There is so much confusion in life.
And try as we may, we are never going to understand it all.
Truthfully, maybe we're not destined to get it all.
In school I made it as far as Algebra 2.
Then I did 7 weeks of Chemistry and dropped out right before the deadline.
I tried. I swear. But it just does not compute in my brain.
I struggled with that.
"Why can't I get this?"
The answer was... just because.
There are just some things we'll never understand.
Redditor caloriedeficit101wanted to see who would fess up about and embrace a certain lack of knowledge.
They asked:
"What do you honestly not understand?"
I'm also up on biology. That is a whole other mess.
Sudden Poop
"Mining crypto. How does a powerful computer use an algorithm and suddenly poop out a bitcoin of real, monetary value?"
SuitableTaint
bitcoin GIFGiphyThrough the Lense...
"How cameras work. It honestly freaks me out how they can literally just capture moments."
kneecapstealerr
"Imagine light as lots of streams of coloured water. When it's dark, those streams are weaker, and when it's bright they're like a fire hose. The sensor in a camera is like a lot of little buckets, and the camera opens a door for a very short amount of time to let the streams through."
"After, you see how full the buckets are, and use that information to create the picture. When it's dark, you open the door for longer to let more of the 'water' through. If you let too much through you fill the buckets and you saturate the sensor (it comes out as white). Not enough, and all the buckets are empty (black)."
A_name_wot_i_made_up
“invention”
"How people can just 'invent' new math. Or actually how people can sit down, start writing equations, and figure out something about the universe. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I absolutely love math and the idea of it but man do I truly suck at it. I’d love to let some math PHD just talk my ear off about what they’re working on even though I probably wouldn’t understand any of it. I just think math is neat."
Osirus1156
A to B
"I've have tried many times to watch explanations of how gravity affects time and I always find myself just short of 'getting it.'"
Vealophile
"Think of light travelling from A to B in a straight line. Now imagine that line is pulled by gravity so its curved, it now takes the light longer to get from A to B. Light travels at a constant speed so it doesn't change speed but the time it takes to get there does, that means time slows down to accommodate."
Tsusoup
Worship...
"Celebrity worship."
1980pzx
"People worship them because they're infatuated with the idea that everyone knows them and they feel it's impossible to ever be able and do that, so they think these celebrities are special and different from ordinary humans.
whereami100k
mariah carey hello GIFGiphyWhy do we obsess over celebrities? Over the lives of people who are complete strangers... ah, an eternal life struggle.
Bloodletting...
"I don’t understand how when people undergo surgery they don’t bleed out or why there isn’t blood everywhere. Someone please explain."
PillowPrincessB
Penn Badgley Joe Goldberg GIF by YOUGiphyBlinders
"Why it's illegal to blind other drivers with your high beams, but those super bright LED headlights are totally fine."
Practical_Pie_586
"Those lights are so fucking awful. Mostly just the fact that I've literally never seen a vehicle with properly positioned lights. Right light lower towards the side of the road, and left pointed lower facing the road. They would be SO much more tolerable, and safer for all parties that way."
yazzeroni-toni
Crossed Wiring
"Wi-fi! Like I understand the concept of how it works, but when you get past the theory of it it makes absolutely no sense to me. How can such complicated and absolutely MASSIVE packets of information just be in the air? We seriously went from sending single electrical pulses through a wire(pretty easy), to using radio waves( makes sense), to heres all the information humans have ever known just in the air and it can be read by a tiny cluster of glass and metal (like what?!)"
Dougflooty2
I gotta do something...
"That feeling that I get where I feel like I'm meant to do something (but I don't have anything particularly to do) and just builds up anxiety."
FocusRightNow
"Master procrastinator here. The really fun part is when you get so accustomed to that anxious guilt that it never leaves! Then the free time you’ve actually earned becomes guilty too and the proverbial doomsday clock is always ticking!"
KaiLewisOfficial
The Skies...
