As we experience our surroundings, we come to have questions about them and usually go above and beyond to seek answers. After all, learning about our world and understanding how it works propels humanity forward. At the same time, there are people who decide to put on rose-tinted glasses and create their own tiny naive bubbles to glide through life without a care in the world.

But even if ignorance may be bliss, it won’t get them very far at the end of the day. So jonallenmaking decided to ask Reddit users to open up about the moments somebody said something so ridiculous that it made them think, “This person is out of touch with reality.” Over 18.6K comments later, we get to be reminded there are plenty of folks out there leading very different lives from most of us.

From hilariously delusional to painfully upsetting, these stories serve as proof that no amount of logic will make these people realize what’s right in front of them. Bored Panda has collected some of the most perplexing answers from the thread, so keep scrolling and upvote as you go. And if you have any similar encounters to share, be sure to tell us about them in the comments!

#1

A guy at a party was talking about how great technology was. I agreed. He then proceeded to talk about how there are people made of computer chips walking among us and we don’t know who they are. I took the opportunity to say, “I know. You could be one of them.” And walked away. I stared at him from across the room off and on the rest of the night. Good times.

Image credits: [deleted]

#2

A friend’s uncle, who is a spiritual healer of some sort, claimed one day he would be known as the first man to cure cancer with “spiritual healing techniques” whatever that mean.

The woman he “treated” stopped her treatments because she was “cured” and died inside six months. Apparently no one saw fit to bring that guy to justice.

His explanation was : “She died from a different cancer that was at the same place with the same symptoms at the same time and the first cancer was hiding the second one so he couldn’t treat her properly because, you know, I couldn’t feel the second one….”

I wish he would go to prison.

Image credits: acide_bob

#3

An American tourist I met (I live in South America), when I asked her how it felt to be so far from home, told me that she really isn’t that far because these “so-called foreign countries” are actually located within the United States and they just fly the plane in circles for hours and hours to convince you that you’re in another country.

Image credits: expressionlessmagnet

#4

“Don’t vaccinate your kid” is at the top of list.

Image credits: willss3

#5

I watched my grandmother shove a load of books off of a shelf at the bookstore the other day because she wanted one that wouldn’t come out. When she walked away and left a pile of them on the ground, she looked at me and said “It’s okay, it’s their job to pick that stuff up.” Speaking from a retail experience, no it’s not. You’re just adding extra work.

#6

Overheard from a girl at college freshman orientation in 2008:

“I’m definitely worried! The economy is SO bad my parents had to sell our vacation home! Well you know the second one we don’t visit as often….”

Yeeeeeeaaahhh…. don’t mind me with my flat of ramen…

Image credits: coolwaifu

#7

I am a waitress and someone wrote “get a real job” on the line for my tip. It was a $150 tab with an incredibly demanding table. I work another job and I go to school full time, but whatever floats your boat.

Image credits: QueCassidy

#8

I was struggling to pay bills and a friend was like, “Don’t worry, your mom and dad care about you, they’ll pay them for you”. I told her I wanted to be a self-sufficient adult and my parents didn’t have the money to cover my bills anyway. Her mind was blown.

Image credits: Ithelda

#9

I work as a psychologist at a school. One student had missed nearly 30 days of school in one term (55 days), so I was asked to investigate. The mother straight faced told me that she didn’t want to drive the 2 minutes from their house because they had to cross a train track, and she thought having to wait for a train to pass was simply unacceptable. I thought she was joking. She was not.

Image credits: pokemonmastergoku

#10

My grandmother tried to get me to participate in a self-exorcism. She said I was posessed by “socialist demons”…. because I visited Canada.

Image credits: do_u_hav_warrant

#11

A family friends son has autism.

I overheard my grandfather say, “when’s the kid gonna snap out of it and get a job?”

Image credits: onefortysevenone

#12

Someone seriously asked me“Wow, howd you get your baby so tan?” My Native American wife holding the baby. I always avoid this person when i can…how can you be so dumb.

