What's something that you didn't realize was sketchy until well after the fact?

Wow ok I've got one. I was a naive and sheltered 18 year old student living in Cape Town, South Africa. My car had been broken into and car radio stolen so I was in the market for buying a new one. I was at my local video rental store and talking to my friend behind the counter about where to buy a new one when another customer said "oh I've actually got a bunch of car stereos I'm selling - do you want to see them?". Naive guy that I was I said - ok sure! I thought at the time at worst they had "fallen off the back of a truck" and as a poor student I didn't feel too guilty about it - especially since mine had just been stolen. So the guy says - "the stereos are at a friend of mine's house a couple blocks away - let's go there". So we get in my car and drive to the friend's house. The guy asks for the money so he can go in and pay his friend for the stereo. I was a little reluctant but ended up giving him the cash - just because it felt awkward really to be honest. So he goes away and I wait about 10 minutes - the guy eventually comes back and says "oh damn actually the stereos are at my friend's other house - but its farther away - let's go there". By this stage I felt a bit invested so agreed to drive to the other house. We get onto the freeway and start driving. I'm chatting to the guy and suddenly realize (I mean how the fuck didn't I realize this to begin with) that the guy has some interesting tattoos of numbers on his arms. I ask him what the numbers mean and he sort of looks at me strangely and says "well I got those when I was in prison". Wanting to be a nice liberal guy and not judge him I chatted to him about prison and about prison gangs and such. Now though i'm starting to get a bit nervous and thinking Jesus what the fuck have I done. Eventually we reach the place where they guy says the stereos are. I suddenly realize that i'm in Mitchel's Plain which is one of the areas in Cape Town with one of the highest murder rates in the world. They guy leaves the car - with my money - to get the stereo and I wait for him. And I wait - and I wait - and he doesn't appear. After about 45 minutes I gave up and drove myself home.

A few days ago someone posted a video of a guy in Polsmoor Prison talking about raping and murdering inmates. Now this guy likely was in the same gangs as the guy who was in my car - who was probably also in Polsmoor at one or more points of his life. I was just totally and utterly naive because I hadn't been exposed much to other cultures and at heart I was a total bleeding heart liberal. In fact now that I write about it this experience is not all that different from what Europe is doing right now. Really there's a good chance I could have ended up dead in a ditch somewhere.

/r/AskReddit Thread