Cringes where you are still cringeing years later

[LemonWaterSugar]

I have no idea if cringeing needs the "e". I think it does.

Anyway, I was driving today and out of nowhere did a MASSIVE cringe shudder at something I did about two / three years ago. I forget about it for a while then BAM it comes back and I have to relive it again.

Basically it was when everyone was working from home, so meetings on Teams / Zoom were relatively new. I wasn't long back from maternity leave so even less experience with this type of communication in a work setting.

I was interviewing for a new team member with my manager. All going well, although it's slightly strange on a screen especially as you have no eye contact and it's not always clear who you are talking to.

My manager asked the question.. obviously to the candidate but because we were on a screen and it looked like she was looking at me I ANSWERED IT 😩😩😩😩 I don't know what I was thinking. Gave a full blown answer to an interview question.

I realised way too late, and my manager sort of smirked then asked it again and said something like "it would be good to hear the answer from the interviewee".

EUGH.

Anyone have any of these that just keep coming back?

Went down to have my C section. I'd been in hospital for 7 weeks prior without access to a razor so I had what I can only describe as a sprouting arse crack.

Sat on the theatre table and there was the HOTTEST, recently qualified anaesthetist and I came over all clammy and nervous because 1, just about to be cut open and have my baby and 2, my spouting arse crack was right in front of this very handsome anaesthetist. (Sorry DH)

He began preparing for the spinal block and i spluttered 'sorry about the hairy arse crack I've had no razor for 7 weeks'

I don't think he knew where to look. He then went on to say 'I would say ive seen it all but you are my first spinal block!'

I was mortified.
First solo spinal block and he's faced with an overgrown arse crack that looked like a burst sofa.

I have loads, but there are a couple from my school days (almost over 30 years ago) that come back to haunt me in the middle of the night.

1. I moved to a new area/school when I was 16 and quite naive/sheltered. In French class the teacher went round the room asking everyone what they do at the weekend, where they do it, what time and what they wear. Most made reference to hobbies like sports, cooking, craft etc. I decided to tell them that I like to go clubbing (la discotheque) in the city centre wearing my best dress at 7pm. I (almost certainly wrongly) thought everyone was quite impressed until I realised I didn't know what time clubs opened.
2. I got chicken pox aged 17 so had to be off school for a couple of weeks. One of my teachers lived nearby and decided to drop round (unannounced on a Saturday morning) with a card signed by my classmates and some school work. At the time Saturday morning kids TV had characters called Trevor and Simon who had encouraged guests etc to 'swing your pants' (with a side to side motion whilst holding the front of your trousers). Some other MNers may remember this. I can only assume it was a result of boredom, but I was standing in the middle of my living room, in front of the TV, wearing my PJs and dressing gown, dancing along and 'swinging' bottoms with one hand and dressing gown belt with the other. Just as Teacher walked past the very large living room window and made eye contact with me. The incident was never mentioned, but I know that we both knew.

I am howling at some of these!

I've told this one before under a different username but it still haunts me... I worked for a Consultant who was going on a year's sabbatical. He had sent me his home address so I could forward any non-clinical post to his home for the year. Nosey bastard me decides to Google Street View his home address. I had zoomed in as close as possible to the front of his house when he appears at the door to my office. I very quickly hit the X at the top of the screen to get rid of it but, unfortunately, I had several tabs open and the computer kindly decided to ask me if I was sure I wanted to close all tabs, so he saw it.
He said something along the lines of "that's my house?" and I said , "umm, yes, very close to the M1 aren't you? Very convenient" and then finally managed to actually X it away. Neither of us ever said another word about it.

Oh god reading these has just reminded me of the worst one

In Thailand and ex persuaded me to go snorkelling on a boat trip despite the fact I'm terrified of deep water

The boat wasn't a proper diving boat and just had a ladder , being scared of the sea I decided to walked down the ladder front facing like stairs and then swim in

Only my bikini bottoms got stuck on the ladder and I wasn't going anywhere. As I floundered panicking like a harpooned whale my ex simply swam off leaving a very tall handsome French man who saw my struggle come like some saviour doing the front crawl , he simply picked me up and put me down again unhooked

By this time my bottoms had disappeared up my bottom giving me a rather seriously painful wedgie and I couldn't sort myself out due to the life jacket so I swan off bare arsed after saying Merci beaucoup profusely.

