When you discover that something you always believed is fake

When you are a kid your parents may have told you a few “porky pies” in order to either get a bit of quiet or stop a line of questioning.  What they don’t realise is that some of those things became beliefs that you may have had for ages.

A conversation started on the social media site Reddit about this exact thing.  Titled What’s a fake fact that you believed for a long time? users shared some cute stories, some embarrassing stories, and some downright hilarious stories.

A user with the nickname NarqmanJR posted that they believed, “That fish would get scared and swim away if you talked while fishing. Turns out my dad just wanted me to shut up….” Some others posted that they still believed this as fact.

“I literally thought goats were boys and sheep were girls until about 3 months ago. I’m 33.” shared user freedomthebucket. However, that might show their listening ability at school more than anything.

User MoustacheMug shared a story about his Mum posting, “My Mum for years convinced me that any black or purple coloured sweets were horrible and I that I didn’t like them. I do like them, they were just her favourites. Also for about 5 years she told me she was 28.” This one almost borderlines on genius as then the mother could have the good sweets.  It’s almost the perfect climb.

One that created the biggest laugh was from user, heavyhitter5, who wrote, “When I was young I believed that daddy long legs were actually the most venomous insect in the world but their mouths are too small to bite us. Turns out it’s all BS and I was scared of those tiny mouthed bastards for no reason.”

A strange belief was shared by one user who posted “I used to sit really still in the car and try to blink as little as possible to convince people driving by that I was a garden statue so they’d think my mom was weird for buckling a statue in a car seat.” Many were taken aback by this with one comment saying what you might be thinking yourself, “I love how in this situation you thought your mum was the weird one….”.

There was a great combination of related topics from people believing that your tongue had a “flavour map”, you swallow spiders in your sleep, and that eating gum or watermelon seeds would have a negative effect on your digestion. All have been proven false over the years.

What are some other “old wives’ tales” that you have only recently discovered were false after believing them for a good part of your life?