# How Naive Were You In Your Youth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 16, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972 "2003-07-16T20:16:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/41 "2003-07-19T14:08:13Z")
Uh, Joel… how do you know it’s any good? Just wondering. q;} ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/42 "2003-07-19T21:06:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phnord Prephect \* > \*\*Uh, Joel… how do you know it’s any good? Just wondering. q;} \*\* I guess it would be a matter of personal preference. After all, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum, what might be right for you, may not be right for some… ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/43 "2003-07-19T22:51:24Z")
One day when I was eight or so I was helping my dad clean out the garage and came across a small box marked “Zig-Zags”, half full of thin pieces of paper. “Dad, what’re these?” I asked. “Oh, those are for cigarettes,” he said. “Huh,” thought I, “must be pretty small cigarettes. But my parents don’t smoke …” It was several years later when I realized, “Hey! Those weren’t for _cigarettes_!” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![juji\_mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@juji\_mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/juji_mojo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/44 "2003-07-20T06:21:18Z")
When I was four and my mom was pregnant, I wanted a brother. I mean I really wanted a brother, not a sister. I got my wish. Except…it was a baby. And he stayed a baby, and then was a toddler… then a young boy. I somehow in my head had decided boys were older than girls, and I expected my brother to be about 10 and able to teach me to ride a bike. (My rationale? Dad is older than Mom, neighbour Perry was older than his sister…My cousin Brian older than cousin Missy, and my moms still teen age brothers were older than my 12 year old aunt.) By the way, when my brother WAS 10, I was 14 and couldn’t stand him. My mother had the AUDACITY to remind me of this story then. Also got me a card on his birthday that I “Finally got what I had always wanted.” ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/45 "2003-07-20T07:08:39Z")
I used to think that condoms were similar to empty toilet paper rolls. Made of cardboard and all. I knew what they were used for and all, I never had any pirblems figuring out stiff about sex. However, condoms were a mystery for a while. ---
**Author:** ![dctaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9c0ed/32.png) [@dctaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dctaz)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/46 "2003-07-20T07:08:46Z")
I remeber getting “the talk” at a fairly young age, also had older relatives that kinda set me straight as it were. anyway, one day was hanging out with the neighbors, and one of them made the comment that a girl got pregnant through kissing. I just had to correct him. later, he told his mom, who called my parents, and I was basically told not to tell this kid stuff like that because it was his parent’s job. BTW, I was only 11 or so at the time. ---
**Author:** ![summerbreeze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@summerbreeze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/summerbreeze)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/47 "2003-07-21T04:08:10Z")
Is this all about sex? Or **Joel** _imagining_ he found my stash? I thought people were inside the radio. I thought people just pretended to smoke cigarettes because they thought it looked cool. I thought I could walk across a neighbor’s ice-coated pond (in North Carolina!) because I had read _Hans Brinker_. Oops! I’m okay, folks. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/48 "2003-07-21T04:14:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mudshark \* > \*\*I never had any pirblems figuring out _stiff_ about sex. \*\* (italics mine) **BWAH!** Then I’d say you got it _dicked_, Dude! 😉 Q ---
**Author:** ![TeaRoses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@TeaRoses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaRoses)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/49 "2003-07-21T06:40:06Z")
I thought people were inside the radio too! Even later, I thought puppets could talk. Then I decided there were talking puppets and non-talking puppets. I thought the animated Star Trek was a really cool show (sorry, couldn’t resist… heck, I’d probably still watch it) Try as I might I can’t think of anything truly amusing I ever thought about sex though. ---
**Author:** ![Orange\_Skinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3be4f8/32.png) [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/50 "2003-07-21T07:02:31Z")
**Quasi** , my mother used to think music on the radio was performed live in the studio, too. She said it really confused her growing up with you’d hear the same song/group on different stations within a few minutes of each other. How’d they get there so fast? This one’s mine. For a long time, I thought “raped” was “raked,” possibly because the first time I’d heard the term was in the fall and we raked a ton of leaves. I distinctly remember asking my mother, “can you imagine how much it’d hurt to be raked?” when I was about eight or so, coming home from my grandparents.’ I thought getting raked involved hiding in a pile of leaves and then having someone who didn’t know you were in there come along and raking the pile with you in it. Sometimes until you died. I don’t remember how I was set straight, only that it was shortly after forming the original idea. I told a friend about it once in our own sort of “how naive were you in your youth” conversation. She ranked on me for a while, but then I trumped her with, “At least I didn’t think the president’s cabinet was an actual cabinet with a whole bunch of miniture politicians inside!” ---
**Author:** ![silenteyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@silenteyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenteyes)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972/51 "2003-07-21T08:04:39Z")
For a while I used to think that statues are made by people standing in one place for a really long time until they turn finally into stone. My family and I lived in Russia until I was 9 and at the time there were many statues of Lenin in different places and I remember wondering which one was the “real” Lenin and which ones were just men who looked like him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-naive-were-you-in-your-youth/188972.md?page=2)