"Astronomer here! Dark energy. The idea that the universe is not just expanding, but accelerating in that expansion despite there not being enough matter that we can see for that to happen, is just mind blowing and I can't make heads or tails of it. On the bright side, no one else can make heads or tails of it either and understands what's going on, so we're all in good company on this one."
Andromeda321
StarsGiphyYou don't have to know it all. Just know enough. The rest will come.
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Redditor _ReDd1T_UsEr wanted to discuss the reasons why many of us decided to cut some people out of our lives, so they asked:
"What was the reason why your friendship ended with someone?"
Sometimes a person just has to go.
Planning Stages
Weekend Sunday GIF by DisneyGiphy"I stopped being the first to always initiate plans, and that was that."
Witty-Surround-6541
"I once asked a friend to plan our next breakfast + walk outing, since I always did that. He wrote me a letter ending the friendship. Stunning!"
fermat9996
Pants on Fire
"Habitual lying became too annoying and disruptive to tolerate."
Hosscatticus_Dad523
"When you constantly are thinking... this math ain't matching lol. People that lie all the time make me sick. I've told multiple friends that you don't have to lie to me."
"I feel so much better when someone can trust me and feel comfortable telling me a hard truth than an easy lie."
"Even if the truth made me feel some type of way, I'm still glad it was honest. I've even said thank you to people in the past that have been honest with me, good or bad! Some people just can not help lying about things. I wouldn't be able to ever keep a story straight if I did that."
__eden_
Bad Behavior
"He kept having kids with different girls and bailing on them. Coming from a 'went out for a pack of smokes' Dad myself, I just couldn't watch it anymore. Bailed after the third one. Think he's up to 6 now."
KingGuy420
"Reminds me of one of my ex-friends. She kept having kids with MULTIPLE guys (all of them were one-night stands), I don't think she even knows who the baby daddies are."
"She also kept begging me and people for money for pot, and she also bragged about having OnlyFans. She'd also make up stories about being in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend (she'd also cheat on him/tell people her and him they broke up, which they weren't)."
wisconsinking
Reasons
"I was a bad person and they ended it for perfectly sensible reasons. I would have done the same. I've changed, but I don't blame them for not reconsidering contact."
tabletopsidekick
"I’ve been there. I was a bad person and lost friendships and family relationships. I tried to apologize to everyone I hurt."
PDXGalMeow
"I also accepted that they don’t want me in their lives anymore. I learned that I made my mistakes, I learned from them, and I accept their choices. I don’t self-hate anymore and I try to be a better person in general. I hope you are doing well and practicing self-love and forgiveness."
PDXGalMeow
Money Issues
Donald Duck Money GIFGiphy"I lent them $20 and then they avoided me so they didn’t have to pay me back. Worth the $20."
BuickAssault
"I don't ever expect prompt returns of small amounts of money between my friends... we all buy each other rounds or buy the food for the BBQ or whatever. It ends up evening out over time I think we'd notice though if someone was always taking and never giving and then they'd probably get cut off too."
Badloss
In the immortal words of Cyndi Lauper... "Money Changes Everything."
Lack of Support
Happy Planning GIFGiphy"She joined a pyramid scheme selling butt-ugly leggings and it took over her whole life. When I finally told her it was negatively affecting our friendship, she accused me of not supporting her 'business.'"
LeftandLeaving9006
Oh Driver
"I was basically a taxi for my friends so I dumped them all."
Bullfrog_Little
"This one I can understand but depends on the situation. Not all of my friends had cars in high school, so our group needed to have me and my sh*tty '94 Plymouth Sundance come, or they couldn't do anything. I didn't mind at all then, but I definitely would these days."
Hoopajoops
"I remember I used to drive around with my buddies all the time before they had licenses. When one of my friends got his and a car I said sweet now you can drive me around for a bit, he replied that he wasn't gonna waste his money on gas like that. See ya, haven't really spoken to him since."
DontcallmeShirley_82
2063
"How's this for oddly specific: Friend since 1980, was hanging out at a bar in 1992 and there was a dispute of over a $15.00 bar tab. I was in the right, but whatever - he held a grudge for years."
