AIBU and weird? Secondary embarrassment.

[TheFastandCurious]

I get so embarrassed / uncomfortable at things that have nothing to do with me that I can’t deal with it.

Example; those practical joke shows where people are making fools of themselves for a laugh.

Most people cringe for others but also find it funny. I have to turn the tv off because I feel so embarrassed even though I’m not there and it’s got absolutely nothing to do with me!

My DH thinks I’m so weird. Am I alone or does the cringing for others get too much for anyone else?

@chuckyeggtimestwo oh my goodness I am laughing so much at that thank you!

@TheFastandCurious Yes. I sometimes lie awake at night worrying about a stupid thing I said a hundred years ago that you can absolutely guarantee no one but me remembers. Sometimes I’ll be doing something unrelated and a thought like that leaps into my mind and I physically shudder and go red.

@fecketyfeck21 100% with you on that one—I can’t bear ‘joining in’. One of the (first) world’s most hideous concepts: audience participation

@CycleWoman That’s the kind of thing that would get me too. I’m for sure going to hell for saying this, but kids (especially shouty kids’ choirs) singing is one of the things that makes me want to hide behind something with my fingers in my ears. I realise IABU.

loud performance parenting in public and the furtive looking around to see if anyone is looking,

cars that fart, er sorry the souped up boy racers with the noisy exhausts, no, the def fart, not cool guys
people that put their foot down on the pedal and race past then have to slam the brakes on hard for the traffic lights. that's cringy but i still laugh at them

My daughter is like this - gets up and leaves the room for really awkward scenes of films/teen comedies, etc. I can handle those, but weirdly, can't watch first dances at weddings! I find them excruciating - and didn't have one at ours.

incorri with you i dislike choirs too, kids, grannies, charity any of them.

@CurbsideProphet The word for it in German is 'Fremdschamen' which translated is 'Stranger shame' and describes the feeling perfectly.

Oh yes, I'm forever flicking to another channel because I just can't bear to watch.

Fremdschämen forgot the Umlaut !

Omg, I'd rather die than go to a panto because of the clapping in/stragglers thing and audience participation, I feel all funny just thinking about it.

Oh GOD.
I have a terrible habit of, when someone farts in a meeting or scrapes their chair or something, going flaming tomato and sweating as if I'd done it, which of course is like a blatant admission of guilt. But it's not me! Of course whoever it was stays totally cool and unflapped as I've just saved their arse, literally.

@MidgeRidge Same on first dances—epic cringe! We didn’t have one either. I always have to ‘go to the loo’ during the first dance at weddings. Worse still are the ‘father/daughter dances’ that are apparently a thing now.

I think people making a show of themselves or wanting to be the center of attention just disagrees with me...

There's a new thing on Radio 2 that I can't bear to listen to. I think Sara Cox does it. She broadcasts someone on the phone to an unsuspecting friend who has to be induced to say a certain phrase.

Aaaaaargh! I've never listened to to more than a few seconds of it - it's just so awful!

This is so much like me!! My skin crawls when someone tells an unfunny story on Graham norton’s red chair, or a best man gives a speech which people don’t laugh at.

Or when someone asks someone out and gets declined, even though it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, I can’t bear it!

I break out in a cold sweat thinking of Christmas Carole singers at the door. Them singing expectantly, me standing there awkwardly wanting the ground to swallow me up knowing they want me to clap and smile. Dear god!

I hate Radio phone-ins and competitions too.

Carol singers are genuinely my worst nightmare. Thankfully they don't seem to be much of a thing in my area.

I didn't have a dance at all at my wedding but my sister did, and I didn't think she was showing off. That's just a wedding tradition. I mean, you could say anything about a wedding is "wanting to be the centre of attention" if you are gong to be really picky. Standing up the front of the church all on your own? Wearing a long white dress? Inviting guests just to watch you get married, etc. Why single out the first dance?

Rock choir.
Women singing, wearing matching t-shirts, swaying to the music and sometimes clapping, Gahhhhhhhhhhh.

Oh, God, another, when people on Come dine with me have singers as the entertainment.

Yes, I'm like this. I often wonder how politicians can keep going after they've been caught lying or whatever. I would be too embarrassed to appear in public ever again but it doesn't seem to affect them.

I even feel it every time I see the clip of Teresa May dancing Me too, I can't watch it and I don't even like her. And then she went and did it again!

I can't watch scenes in dramas when I suspect someone is going to get caught doing something they shouldn't - like searching someone's room or whatever.

I sort of bristled when people upthread said it was weird but, having typed that, I begin to suspect that it actually is rather an odd reaction.

I sort of know what you mean. I cannot bear slapstick comedy that takes the piss out of someone e.g. FawltyTowers, though am ok with 'level playing field' slapstick.

I feel something like an extended net of responsibility, as if I am partly responsible for other people's behaviour, including actors and makers of TV programmes. As if being in its presence somehow makes me partly responsible.

I find your views on singing odd though, I think you've made a category error in identifying 'suitable places for singing', which do in fact include on-street carol singers, families singing in cars - where everyone is equally happy to do so etc.

I think I mentioned families in cars. I genuinely find it creepy and weird and awkward. It's such a Waltons' type thing to do. Likewise carol singers Why the hell would I want a group of random people to sing at me until I have to pay them to go away.

@velourvoyageur that made me laugh out loud as I’m the same. I have thoughts sometimes too like, ‘wouldn’t it be awkward if people thought I fancied so-and-so,” and then of course I act really weirdly and guiltily for no other reason than my brain saying it would be awkward

Rock choir.

Oh yes that’s an awful one.

I’m absolutely 100% in favour of people getting involved in things they enjoy. My friend is in one. It’s good clean fun eh? But I can’t stop and watch when I see one, I just can’t. The actions and “grooving”

To me it's out of context because to me it's not a normal thing to do. It makes me cringe so much.