24 People Share Stories About Some Of The Most Out-Of-Touch Individuals They Know

As a public defender I was defending a Chinese woman charged with prostitution at a massage parlor. I suspected she might be a victim of sex trafficking and spoke to the judge in her chambers about it (some counties have programs designed to help victims, instead of punish them). Not only did the judge not believe my client was a sex slave, she didn't think sex trafficking even existed and told me that everyone needs to be responsible for their own actions. I eventually convinced the DA to drop the charges but was astounded by how out of touch the judge was. It's one thing not to believe that my client was a victim, but it's incomprehensible that a judge would not be aware that sex trafficking is a thing.

Had a coworker ask me what denomination I am. I replied I don't believe in god.

She was so dumbfounded that she didn't have a reply. 3 days later she came back and asked if I was worried about going to hell, or what jesus would think. Had to explain I didn't believe in those either.

She had no idea atheism existed. She was told in church that atheists were just people who were mad at god, but she thought that still meant they were religious.

She was 43 years old.

Some years ago, I worked in a mailroom. The boss of my boss was talking about one of her family members, who had some kind of emergency, and had to come up with $30,000. She said to my boss and I...and I'll never forget this: "I don't understand the problem..I mean, who DOESN'T have $30,000 saved for an emergency?!?" .....B***h, I work in a mailroom.

Epilogue: I have been out of the mailroom for 8 years....I still don't have an extra $30,000 lying around.

I live in london as a welfare rep for American students. Knowing that American college costs a bundle, and the programme to come over costs a load too, these students tend to be the richest and whitest of suburbia.

One day the WiFi went down and I may as well have told them that there was no drinking water in the U.K.

About 40 students were knocking on my door telling me it wasn't acceptable and that they were calling their 'daddys' to sort it "My daddy is a lawyer, so if you think you're getting money for this accomodation when I haven't had WiFi you've got another think coming." (that sorta thing!)

I tried to calm them down, let them know it would be back on in an hour or two when one of them said the following line;

"You can't blame us for being upset, we grew up in 'THE FIRST WORLD'"...

I was flabbergasted, not only did she talk about being from 'the first world' (who does that) like that is something to be proud of. But her entire arguament was 'Everything in my life has always been easy and perfect... how dare you take away the most minor of utilities for 3 hours'

I despair

We were at a table, 6 of us, eating.

The conversation turned to jobs/employment. One of the guys, a rich kid that had most of his life handed to him, including his tech job at mommy's company, made the comment that he didn't understand why if someone couldn't find a job, they just didn't go back to school, get a degree, and try some more.

He couldn't understand two things.

One, *most* family's cannot support an unemployed adult student for the time it takes to get a degree.

Two, the jaw dropping one, was he thought that ALL colleges, EVERYWHERE, were FREE.

His 'logic' was that students go to college straight from high school and 'they don't have money' so how else could they afford school.

We live in the U.S. and this guy was *27 years old*!

And we had to tell him school costs money......

My brother's best friend married a pretty rich girl. He said the first time he saw her do laundry she was going through her pockets and throwing her loose change in the garbage. She had no idea that people kept their change. Genuinely thought everyone just threw it away.

I had to give my friend the sex talk... Junior year of high school.

Before that, he thought you took your wife to the hospital, they put you in a room, you peed on her and the baby would be conceived... Sweet Jesus.

Went on a trip with an ex to Asia. She didn't like it because she couldn't understand why people didn't speak English. So she would just yell at them, I need a napkin! Bathroom, where?!

I pretty much told her to have some respect for people. Talk to them politely. She got all mad and fussy at me the whole trip.

My dad was in the US Marines for Desert Storm and Desert Shield and had to escort a fallen soldier home for his funeral. When he attended the wake, the family was understandably upset except for the father. After talking to him, he explained that he knew his son had been selected to be a secret agent and that the body in the coffin couldn't possibly be his son. Very sad.

Knew a guy who was really into rage against the machine, and getting pretty radicalized about government.

One day thought he was being tailed by the FBI, so he threw it in reverse and rammed the car.

Turns out it was the FBI. He was on a watch list, and now he's in prison.

Oooooh this question is perfect for me.

I grew up in the richest and whitest of suburbia. Everyone I knew had a doctor/lawyer/CEO for a dad it felt like. Where do I even start?

- I knew a girl who didn't want to go to school in the 8th grade... So her parents paid her. $400 a week just to *show up* to middle school. She's now addicted to pills and not going to college.

- One time I was at a friend's lake house and they asked if they could come to mine next weekend. When I told them I didn't have one they were actually floored. Everyone has one of those, right? Similar thing happened a few times with country clubs.

This one is the best:

- I went to France on a school trip (I know, I know) with another school from my area. I saw one of the girls from the other school who I had made friends with over the course of the trip crying. I went and asked her what was wrong and she said she found out her maid got deported back to Bolivia. I was like "that sucks was she really cool or something?"

Nope. She didn't even speak English. The girl was just pissed she'd have to clean for herself until they got a new one. Then come to find out that wasn't even their only maid... They were going from 2 maids to 1 for like a week or two and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

My father, by far. But the coin incident was the farthest from reality he's ever been.

