‘What’s something people find obvious you only just figured out?’ – 17 belated lightbulb moments

Ever been struck by an incredible realisation only to learn that everyone else had figured it out ages ago? If so, you’re not alone.

It turns out that lots of things aren’t as obvious as they appear. And we know this thanks to bijelo123, who turned to the collective intelligence of r/AskReddit to answer the following question:

‘What’s something that seems obvious to everyone else, but you only recently figured out?’

Here are the top answers of pennies that took longer than usual to drop…

1.
‘Not everyone deserves to know everything about you.’
-aurora_ethereallight

2.
‘If someone constantly talks badly about everyone you know, they’re also taking badly about you.

‘I truly (and embarrassingly) thought my one friend who talked horribly about everyone we knew would just vent to me because she thought I was the only sane person in our friend group.. until my other friend lmk that she talked about me atrociously too lol’
-Strange-Cable-8578

3.
‘Literally discovered last year at 36 that blood sugar crashes aren’t just “one of those things.” I was shaking and sweating and feeling dizzy and lightheaded, something I’ve experienced oodles of times in my life, and had been told by my mom when I was a child it was normal and to just eat a candy bar.

‘My mother in law looked concerned and asked what was wrong and I just laughed it off and said “oh you know when your blood sugar tanks and you feel like you’re going to faint until you have something sweet, it’s just that” and she said “um, no….” She’s 85 but has been in remarkable health her whole life, so I figured she was an anomaly so I mentioned it to my husband when he walked in and he said he’d never experienced that either.

‘I have an adrenal disorder that causes dysglycemia. Here I’ve been toting candy bars around like fucking Willy Wonka my whole life when I actually had something serious going on.’
-FlappyFaceDeluxe

4.
‘I didn’t realize how much I interrupted people while they were talking until one person didn’t let me. They bulldozed right over whatever the fuck I had to add. I’m much more aware now’
-Common_Caramel_4078

5.
‘You don’t have to respond to everything right way.’
-Leather-Bit278

6.
‘I found out that the lights doing that stretchy thing at night wasn’t normal- I have astigmatism.’
-MommyCaro00

7.
‘If you have a sore throat, Ibuprofen helps the swelling and makes it a lot easier to deal with rather than just eating cough drops like candy.’
-PhantomoftheBasket

8.
‘I did not know I was lactose intolerant until I was 27. I thought it was super normal human things to have intense stomach cramps “randomly” and destroy toilets “randomly”.’
-phychmasher

9.
‘That kiwi fruit is not lip-puckering, mouth-tinglingly sour like a lemon or under ripe pineapple. I am allergic to kiwis.
I spent two decades of my life trying to figure out why strawberry kiwi flavored things did not taste like kiwi at all to me lmao.’
-AdInevitable2695