Excruciatingly awkward misunderstandings

[kpnutts]

So It’s late at night when your brain reminds you of those awkward moments from your past...

Back at my first year at university it was a girl in my halls birthday and she was having a gathering of about 30ish people in one of the communal kitchens and I knew say about 5 of them. I arrived and had a few drinks, the music is playing loud and at some point noticed a girl on her own in the corner who happened to wearing a jacket I also owned.

So to make conversation I said something along the lines of “nice jacket, I have the same one”. I realise now she must have completely misheard me and she gave me a very odd look and said “err yes it’s mine”. A bit confused by the response I said “oh I just meant I have the same one, it’s from Zara right?”. Backing away slightly she laughed nervously and replied “haha no no it’s definitely mine, I don’t know Zara”. It’s pretty awkward now so I try to explain I meant Zara ‘the shop’, it doesn’t matter, let’s talk about something else, but she’s only getting more confused.

Suddenly her tone changes, she smiles at me sweetly and slowly says “ohhh I don’t know ‘Zara de-shop’ she must be your friend, is she looking after you tonight?”. In my awkward 18 year old way of trying not to embarrass her and the ridiculousness of the situation I stupidly grin as I think of a way to extract myself from the conversation. She takes this as a yes and continues “Isn’t it great you have such inclusive friends, are you living here by yourself?”. Arghh, feeling too far down the line to correct her and fearing someone I know may overhear, I quickly excuse myself to the bathroom and scuttle back to my room. None of my hall friends ever mentioned it and I never saw the girl again!

It plays over in my mind every now and again how a simple mishearing resulted in someone thinking I had a learning disability and talking to me like a child! She was (admittedly inadvertently) incredibly patronising even so, although I’m sure her intentions were good.

I do wonder if at some point in the next few years she walked past Zara and the penny dropped! I do giggle at the thought of her in a shopping centre having a complete Oh. My. God. moment.

Tell me mumsnet, have you ever had similar awkward miss understanding, or maybe you had a weird conversation about Zara many years ago.

A little outing but;

I once worked in a rather large company and they used to do quite a bit for charity, you could put your name down in the staff room and opt in to do runs, cycles etc. Being new and wanting to make friends I did..

I was asked if I would like to dress up as a bunny and stand with a bucket giving out freebies at a major London station, the girl I was partnered to do it with was a great laugh, you were taken out for lunch and dinner and it was a day out of work, not to mention I did my bit for a well loved cancer charity.

I came into work and the girl at the desk gave me the costume in a work branded bag and said “put this on and your coat over the top, leave off the ears and the head of marketing will take you and the other girl to the station in a black cab in about 30 mins!”

So I head down to the changing room, get changed, faf about really look at the time, it’s been 31 mins, panic that the others might be waiting for me/ go without me and run back upstairs dressed as a bunny with a coat over the top.

Upon returning upstairs there is a different girl on reception, foolishly I blurted out “have they gone?”, she responds “they’re just leaving now in the coach..”

I head out the front and see this couch doors shut and knock on the window and the coach driver lets me in, I think to myself it’s odd we’re now going on a coach, maybe there are more than three of us? Maybe there’s a training course going on some are attending and they’ve tried to save on costs.

Everyone on the coach looks a bit solemn and I see my manager and ask where the head of marketing is, she scowls at me and says “I don’t know sit down”

So I perch next to her telling her how excited I am for this, bit nervous to, it was out of my comfort zone and I’ve not done it before, I believe I also used the line ‘someone has too..’

She looks at me in disgust and says “I’m sorry?” I respond by asking her why she’s here? “I thought there was only like three of us, can’t believe there’s this many going..” She looks visibly angry and hisses to me “because i bloody thought a lot of Dave!”

It suddenly clicks..

About a month a go a well respected colleague had died unexpectedly of a brain haemorrhage after working for the company for thirty years, the business had put on a coach to his funeral.

I looked round the coach and my suspicions were confirmed a coach load full of mourning employees wearing black.

I start to really panic and tell my manager “I’m not meant to be here, I’m dressed as a rabbit”

She angrily tells me to be quiet and I end up attending the funeral of someone I don’t really know dressed as a rabbit.

Absolutely mortifying..

Never lived it down, never should.

She angrily tells me to be quiet and I end up attending the funeral of someone I don’t really know dressed as a rabbit

I'm actually crying with laughter!

My parents came to visit me at uni and took me out for dinner.
It was cold and raining so I had a long trench coat on over my short dress and was carrying an umbrella
We were a bit early for our dinner reservation and had a few drinks in the pub over the road before going on to dinner
After a pleasant dinner I realised I'd left my umbrella in the pub and went back to fetch it.
Things had livened up a bit in the time we'd been away and the pub was now packed mainly with young lads spilling out onto the street pretty inebriated. I told my dad to wait outside and I'd just pop in and fetch the umbrella.
Whilst I was gone a guy who'd been hovering near the door tried to give my dad a roll of banknotes and chided him about my lateness.
It was a stag do and they thought I was the stripper!

One more which makes me cringe so much I can hardly bear to think about it. Luckily the main crisis was averted here.
I am from a very working class background and was completely sheltered from the world outside our family life until I went to uni, where a lot of my fellow students were quite rich and posh. From time-to-time though, they would do the whole Common People/tourist thing which I found patronising and infuriating but I was so desperate to fit in that I never said anything. Anyway, on one occasion, one of my classmates suggested that we all go to the races for ladies day. They were all excited and I was pretty indifferent but agreed to go along.

