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?

@ravenmum I have no idea. We had as few guests as we could get away with for precisely that reason. The thought of anyone wanting to be the center of attention just brings me out in a cold sweat. I think, for me, seeing anyone that isn’t a highly-trained professional singing, dancing, amateur dramatics etc just makes me want to hide. Like I said, prepared to accept IABU at times. But it seems I’m not alone!

Yep vicarious embarrassment I suffer it very badly I’m likely ASD though and my son is similar and he has aspergers .
Recent things that set me off were carol singers at Christmas coming into my work place and singing with gusto while I died inside and ‘ cast members ‘ acting roles in my hotel restaurant while we ate dinner . I felt like clawing my skin off . I love cringey humour films / programmes etc just seems to be real life situations normally involving over confident people .

I also cringe as soon as I see someone with an acoustic guitar in public because the odds are that they're going to start playing the bloody thing, even though no one asked them to.

I also want to die for people doing flash mobs ...awful

Recent things that set me off were carol singers at Christmas coming into my work place and singing with gusto while I died inside

Is it the earnest overenunciation? When singing to like 5 people? I find it excruciating.

Also suspect ASD.

Thank you @schnubbins!

Stranger Shame definitely sums it up for me

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

No no no! On my doorstep, busking in the street or in someone’s living room are not suitable places for singing or something everyone is happy with.

It’s a danger to life with some of likely to die of secondary embarrassment

i used to hide behind a book or hide my face - the book worked better with IL - now I'll swap channels or leave the room.

Bit hardened now - as we go in cinema more - and as it's more public thus harder to hide.

The red chair would be one particularly OTT gushy bits in soaps or films.

Don't mind panto - one once had Christmas Carole singers I was quit unprepared as I was expecting an amazon parcel. I’m afraid I was quite rude and automatically shut the door in horror - they were young lads late teens no young children or OAPs I would have felt I had to be polite to though still I felt bad for ages.

I also want to die for people doing flash mobs

Sorry, posting too much but these are all pushing my buttons.

The choreographed flash mobs when Michael Jackson died, in my city they had rehearsals and ‘lead dancers’ and everything. They took it so seriously. I saw the start of the video and I just couldn’t watch, I was dying for them.

Sorry, posting too much but these are all pushing my buttons

Same!

The plane clapping, I have seen when there's been turbulence during the flight for example - it's people showing their appreciation of the pilot (I think) especially if the pilot has been particularly nice and reassuring on the speaker system.

Sometimes they have clapped because of a particularly bad landing, banging it down on the runway and a never ending skid to a sudden halt. People are clapping in a jokey/solidarity way.

Yes, I totally get what you mean.
I'm the same.
I think it's as though I'm seeing it from their perspective and knowing how I would be feeling if that happened to me.
I've even found myself blushing on behalf of someone dropping a plate of food in a cafe before, then asking if they are OK (which probably embarrassed the poor sod even more, but I just felt for them!).

Another time I tripped over myself when rushing home from school with the kids. Fell smack on the pavement (wasn't badly hurt but had a badly gashed leg).
A lady came to me and she actually had tears in her eyes from empathy on my behalf! She was so lovely.
I think it's just human nature, although not everyone experiences it in that way!

PineappleSeahorse Singing in cars is a normal thing to do. Alone or with (willing) family members. You're just stating 'your normal' as 'the normal' there. Like saying 'watching ITV is not a normal thing to do'. You might not do it, it might not suit your personal sensibilities, you might not identofy with what you perceive as the 'tribe' of people who do it but many people do: it is 'a normal thing to do'.

How do you feel about singing in church?

I really do understand the discomfort at other people's cringeworthily bad public performances. That is worlds away from cheerfully singing in private.

witchoutfit

Oh I think we all understand why these things happen. The logical part of our brains knows why people clap, sing, prank etc.

It doesn’t help the weird, inexplicable feeling some of us get on behalf of others.

