A video of an Irish student failing to get his head around a simple riddle has gone viral.
Poor Connor Walsh was left stumped when his friends described a relatively typical family and then asked him how many members of the family there were.
His friend Cathal Davis said: “There is a mother and a father. They have four daughters. Each of the four daughters has a brother. How many people are in the family?”
Pretty straight forward right? Not for everyone it seems…
These riddles seem so easy when you know the answer. That’s the beauty – or the unbearably annoying thing about them – whichever side of the question you are on.
Unfortunately if you don’t get the answer straight away there can be a long and agonising mental block that seems to totally destroy your ability to process the information in a rational way.
It can’t help to have a bunch of your friends laughing at your confusion while somebody films the struggle on their phone.
That is what Connor had to contend with as he tried and failed to consider alternative thought processes in his mind.
After he initially fell into the obvious trap of assuming that if each of the four daughters had a brother then there must be four brothers, he didn’t seem able to move on from that idea.
He told his friends that there must be ten family members but they laughed and told him he was wrong.
Cathal reminded Connor that he was one of three brothers and had one sister and said: “It’s the same thing!”
Eventually, after trying different answers he finally settled on seven. Although it wasn’t entirely clear whether he had worked out the answer or was still simply guessing – we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Take a look at the video below. Be warned – there is some strong language from Connor’s friends who found the whole incident hilarious as Connor became increasingly confused!
Take a look at some more people struggling with riddles, much to the amusement of their friends and family.
Irish mammy confused by cows and chickens riddle
Irish girl confused by 80mph riddle