35 Awkward Moments People Realised Someone Was Painfully Dumb

One of the most frustrating types of people we encounter in public are those who refuse to educate themselves. They seemingly revel in their ignorance, flaunting it in the face of anyone who even tries to share valid information or credible sources with them. It can be difficult to put yourself in the shoes of such a person, as the idea of willingly choosing to stay uninformed feels foreign to many. Seeing one of these people in the wild naturally begs the question, how do they even function in the world? 

#1

Image source: Cespenar, DC Studio

When I was 18 I was chatting with the service desk person at my job at a grocery store and somehow whales were brought up, and she called them fish. I said no, whales are mammals. She said no, mammals are like rats and deer. I said no, people, whales, dolphins, rats and deer are all mammals. She then got SUPER offended that I said Humans were mammals. Apparently humans just defy categorization. We’re not mammals, cus mammals are animals, and people aren’t animals, we’re people.

The older lady listening just touched my shoulder and said “drop it kid, you can’t argue with… This”. I laughed and walked away.

#2

Image source: catschimeras, Dom J

Lady I knew marked the occasion of her son passing his driving test by posting a picture of his full license on FaceBook.

There were a few comments from relatives suggesting this might not be a good idea, and she was doubling down on “celebrating” her boy “growing up”.

Growing up into three or four different people who just stole the poor kid’s identity, more like.

#3

A few years ago now, there was a relatively famous April Fools prank in the UK. Basically, someone made a film about the ‘annual pasta harvest in Switzerland’ and it ran on the main channels. Good harmless fun, right? Obviously fake, right??

Cut to me talking to the person I’ve been dating for a few weeks about what we should grab to eat, and them trotting out this ‘fun fact’, that pasta grows on trees.

I spent the rest of the relationship randomly asking which type of tree produced which shape, if different shapes came from different countries, etc.

Grown adult man. Brain smoother than George Clooney on a press junket…

Image source: hippogrifferential

#4

Had a friend ask why I couldn’t eat ducks as a vegetarian. He thought they were fish, since they lived in the water. I informed him that even if that were anywhere close to the truth, fish are also animals.

I thought smoke was going to start coming out of his ears from how much that hurt his brain.

Image source: GrungeDuTerroir

#5

I’ve met two separate people in my little town who refuse to drink any type of water. One lady claims she’s never had a single cup her whole life and just drinks coffee or juice. It was no use telling her those have water in it. And a man who was every bit of unhealthy looking. He was super offended when I offered him a free water bottle. He literally yelled “HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT WATER DOES TO METAL?!?! IMAGINE WHAT ITS DOING TO YOUR INSIDES!” Okay well I’m sorry sir. I didn’t realize I was talking to a cyborg.

Image source: badAbabe

#6

Image source: Rachel_Silver, freepik

I know a guy who teaches general science at the high school level. He told me he doesn’t wear a seatbelt because, in the event of an accident, he wants to be “thrown safely from the car”.

All these years later, I still can’t even parse that sentence. My brain flatly refuses to even try to make sense of it.

#7

A worker in the company I used to work for asked me if I could fax a few documents for her. I said, “Sure,just leave them here, and I will fax them when I get a chance. Later, she came back, and I handed her the documents and said, “All done.
She looked at me and said, “You didn’t fax them, and I replied yes I did and I showed her the confirmation. She said, “Why do you still have the papers
I was baffled and said, “Do you actually think when you fax something the paper teleports into the destination. Let’s just build a huge fax machine, and I’ll fax myself to Europe for a nice vacation.

Image source: Lost-Meeting-9477

#8

My former chiropractor had a plastic skeleton hanging in his exam room (full size). He said some fundamentalist people were looking at it, wondering if it was a male or female skeleton. One of them decided it was female, because otherwise “it would be missing one rib.”

Image source: No_Difficulty_9365

#9

Image source: JeanneStJames, grnsl2

I severed off my thumb with a gas-powered log splitter and a coworker asked if it would grow back. I thought she was joking at first. She. Was. Not.

#10

Recently got into it with someone who was a MAGA “obey authority” type. He said that in Texas they have always obeyed the law. When pointed out that Texas had not once but twice taken up arms against their own government, he didn’t know what I meant. That’s when I realized I was wasting my time.

Image source: a_sentient_cicada

#11

Image source: Sleepy_McSleepyhead, Yan Krukau

Religious coworker showed me a video of a baby with chicken wings attached to its back and he believed it was a real angel. So I pulled up a pic of Van Halens 1984 album, told me that angel smoking the cigarette was fake.

