make me feel better by telling me about cringing at yourself

[CrinolinMcCringe]

I had an appointment with a man I fancied a bit in a professional context.
He asked me how I was and I didn't just overshare, it was like projectile vomiting sharing. The worst bit is that after I left I realised I was subconcious trying to impress him but really it was like I'd vomited on him with my life. I keep thinking about it and I want to die. I don't know him at all and the 'how are you' question was that very English thing of not a real question which makes it worse.

Please tell me something you've done that made you cringe to make me feel better.

Oh my goodness! 🤣

That’s had tears of laughter streaming down my face. You poor thing.

I've been giggling at this for about 10 minutes so far 🤣 cracking mental image of you hovering there lol

I was loading the shopping into the boot of the car when the car started to roll, in a complete panic I clung to the car yelling at my daughter to jump in and pull the handbrake. My daughter, completely confused and slightly mortified at the scene I was making, stood and watched as I realised our car wasn't moving at all, the car next to us was reversing out.

I was advised to go to A&E during lockdown and was admitted with a form of Sepsis that meant I had a blood clot in my jugular vein. I was really quite ill but fortunately not in ICU because they started my treatment early enough. Part of that was morphine, which with the pressure in my brain led me to be largely out of it, except for short periods where I presented as tired and almost drunk-like.

My arm started swelling due to the length of the blood clot, which started in my brain and extended down my jugular vein to the vein branch that extended down my arm.

To confirm this, I was taken in a wheelchair to ultrasound where 2 doctors had to scan my shoulder area. I remember not wanting them to lift my arm up, and when they were coaxing me to, I said, 'I haven't shaved my armpits!'. They said it didn't matter, to which I replied, in my best drunken style attitude, 'It may not matter to you, but it matters to me!'

Poor doctors! They confirmed the blood clot was blocking the vein. A few days later, when I was more lucid, I wanted to die with shame. A few days later, one of the doctors who had scanned my armpit came to see me - apparently this form of Sepsis is very rare and there was a lot of interest in my case. He asked me how I was feeling and if I'd had the opportunity to shave my armpits yet!😳 He said lockdown was tough on hospital staff and my reaction to the morphine had made his day! When I was finally allowed to shower on my own, the nurses celebrated when I emerged from the bathroom with tidy pits!!

Oh god I'm off with the uncontrollable giggles again 🤣

I was about 15 and a male friend from school asked if I wanted to go to his house. I said yes, got ready excitedly and went.
His family were very forward and jokey, and his Dad seemed hell bent on embarrassing us both. At one point, he asked me if I was wearing make up. I panicked, as I didn't want it to suddenly seem obvious that I wanted to impress his Son, so the first words out of my mouth were "Um...I don't know."

First year of high school, so I was 11. We used to do a warm up exercise where the form tutor would ask a bunch of random questions, some really easy and others quite difficult. She asked how many days there are in February. I rarely put my hand up to answer questions as I was shy, but I did it this time and confidently said "Eighteen." There was an eruption of laughter, and then I realised that was my birthday that I'd shouted out...

Like most Americans, I can play basketball a bit. It's a good way to impress kids here, where it is not such a common skill. Anyway, I was hanging out with my teen and their friends and offered to help even up the teams. I dribbled circles round them and executed a lovely layup which I wouldn't usually manage. Obviously I was very pleased with myself. I stood there for a moment soaking up their astonishment that an overweight 40-something could do such a thing. I thought I'd better quit while I was ahead, before they realised it was a fluke.

I turned slowly to leave the court, fell over nothing, and landed flat on my face, injuring myself rather badly.

If you are shown a photo on someone else’s phone you should never swipe. It’s rude. So it was her fault really. 😊

This is most definitely a thing @OliveWah! But I know it as any four-legged thing, not just a dog. I imagine it’s a very old superstition.

Some of these stories are so funny for how unreasonable we are with our embarrassments. ID-ing a policeman as part of your job, mishearing a TV programme name when you were seven, not knowing your limping GP had an artificial leg - forgive yourselves! These are totally not embarrassing things, and please let MN release you from the cringe!

Other ones, like falling over or behaving rudely when you didn’t know better - I have tonnes of these and god they still make me die inside. This thread is resurfacing horrible memories… 😂

Sounds like you were just being vulnerable and honest. It shows you much have trust this person at some deep level. I think you were brave 🩷

I wonder if the lady he did this to also tells it as an amusing anecote?

I was told in my equality & diversity training that it's OK to say things like that. I speak to anyone with a disability just like I would anyone else, with exceptions of course

I was at my first ever interview for an admin job xxx years ago. The interviewer was asking about my hobbies and interests. Being a school leaver I didn’t have much to say, so in desperation I told her I had a tortoise! I still cringe when I think about it.

Oh god, I have loads. A few that spring to mind...