Image credits: Beastman33

#13

My assh*le of an uncle once told my grandmother that it was her fault my grandfather got Alzheimers because she didn’t take care of him well enough.

Image credits: squanchy_91

#14

A colleague and I both had our laptops out at work. He had some movies on his that he was offering to share onto mine for later viewing. I suggested an ad-hoc wifi network as a means of quickly and painlessly transferring the files.

“Oh no I don’t believe in Wi-fi”.

Sorry what?

Image credits: monotone__robot

#15

I grew up in a rich town not being rich. I will never forget this one girl saw me with my iPhone 3G in highschool (and I was super lucky to have it), and the iPhone 4 had come out the weekend before. She then asked me 100% seriously “Why don’t you have the new iPhone?”. She didn’t really understand not everyone could afford the new iPhone every time one came out…

Image credits: footlesssushi

#16

“If you’re depressed, just cheer up!”

Woah, if you’re drowning, just drink the water! Duh!

#17

My dad retired last November. After being out of work for a few months he decided he needed a simple job to keep him busy. He applied at Total Wine as a cashier and asked for $20 an hour because that’s what he thought minimum wage was up to.

Image credits: jfowl1992

#18

A girl from my town thought the average income in America was 500k and that she was lower middle class.

Image credits: I_Cut_Shoes

#19

“You know, if a baby is born underwater, it can live it’s whole life underwater!”

I laughed a bit because it’s a fairly well known dark joke, but then told her not to joke about that stuff because our coworker was pregananant. She was confused when I told her not to joke.

“It’s not a joke, it’s a fact!”

After some debate, I learned she genuinely believes if a baby is born underwater, it will grow gills and learn how to breathe underwater.

Same lady, 6mo later.

“Yeah, I’m saving up right now to buy a car. I have my eyes on this great 2007 Holden”

Her: “Why don’t you just buy a new one?”

Me: “I don’t have a lot of money, I wouldn’t be able to afford a new car. I’m stretching the limit with this one as it is.”

Her: “Ugh, it’s not even that hard to afford things. Just budget!”

We were on the same salary, but she sold drugs on the side, her grandpa paid her $200/month phone bill, and her mom gave her a $250 a week allowance.

She was also GIVEN her car, by her parents, and was constantly complaining about how old it was and she wanted them to buy her a new one.

#20

The grandparent of the child I nanny says things that make me think this all the time.

My nanny family doesn’t use any physical punishment at all. Well she said if we don’t start spanking the kids a (3 and 1 year old) they’ll become unruly demons.

Despite the no spanking policy she still spanks the 3 year old. We stop letting her babysit after that. She still wants to babysit and after a lot of begging we finally let her have the 3 year old for the weekend.

Well the 3 year old came back and was obviously spanked. Also despite her being potty trained she came back in a diaper too. Somehow she managed to undo days of potty training in a weekend. Now the 3 year old is back in diapers full time because she refuses to use the potty now.

Most older generations are so out of touch with reality when it comes to childcare.

#21

My mum. She once told my husband – a guy that’s been working to help support his struggling parents since he was 13 – that we should just have kids and God will provide for us. Her rationale was that she had seven kids and never once struggled.

Thanks mum, we can’t all just quit college to marry a multi millionaire a decade older than we are.

#22

My grandmother (who doesn’t live with us) told my out of work brother that he needs to “stop doing work around the house” because I, being female, should be the one doing it all. Never mind I’m the only one with any sort of income, lemme do all the housework too, k thx. We had a good laugh at that one.

Image credits: celestialwreckage

#23

My rich friend complaining that “the cleaner broke her back so I had to do the hoovering myself and feed the dogs! “. It was actually comical to listen to his hysterics, no regard whatsoever for the poor cleaner’s well being!

#24

Used to have a friend who was really into crystals. She dropped 300 dollars on a thumb-sized piece of rose-quartz because it “is totally aligned with [her] body’s natural frequency”. I didn’t even try to tell her she had been scammed.

