What have you done or said in the past..that makes you cringe looking back??

[PerkyMits]

I’ll go first;
We went to a neighbours party (40th birthday) and didn’t take so much of a bottle or present to celebrate.
Looking back I’ve no idea why not, but feel guilty that I didn’t!

Said out loud that Nicola Sturgeon was the sort of politician that the whole of the UK needed. That comment aged really badly.

Far too many to dredge up here! But one example: at my stepsons wedding, I said to his mother at the reception: ‘the formal part’s all done you can take your pants off and have fun’! I meant to say ‘you can let your hair down…’ 😳

A guy at work always used to joke about my appearance (I looked a lot younger than my age for a long time). So when he was turning 35, I jokingly said in the open office about him turning 40. At his birthday EVERYONE got him '40' cards 🙄. I had to apologise to him and everyone for my 'joke'. Fortunately he saw the funny side of it and said he didn't fear turning 40 any more! 🤐

Most of the things I said in my 20s

So many things. So, so many. I’ve pretty much managed to bury them but sometimes the memories rise up from the swamp.

I used to get stupidly flirty when drunk. Even if I was in a relationship. I never crossed a line or came onto anyone just acted flirty. It's mortifying now as I still know lots of people from my younger years

Pretty sure I once said similar about Andy Burnham 😭

Yes this.

I work for a very large organization and early in my career I was interviewed for an employee profile for our internal magazine. I said something completely inane about valuing work life balance and not checking emails outside work hours. I was extremely junior employee in my 20s with no outside life pressures to speak of - and no one was pressuring me for anything outside work hours then.
Now in my 40s with senior responsibilities and children I cringe thinking what my seniors then must have thought! Thankfully it seems to have disappeared from the internet now, finally.

About 2 weeks ago telling my boss I was more than happy doing a presentation to the whole department. Then today proceeded to put the wrong background on and didn’t share my slides properly over Teams. Fucking dullard, years presenting and delivering training and then cock this up.

ugh.

I remember too many cringe moments and not enough of the good ones - isn't that part of the human condition? I wish I could remove them from my memory, cos I'm sure nobody else remembers them.

I used to be so cocky and full of myself I would tell guys I was seeing they would fall in love with me

I have been told this by men and now think what a twat but at the time I was intrigued by their confidence

I'm a walking bucket of cringe - so many embarrassing moments.

I asked someone to read Weinstein when I meant Wittgenstein 😬

I completely accidentally imitated someone's physical disability- I was demonstrating how I walked when I hurt my foot and looked up to see someone with a limp walking past. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

When a waiter says 'have a good meal,' I always inadvertantly reply 'you too'.

wow how wild

Loads of things ! I was a very naive person in my 20s and done loads wrong and said loads of things wrong too. I do cringe., but can’t turn back the clocks

Not taking the hint that he just wasn't that into me.

From several men

Cringe

Pretty much anything I said or did before turning 40

In job interview when I was 21, I was asked about something and I didn't know what it was. So I made something up. They didn't react in any particular way so I assumed what I said was fine. When I got back I looked it up and what I said couldn't have been more wrong, it was very cringey! I did not get the job

At my last job one of the senior leaders was presenting to us all and started crying halfway through. She said to me afterwards that she was so embarrassed and couldn't believe that she didn't hold it together. I'll never forget it because I was mortified on her behalf. I often wonder if some of my previous most humiliating moments are actually so bad that other people haven't forgotten about them either!

Texting a guy I had a huge crush on 'happy half birthday!'. I only knew him to hang out with via friends and had no business knowing when his birthday was, except that I'd facebook stalked him and worked out that it was his exact half-birthday that day, not that that's even a thing. Seemed like a cracking excuse to make contact with him and I felt delighted with myself at the time; obviously my toes curls just thinking about it now. I think he replied that he had no idea and politely thanked me, ugh.

Many more where that came from! They torture me regularly.

Many things in my 20s! Getting drunk and getting lost trying to get home. I'd recently moved cities. The police brought me home!

I used to work in a place where, bizarrely, lots of people shared the same first names and surnames. Anyway, I had a mate there called let’s say Matthew Smith and my boss was Matthew Jones. One day I wrote an email to my friend moaning about my boss - but I got confused with the names and sent it straight to my boss instead 😬

I used to get overwhelmed and cry in jobs. The shame.

Sounds like he FAFO'd. Good for you!

Wow. How rude.

I have too many to list op but some include messing about with a colleague and sending a stupid inane email to the chief executive of the huge company by writing it and accidentally pressing send. Think Alan Sugar type big. Hopefully it went to his pa instead.

I also held on too long with men who were obviously not that into me.

I told a friend of a friend who I was massively in awe of who was showing me a photo of her dd that said dd looked like a cheeky little madam. I meant to say gorgeous cherub 🤦‍♀️