“It Absolutely Blew My Mind”: 50 Traits People Thought Everyone Had, But Were Proven Wrong

Emotionless logic where you can think about a problem/issue without letting your feelings take over.

Yeah this went from "this guy had great problem solving skills" in school and uni to "wtf is wrong with you" everywhere else for me at some point.

I thought it was common for parents to control your every choice, basically your life.

My dad is huge into trapping and hunting. Our living room in our first house had 2 deer heads mounted on the wall, a mounted Racoon, a bow rack and lamp made from deer hooves, a mounted fisher and a mounted weasel on the end table on either side of the couch. There were always dead animal carcasses in our back yard during trapping season and in the off season was always a boiling pot of "trap wax". We used to have a barn out back where we raised rabbits and once a week my dad would skin a rabbit for dinner. Nothing about this seemed unusual until my teens and started seeing other people's houses. To be clear....nothing about this is bad...just odd, looking back at it.

Growing up with one highly racist parent, I was always taught that interracial couples were not okay.

As an innocent kid, I didn't realize it was a racist sentiment, and thought it was a culture thing (or something?). Needless to say, I was shocked when someone of another race expressed romantic interest in me.

Very…enthusiastic (let’s go with that word) discussions among family at dinner. My siblings naturally have very loud voices and we usually have arguments about controversial topics while we eat, which causes some interesting scenes in public. We were nearly kicked out of a fancy restaurant when I was younger because my family members were screaming at each other about capital punishment (the death penalty).

That, eventually, you will end up in jail/prison. Lots of uncles, dad were locked up. It was normal.

Smiling at everyone when walking by even in a big city or small town... depending on the situation I would usually correct myself if I felt like they thought I was insane and it wasn't until I heard a few people saying they were sus of people who smiled a lot that I put 2 and 2 together and just keep a resting meh face in cities now...

Also just saying hello to people in those same scenarios and often times would get someone who totally ignores you as they walk by and very rarely do you get an answer back of a simple hi! But i do feel like this could be because of all the randos trying to rope other randos into some scam or convo where I never had that plan or idea and was simply just being courteous and friendly without any strings attached or follow ups.

Eating dinner really late. Growing up we usually ate dinner around 9:30 p.m. or so. When I got a little older and started spending time around people I couldn't understand how people were eating dinner at 5:00 in the evening.

People just..throw away food? Im a plate licker. No waste. It breaks me to see people throw food away and if i trust them enough i will eat their leftovers myself if im not too full. Im guilty of leaving plates of unfinished food next to me until i can finish them.

Being Catholic. And I did not realize college was a choice. My parents had us all convinced it was required. They have 10 Catholic kids with college degrees!