Because of my shyness I came out of a chip shop with a portion of fish...

Oh you lot are my people. I've done several of these things.

I've also had the wrong food order delivered to me several times in restaurants and often I'll just eat it anyway to avoid making any fuss.

There's also a guy I've known a few years (husband of one of the women I did NCT classes with a few year ago). I cannot remember his name, but as he's spoken to me so many times (our DDs go to the same nursery now) and it's been so long it's now far too awkward for me to ask. I recently did a birthday party for my DD and he, his wife and DD came along. I excitedly opened the card from them thinking I was finally going to get to learn his name; but they had signed it 'from [their DD's name] and family' so I still don't know.

Someone I worked with last year would give me a lift home if we were both on a 10pm finish.
She thought I lived near one tesco, when it was the other one that was a little further away.
I didn’t ever tell her, I would just get out and walk the extra mile home...

Also our car really needed washed and it was freezing outside. There's a hand car wash place along the road from us but I couldn't go there because I felt too guilty sitting in my nice warm car whilst someone else got cold and wet.

Ooh, just remembered another one! Years ago a neighbour knocked on my door with some post for me, and while I was stood in the porch chatting to her, my front door slammed shut. She asked if I had a key and I said "oh yes, don't worry", knowing full well I didn't! I waved her off and then hid in the porch for the next hour until my DH came home, in case she walked past. I didn't want to be invited in to hers to wait, and actually, I'd still do the same now!

Ooh the workmen in the house problem Haudy you have to be there to offer tea/coffee/juice etc but you don't want them to feel you're checking up in them.

Been laughing out loud at these - fantastic!

Also I once had someone ask me in a shop (where I was also a customer) if I knew where the black suit trousers were - rather than tell her I didn't work there , I took her over and then she kept asking me to pass her them to look and so on. Eventually she asked if there was a pair in a size 34" waist and so I wandered to the back of the shop, stood there for a minute and then went back and said sorry we're out of stock. Then I told her I was about to finish work and had a bus to catch but another colleague would help. I left the shop where dh was in the changing room and texted him to tell him I was hiding in the car. Couldn't even bring myself to look round the shops because I'd told her I was getting a bus!

*gave him

ILost I got half way through your haircut post and genuinely had to look to see if I'd posted and forgotten. I have him a £5 tip whilst holding back tears ffs.

I'm quite assertive in a lot of ways but if I feel like I'm inconveniencing someone especially in a shop / cafe / doctors etc then I get really embarrassed.

I have problems with local anaesthetic and was referred to a specialist clinic for a dental extraction. I had a 45 minute appointment and by 40 minutes in they'd tried to numb me with numerous injections and kept testing to see if I was numb yet. Because my time was going to run out I just said I was numb then held on white knuckled whilst they pulled my tooth out when it wasn't completely numb.

Also we are about to have some work done on our house - I am absolutely dreading it because I always feel really guilty if they're here and I'm not helping them - not that I could if I wanted to but I just find it really really awkward that they must think I'm a right lazy arse sat doing fuck all.

I also paid 90 pounds for a Mulberry purse as an impoverished student twenty years ago. It never got to hold more than a fiver at a time but I couldn't leave what I thought was an ordinary leather goods shop (Mulberry in York) with a snooty shop assistant looking down on me for a scruffy student! similarly a fish monger in a van came to my estate, offering "samples" of what they could bring every week. I said "ooh samples yes please" expecting FREE samples like at the clarins counter. But he came back with slices of giant fish and said 80 pounds please - yes I paid. Yes my freezer was full of fucking giant fish winking at me. Yes I was delighted there was a powercut and I had an excuse to throw it all out. The only fish I actually like is tinned tuna and fishfingers :(

Our office does a 'lunch with the directors' thing, it's painfully awkward.

I've managed to get out of it, till a few months ago. I walked in, introduced myself, he got my name wrong, I just smiled, despite the other 4 people in the room knowing that isn't my name.

Then he passed around sandwiches, I didn't mention i'm vegetarian, because I didn't want to be awkward. Somebody else mentioned it, so the director passed me a 'veggy' sandwich, and I felt too rude to point out salmon isn't veggy, so picked it apart for 2 fucking hours.

A guy worked in my local shop for a few years. He always thought my name was Sarah and I was too shy to correct him. I bumped into him a few years after he left that job and he proudly introduced me to his daughter. He named her after me. I chose that moment to tell him my correct name. His face fell. I have kicked myself ever since.