Ex was a dick . Hence ex.

This is outing because my colleagues know this one, but what the hell!

Teaching a music class focused on percussion sounds and getting irate at some children constantly banging on the instruments.

At one point I lost it and, not even thinking about what I was saying, came out with “I will give detention to the next person who touches my bongos! 😳

Oh, so many. Off the top of my head...

Taking tiny newborn DS to the supermarket and heading across the carpark to get a trolley. A very polite boy who must have been about 10 was returning his mum's trolley and offered it to me. I thanked him nicely, took it and walked off with it. I didn't realise why he had given me such a confused "don't know what to do" face when I'd started pushing it until I was halfway through my shop. The trolleys take a £1 coin and I'd just nicked it with the trolley I really hope he didn't get into trouble for the mad woman stealing his mum's money!

More recently, we were in the airport sitting out a long delay for our flight home from holiday. Next to us was another English family with a mum, dad and three kids of varying ages. They were bored and acting up a bit and their parents were working hard to keep them in line. Our flight finally got called and, for reasons unknown even to myself, I decided it would be a good idea to compliment them on their parenting. Already in cringe territory, what actually came out of my mouth was something like "Thanks for being so strict. My kids are always saying how mean I am and now they know it's not just me." FFS, why?! My DC were mortified, the woman walked off and I just sort of scuttled away in shame.

When I was first married, I went through a phase of attempting to impress my in-laws. They were staying with us and I wanted to make a cooked breakfast to demonstrate my top-quality wife-ing skills. To facilitate this, I got up early and went to feed and muck out my horses and to save time, I drove a short way across a steep field to the stable yard. Finished all my chores and went to leave, but I'd parked my rear wheel drive car against a fence on an incline, and the harder I tried to move it, the deeper it became embedded in the mud. I tried straw under the wheels, random bits of wood and resigned myself to having to run the mile or so back to my house to salvage my impressive breakfast plans whilst getting more and more angry with myself. For some reason, instead of just running home, I decided to wreak revenge on my car by grabbing a sizeable branch and beating it whilst yelling obscenities at it. It was at that point I looked up and saw a very confused looking older couple peering over the gate at me. For months afterwards they used to hide when they saw me coming.

More recently, I was running along a remote country lane, earphones in, music blaring and feeling quite smug with myself. Reached a junction and slowed to a stop to check for cars, whilst simultaneously releasing an impressive fart which came in a series of reports not unlike a 21 gun salute which gave me a little burst of pride as it drowned out Eric Prydz temporarily. As I went to commence my running on the traffic-free road, a man overtook me from behind, running gaily past with a little smirk on his headphone-free face. I have not worn earphones since!

Oh god, this has brought back so many cringes but the one that springs to mind is the time I went to the works xmas party. I worked for a Scottish company but me and a couple of colleagues were based in the South. Every year we got invited to Scotland for the xmas party. Invariably it was held in a nice hotel in St Andrews and was a dinner/dance. It was one of those affairs where different companies bought a table or multiple tables depending on the amount of staff.

What this meant was we were partying with other people who were not our colleagues but other randoms from other totally unrelated companies. A great night was had by all. I was relatively new to the company and did not know all my colleagues but I did know a few of them and had spent the evening with them.

Anyhow, next morning I get up and go to breakfast, very hungover. I saw a load of my colleagues sitting round a large circular table eating breakfast so I pulled up a chair and joined them. After saying good morning, and did you enjoy the evening etc I realised they were all staring at me totally blankly.. it turns out they were not my colleagues after all. I have no idea who they were, and judging by their reaction they had no idea who I was. I just stood up, walked out of the restaurant and checked out and went to the airport. Totally and utterly mortified.

A few years ago I was at an intimate gig with some friends. We hadn't seen each other for a little while and we were allowed to bring along drinks. We were standing at the back chatting (quietly we thought) away, enjoying the music, when there was a sudden shout from the front asking us to be quiet when the musician was talking. It was their album launch and they wanted to talk about their tracks, fair enough. I have never wanted the ground to open up and swallow me as much in my life.

Reminds me of the time I had wind when I was walking down a quiet street. I looked behind me, saw I was alone then let rip with a melody of loud farts. As I got to the top of the road, a man was walking behind me. He must have just come out of his house but he almost certainly would have heard at least a few of them!

LOL @WhiteBricks

That's so funny 😂😂 It's not that bad, just comical chortles.