That's why I said it isn't normal to me though I've never encountered anyone who does it IRL.

So funny what people are embarrassed by, though; some things I'd never have come up with the idea. Christmas carollers just want money, is it because you have to wait for them to finish? :D

I wonder if it's cultural, might ask around and see if any of my German friends have the same problem. I mean, there's a German word for it, but I can't imagine people using it for some of these examples!

As for church, you just reminded me how much Songs of Praise makes me cringe, and also genuinely spooks me. I'm an Atheist and the sight of so many people singing enthusiastically about and to someone who as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist gives me the shivers. Especially when they start swaying, clapping and the guitars and tambourines come out.

I'm autistic. I like things just so and in their place, for example I like musicals but if anything IRL begins to feel like a real life musical I can't bear it.

Actually, I think the cringe thing with a lot of things mentioned here is the seriousness that some people do them with. I am OK with some cringe things where the person/people have a knowing twinkle in their eye sort of thing, but it's when it's grown adults doing something that is outside my comfort zone, can make them look silly, but done in an entirely earnest fashion. It's cringe watching grown adults performing like earnest small children.

My DS was squirming and cringing knowingly whenever I caught his eye on the Nativity play come to think of it. He's a confident not shy kid but quite self-aware and even at 4 he knew adults were oohing and ahhing in an "aren't they ever so cute, oh just look at the little ones!" way and I think he found the audience cringe for their gooey emotion! He's obviously inherited my cringe factor!

I hate "wedding entertainment". A singer giving it their all while guests stand about awkwardly not knowing whether they should chat / stay silent out of politeness, when or if to clap. That gives me the cringe.

Yes to Rock Choir. My best friend who is Mrs Sensible, never draws attention to herself, calm and collected professional woman, has recently joined Rock Choir. She loves it, says it makes her cry she loves it so much and is now doing gigs with them. Obviously I'm supporting her and encouraging her, but OMG, I'm mortified .

Also, went to a super-cringey wedding recently where the evening entertainment was the couple's young adult / teen kids doing their thing. One played an instrument a bit, one did singing and dancing reasonably well and two of them sang. Neither could carry a tune in a bucket, one was just plain screeching and they went on and on for hours. It was horrendous. People (not us) were openly laughing at them.

Would it help to know that swaying and using tambourines is a good, practical way to stay in the right rhythm, and not necessarily a sign that someone is in raptures about the music?

@lottiegarbanzo I’m not a regular church goer, but I was invited to go with friends when I stayed with them a few years ago. The only church I’d ever been to before that was quite quiet and conservative. This one, however, people were singing at the top of their lungs (and many off key), waving their arms about. One man threw himself to his knees on the ground. I had to leave I was so embarrassed.

Sorry for over-posting on this one, too. It’s so nice to talk to others about what I thought was just my weirdness!

Ok, I just want to make that distinction between 'performance' and 'in private'. (I grew up singing in cars because I don't think we had a radio, or it didn't work very well and it's something you can do in cars, involving everyone and not distracting the driver too much.

But with singing, there is also a dostinction to make between 'performance' and 'participation', whereby lot of people sing because they love doing so and makes them feel good - it takes them out of themselves and beyond distractions like secondary embarrassment for a while! Singing in church or in mnay choirs is like that, everyone together, no-one 'performing' or listening too closely to everyone else.

Having said that, I don’t mind clapping on planes or singing!

But agree I don’t know how some people can show their face in public. I heard Damian Green MP on LBC the other day, who allegedly watched “extreme” porn on his work computer and I was just cringing. I can barely show my face in public because I have in the last got drunk and said something stupid on occasion!

My friend told me about when he went to a "character meal", at Disney, now Mickey mouse etc, fine, dressed up, doesn't talk, but Cinderella, or The mad hatter, like real people talking to you as if they are those people?
I'd have ran screaming to get away, that's just cringe.