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Original poster

Does anyone feel just a bit awkward about doing some every day things?

268 replies

Pyri · 04/02/2022 16:31

I am a successful, confident woman in every day life. So why do I feel like such a prize idiot doing normal things like:

  • taking stuff back to the tiny post office counter that’s in the corner shop, I feel weirdly guilty about doing ASOS returns there without buying anything
  • taking my car to a car wash, feeling like I’m going to prang it going around corners then feeling a bit awkward not knowing when to tell them I only want the outside doing / not sure where to look when they’re buffing the windscreen / wondering if I’ll run over their toes when pulling forward
  • literally anything to do with conversing with workmen

WHY?!! Does anyone else manage perfectly in real life but feel just a bit awkward with these minor interactions?

OP posts:
ThatsALotOfPassionfruit · 04/02/2022 17:32

I saw your title and was going to say the car wash! I hate it.
Although I basically hate anywhere that doesn’t tell you what to do but assumes you know, see also: Covid test centres and anywhere that needs a ticket to get in

TheVolturi · 04/02/2022 17:48

I absolutely hate being at the traffic lights with another car beside me. I do not know what to do with myself. I pretend I'm busy with the sat nav usually!

Confusedandworried321 · 04/02/2022 17:50

My new cleaner started today (haven’t had a cleaner in years) and I work from home, it was the most awkward 2 hours of my life.

ADHDkillingme · 04/02/2022 17:52

Basically everything

Ceebeegee · 04/02/2022 18:19

Me too!
Carvery meals. I don't know why but feel so awkward going up to the Carvery counter with my ticket , choosing the meat, waiting whilst they cut it, and then getting the veg. Can't even explain it, but I inwardly cringe everything

Ceebeegee · 04/02/2022 18:19

*everytime, not everything

Original poster
Pyri · 04/02/2022 19:11

@Confusedandworried321

My new cleaner started today (haven’t had a cleaner in years) and I work from home, it was the most awkward 2 hours of my life.
Oh good god yes. I shut myself away in a bedroom when she’s here then worry the whole time that she’ll walk in and wonder what I’m doing awkwardly perched on the bed for two hours in the middle of the day
OP posts:
Original poster
Pyri · 04/02/2022 19:11

@TheVolturi

I absolutely hate being at the traffic lights with another car beside me. I do not know what to do with myself. I pretend I'm busy with the sat nav usually!
I always wonder if they’re gonna to try and race me off the line?!
OP posts:
SouthOfFrance · 04/02/2022 19:20

This thread is an eye opener! Some of these I can half understand but the one about being next to a car in traffic lights has really made me chuckle, wtf?! Next time I'm stuck in traffic lights I'm going to see if the person next to me is awkwardly checking their sat nav Grin

BiscuitLover3678 · 04/02/2022 19:22

This is funny op as none of those things would bother me, but being spoken to by the hairdresser Shock or making a beautician appointment, oh so horribly awkward. Paying at a checkout that isn’t self-checkout.

BiscuitLover3678 · 04/02/2022 19:23

Yes to the cleaner! I feel like she’s judging me for not cleaning.

BiscuitLover3678 · 04/02/2022 19:25

When you walk into a shop and have a look around then realise you don’t want anything you say “thank you” and slowly but also very quickly leave.

KylieCharlene · 04/02/2022 19:26

Walking along the street with a supermarket carrier bag.
Getting on the bus.
Getting off the bus.

ISpyCobraKai · 04/02/2022 19:27

Definitely the car wash.

thefirstmrsrochester · 04/02/2022 19:29

I never do random browsing in shops for this very reason. I honestly feel that by not making a purchase that I’m condemning the staff, owners and suppliers to a life of destitution.

NotImpossible · 04/02/2022 19:30

@BiscuitLover3678

When you walk into a shop and have a look around then realise you don’t want anything you say “thank you” and slowly but also very quickly leave.
This! So awkward - casually looking around and examining totally ramdom items while being so desperate to just get away. Grin
LittleSnakes · 04/02/2022 19:32

Why the shopping bag? What’s awkward?

Doona · 04/02/2022 19:32

Anything with teachers. They stop and say hi when they see me passing and the conversation is so fake. How are You? How are the kids! I'm aware they're really busy. Why are we talking? I feel obscurely like I've failed at something. Horrible.

LadyOfTheFlowers · 04/02/2022 19:33

Walking to the cashier to pay for fuel - I want my Clubcard points and because I pay on my phone I have to go in and have my app scanned

Bedsheets4knickers · 04/02/2022 19:34

When the window cleaner comes 🤣 I spend the time hiding in other rooms . It's like playing musical rooms .

AlwaysOutside · 04/02/2022 19:37

Yes to getting off the bus I hate it, even though I catch buses every single day. Also carvery meals too. I also hate asking for the bill in a restaurant

AlwaysOutside · 04/02/2022 19:37

Oh and zebra crossings, worst thing ever

Hillbillyhotel · 04/02/2022 19:38

Every time I walk through security scanners leaving a shop/go past a security guard I feel SO shifty despite not having done anything wrong. It stresses me a ridiculous amount.

bigbluebus · 04/02/2022 19:45

I used to make DH take my car to be washed as I didn't want to sit in the car whilst the chap(s) worked their socks off in the heat/cold cleaning my car. It made me feel guilty that I wasn't doing it myself. I'm of an age that remembers when everyone went out onto their driveways and washed their own cars at the weekend.

hamsterchump · 04/02/2022 19:48

I hate getting anything done on the car: tyres, MOT, work done, anything. OH doesn't drive yet so I always have to do it and I feel such an idiot and always seem to say the wrong thing. Plus they often want you to pull up in some tiny, tight, awkward gap somewhere amongst cars and heaps of tyres or tools or assorted crap everywhere and the pressure makes me a worse driver and I end up taking a few attempts to get it positioned right etc which is embarrassing.

Once the garage parked the car in a gap so tight I could just barely drive out of it and get past their bins! It was awful, I thought I was going to have to get out and move the bins in front of them all to get the car out but I just about managed it with a million point turn.

Now I arrive early and park in their carpark over the road and give them the keys to squeeze the car in but sometimes still have to ask them to reverse the car off the pit for me. Is that normal, do you all drive your car over the pit and reverse it off again when you get an MOT? I don't know if my garage is weird (it's the one my dad and brother use), are there nice, friendly, spacious garages with good parking or is it always awkward?

I am normally a fine, competent driver but there's something about them all watching (and obviously judging) that makes it so much harder and I cringe through it and dread it every year.