Apparently small things from your past that make you feel awful-anyone else?

[DannyWallace]

Just wondering if anyone is the same as me? Maybe you've done something by accident, but someone thought you meant something else and got insulted and you have no way to make amends. Does that make sense? 

So, my story is I was sitting outside a pub on a beautiful afternoon/evening with my 2 sisters. As a back story, we have a great, quite jokey relationship. DS1 is VERY into her looks, spends a lot of money on clothes/makeup but it's a bit of a running joke (no pun intended) that she keeps signing up for fitness events/personals trainers and only ever manages 1 session as she gets bored. She would rather stick to a strict diet than do any exercise, and fully admits that.

Anyway, we're sitting outside this pup. DS1 sitting opposite me and DS2 next to me. DS1 looks past us into the distance and says "her! Behind you! That'll be me soon". DS2 and I turned around and saw a woman out for a run. The woman looked fantastic-very slim, running very fast but didn't look like she was struggling....in fact she looked great. DS2 and I both burst out laughing, and we all had a joke saying that we'd actually pay DS1 to take up running as she just never sticks with things like that.

Anyway, as the runner got to us she gave us the finger and looked so upset/angry. She was wearing headphones and was obviously thinking we were laughing at her. This was around 6 years ago and I still feel absolutely awful!! I run quite a bit, but I'm definitely not a confident runner and think I would hide away if someone was openly laughing at me. But she ran off and I obviously had no way of finding her.

I actually feel a bit better for writing it down though. Anyone else?

@Ginfizplease she does rememer

Sorry posted too soon. She does remember if she's anything like me, but also I'm sure she knows children do stupid things and doesn't hold it against you.

Lipstick You're very kind, but he was definitely offended. Before he left he turned to my husband and said "Oh. So you don't like fruity drinks!" before pointedly looking at my extremely girly drink and going to sit by himself at the bar.

I was mortified.

Are you sure it wasn't the word 'husband' that he took as a warning shot ?

So, so many that run through my head at 3 in the morning reminding me about what a terrible person I am.

The worse though, I was about 20. Bus pulls up at a bus stop and the lady waiting with me (who I'd never met/spoken to) started struggling with a pram. Her little girl was standing waiting. Rather than offer to help with the pram I decided to pick the little girl up and put her on the bus. I mean how could I have thought that was good/helpful thing to do?! I realised afterwards and was too ashamed to ever use that bus stop again.

My other deep shame: I was given a gift. The giver asked if I still do the activity associated with the gift. For no reason I said "I guess I do now". Why would I say that?

Decorations I used my DH's name, not the word husband, and we'd already covered the fact we were newlyweds on honeymoon.

So confused by the posters trying to make @YreneTowers feel worse about something out of her control that happened ages ago on holiday.

When I was little (five or six) there was this toy (I think they’ve rereleased them) where it was a dog where you opened the stomach and she had puppies inside her. I desperately wanted this, but we didn’t have much money and my birthday was near Christmas and months away, which was the only occasion I might have had a chance at getting such a thing. My beloved grandad came to pick me up from school one day and told me he had a cuddly dog for me. I was overjoyed and raced back home with him to get it, only to find it was a cheaper, just a regular stuffed dog that didn’t have any puppies with it that he must have picked up off some market or other. Distraught, I started crying and saying it wasn’t the right one. My grandad was very upset he hadn’t pleased me and I was guilty and apologetic right away.

It’s something I carried a lot of guilt for years. We really weren’t well off at all, and even then I knew my grandad must have made sacrifices with his small pension and given up his own little luxuries that week to get it for me. I’m glad I brought it up when I was an adult, as he laughed about it and said I shouldn’t give it another moments thought as he has since passed away and I would have felt so much worse about it I hadn’t.

Nope, just wondered if there was anything that could be salvaged. However here's one:

I tried to cheer up a MNetter years after the fact and got told off.

@ToEarlyForDecorations very sorry, I misread the tone.

A friend of mine called off her wedding with two weeks notice, she met someone else about three months later and they became engaged within weeks. I bumped into them in a pub and offered my congratulations, she was gushing and showed me the ring, I admired it and said how lovely it was, her fiancé laughed and said " should be for the price it cost, I automatically replied " well you only do it once". I wanted the ground to swallow me up

When I was about 8 and off school ill one day, my mother entered a phone in competition This Morning to win £10k for Xmas.

We had a phone in the living room and another, separate line, in the kitchen for my dad’s work. When they were choosing the winner on TV I snuck into the kitchen and dialled the living room landline at the exact moment they dialled the winner.

My mum leapt up and screamed, she was shaking as she answered the phone. I had an instant ‘Oh fuck’ moment but too late. My 8 year old brain had thought it would be hilarious.

My mum cried. She was poor and worried sick about having no money for Christmas and really, really thought she’d won It still makes my stomach churn with guilt to think of it now, over 20 years later.

@whinetime89
"I was at university and standing outside the toilets with a friend. What i thought was a Male ( short hair/ dressed quite boyish,) came out of the ladies and I said loudly "that's the girls toilets!" And she replied " I know" ( very feminine voice)."