#12

Image source: Western-Cicada-6195, New Africa

My friend asked how she could be sure she was the mother of her baby because he cheated on her just as she got pregnant.

#13

An episode where the idiot was actually me. I was buying some books on the flea market and it turned out this seller had some more books at home. We wanted to exchange numbers so i gave him my number and said to call me back so i would save his. Moment he called, i sad: just a sec, somebody’s calling me, i have to take it. The guys’ face…:)))
I explain it to myself it was a reflex.

Image source: gpilat

#14

Heard a coworker scolding someone for eating a can of tuna because “you don’t know what’s in it”. I asked her what that meant and she said “tuna means a group of fish”. I asked her whether she meant a school of fish and she just stood there looking at me like her brain was rebooting.

Image source: GawnForGood

#15

I was in tech school for the Air Force in 2002. We would go to the library to get online and see if we had assignments. My buddy went first, headed to AZ. I open mine and it says AK. He’s like oh sweet! Arkansas! I was like dude, AK is Alaska. He said oh, at least it’s warm there. I responded what you talking about and he seriously told me it’s over by Hawaii…

Image source: Hogchief

#16

Waaaaay back when they were in high school, my husband and a friend of his decided it would be hilarious fun to paint a big statue that stood in front of the school.

After they finished their masterpiece, they wanted to make sure their friends knew they were the ones who’d done it……so they signed their names. They were SHOCKED at how quickly the school administration figured out who the artists were.

Image source: BellaDingDong

#17

I went on a date with a guy.

We order chicken wings, they came out and they were undercooked. I stopped immediately, “stop eating these, they’re raw.”

He looked at me, perplexed. “So?”

I look at him, perplexed, “you can’t eat chicken raw, it will make you sick.”

Him, “it’s just rare, you’re over reacting.”

I flag the server and kindly let them know. They see the chicken and profusely apologise making some more.

The guy, “you should have specified you wanted well done instead of rare then…”

That was the last date.

Image source: wanderlustcub

#18

Girl that used to work with us was thoroughly and adamantly convinced that she could survive a tsunami by simply diving under the wave and that it was just that simple. She thought that all those people the tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan were idiots for not thinking of that.

Image source: KamikazeMizZ

#19

Image source: graptemys, ice-agency

I was at a wedding reception, toward the end of it. Another person went over to an ice sculpture, touched it and said, “Wow, it’s still cold!”

#20

Image source: Ad_Vomitus, fabrikasimf

My husband used to work at a meat shop. He had a lady come in and ask about chicken. He started the spiel well what kind of chicken is she looking for? Bone in or boneless? She gets a look of horror and asks if that is humane? Like, was it ethical to raise chickens without bones….

#21

Not my story but a friend’s. They worked at a book store and a teenager walks up to him and asks him to help find a book that he needs for school.

Asks if they know the title. –Nope.
Ask if they know the author. –Nope.
Do you know I’d it is fiction or non fiction. –What’s that mean? 🥴

Kid thinks really hard to remember something… anything….and says..I think it’s a sports book.

Okay do you k iw what sport it’s about? — Baseball…I think.

…..is it Catcher in the Rye?… –Yeah that sounds familiar.

Come this way. It’s neither a sports book nor about baseball.

The education system, his parents, SOMEONE has failed this poor young man.

Image source: animalcrackermafia

#22

Managed a small retail store circa 2006. We were hiring and advertised a liberal employee discount as an incentive. Old lady came in to yell at me for not offering the same discount to conservatives.

Image source: tarps_and-straps

#23

Went on a cultural exchange trip to our city’s “sister city” in Russia. It was with a group of HS aged kids from my city, about 15 of us for 6 weeks. Our group had kids from several High Schools (public and private) aged 14-18. I was the youngest in the group having just turned 14. Our trip started with a stop in Moscow to tour the city before flying deep into central Russia to live with host families. This was back when you could view Vladimir Lenin’s entombed body at the Kremlin (very early in the post-Soviet Russia). As we were walking to see Lenin and our guide was talking I hear the three older girls from the (prestigious) private catholic school in our town say “I didn’t know the Beatles were Russian I totally thought they were from Europe or something….” The HS history teacher who was one of our chaperones almost keeled over when I told him what they said. Needless to say they were pretty confused when we finally saw Vladamir Lenin and not John Lennon. That’s expensive high quality private education for you.