Not cringy but disgusting and it's never left me!

Me, a teenager walking somewhere and the man walking in front did a big gobber and the wind flew it into my face 😳😳

Sooo glad I clicked on this thread 😂😂

3 that come to mind..

1.We were on a school trip to a cave nicknamed "the Devil's arse" (I know - funnily enough that has nothing to do with the embarrassing event except that it was really dark 😂). Our teachers were lighting the way with various torches when they decided to show us how dark it was without any light for a few seconds. Sure enough it was pitch black and everyone sort of jumped and let out a shriek as kids do. I grabbed my friends arm and the lights came back on.. only for me and my friends to see me linking a 50-odd year old man who was with his wife.

2.. After DTD with my first boyfriend in College, his dad walked in after knocking for literally one second then barging in. Luckily we were just lying in bed partially covered with me sort of facing away but it was still embarrassing as fck.

3.. When I was about 10 I went to a Halloween party and I was trying to socialize with some people I didn't know. Anyway I was a bit nervous and must have forgot myself because this one girl had a sword with some fake blood on it. God knows what I was thinking, must have thought it was glued on or something cos I went to touch it and was like "wow it's really good!" to which the girl replied "It was" 😔I was so ashamed. I still feel like a twat thinking about that.

When I was a kid and started at senior school, I heard on the grapevine that a boy I'd gone to primary school with had sadly died. A few weeks later, me and bestie were walking through town and we suddenly saw him! We rushed up to him and said, almost in gleeful unison, 'we thought you'd died!!' We even did this little celebratory dance in the way that stupid 12 year olds can do.

No, he said. 'That was my brother'.

I went for a bra measurement in a lingerie shop after my first baby, not having been actually measured before. The assistant got the tape measure out and was quite surprised when she looked up to see that I'd whipped off not just my T-shirt but my bra too. She said she would measure with clothes on so I sheepishly put them back on for the sizing.

Not me directly, but my ex-H.

It was a long time ago, but I'd gone with him to a GP appointment - can't remember what for.
The GP gave him a little urine sample bottle, and asked him to go to the loo to provide a sample.

No problem. I sat with the GP making small talk while ex-H was in the toilet.
10/15 minutes passed, and we're running short on topics to pass the time. I assumed exH had some sort of stage fright, or maybe just didn't need to wee.

Eventually, ex-H reappeared, brandishing his urine sample pot... containing semen 😳

I started a new job and it was my first shift. They hired a lot of people at once so we all went for drinks after work, thinking it’d be a team building thing. Anyway, everyone got pretty drunk and started dancing, music was blaring. I got REALLY drunk and was kind of dancing near one of the managers, we barely spoke all night.

For some reason, despite no prior conversation or flirting of any kind, I just went over to him and shouted in his ear “WE CAN’T HAVE SEX TONIGHT, I’M ON MY PERIOD”. He looked completely shocked and just walked away, I carried on dancing. I completely forgot I did this, and it wasn’t until the next day that he told me about it, that I wanted to die with shame. I stayed in that job for a while despite this!

At a newish job and we had won a special award and we were all going to get photographed outside. The man with the camera looked familiar, got chatting and then I asked him what newspaper he worked for(assumed he wad photographing for publicity) he then looked at me and said "I'm name I'm the owner of company" he was the big big boss!!! What makes it worse is I can still see the face of one of the directors eye rolling next to me and walking away in embarrassment 😳

Honestly I wish I'd had this opportunity! Some Dr's really deserve it.

@JockTamsonsBairns you can't leave it there 😂What did the doctor say?!

Why was that a cringe?

I think she means that she said Morning in late afternoon

I have many but one which will haunt me for ever has to be...

Aged about 17, meeting BFs parents for the first time. I'd already spoken to Mum once on the phone and I got the distinct impression she either didn't like me or just wasn't keen on her son having a girlfriend. She was very abrupt and I felt awkward.

Eventually, he asked me round for dinner.I was so nervous, their house was incredible and spotlessly clean and it felt like it was going to be a formal evening.

Parents come in the room,Mum looks me up and down sternly and introduces herself.

For some reason...for some reason..I clasped my hands and did a small BOW.

They all looked at me like I'd gone mad, dinner was silent and I left asap.

I love this. Genius idea even though it didn't work. Someone should invent "walk on water foot floats" to be worn with a life jacket.