That exact thing happened to me, except I was the other person in the story! An usher at a theatre actually tried to stop me going into the ladies. She shouted across the hallway at me as I was walking towards the door - "excuse me... excuse me sir...that's the ladies..." I didn't click what the problem was so I just sort of looked blankly at her and kept going, and she panicked and trotted right up to me loudly repeating "NO, SIR, THAT'S THE LADIES" and I suddenly realised what she meant! Ridiculously I squawked "But I am a lady!" realising how like David Walliams I sounded. She went absolutely ashen and kept apologising over and over again, which made it way worse somehow... I just backed away saying "really, it's fine, honestly, don't worry about it". I mean, I'm nearly 6 foot, have very short hair, and was wearing my habitual uniform of DMs, jeans and a t-shirt. Can't blame her really.

@MicroManaged - argh, that's so painful. You were only little, I'm sure if your mum remembers at all, she will have forgiven you a long time ago.

I had just started at my new secondary school, however I knew one of boys, let’s call him A, as he was my neighbor. He had a stutter. He was one of my few male friends and he was a great guy, clever and funny and we all liked him. We had grown up together.
Anyhow... I am chatting to another friend not realising the new teacher had arrived and was asking questions to the people sitting at the front. My friend and I started giggling for a injoke I made. Suddenly the teacher asks the whole class to shoosh and then points at me telling me I should be ashamed and sends me out of the class.

While I was chatting and giggling with my friend, boy A was talking to her answering questions and apparently due to him being nervous to talk to a new teacher the stuttering had got worse. The teacher had assumed that I didn’t know A and that I was laughing at his stuttering!
When my friend told me that I felt mortified and I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. I did manage to clarify with him as we were friends and he knew me ... but I never got on with that teacher!

user1465335180 you could be me. I’m always doing this. I seem to have this unerring ability to totally misread a situation. The mortifying feeling when you realise later is excruciating and it’s far too late by then rectify it. I sure I’ve alienated people without meaning to on a regular basis.

I am an over thinker too and hate to offend. I was at a childs birthday party recently, most of the mothers from other parts of Europe. One of the Mothers mentioned the preschool to say her child learnt very little English for primary school. My friend runs the preschool I said yes the staff have a real issue with DC starting with no English, as they are there to teach english and it is hard to communicate or comfort the non english speakers. The DM was upset and others got annoyed. I tried to explain myself but it got worse.

*not there

When I was ten a girl who I was friends with at school told us the her older male cousin told her to take off her clothes and get into his bed and they kissed. I don’t think any of us said anything to the teacher/our parents. I Denver thinking it was wrong then forgetting about it. We both loved schools and lost touch. I only remembered about it when I saw her post #metoo and I feel so fucking guilty for not telling her mother. I know I was just a child but I could tell it was wrong. Why didn’t I say anything? I keep wanting to message her on fb to ask her if she is ok and to apologise but I don’t think it would be welcome. I am also a bit worried that she has repressed it and I don’t want to trigger her remembering. I just keep wonder what else he did to her that I could have prevented. Did she ever tell anyone? How long did it take for him to stop? Did he do it to other children? And so on.

When I was younger a male friend of mine told me he was gay i was one of the first people he told.
We both went to single sex catholic schools so its not as if it was 'normal' at the time. I told him he could tell people I was his girlfriend if he needed to make up a story - and for the past 12 months and more I've felt worse and worse about it.
I was one of the first people he told and my gut reaction was to help him hide it, instead of helping him live it.
There was no real harm done, we're still in touch and I've told him how sorry I am, I had the best of intentions but had no idea how to support him and wish id done it differently - we were young and it was a different time, but i still wish i could change that little thing.

I asked a heavily pregnant customer when her baby was due. She said “I’m not pregnant”.

I had a colleague whose hair I admired because it was always beautiful and perfectly styled. At a party I joked that she must be wearing a wig. In that moment I realised that she was.

About 10 years ago, I was walking down the street and put my hand in my handbag to find my bottle of water. A homeless girl who was sat nearby smiled at me so I smiled back. Wasn't until I had walked straight past her that I realised that she must have thought I was getting some money for her. Still feel bad about it!

When I was 17 I gave a friend a lift home in my car after college and my best friend was in the front.

As we pulled into her street I said something like "I love to see where people live and what their house is like" and my best friend gasped and said how rude I was in absolute disgust.

I think she took it as I like to judge people on whether their house was nice or not. I meant it as in it's interesting to see the other side of their life, cause we only ever see them at college and not in their home life. Clearly it didn't come out that way! It annoys me still all these years later that I didn't shut up or word it better!

Reading the title to this thread, the thing that came to mind was being out playing as a child and 2 older girls that I didn't know passed me.

One said to the other, "I hate that kid". I didn't know them, had never done anything to offend them as far as I know. For years I internalised that, as being just worthy to be hated for who I was. Only recently have disentangled myself from those feelings.

But this thread has really helped. Has occurred to me that perhaps they regret it and would change it if they could.

Posting this to encourage all of you who've been brave enough to post, thank you!

There’s a lesson to be learned here that we don’t always think before we speak and that we shouldn’t always assume.
I was joked at by the man at the restaurant which did pizza “i only ever see you when you’re pregnant “. I wasn’t. But that was me looking chunky post- partum !

When I was at primary school there was only one black girl in the school, in the year above me. (Rural midlands in the 80s!)
She was amazing at gymnastics and one playtime she was doing some kind of routine and for some reason I came out with ‘you’re just like coco the clown.’

She completely took offence even though I didn’t mean it in a racist way at all. I was about 7 and didn’t know the meaning of the word - it wouldn’t have occurred to me. I’ve often thought of how much racism she must have faced in those times.