During the pandemic I had a meeting with a potential new client, which was super important to me as my business had lost a fair few customers due to lockdown. As we were on lockdown the meeting was going to be done by Zoom and I was a bit nervous about my sales ability and ability to make a personal connection through a screen. Anyway the meeting took place at the appointed time, the prospective client team consisted of two elderly and extremely posh men - tweed jackets, barbours, opulent funishings in the background etc. The meeting was going surprisingly well until I tried to use my phone to bring up a piece of information and accidentally hit a video I had been watching that morning and had paused. It was a radfem activist and into the silence of the meeting she shouted FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!! FUCK EM!! Arrrgghh...I was scrabbling to turn it off whilst the two elderly chaps looked a little disconcerted...I did not get the business.

Another work one: I'd been doing 16 hours days back to back during an exceptionally busy period. After a couple of weeks of this I was really running on empty and in fact I was so sleep deprived that I was starting to muddle up my words or be unable to find common words to complete a sentence. I had been on the phone chasing up a big invoice from a customer and he assured me he would make a BACS that day. I tried to say 'That's lovely' (a Welshism) but then at the same time started to say 'Thank you' and what came out was a shouted 'I LOVE YOU!!!' Then I hung up. Cringe!!!

@Charmatt
He asked me how I was feeling and if I'd had the opportunity to shave my armpits yet!😳 He said lockdown was tough on hospital staff and my reaction to the morphine had made his day! When I was finally allowed to shower on my own, the nurses celebrated when I emerged from the bathroom with tidy pits!!

That's a cute story really. It made me sad that you cringe at your armpits comment - it's very sweet and excused by morphine! Its nice you cheered up the drs. It made me smile!

Glad you recovered from your sepsis - I'm guessing A&E then was a scarey time.

I don't know. I know I don't.

I drunkenly told someone I was in love with that I was in love with her. Given the circumstances it was absolutely the wrong thing to do and I know I made her very uncomfortable. I don't regard it as an amusing anecdote; it's genuinely the first thing that comes to mind whenever I think of cringe-worthy moments in my life which is what I thought this thread was about.

What would you like me to do?

Acknowledge I fucked up? Absolutely.
Apologise to her at the time? I did.
Feel bad about what I said and how uncomfortable I made her? Definitely.
Make damn sure I'd never do the same again? In the 30 years since I never have.
Go back in time and stop myself? If I could, I would.

Is there anything else you would suggest?

I was 18 and having tea with my boyfriends parents. I reached over the laden table to get some butter for my bread. The knife wouldn't go through it. His mother said "you do know that's cheddar cheese don't you"? I said "yes" and continued trying to hack a piece off with a blunt butter knife.

@Idontcareboutthestateofmyhair Ha ha 😂 I aim to please 😂

@BluebellsareBlueOh Lord that made me laugh so much! A dying fly! 😂

A&E was very strange - It didn't occur to me that my DH wouldn't be able to come in with me but he was turned away. I felt a bit fluey before getting there, but while I sat there in a virtually empty department, I started to feel as if I was sitting next to myself. I went downhill fairly rapidly but he staff were all amazing. Every single member of staff was brilliant. I spent 13 days in hospital, not expecting to be admitted.

@Teenyweenytinytrees Oh my God. I can't stop laughing! 😂

@OliveWah Oh my, your story of having to hold onto your collar until you see a dog had me in absolute stitches!!!! Ha ha 😂

@BluebellsareBlue Your story has reminded me of something I had completely forgotten about until now! Years ago, I had gone to stay with my then boyfriend's sister and their Mum and Dad over Christmas. I was in my early twenties. My boyfriend's Mum had this thing (to the point of obsession) about me not being able to sleep in the same room as my boyfriend, so I slept in the front room alone on the sofa. In the middle of the night my boyfriend crept in to me and we were ahem doing "the business", and the door of the front room kept banging. It was a very old house and the door was clear glass, and it can't have fitted in the frame properly as it kept banging. I said hold on I'll go and check it and see if I can wedge something in it to stop it banging.

So I started crawling on all fours, stark naked, towards the door. I did this as I was paranoid that if I stood up and walked towards the door, someone might walk past and see me through the clear glass. As I approached the door, I realised that a shadowy figure was standing on the other side of it. I looked up from my "all fours" position, and who should be standing on the other side of the door, glaring down at me, but my boyfriend's Mum. God knows how long she'd been there. We eyeballed each other and I started crawling backwards, still on all fours, a bit like Dracula when he scales the walls of his castle in rat mode. I made it back to the sofa and we laid there in terrified silence until eventually she went away. I spent the whole of the next day which was Christmas Day being unable to look at her and she couldn't look at me either. I think that was the cringiest day of my entire life 😂

At a nightclub when 17
wearing really tight drain pipe trousers
dancing with a hot guy I’d fancied for a while
felt something around my ankle ,
yesterdays knickers ,wrapped around my shoe
I still have no idea how that happened ,
I then proceeded to trip over them , heels to high
maybe one to many drinks
still makes me cringe decades on
may Be this is why I now only wear any clothing once !!!