#25

I worked at a vet clinic, and a woman came in with her dog who had a horrible skin problem stemming from a flea infestation. Before I could even say anything, she claimed someone was after her, and had been stabbing her and her dog in their sleep with tree bark. It took me a few seconds to process that one.

She also told me that she knew we hadn’t actually euthanized her old dog (that she had YEARS ago) but that we had sold her to Hollywood. Apparently she saw her in a commercial and that was her proof. The dog would have been like 20 by that point so no, we didn’t “sell her to Hollywood.”

Honestly kind of sad, but the only person I have ever directly interacted with who was truly out of touch with reality.

Image credits: definitionofacuda

#26

I have a few health conditions that my parents and grandmother never allowed me to disclose to my family or friends because “it would be difficult to get me married”.

Image credits: [deleted]

#27

“I get a lot of info from dr. Phil and dr. Oz, they are a great resource without having to do more than turn the TV on”

Image credits: chefjuice

#28

“All it took was a small loan of a million dollars.”

“Why can’t poor people just get better jobs?”

“Everybody who get shot by police must have been a criminal.”

“Just go in there with your resume and don’t leave until you have a job!”

Disclaimer – these were said by different people.

#29

A very close friend “my money is my money but my partner’s money is also my money”.

To clarify she wasn’t going to accept her partner having access to her money but only her to his.

Also she’s single.

Image credits: viralplant

#30

My mum once said that the sun couldn’t be a star because ‘stars only come out at night’. She hasn’t lived that one down haha

Image credits: megsyram

#31

Former friend. He was the stereotypical “nice guy.” Always going off on how he couldn’t understand how girls weren’t flocking to him cause he was so nice and intelligent. So one night a bunch of us are at a restaurant getting dinner and he proceeds to tell us how if he can’t get a girlfriend, his backup plan is buying a mail order bride from Ukraine. Says he has it all planned out.

When we all try explaining that mail order brides are essentially human trafficking, he was devastated. His whole plan for getting a girl was ruined, lol.

Eventually he blocked us all from his social media and stopped talking to us, but that was more because he couldn’t stand that we wouldn’t bend over backwards for his every whim

#32

My sister’s mother-in-law told her that my niece can’t naturally be left handed and that if she is that it is part of my sisters job as a parent to teach her the “correct” way.

Image credits: Lord_Polska

#33

This girl I went to middle school with wouldn’t wear a tampon because that counted as losing her virginity.

#34

The Guatemalan lady who lives near me who said she supports Trump and thinks that because she voted for him he won’t have her illegal relatives deported.

#35

I worked at a little all-local, all-organic grocery store for a bit.

A lady comes in with a friend, they are looking at the eggs. She goes “Are these eggs organic?”

“Well, they’re not certified, but these are grown here in town by someone who feeds them a non-soy, non-gmo supplemental feed. But they’re on pasture most of the time.”

“So they eat bugs.”

“Well, yes, quite a few of them, it’s good for organic pest control in the gar…”

(to her friend) “Those bugs could come from anywhere. This is why you have to ask the hard questions about your food, and really know what you’re putting in your body. King Soopers has actual organic eggs.”

#36

A woman I work with once said “I’m convinced I’m immune to cancer because neither my mom nor my grandmother had it.”

Said lady has smoked more than a pack a day for 30 years but uses the above “evidence” as a reason why she’s never had her lungs checked.

Image credits: MjrLeeStoned

#37

When the new store manager was introducing themselves to our team she started off with “i love retail, the reason I started my career in retail is because at the age of 14 I wanted a second horse”.

One of the worst managers ive every met. Incredibly out of touch and just a bit racist.

#38

Worked with a guy that was a major conspiracy theorist.

He said Zip codes are used in the case that the government wants to drop bombs on US soil.

Yeah. Because they wouldn’t ever use coordinates, right Matt?

#39

My Aunt is a really nice woman, and very giving to everyone, but she once said, “I don’t know how anyone survives on $100k per year.” This was probably 15 years ago. For reference she lives in a $10MM house.

#40

“I mean, it’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, 10 dollars?”

Image credits: BigZar

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