Silly stuped things your younger self thought was true 🤪😳

[Justjackie]

I will go first...first job after leaving school..thought you paid tax then at end of year got it all back! I thought it was some kind of loan to the government 😳 heard mam and dad mention getting '-tax-back' over the years and thought that was what happened!

I can't think of any for me but when we were in our early twenties I got a text from now DH who was in the pub with his friends. He and another were arguing about where Vienna was and asked me to tell them who was right as my Geography is decent. It went like this;

DH: 'Where's Vienna? Dave says it's in Germany, I say it's in Switzerland. Who is right?'

Me: 'It's in Austria'

We went to Vienna last February. I enjoyed reminding him that we were in Austria.

• that being a grown up was easy because grown ups didn’t have to go to school. Never occurred to me what they did do....

-that getting pregnant was very easy and all you had to do was have sex once (I know that this can be true- but it very often isn’t!)

I used fax only a bit in a few jobs I did when young. Tbh I had no idea what I was doing or if those faxes ever went to the right person haha.

Be prepared to have you mind blown. All of you.

When was the fax machine invented? 1970s? Perhaps the 60s?

Nope. ‘43. 1843. Yes. That is not a typo. 1843.
I’m going to say that again. 1843.

www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/history-of-the-fax-machine/

@Ilikeviognier

- that being a grown up was easy because grown ups didn’t have to go to school. Never occurred to me what they did do.... -that getting pregnant was very easy and all you had to do was have sex once (I know that this can be true- but it very often isn’t!)

Yip that was a very frustrating discovery. I'm convinced that sex education in schools make it out that way to scare girls.

When I was a child i was convinced Olivia Newton John was called Olivia Newt. I loved the film Greace and thought it starred Olivia Newt and John (Travolta)

Lockdown bear- yes. I think That’s true re sex education in schools! I was totally dismayed to reach my thirties and realise that no I couldn’t have complete control over this

@UnderHisAye

I thought that in books where it says two people 'exchanged looks' that each person sort of had to rearrange their expression to look like the other persons. So they were literally exchanging looks.

I thought that too!

Re moving houses, I thought that you always exchanged houses with the person from whom you were buying - so if you were planning to move, you would view houses for sale and if you really liked the look of one, the owner would check out your current house and if all went well, you would agree to swap. I also assumed all homes had a standard, flat rate cost and remember being completely confused when hearing about people saving up to move house - surely you paid the person selling and then they paid you back?

I'm loving this thread - I have a sex ed one regarding my son, now 26 and fully clued up judging by how happy he and his fiancee are

In primary school, he was quite disinterested in sex, and as I believe in child led age appropriate information, I answered any questions he did have, but didn't go full on birds and bees. The school started their sex ed and he came home very bemused. He had been shown a cartoon video that prominently featured a couple in a bath - with a rubber duck. Being a bit inattentive, he became fixated on the idea that the rubber duck was essential to having sex, which probably had to be in a bubble bath.

That ended up being very interesting conversation.

He now has the biggest collection of novelty rubber ducks from birthdays and Christmas, which he displays with pride, and he knows that I would love to start any wedding reception he has by releasing a net full of rubber duck balloons onto the dance floor

Re Fax machines... I discovered yesterday that DH has a Fax machine in his office at work and it's still connected.

No one can remember the last time it was actually used. But he needed to provide the number yesterday...

@SallySycamore

I knew Timbuktu was a real place, but I only found out that Zanzibar was in my twenties, when somebody told me she's was going there for her honeymoon.

I think the non-moving sex misconception is because in the books you tend to see a cross section with the man in situ. I did know that movement was involved before I had sex, but I thought until I lost my virginity for a very long time that an erection pointed straight forwards, at 90 degrees to the man's body and was fixed at that angle.

I thought they stuck straight up but then I was under the impression that they couldn’t move and were completely rigid until the erection went down. Was confused by sex scenes in films as some of the positions would have been impossible if that were the case.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Re Fax machines... I discovered yesterday that DH has a Fax machine in his office at work and it's still connected.

No one can remember the last time it was actually used. But he needed to provide the number yesterday...

We’ve got multi function printers at work and only one has fax capabilities. It took three of us secretaries and one IT guy to work out how to use it two years after we got it as we finally needed to send a fax, we stuck the instructions up on the wall next to it but a year on we’ve still never needed to use it again.

I thought there was such a thing as true love.

@DesignforLife

Re moving houses, I thought that you always exchanged houses with the person from whom you were buying - so if you were planning to move, you would view houses for sale and if you really liked the look of one, the owner would check out your current house and if all went well, you would agree to swap. I also assumed all homes had a standard, flat rate cost and remember being completely confused when hearing about people saving up to move house - surely you paid the person selling and then they paid you back?

I actually know of a couple who did buy each others houses!

@Murraytheskull
Bless!.
I thought I'd live happily ever after.
Haha that life got easier as you got older

@Chanjer

Cats and dogs were the same animal, dogs were boys and cats were girls

Omg I thought this too until I was about 11

I always got excited when little if someone said 'im going to see a man about a dog' obviously there was no dogs.

I kind of thought that school teachers were people who knew everything and could never be wrong, whereas your parents just muddled through and didn't really know much. I remember my science teacher told us something to do with electricity, and I went home and told my Dad (who was an elctrician) and he said something like "No, what the teacher said was a simplistic version but it's actually like this (blah blah) so really it's the other way round", and I just didn't believe my Dad. I mean I still don't understand the whole thing inside out, but I was unable to accept the word of someone who did this stuff for a living, over the word of someone teaching us what to put on an exam paper.

@skirk64

"Drink driving" meant people drinking while they were actually driving, i.e. had a glass of red wine sitting on the dashboard.

To be fair, it's silly to call it drink driving. You're not driving drink, you're driving drunk. Drunk driving would make more sense.

@GinaJaffacake yes, I didn’t know how to pronounce Arkansas until I was twelve. Or Maryland, for that matter, I thought it was Mary Land.

Tories is from a Gaelic word I believe, meaning something like bandit? Or thief maybe. I do like the idea of a Conservatory Party though!

[quote CeciledeVolanges]@GinaJaffacake yes, I didn’t know how to pronounce Arkansas until I was twelve. Or Maryland, for that matter, I thought it was Mary Land.

Tories is from a Gaelic word I believe, meaning something like bandit? Or thief maybe. I do like the idea of a Conservatory Party though![/quote]
how is Maryland pronounced then?

[quote CeciledeVolanges]@GinaJaffacake yes, I didn’t know how to pronounce Arkansas until I was twelve. Or Maryland, for that matter, I thought it was Mary Land.

Tories is from a Gaelic word I believe, meaning something like bandit? Or thief maybe. I do like the idea of a Conservatory Party though![/quote]
I didn't know that about Maryland until your post. I just googled the pronunciation now

When I was a child i was convinced Olivia Newton John was called Olivia Newt. I loved the film Grease and thought it starred Olivia Newt and John (Travolta)

I remember getting very annoyed about the fact a "local youth" had been arrested after he had been "helping the police with enquiries". I thought that was very mean of them what with him being so helpful.

Stupid