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

[Pyri]

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?

I check the price of an item of clothing in the shop, realise that it's out of my price range, but then do a little pantomime as I hold up the item as if seriously considering it before putting it back, as if it didn't meet my high standards.

Yes any buffet type scenario.

Being only person in a cafe/restaurant.

All aspects of a hair appointment.

Oh god and being in the garden at the same time as next door on either side. Knowing they can hear anything I say (I have a baby and 2x toddlers so can’t be silent) it’s just so horrible, I feel so encroached upon and awfully aware that it’s very much vice versa. Oh and when my husband turns the lights on in the evening but hasn’t closed the curtains, feel horribly exposed and rush to close them feeling the whole world must be staring in. When I am doing something on my phone and accidentally open a message the second it comes through so I look desperate!

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

This!!! Oh and zebra crossings...I suddenly adopt a completely different way of walking. And I feel silly and self important if I wave at the cars that have stopped and rude if I don't....

At gym classes - the person next to you choosing to face the other way from you while lying on their mat, meaning that you make eye contact every time you do sit-ups. So awkward. Same in Spin if your bike faces another one on the other side of the room. You have to deliberately look elsewhere so as not to keep making eye contact or look like you're staring at them.

Buying one item in a shop.

I can't do it, no matter what it is. I have to buy other stuff to support it. So I'll grab a 5th bottle of washing up liquid for under the sink, another bottle of wine for the full wine rack and maybe a bottle of spiced rum for DP even though he got 3 for Christmas and only has a drink about twice a month.

All because people CANNOT KNOW that I need to buy some paprika for tonight's dinner.

Pathetic.

Also going to a fancier/country type pub and not knowing if it's table service, if there are separate areas for drinks and eating etc. I can't bear the thought that people might know I've never been there before.

Oooh also

Ringing a doorbell when they have a Ring doorbell. Thinking that they'll review the footage later and having to keep my face neutral but not TOO neutral in case I look grumpy so doing what I can only imagine is a very creepy half smile. Made even worse by the fact that I recently find out that they start recording BEFORE you press the button so there must be hundreds of videos out there of me walking up to a door looking normal, clocking the Ring and then trying to arrange my face to look normal when I probably look like a psycho.

This stresses me out to no end.
I am a paramedic 😑

OMG this is me! All of it (except the car stuff .. I don't drive!)! Thought I was a bit weird to be so awkward all the time - I've found my people 😂

I love this thread. Particularly agree about the slow horror of realising you are about to run into a work colleague or distant acquaintance on public transport, or worse, are being forced by social niceties into offering or accepting a lift somewhere on a journey roughly 50% longer than you have small talk to cover, what are you meant to do? Put on the radio and sit in awkward silence? Invent an errand in the opposite direction that regrettably means you now need to get off the train not at your stop/be dropped off in the middle of nowhere? Pretend to fall asleep (as the passenger not driver I hasten to add)? No British person can gracefully glide through such a situation I am sure!

Shopping in physical shops when they're busy. I hate it with a passion. Especially supermarkets and clothes shops. God bless online shopping.

@maxelly

I love this thread. Particularly agree about the slow horror of realising you are about to run into a work colleague or distant acquaintance on public transport, or worse, are being forced by social niceties into offering or accepting a lift somewhere on a journey roughly 50% longer than you have small talk to cover, what are you meant to do? Put on the radio and sit in awkward silence? Invent an errand in the opposite direction that regrettably means you now need to get off the train not at your stop/be dropped off in the middle of nowhere? Pretend to fall asleep (as the passenger not driver I hasten to add)? No British person can gracefully glide through such a situation I am sure!

I'm going on a week-long business trip with a colleague next month. There's going to be a long-haul flight and a lot of driving. He's perfectly nice and an interesting chap but this is a nightmare for me. Everyone was horrified when I said I'd be fine going by myself. I was imagining sticking on an audiobook in the car, leisurely dinners, room service... Now I have to make small talk/business talk for a week and I'm dreading it.

Pahaha this thread. Nodded along to A LOT of these.
Walking through shopping centres when it's quite early so not many people around, and really jaunty music is blaring out so you deliberately walk different so you aren't in step with the music. You can't have onlookers thinking you're really getting into it 😂Today it was Stayin' Alive. Walking the length of the place to Stayin' Alive is really excruciating.

Getting a prescription from the chemist and having to stand around awkwardly for ages while they fill it. I never know what to do with myself.

OMG - I never knew I was a super confident capable woman until I read this thread - worried about the car beside you at the traffic lights??dealing with workmen??? the car wash?????

Needing a wee when you have workmen in your house is the worst. I usually make up something I desperately need from Tesco and use their facilities. I wouldn't want another human in my home to hear me flush and find out that I wee! 😁

@cherrysthename

Pahaha this thread. Nodded along to A LOT of these. Walking through shopping centres when it's quite early so not many people around, and really jaunty music is blaring out so you deliberately walk different so you aren't in step with the music. You can't have onlookers thinking you're really getting into it 😂Today it was Stayin' Alive. Walking the length of the place to Stayin' Alive is really excruciating.

I suppose the only alternative is to completely embrace it, strutting along, complete with checking yourself out in shop windows like John Travolta.

I was driving along with my teen dd the other day when a pedestrian was walking towards me and just completely turned around and walked back the way she came . I mentioned to dd how much I admired her confidence, and explained what I would do if I need to turn around while walking along a busy footpath. Dd pointed out quite rightly that my stopping , pretending to look at my phone and over dramatic facial expression to make it clear to anyone watching that I had a damn good reason to be turning back would actually draw far more attention to myself than the actions of the lady who just simply turned around . She maybe has a point 🙄