I mean I feel stupid typing it now, but I’ve been using Windows since I was 5 years old, and Linux for about 30 days. It was not apparent to me that many of my folders were actually shortcuts to stuff in my user directory, and now that I know to look out for them the location of my applications make sooo much more sense.
I just assumed they were the same as “shortcuts” on Windows, coz to the end user they’re not all that different - File that points you to a different file or directory when you open it