I once bought a helium balloon from a card shop, and the assistant didn't tie it properly or put it in a bag, so 10 seconds after I left the shop, it floated away, leaving me holding the ribbon. I was too embarrassed to go back in and ask for/but another one, so drove half an hour to the next town and bought one there!

I picked up a small bottle of whiskey as a birthday present for dp. Another customer came up to me and directed me to the large bottles which were stocked on the end of the aisle. I ended up buying it as I didn't want to bump into her at checkout and explain that I actually only wanted the small bottle and make her feel embarrassed. (said large bottle of whiskey remains unopened).

I got engaged by accident once. He sprung it on me very suddenly when I wasn't expecting it at all. We were engaged for about eight weeks during which time he was looking for a flat and job in my town etc. Eventually I summoned the courage to tell him I didn't want to marry him, although I genuinely considered just marrying him to avoid any fuss.

When in was just finishing my PGdip I went on work experience to a newspaper I wanted to work on. I did well and got to write the front page with my first ever byline. The editor inexplicably used a shortened version of my name (ie Debbie instead of Debra) that I'd never been known as before. She then offered me a job. I said yes of course but was too polite to correct her on the name issue.

Of course, the only way to get another job in journalism is by sending your cuttings with your byline on as part of your application. So I couldn't even change my name back when I moved jobs and cities two years later. My colleagues became friends and so most people just called me by the name my editor had picked for me. Fourteen years on, I am now known universally as the shortening, and only by my family and my husband as my actual proper name. I'm even the shortened version on social media because it's just easier than explaining what happened to people (although some people I went to school and uni with are a bit confused...)

So yes, I have basically changed my name because I didn't want to be rude to my boss. Let that be a cautionary tale

Oh and I've bought expensive cherries too! Seems a common one

Oh I also do that thing of realising I'm walking in the wrong direction but too embarrassed to just change direction without patting pockets, checking watch etc. At the same time, I mentally rehearse an "excuse" in case someone who knows me sees and asks why I was walking the wrong way

Totally changed my workout at the gym because someone I know is in there and I don't want them to see me doing it 'wrong' so I stick to basics! E.g today I missed out on my legs day and just did some cardio. Gutted

So pleased I found this thread. I thought I was just nuts

I feigned illness and paid £30 for a taxi home from a new boyfriends house because I didn’t want to have a wee in his toilet

I am absolutely laughing my head off at some of these!

I was at IKEA one weekend, I went into the showroom and felt beyond ill, to the point I thought I was going to collapse. So I sat down in one of the “livingrooms” for 5 minutes and had a drink. One of the staff members came over and asked if everything was okay, I said “fine thanks just having a look”. I spent the next 35 minutes listening to her talk about the variations of TV units, different style sofas.. 😴

Cautionary tale: a friend (late middle aged, establishment job) did a parachute jump and was asked if the straps that go around your groin/ top inner thigh were ok? She was very English and polite and said yes fine thanks, even though they were tight. When she jumped out of the plane and opened the parachute the straps so tightly around her ( ?)femoral artery(?) that she passed out. If it hadn't been a tandem jump who knows what would have happened?

PS I also have swished my hair saying ooh lovely to a butchering hairdresser and paid 5 quid for cherries.

I went to an appointment with a private neurologist and was a bit deaf in my left ear as it was blocked.

A consultant came out and called a name, no-one else stood up and I didn't quite catch it so I thought it must have been me...

Cue a very embarrassed scene in the room when I started to explain what the matter with me was, all the time looking very puzzled as to why he had an x-ray of my neck on his screen (it was nothing to do with my neck!)

He said, no your condition can't be that as it is this problem and pointed to the screen. I then looked at him and said 'Aren't you Mr xxx the neurologist?' He obviously seemed perplexed as to why I was sitting there and said his name was Dr so-and-so and the person I wanted was down the corridor!

We both laughed and I got up in a very embarrassed way, shuffling towards the door. He didn't seem to mind and said it reminded him of the time two patients who were completely unrelated to one another were in the same appointment by mistake, and neither of them realised until he asked them if they were together and knew each other! Maybe I did need my head examining thoroughly that day after all...

I had a personal shop in John Lewis. I have had them before and since very successfully but this one was a disaster. She didn't bring anything I liked. But I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I bought a few random things and returned them later. To two different stores on different days so had to pay three lots of train fares for the privilege of taking home clothes I didn't like and didn't want.

Since then I have had a lot of therapy (for other issues) and a happy bonus is I am much more assertive now and it wouldn't ever happen again.