Image source: Last_Voice_4478

#24

Image source: Background-Ad-8316, odua

Worked in a shoe store during college. One co-worker was an old military guy and I enjoyed having conversations with him about political theory and stuff I learned. Another co-worker was a very kind girl about my age who’d dropped out of high school.

One day I was having a conversation about the Chinese Communist Party with the old guy and she suddenly says, “They eat people in China?!”

#25

Image source: GrouchyMary9132, yurkovskat

Overheard a conversation between a customer and their hairdresser. They were talking about sporting bets and horse racing. Suddenly the hairdresser went “wait a minute. Given the different time zones and how in the US it is only morning when it is afternoon in our area already: couldn’t we just call them and tell them the race results so they can place the bets for us?” I was very glad I was not the customer that had to explain how timeszones worked to her.

#26

Friend worked in a jail and was answering the phone at the front desk.

Friend: “Hello, (local jail), how can I help you?”

Caller: “Yeah, I gotta see if my baby daddy’s in there.”

Friend: “What’s his name?”

Caller: “T-Dawg.”

Friend: “…his legal name?”

The caller had no idea. Reproducing with this dude and didn’t even know what his actual name was.

Image source: ArtisticBee6176

#27

Two of my coworkers were walking to their cars after a shift one afternoon, and one looks up at the moon and says “I wonder what planet that is.” Other coworker says “Really, don’t… say that to anyone else.”.

Image source: AnyLastWordsDoodle

#28

Watching the news roll in about the Boxing Day Tsunami with my best friend and his fiancé and she looks at him and says “Where is Tsunami?”. He called off the engagement like six months later and said he just couldn’t spend the rest of his life day in and day out with someone so dumb, because she was just really dense about every little thing, and he was consistently having to explain the most mundane things to her.

Image source: Alliekat1282

#29

I was at a funeral when someone standing next to me started talking about Area 51 and what did I think about that. I ummed and hemmed and hawed and said I don’t really know, then moved away as quickly afterwards as I possibly could. They pursued, asking me about crisis actors and Qanon garbage and I had to say I think all of this stuff is a hoax/big bunch of nothing, now excuse me please I need to go pay my respects.

It was my husband’s cousin, so it was kind of hard to push back very hard in public like that—and it was the very first time I had ever met them. But, I think my eye raising and stunned looks and how I kept turning my back and walking away, might have clued their wife into how I really felt. We’ve not talked, since.

Image source: alwaysboopthesnoot

#30

My teenager just came to me two days ago and told me his iPhone wouldn’t charge. After much prying of information I find out that he tried to clean the lightning port out with a nail file. We will be scratching off rocket scientist and astronaut from the list of career options, probably some others as well.

Image source: ilikespicysoup

#31

Image source: Fabulous-Teaching889, freepik

When a parent was reluctant to feed her baby enough formula (baby was literally a mess all the time due to being hungry), because she was worried that the baby would get fat…. It’s a BABY, it’s SUPPOSED to be fat 😂

The things I see working in childcare.

#32

Image source: The_time_it_takes, wirestock

My sisters ex husband wasn’t a smart man but the day he started talking about how the sun goes in the earth at night to sleep got me. At first I thought he was trolling so I asked a couple of follow ups and he answered them as well as he could. “Where does it go in the earth” him “it’s in the ocean where nobody has gone yet”.

#33

I saw a sovereign citizen license plate on the back of their vehicle.

Image source: Top_Willingness_8364

#34

I love my son and he wasn’t stupid at all, but he did say something really stupid when he was 16. He drove his car to school for the first time and he called my wife to ask a question about his car. It was an older car that you had to lock using the button on the door.

Son: how do I lock the car?

Wife: what do you mean? Just press the door lock button.

Son: but then how will I get out?

Image source: BaconReceptacle

#35

Used to work for a pizza delivery company, had a lady call up in the middle of the day asking to order a pizza for delivery.

She was a new customer which means we didn’t have an address on file, so I asked for the address and her response was, “I’m not going to tell you.”

So I pause for a moment because this is certainly a first for me, so I ask her, “How are we supposed to deliver to you if you won’t tell us what your address is?”

She responds, “Well, I don’t know what the address is.”

So I pause again for a moment and repeat myself, “Ma’am, how are we supposed to bring you pizza if you don’t know where you are?”

She says, “So you won’t take my order?”

“Not without an address to deliver to, no.”

“Then I guess I’ll order from somewhere else!”

And I said bet, “I guess you will!” and hung up on her. She didn’t sound drunk, or senile, and didn’t seem like a prank call. But definitely never had a call quite like that one lol.

Image source: RebekkaKat1990