Something you’ve done or said as an adult that now makes you cringe/embarrassed.

[Conniebygaslight]

Just reading another thread and it made me think about things that I’ve said or done in the past but that I would never do now. I do find myself more forgiving of younger adults though so maybe that’s the way… it goes but I do cringe at my younger behaviour.

I was in my early 20s and a few of us went wedding dress shopping with a colleague. I tried on so many dresses and made the whole trip about me. I wasn’t getting married and the bride was about 10 years older than me and didn’t seem bothered but I’ve often thought about it and how awful it must have been. It makes my toes curl….I’m early 50s now and soooo different.

Omg 🤭
Did the CEO ever say anything about it?

Not me that said the embarrassing thing but my DH...we both jokingly refer to hot beverages as "A hot Beverly" (no, I don't know why either! 😅😳😅) and it's a silly joke we have between us.

One day, my DH absent mindedly asked a tradesmen who was doing a job for us if he'd like "a hot Beverly" to drink... it was so cringe-worthy and embarrassing at the time, and I still chuckle at how the tradesmen didn't even have any reaction at all, nor look the least bit concerned as to what he'd been asked! Maybe he called hot drinks by our moniker too! 😳😅

Never! He thankfully seems to have chosen to forget about it. My ears still ring with shame at the thought.

I'm a clumsy fucker and have gone to shake hands with a man and thrust my hands into his crotch before now. He looked surprised (as well he might!) and we both pretended like I hadn't just reached for his knob

Perhaps he makes an effort not to waffle on when you're in meetings now though 😂

I was once stopped at a busy road at a pedestrian crossing with a few other people, when it was time to cross we all moved forward, my dd was only small at the time and thinking she was with me I held out my hand to take hers except she wasn't with me and I ended up grasping the hand of an elderly lady

Early 2000s, I was in my early 20s and shopping in a HMV with my then boyfriend. He’d wandered off at one point to look at something but I spotted him in an aisle, sidled up to the left hand side of him browsing through CDs and, without talking, rubbed him affectionately on his belly, just above his waistband/jeans to effectively say hi I’m here.

He said nothing but pushed my hand away. I thought that was weird. Must be being a moody git but no reason for it, so I stroked him again, same place.

Next thing my hand is pushed away even more firmly and a voice (that wasn’t my BFs) says “Do you mind? Can you stop touching me?”

For the first time I properly looked at the man to my right and realised I’d been lovingly caressing someone who wasn’t my partner but a 50 something, bearded and rather unattractive man, who just happened to be wearing a very similar shirt to my boyfriend.

Obviously I was mortified, apologised and slunk off very quickly. Much to the amusement of my BF when telling him why we needed to leave the store immediately!

It was only after the fact that I realised some of the sting was down to a slightly bruised ego - a young attractive girl being so utterly, abjectly and publicly rejected by an older fellow! 🤣

@Moonshiners how mortifying and hilarious.

I know I have plenty of embarrassing moments but I’m drawing a blank. The only thing coming to me is how I sometimes suddenly forget a person’s name even when I have known them a long time.

I was out with a friend and we bumped into a couple of other friends of mine. I introduced them to him and when I said this is my good friend… suddenly my mind went blank and I couldn’t recall his name. He had to supply it himself. I had never forgotten his name before, we’d known each other a couple of years. I felt awful and apologised. He was pretty nice about it.

Dh called me Mummy pig in Daddy pig's voice in front of a waiter. We were on a couples date.

I'm half asleep and read this as hand cuffs. I was a bit when I saw the following posts re this being a gift just for him and not that bad!

Sadly still a waffler 😂

I'm definitely picturing Bridget Jones with this 😂

My whole life is one big cringe.. however, one that will always make me cringe is asking a Scottish man if he spoke Scottish. What I meant was do you use Scottish phrases (he no longer lives in Scotland) but yeah, I still cringe and I think about it all the time!

I did apologise to him after a while, so I cleared the air regarding that.. but still.. 😬😬

Not me but my colleague. We were home carers and one night she went to a client she hadn't attended to for quite a while. She had been widowed in the previous few months. She walked and said, good evening Gladys, how are you keeping. Is your husband still dead?

The THUMBS

Dying.

I went on a Hen Do and wore white 😶

I was about 18/19, it was for a friends mum
who was getting married (who was wearing all black). It was my first ever Hen Do and I had a white turtle neck jumper, white jeans with a pink trench coat over the top. Genuinely didn’t even put 2 and 2 together.

I look back on all the photos and just cringe.

CRYING 🤣🤣🤣

A guy came round to do some work on the house share I was living in at the time (early 2000s). He's up a ladder with tools, I'm tidying things up, and we're chatting about how great it was that you could watch old drama series on cable tv, like The Sweeney.