My dad collects coins, because his extremely Hungarian immigrant grandfather convinced him that the Bank (capitalizing it because to him, all banks are just one huge world bank) is determined to steal all his money from him, so he has to have a backup plan. This in and of itself isn't too extreme; plenty of people choose self-sustenance due to a distrust in government and economics, but the real kicker happened when he tried to roll his coins.

He has to order his coin rolls online because he doesn't want to go to the bank and get coin rolls because then the bank will know how much money he's hiding from them. I'm not kidding. Anyway, he ordered a bag of coin rolls and waited about a month for them to come before he started getting curious where they were. He asked my mom to check the order tracking while he was at work one day, which led to this conversation:

Mom: [Dad's name], it says here that the package made it to [town we live in] two weeks ago, but got sent back. It says you gave no delivery address.

Dad: Yeah, why would I do that? I don't want them to know where I live, they might tell everyone.

Got a good one. I went to school in At UBC for a year and lived in the dorms. One of the super rich Chinese kids that populated my school lived on the same floor as me. Her first day there she took a shower in the public bathroom and then just left all her clothes strewn about. She assumed the maid would come pick them up an wash them.

About 3 years ago and I had a young woman, probably early 20s, come into the cafe I work at. She ordered herself and drink and a pastry of some sort. Her total around $6. She proceeded to hand me a 1 dollar bill and 6 quarters. I took the money and waited for her to procure more but she just stood there staring at me. I told her, "I'm sorry, it's $6.87," or whatever. She says, "I know I gave you 7." I said, "No, this is only $2.25." She took the money from my hand and counted each item in front of me like I was stupid, counting each item as $1. I pointed to the quarters ans told her, "Those are quarters, not dollars." Keep in mind this person was obviously not foreign or anything. She had no accent and seemed completely American. Anyway, her response was, "I know they're quarters, but they're dollars." She then proceeded to pick up one of the quarters and point to the word "dollar" inscribed on the bottom beneath George's head. At this point I was thinking, this is the single dumbest person I've ever seen or this is the worst con ever conceived, but she didn't give up. She demanded to speak to a manager. I got the manager and he told her the same thing. She started getting visibly upset, and holding back tears. She might have been embarressed. Best I can figure is that she somehow never learned about money and change somehow and used it so rarely that she assumed quarters were dollars because technically the word "dollar" was on the coin.

"You don't have to go to college and I'm not helping you with fafsa because Armageddon is coming soon and we'll all be in a heavenly paradise. You should spend your time going door to door in the field ministry until Armageddon comes instead." - my mom.

I had a friend who was going to Greece with her family and asked me to come. I told her "sorry, I'd like to but that's too expensive." She responded with "just ask your parents to pay, I'm sure they will." I could not for the life of me convince her that no, my parents would not pay to send me to Greece. She literally could not wrap her mind around the fact that some people's parents would not pay for them to go on vacation.

My grandmother told me women especially moms can't be alcoholics. It's just not possible. Only men are alcoholics because no matter what women don't have it in them and don't have time to be alcoholics. And that everyone always know who is an alcoholic and who isn't. If someone is an alcoholic they always show it in some way you can't act happy and be an alcoholic! My moms an alcoholic and obviously grandma is in denial and struggling to accept it despite the fact that her own sister died from health issues caused by drinking. But yeah women can't be alcoholics.

I work at a recording studio. The amount of people who think they're going to be the next big thing is scary.

I have a co-worker who once got visibly upset because I said he was about the same age as my parents.

He's 51. My parents are 53.

I'd like to point out that I didn't just say this out of the blue. He asked how old my parents were, and I knew his age, so I made the comparison. He also said things like "I work out you know, I'm stronger than guys half my age". Very much a man child in denial.

I've met a few people who are really brilliant in one field, yet lack even the most basic level of sense in certain areas outside of it. Sort of like the thing about Einstein not being able to tie his shoes (if that's true).

My favorite was a university professor: absolutely brilliant knowledge of middle eastern politics, particularly around the Israel-Palestine conflict. He could remember insanely precise historical details going back thousands of years, and seemed to understand the subtlest of nuances on both sides of the conflict. His lectures were amazing. Or they would have been, if he had turned off his cell phone. He simply couldn't figure out how to silence his phone, or even turn it on and off. He had let his TA do it for him a couple of times, but then he'd leave with it still off and couldn't figure out how to turn it back on until he came back the next day, so after going through that twice he decided he would just leave it on. And it appeared that every telemarketer on earth had his number, because it would ring at least 5 times an hour at full volume, and he'd just talk over the top of it like it wasn't happening. He also never answered his email, because he apparently didn't realize that he had one or might need to use it.

One day he'd forgotten to bring his little water jug, and sent his TA to the vending machine in the middle of a lecture to bring him a bottle of water. She brought it back and handed it to him, and he turned red in the face trying to get it open, before handing it back to her and declaring that something was wrong with it. She opened it quickly and easily: he'd been turning the cap the wrong way.

I should specify here that this was not a super old guy who you'd expect to have issues with technology and life in general: he was in his mid or late 40's.