Things you used to do that now make you cringe!

[lifestooshorttodickaboutwithaubergines]

So I’ve been seeing the odd Facebook memory, throwing up past status updates I posted that now give me extreme second-hand embarrassment. We’re talking maybe ten or so years ago.

It got me thinking about how when I first learnt to drive, at about 19, I had a car but didn’t use it to get to work. My part-time job whilst at uni was in the town centre and it didn’t make financial sense to drive due to parking costs and that, so I would get the bus instead. For some unknown reason I felt a bit embarrassed about this, so when on the bus I used to keep my car keys in my hand so they’d be visible to the other passengers. Just so they’d know I could actually drive, y’know 🙄

I cringe when I think back to this! I’m sure nobody even noticed, because why would they, but I get that hot feeling of embarrassment whenever I recall it 😳

Anyone else look back at things you used to do and think wtf was I thinking?!

I was a "I'm not like other girls" girl... loved it when people told me that, felt more comfortable around boys (with hindsight probably undiagnosed autism) 😂

Now I've learned (thanks to the wisdom of mumsnet) what a sexist position that is to take, and celebrate the women and the female friends in my life unreservedly 🙌

I've got hundreds of these probably but here are some I'll admit to - I used to go to drama club in my striped pyjama bottoms and slippers because I thought it looked good. Gawd knows what everyone else thought. I was about 15. Why did my parents let me go?
I also went through a stage of wearing my dad's clothes to school (jumpers, shirts, jackets). He used to get quite annoyed 😁 bless him.
I had a brief goth (lite) phase at 17 and used to go out with stockings and suspenders deliberately pulled down low so that you could see them under a tartan skirt with little lace up heeled ankle boots. Topped off the whole ensemble with a biker jacket which was miles too big and really heavy. Swish!

Name changed for this.

I used to dress in black cassocks and wear an upside down crucifix when I was as school. Everyone else wore uniform 😞
I also had a nose piercing and used to wear a huge ring in it.

I thought I was so hard. In reality I looked like Severus Snape.

photo is 1996

I am from rural Australia and for a while in my teens I pretended to talk like Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing. What a niche form of cringe.

I worked in the same work place as my ex who cheated on me with a girl also at work. We were due to get married in the December and broke up in October… I went to the halloween work party in my dress as a zombie bride…as you do…

These are all hilarious! The fake sex dream and black and white outfit particularly brilliant!

I also remember getting off with someone I really liked at uni and trying to act so attractive and erotic (having grown up with pornified examples of women having sex) that I was 'gasping' on purpose😂I think he thought I was kind of weird tbh (reasonably so) so that didn't last much longer

Oops ! Messed that post up … meant to be quoting one

Hello, me!

Probably not the reaction you were expecting but I think is awesome. Slightly deranged, of course, but awesome. And hey, we’ve (almost) all gone a little mad after a bad breakup

@NotAPriest Bravo on the photo evidence!

I made up a boyfriend when I was 14 too! Was just lonely and at an all girls’ school. Inexplicably based him on a semi famous sportstar so he was much older. Mad

It's the Facebook cringe memories for me, I was such a twat.
When DS3 was born (15 years ago- a lifetime of personalities away from where I am now hopefully) I announced I was in labour on Facebook

@SpinningOutWaitinForYa oh God I can raise you on that one 😬I was home from Uni for a few days. I bumped into my ex (who really was not anything to get excited about) ending up snogging him but then lost him at the end of the night. I had deleted his number.

So........I decided to go to his house pissed drunk and throw stones at his window. He had moved. The police arrived. They drove me home and laughed at me. I stupidly told my 'mates' what I had done 😰

In first year of sixth form everyone else seemed to get in to the local bars and clubs on the waterfront, despite only being 17. They would get dressed up, walk with confidence and doormen would open doors for them. I had no such sophistication, so I would always be the one they stopped in the doorway, demanding to see ID. Every weekend I would try to tag along but they soon realised I was holding them back, so kept 'losing' me on the way. I cringe to think how I used to follow them around like an annoying little sister even though I was probably one of the oldest. There was one time that was especially embarrassing. A doorman asked for my ID so I was fumbling in my bag pretending to look for it, knowing all I had was my provisional licence that clearly stated I was underage. In the end he sent me on my way in full view of my brother's mates and two of my old teachers while my 'friends' stood at the bar and pretended they didn't know me. That was years and years ago but the shame is still very real! These days I spend my Saturday nights in the sofa, the way I like them!🤣

Oh god yes!

I had one pop up the other day from 14 years ago. I never realised I was quite arrogant back then 😳

This would make all our cringes worth it!

When I was about 13, my best friend and I had a big crush on one of my older brother's friends, and we used to cycle past his house most days during the summer holidays in the hope of seeing him. The problem was, he lived on a farm about two miles outside our village, and the farmhouse was down a long driveway off the road, so it was impossible to make it look like we just happened to be passing. We used to have to do a sort of U-turn in front of the house and just cycle away again. His parents must have thought we were insane, especially on the occasion we left him a birthday card under a rock on the driveway instead of putting it through the letterbox. I can't remember what we were thinking but I imagine he was quite scared when he found that.

Me too! This thread has been so therapeutic

be really obsessed with any guy i was involved with for most of my twenties and write love letters to them, even long after we had stopped hooking up. why? i have no idea, i hardly fancy anyone these days.

Your friends were dicks @autumnaurora!

Oh god this brings up a memory! When I was 17 I met a 30 year old American called Kevin on ICQ (would’ve been the year 2000). He was coming over to the UK to see relatives (he said) in London and we agreed he’d come to visit me in the midlands.

Great, except he arrived on a Monday and came to meet me at my sixth form where he sat in classes with me and my friends (who were all, quite understandably, WTF?!!!) ALL DAY. Quite why none of my chemistry, physics or biology teachers didn’t challenge the presence of a borderline paed in the classroom puzzles me to this day.

He barely spoke at all which made it even weirder. No banter, no flirting (thankfully in hindsight), nothing. Just a slightly fed up expression and monosyllabic answers.

After school I convinced one of my male friends (with pretty much absent parents) to take him back to his for a bit, then legged it home and took the phone off the hook.

Next day friend arrives at school WITH KEVIN again. I can’t even remember how we got rid of him - I think my form tutor might have escorted him out of registration and school grounds.

He sent a message a couple of weeks later thanking me for the trip which hadn’t really been to his satisfaction. CRINGE!!!

When I was about 12 / 13 I had a massive, all consuming crush on an older boy at school. I used to stand in the local park calling his name convinced that the wind would carry my voice to him...

When I was about 14 I was trying to impress a guy by smoking, but I didn't actually know how so I used to take a big gulp after each puff because I thought that's how you inhaled.

I also wore BRIGHT unblotted red lipstick because I thought it was sexy and mysterious. I looked like Coco the clown.

@sep135 I meant to tag you - I can’t remember where ‘my’ Kevin was from unfortunately. Would love it if it was the same guy (I know, what are the odds !!!)