Strangest thing you have found embarrassing

[ElliotGoss]

I was waiting for a friend with a bunch of flowers for her. I found this so embarrassing for some reason! Something about standing on a street with a bunch of flowers. I also find having a baby bump cringe!

Years ago I went to see an Am Dram production of Animal Farm that a friend’s Dad was in. It took me a good few minutes to get over feeling embarrassed for the actors making animal sounds. Oink! Neigh! Cringe! I realised I was being stupid, but it was so bizarre watching a man who by day was a Headteacher standing up and oinking on stage.

@Jenbarbersshoes

Yes! I get some of these, especially standing in a queue and the supermarket ones.

Also, I always feel really embarrassed when I wear something new, particularly a new coat. Like everyone knows it's new and they're thinking, "Oh, look at you, showing off in your new coat".

So so get you on this one. Why do I always say it's not new?

When you need to cough/sneeze in a quiet room so you awkwardly try to stifle it because actually just coughing/sneezing feels embarrassing

When you go to a public toilet and want to do your business but there’s one or two other people in there and it’s eerily quiet. I won’t pee until they either leave or start peeing 😅

That moment when you walk into a restaurant to meet friends but don’t know where the table is as they arrived before you

Oh gosh this is embarrassing to admit but minute silences when in company…

Getting dropped off at work. I don’t drive and it makes me feel like a child.

When the plane lands and passengers clap and cheer!!!!!
Makes me want to crawl up my own backside

So many of these!

Also, if someone - even DH - is picking me up in the car, the walk towards the car is awful.

Speaking on my phone through the ring doorbell when someone is at the door and we're out. DH gets so frustrated with me if he's driving and I just can't do it 😂

Seeing someone you know coming towards you from a distance. Where do you look until you arrive at each other?

Reaching out my car window to get the ticket from the machine so the boomgate can go up, with cars queuing behind me. I have short arms so have to take my seatbelt off and stick my whole body out
Pre-covid, watching any child get up at the school assembly to sing a song or do a dance.

Needing to look at the Underground map.

Winning a raffle ….. I just criiiinnnge !!

Despite buying many raffle tickets across the course of my life, I've no idea if I'd be embarrassed if I won a prize because I never have…

Parties and there’s a buffet table, the host will always come over and tell you to help yourself to food, the thought of standing there with an empty plate and everyone can see you - wish the earth would swallow me!

Dancing...hates it, ok for other folk but I've no idea and when I have its excruciatingly painful. My limbs won't do it, I play a number of musical instruments which I'm much happier doing.

I love the awkwardness of all these

The walk back after you've just finished your turn when bowling. Bonus points if you knocked down like 5-6 pins, because it's not bad enough to laugh about but not good enough to celebrate over either. I end up doing an awkward shrug and a 😬 sort of face as I walk back to the chairs, acutely aware of every step.

I haven't even been bowling for years, but this specific scenario is excruciating to me.

Choosing a seat, like on the bus or a waiting room. You need to be quick, but can’t go near the door in case someone infirm needs it, you can’t side beside someone if there’s space for you not too, but you don’t want to bump past loads of people unnecessarily (see also: why am I always carrying a million things). It’s a lot of calculations in a few seconds. Maybe too many games of musical chairs as a child.

@rocksonrocks

I loathe filling my car with fuel

Thank you for admitting this - I thought I was the only one!

I find the whole thing really stressful. I worry that I’ve not parked close enough to the pump and the hose won’t stretch, then I have to double check that I’m putting the right fuel in - which is pointless because modern cars won’t let you use the wrong nozzle anyway! Then when it’s filling, I feel stupid standing there watching the digital thingy going around and finally I hate walking into the shop and having to announce what number pump I used. Pay at pump isn’t any better because I always manage to either drop my card or put it in the wrong way around and wonder why nothing is happening.
I’m convinced the staff in the petrol station are watching me on the CCTV and assuming I’m on day release!

@Julia37

Bumping into someone you know in a supermarket, greeting them and saying goodbye and then seeing them again in various aisles and probably the checkout tills!

Oh God, yes and the first 500 times you bump into them there, you both say cringe-inducing things like "fancy meeting you here" or "do you come here often?", and after that you just have to pretend you haven't seen them.

I have so many of these!

-I get very embarrassed walking into shops and not buying things.
-paying at the super market.
-putting petrol in the car when it’s very busy.
-the thought of reciting wedding vows and speeches make me cringe.
-walking in public, I drive everywhere because I live semi rural and I feel like an idiot when cars drive past me.
-saying my name out loud.
-excusing yourself from somewhere (want to go home etc).

• basically anything where you have to preform something which is expected such as singing happy birthday, thanking somebody for a gift, clapping all makes me cringe inside.

I could up on and on. The strange thing is, I am actually extroverted and will quite happily
Chat with anybody.

Fancy dress and dancing are amongst my most cringed at happenings also.

@BlackboardMonitorVimes

I totally get these. I hate it when you are meeting someone and you see them in the distance and do a mutual wave. The walk up to them is excruciating, I feel like I am walking stupidly and can't feel normal again until I get to them. Totally embarrassed by the thought of them waiting and watching me walk to them.

I'm crying with laughter at this one - I did exactly that yesterday when I was meeting my friend for coffee, and I was so self-conscious that I couldn't walk normally, so I tripped when I was still about 20 paces away from her! FFS.

If I see someone I know in the supermarket, I go to another supermarket. I don't need to deal with that

I totally get these. I hate it when you are meeting someone and you see them in the distance and do a mutual wave. The walk up to them is excruciating, I feel like I am walking stupidly and can't feel normal again until I get to them. Totally embarrassed by the thought of them waiting and watching me walk to them.

^

Also, when are you supposed to start talking? When you first see them? 'HALLOOOO! When they are ten feet close to you? What if they say 'pardon???!!'

Oh gawd...

I can relate to so many of these

One I thought of was when you get on a really crowded bus/train and have to sit next to a stranger but over the course of the journey it starts emptying out until you and this stranger are just sat together but surrounded by empty seats. Of course you want to move, they want you to move, but it's so awkward doing it. Like you're rejecting them.

It was the late 1950's and I was in the hospital having my tonsils out - like we all did back then. My darling little nana come to visit me and brought me a present of child sized gardening tools. She was very flustered and embarrassed when she came to my bedside because she had been carrying gardening tools through the hospital ward she told me. I was only 7 but I became very embarrassed as well, because she was. We hid our shame - and the tools. Haha good times.

I loved those tools and have been gardening ever since and the funny thing everyone buys me gardening tools for pressies still. My son bought me a lovely hickory handled shovel for this last Christmas and my husband bought me clippers.

When you're in a restaurant and it's someone else's birthday - as in, a stranger, at a different table - and the staff come in with a tiny cake with a sparkler on it, and then everyone in the restaurant sings Happy Birthday. Aaaaaargh!

Also, when you're watching a film and the actors all suddenly start singing and dancing together when you're not expecting it.