"Ran into him in 2017 and we were both too old to care. Started to see each other now and then. 2023 and we're at this local bar for a show and got into a fight about $15.00 a ticket."
"Maybe he'll call me in 2063."
The68Guns
Exhausting
"She was a taker, constantly. When I needed something she made it about her yet again. Exhausting to be around."
LordyIHopeThereIsPie
"I'm going through this right now. Can't tell you how many texts I have from her in the past few days telling me that I need to get over myself, need to stop making myself the victim, have been a terrible friend, have never been there for her."
"She's the most narcissistic person I know and everyone does everything for her. She has one of the easiest lives ever and anytime anything bad happens to her she believes that everyone is against her and she's the victim here. It's pure insanity. There is no talking sense to people like this."
cheeseburgerwaffles
Life Changes
point pointing GIF by Shalita GrantGiphy"I've lost like all but two of my 'friends' because I stopped drinking and doing hard drugs."
ConcertTerrible8877
"Same here dude. My circle is small but hey at least it's a circle I know I can go to."
Miss_mayonnaise
Oh, how things change when the booze dries up.
How much fun were you really having?
Do you have any stories about cutting off a friend? Let us know in the comments below.
Curious to hear from ex-lovers who've been there, Redditor Lishasquarepant asked:
"What caused your last break-up?"
These Redditors found they and their significant other were no longer on the same page.
"Simply, we grew apart."
– catetheway
"Same, I feel like Michael Scott everytime I try to start another relationship. 'No question about it, I am ready to get hurt again.'"
– Gthew
Happier Apart
"Same. We loved each other like siblings, not spouses... Ugh! Lovely man though who now has a fab girlfriend. We are good friends and much happier apart."
– MoxieHasKnottyBits
No Regrets
"Same. And it f'king sucks, but that’s life. It’s been a year and I still hate every second that she’s not in my life, but at the same time I know she’s happier now than she would’ve been if we stayed together."
– throway35885328
Having no communication is the worst part.
Silent Partner
"He slowly got distant. I believe he lost interest and didn't dare be honest with me about that."
– GaiaNatur77
The Late Blame Game
"I had that happen as well, but then he pinned it on me being distant and not affectionate enough."
"My guy, if you pull your hand away every time I try to hold it, I'm gonna stop trying to hold it. And if I ask if something's up and you repeatedly tell me everything is fine, I'm going to believe you. Don't wait till I'm at my worst moment and then reveal you had issues with me for 3 months and break up with me for it being 'my fault.'"
– Billielolly
"Everything Is Fine"
"Oh man, the asking repeatedly and getting a 'nothing' reminds me of a story."
"My friend used to ask her ex this every time he was unusually quiet. He’d always say he was fine, then at one point, told her to stop asking because it was making him feel weird."
"So she did."
"Six months later he initiated a divorce because she didn’t care about his feelings anymore."
"Like…don’t ask for sh*t then get pissy when you get what you want."
– TheRealJackReynolds
And then there are those who were not invested in the relationship for a long time.
The Struggle Is Real
"He seemed to struggle with the concept of not f'king random people."
– spanglesandbambi
Leaving The Problem
"He moved to his country because he missed his family. So he only sent a WhatsApp message saying he was going to stay there. I would have preferred a call at least to break up a marriage."
– kattia12
New Life
"Something similar happened to my cousin. He married her in the US, they had a baby together.. a few years go by, he misses home, goes back to visit.. His family had an arranged marriage ready for him 🤦🏻♀️ He ended up with a new wife and new baby. Hasn’t came back."
– MysticalMom7
A Foreign Custom
"It just seems so surreal that a grown a** adult with a wife and baby would leave his family behind for an arranged marriage. I'll never fathom the mentality."
– ro0ibos2
Ouch
"I wasn't having sex near as often as she was."
– YourWordsMatter
Breaking up is hard to do.
But a good thing to remember is that love can be found again and the new relationship can be even better than the previous one.
And that's something that can't be recognized until you look back in retrospect.
We all have to kiss a few toads.