People have been confessing things they learned far too late in life – 23 stunners

Despite our best efforts, you never stop learning during the course of your life.

But there are some things that eventually dawn on us that we really should have realised when we were much younger.

Like are stalactites the ones that go up, or go down?

We mention this because Curious-2577 had a question for everyone over on Reddit.

‘What’s something you learned “embarrassingly late” in life?’

And it prompted a whole heap of responses, some of them eminently relatable, a lot of them very funny.

We’ve read them all – well, quite a few of them – so you don’t have to, and these 23 ended up on the top of our pile.

1.

‘I though Mick Jagger’s name was McJagger, and people just never said his first name for some reason.’
AcuteHazard

2.

‘When I was a teenager, I posted a status online that said I was “jacking off”.

‘I thought that meant you were just bored and wasting time…until my older sister messaged me, horrified.’
JC_Hysteria

3.

‘I live near the Hospital for Joint Diseases….when I was a kid I thought it was a special hospital for people who had two different diseases at the same time.’
Baffhy_Duck

4.

‘That you don’t have to stand in the shower while the water warms up.’
MagicPieBush

5.

‘I thought that horses had toes until I was 22. I thought the hoof was a “horseshoe” and the toes were tucked inside.

‘How did I learn how wrong I was, you ask?

‘I was walking past a cavalry museum and saw a horse statue and loudly remarked “it must hurt so bad when they fold a horse’s toes to put them into the shoe!” Dozens of horse enthusiasts turned and looked at me with wild bewilderment in their eyes.’
BronNatsPulisic

6.

‘This is something my little sister did through high school. We’re about 8 years apart so we never overlapped in school.

‘She’s always been a straight-A student, and I found out she worked extra hard because she “wanted to catch up to me” in school. So we could be in school at the same time.

‘I almost cried.’
rebel_croissant

7.

‘When I was a teenager, I thought the expression to “eat someone out” meant the same thing as to “chew someone out”.

‘Unfortunately I was educated on this after I told someone in a church that I wasn’t expecting to be eaten out that morning at breakfast. I was 17 lmao.’
prairiedawgs

8.

‘That a prostitute doesn’t actually sell a piece of their body.

‘Backstory: my mom and I were watching the scene from Titanic where Jack tells Rose that he painted a one-legged prostitute. I asked my mom what a prostitute was and she told me “It’s someone who sells their body for money.” I could not fathom why someone would sell their leg for like $30.’
anontidbits

9.

‘I’m from Mississippi and until I was 18 I thought that everyone else in the country counted with their own state.

‘Ie. Instead of 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi they would count 1 Nevada, 2 Nevada, or 1 Maryland, 2 Maryland etc.’
Apprehensive-Ebb1111

10.

‘That Bonsai are not a species of tree, but a way to grow them. Any tree can be a bonsai.’
ixent

11.

‘That a coma was “A” coma. Until I was probably 19~ I thought it was acoma. I thought you fell into acoma.’
FightWithBrickWalls

12.

‘My Dad was fond of framing questions to my brother and/or me regarding just what on Earth we were doing (up to age 10 or so, when it no longer seemed necessary) using the term pray tell, as in “what are you doing with the tools, pray tell?”

‘I presumed a “pratel” was a gentle equivalent to “goofball” or “dummy.” One day I corrected my brother about some misconception he had, addressing him as “you pratel!”

“What did you call him?” asked Dad, who happened to be nearby.

“A pratel. You call us that all the time.”

“I do?!”

“Yeah, you say ‘what is that supposed to be, pratel?'” I’d never seen him laugh through a facepalm before.’
carmium