn’t get a coupon book for all 30 years, she only got three years at a time and because she had an adjustable rate.

I had to call backups to explain to her that she still owed 27 more years. –MadMadGirl

A fellow college student said, “I don’t understand why other students keep looking for free food. If they really need more money, why don’t they just get more student loans?”

I had to explain to him that, at some point, they stop giving you student loans.

Also that not everyone had parents who were willing/able to support their children.

And that even if you did pull out more loans, then that’s more money you have to pay back after university compared to your expected entry-level pay schedule in your field. –pepepenguin

At our marriage prep retreat, there was a couple who was 20/21 years old.

The girl was still in college; her fiancé worked at a radio station.

She said their plan was to get married right after she graduated and start having kids, and she would be a stay-at-home mom.

One of the other couples asked if they had discussed how the finances would work with that, and she said she doesn’t have any bills right now so it shouldn’t be that hard. –reddittwayone

This next story is of someone who decided to quit his jobs and play video games for a living.

It went about as well as you’d expect.

A friend of mine decided to quit his job to become a Twitch streamer.

Right off the bat, I thought this was a stupid plan, but the real kicker was his timeline for his streaming career.

He told me he saved enough money to pay his bills for 1 month. ONE MONTH!

And after that, he would be making enough money from Twitch to pay his bills.

He seriously believed that after 1 month he would have between 2 and 3 hundred subs.

He refused to advise or use any social media.

He won’t play any triple A games or even popular games. A year and a half later he’s lost his apartment his car basically everything but his girlfriend, who he lives with.

But hey, he just hit 50 followers on twitch and got affiliated.

To him, this endeavor has been a total success. –Dr_Henry_Armitage

I was good friends with this girl in college.

I knew she was spoiled (free rein of daddy’s credit card), but it was never a big deal.

After college, she couldn’t grasp why I couldn’t spend the next 6-12 months backpacking through Europe with her, which she wanted to do because she didn’t feel like getting a job yet.

The idea that I had to get a job to support myself and start paying back student loans was completely foreign to her.

Her answer to everything was “Have your parents pay for it!” Sorry honey, that is not how the real world works. –jeswesky

Air Force.

18-year-old arrives at his first Duty Station. He has contacted nobody. Nobody knows he is arriving today.

He has figured out (by stopping at different offices and asking) where our warehouse is and enters the office to meet his supervision…flanked by his girlfriend and his mother.

Later on, it is discovered that he fudged his numbers on all his previous fitness tests to that point, which is why he could barely do 25 pushups and couldn’t run to save his life.

Even later on, becomes hysterical, sobbing, panicking, begging and pleading when told he will deploy to Afghanistan.

Like everyone else in the squadron had been doing, for years. This was 2012. We were in logistics. We literally loaded airplanes all day. –moronicuniform

Met a guy at uni who thought Chinese people would be unaffected by the rise of superbugs because they were too smart to fall victim to it.

Both a pharmacy student and a Chinese person could not convince him otherwise. –lix64

Got into a car accident in high school.

I was driving a car that cost me $300 (had been sitting on concrete blocks at a cousin’s, patched it and bought wheels) and I was absolutely devastated.

The kid who hit me wasn’t freaking out at all and kept saying his dad would get him another one, why was I so worried about an old car?

Once the dad got there, it turned out this is the third car his kid had wrecked. For that school year. –fuqmook

Next up is an ex-wife who needs a vocabulary lesson.

My ex-wife demanded to know where I was going on vacation and who I was going with.

I had to explain to her for the 871st time what “divorced” meant. –Me2ExceptBillClinton

Someone at work asked if she needed to pay to use the microwave.

She decided it was too complicated to use and bought a $150 thermal lunchbox so she can take food that was cooked by her hired chef to work without needing to reheat it. –imonfiyar

An old friend (who’s Coca-Cola family) told my ex-bf (who was dirt poor), “Oh don’t worry, everyone has a trust fund, some parents just don’t tell you so you don’t rely on it.”

This was in high school. –paintedfeathers

My dad asked if he could borrow my cat. I said no. He replied, “It’s OK, I’ll just rent one.”

I didn’t point out that cat rentals aren’t a thing. I still don’t know why he needed a cat. –phantom_panties

Former barista here. A customer came through drive-thru one afternoon, ordering a custom drink that cost about $5.

While on the phone, he dug change out of the corners of his van and handed me what amounted to less than $3.

I continued looking at him with my hand extended, half full of dirty coins, when he just shrugged and said, “That’s all I got.”

I repeated the total and said he hadn’t given me enough.

“Can’t you just spot me with your tips?”

Um, EXCUSE ME? First, no, that’s literally my grocery money, and second, our company had a strict policy against doing just that.

But I simply apologized and said no, I couldn’t do that.

He blew up at me, saying I wasn’t “being very neighborly.”

I again apologized and explained how I relied on my tip money to, you know, EAT.

Instead, he screamed at me again, “You suck, you REALLY suck!” before driving away. –Ser_Laughing_Tree

The friend in this next story needs a huge reality check.

I worked on a group project with these two girls in high school.

We had met up at a library over the weekend and when I pulled into the parking lot one of them said something about my car.

I said “Yeah, I love this car but someone keyed it in a parking lot all down the passenger side. Look how deep it is!”

I told her I couldn’t fix it beyond some touch-up paint either because that would require sanding it down and all that.

She looked me dead in the eye with a look like I was crazy and said “Well why don’t you go buy some elbow grease? I hear that fixes everything.”

Dead serious.

Girl had heard about “just give it some elbow grease” and got it into her head that this was a product you could buy to fix just about anything.

She did not contribute much to our group project. –MountainMantologist

They lived with a dark bedroom for 7 days waiting for the real estate of their rental property to come and change the light bulb.

–abar991

Had a woman call into work (banking) and ask for her mortgage payoff.

It was like 40-thousandish…. she said there was no way that was right because her payment book only had 3 more coupons in it and she thought it was done when the coupons were.

She couldn’t comprehend that she had a 30-year mortgage and that she didn’t get a coupon book for all 30 years, she only got three years at a time and because she had an adjustable rate.

I had to call backups to explain to her that she still owed 27 more years. –MadMadGirl

A fellow college student said, “I don’t understand why other students keep looking for free food. If they really need more money, why don’t they just get more student loans?”

I had to explain to him that, at some point, they stop giving you student loans.

Also that not everyone had parents who were willing/able to support their children.

And that even if you did pull out more loans, then that’s more money you have to pay back after university compared to your expected entry-level pay schedule in your field. –pepepenguin

At our marriage prep retreat, there was a couple who was 20/21 years old.

The girl was still in college; her fiancé worked at a radio station.

She said their plan was to get married right after she graduated and start having kids, and she would be a stay-at-home mom.

One of the other couples asked if they had discussed how the finances would work with that, and she said she doesn’t have any bills right now so it shouldn’t be that hard. –reddittwayone

This next story is of someone who decided to quit his jobs and play video games for a living.

It went about as well as you’d expect.