So I decide to quote at him, you know in a bants way, like you do with men who do work on your house. And I stand next to his ladder and yell "YOU SLAAAAAG" up at him. He looks proper alarmed, really, at this young woman yelling obscenities at him out of the blue, and goes "I'm sorry? What?" So I explain that I'm quoting from that show we're talking about, you know, The Sweeney, how John Thaw says You Slag all the time. And at this stage I'm really really thinking that I've got to stop saying You Slag to this poor guy who I can tell is wondering if there's any way he can run, fast, while staying up a ladder.

But there isn't, so he stays there, and his entire upper body shifts in the direction away from me, and he goes "oh right, yeah, yeah, John Thaw, yeah".

He didn't want a cup of tea.

About 20 years ago I thought it was my brother at a cash machine so I went up behind him and started ruffling his hair and making a stupid noise. When he turned around it wasn't my brother but a random man looking at me perplexed. I fell backwards in shock and my oranges rolled out of my bag onto the road. I just jumped up, scooped up my oranges while looking in horror and then ran off in a chaotic way like Mr Bean, all while this man and bystanders were just standing watching me shell shocked 😳

I also remember probably about 20 years ago now I visited a regional office for a meeting with some people I had never previously met. There was some changing around of the meeting rooms, so I first knocked on the door for the meeting room on the original invite and stuck my head in as I really was confused as to which room my meeting was in.

The two men who were occupying the room explained the rooms had been swapped and pointed me to the right room down the corridor. I thanked them, and turned to leave. To this day don’t know how but I basically tripped over my own feet stepping back out of the doorway, fell backwards out of the door and landed flat on my back in the corridor outside.

I might possibly have got away with it but of course the meeting rooms were fully floor to ceiling glass fronted, so both men got a front row seat to my clumsiness!

Lying on my back in the corridor, I remember praying they would just ignore it, so I might be able to exit with a modicum of my dignity intact. But as I’m peeling myself off the floor to a vertical position one of them opens the door and asks if I’m ok and if I need help getting up.

I was mortified, to the extent that I avoided visiting that office for about 6 years just in case I ever bumped into them and they recognised me.

I just knew for a fact that they would have headed back to their desks and told everyone the funny story about the clumsy oaf of a woman who tripped herself up outside the meeting room. To be fair, it’s what I would have done in their place but it still makes me cringe when I think of it!

Not me but exH.
We were once on the bus and he had man flu. As we were getting off at our stop, he tripped over a lady's bag strap and as he twisted around to stop his fall, he landed in her lap.
I should point out that he had learning difficulties and issues with making sentences make sense etc, and he looked up and her, literally pressed against her body and said "Sorry, I'm sick and twisted."
I had quite a strong urge to pretend I didn't know him at that point. After our divorce I always wondered if he did/said it all on purpose for a reaction.

This thread is a tonic. I feel seen etc.

One that comes to mind is approaching a former star lecturer in a quiet bar, where he was sat at a table with another man.

I hadn't seen him since the course, which I had loved, so I bounced over and stood over them, asking how he was, making reference to stuff that had been current last time we met.

Every single thing I asked about, "how did your wedding go"? "Are you still working at X", "When is your book out?" had turned to shit, and got a one line answer.

"We split up"
"I got the sack."
"The publisher dropped me" etc

He didn't introduce me to the other guy and clearly just wanted me, angel of bad memories, to disappear. I scuttled off.

I later heard he'd taken a shit on the desk of the manager of X that sacked him.

FABULOUS!! Snorted out loud

The gas man was coming to look at the boiler in the spare room airing cupboard. Young chap, I led him upstairs and as I opened the cupboard door we were confronted by my knickers drying and said "Oops, I'll just remove my underwear!" I gasped and covered my mouth when I realised what I'd said but he just carried on looking straight at the boiler, jaw set, didn't even snigger! Probably thought I was a desperate housewife!! 😅

I was at a conference which had a guest speaker who was well-known as a bit of a player with younger women but had just got married.

He had brought his new wife to the conference and it was so awkward as she was just standing dumbly by him and no one was engaging in conversation with her. I was absolutely stunned how young she looked. He was about 50 and she honestly looked not much more than 19 or 20. But I willed myself into a friendly, non-judgmental sort of facial expression and went up to speak to her so she didn’t feel too much like a fish out of water.

I didn’t have much to say as I knew very little about her other than he’d married his last young conquest so I said “ You must be X’s wife “ in what I thought was a neutral and totally chilled voice. She suddenly was anything but quiet and award and crowed out in the loudest voice that made everyone in the room stop and listen: “ F#%k no! Even Dad isn’t THAT much of a cradle snatcher! I’m 13!”