Now, my only frame of reference for “the races” was the fact that my dad went to the greyhound races regularly. He sometimes took me when I was a child so I knew it as a fairly grubby world of flat caps and salt of the earth folk. I didn’t know much about horse racing but assumed it was much the same – after all, I’d seen characters like Del Boy and Jack Duckworth cheer on the GGs on tv. The concept of Ladies Day didn’t mean much to me either but the working men’s club that my dad also frequented had regular ladies nights so again I assumed it was much the same. I didn’t think much about the impending day at the races until two days before, when a group of us started chatting about what we were going to wear. One by one, my friends spoke of fancy frocks and hats and I genuinely thought they were taking the piss so went along with it, then I realised that maybe they didn’t know what to expect from the races and were looking to me for guidance so I said “seriously guys, I’m just going in jeans and a t-shirt” which was met with much laughter and back-slapping and everyone telling me that I was a real joker. So basically we all thought the other was joking, but in reverse. At least this was enough to get my spidey-senses tingling so, thankfully, I asked my mum for advice. After she had set me straight, I had to bunk off classes the next day, armed with a credit card and a plea to the staff in John Lewis to get me ladies-day-ready. Proper Pretty Woman stuff.

It all turned out ok but over 20 years later my blood still runs cold when I think of how close I came to turning up at the racetrack in jeans and hoodie.

On a minibreak at the wonderful Moonfleet Manor near Weymouth and I was playing with our toddler and came to bar to get some lemonade and water to find DH talking to couple from USA r, long conversation, "What do you do etc etc" and the guy said "Bombs" and long conversation ensued about where they do business, good profit etc etc Both happily chatting away ... only the guy from the US was talking about "Bonds".

This thread is brilliant! Thinking about it, that play was a string of embarrassing misunderstandings, from the audition where I turned up in my best black audition dress and patent shoes only to realise I hadn't read the email properly and everyone else was dressed informally for a movement workshop as well as a music audition (no idea how I got the job...), to the afterparty with the people from a bunch of other shows in the festival, at which a guy asked us which show we were in, and on hearing the answer went "what?! How are you allowed to be here?!" Turned out the costume designers had done such a good job that he thought we were actually 12 years old...

Not me but DH. He was walking along a street and was looking for his friend’s new flat. He couldn’t find it but saw a van with a guy sat in it. He knocked on the window to ask him for directions and the guy shook his head as if he didn’t know. However, a woman then appeared from out of his lap, wiped her mouth and gave him directions 😂 We then found out it was a known red light district 🤦‍♀️ Also, when DH and I were house hunting, we saw an absolutely disgusting one. I said loudly to DH, ‘this place is vile and dirty, I wouldn’t expect my dog to live here’ Only for the owner to appear right behind me. We scuttled out as quick as we could.

I hope "Zara de Shop" becomes the new "cutted up pears".

Not my story but my sister.

We were on a cruise a few years ago in our 20s, I'd gone off for a swim in the pool and my sister was laid out on a sun lounger. I remember glancing over at one point and saw a middle aged man perched on sun lounger beside her chatting away, thought it was a bit odd but finished my swim and returned to find my sister alone again.

It turns out she'd been lying enjoying the sun, when the man had come over and perched beside her, said "hiya you enjoying the sun?" my sister politely answers yes, yes she was, and he goes on chatting to her about how he'd been for a swim, was thinking of going to get lunch soon, wonder if the rooms been cleaned yet etc. It was only after a few minutes of him blethering away and my sister politely listening that he looked at her properly and gasped, "you're not my daughter!"

He even came over 20 minutes later with his actual daughter to prove he wasn't crazy haha. They did look alike to be fair, similar build and same coloured hair, sunglasses on, poor bloke was mortified.

20-odd years ago in my first job I was at a working lunch with a group of colleagues, including some quite senior. We were in a local independent restaurant, which was playing some 70s style plinky-plonk kind of instrumental music, it wasn't loud enough to stop conversation but it turned out that it did affect us hearing each other...

One of the guys says 'god this music is terrible, like something out of a Bond film', lots of people start laughing along. As the laughter subsides I pipe up and merrily say 'you know I've never seen one of those all the way through, I've seen bits and pieces obviously but not sat through and entire film, I bet I'm probably the only one here who hasn't haha'

Expecting everyone to laugh because most people have seen a Bond film, right? (other than me). Complete tumbleweed moment, as my manager turns to me, looking slightly horrified and says

'I don't think any of us have seen one of those films'

Turns out he said porn and not Bond! In my defence I'd never seen one of those either, and didn't know they featured music.

Never lived it down. Thankfully I left that company a few months later!

lol

Just last night - driving home with dd in the car we see ds's friend's dps walking their ddog. I toot and me and dd both wave..
As I realised it wasn't them - they def don't have a ddog and the dm doesn't wear specs... As they both look up, smile and wave!!

@lilgreen - aha that reminds me! Was living in a shared house that was up for sale. Estate agents were doing viewings and knew to give 24 hours notice etc.

Me and my boyfriend were actually in bed, having sex on a Saturday morning. Heard a noise, looked up and an estate agent was there, with a whole family he had brought to view the house! Awks!! 😆😂🤣😂

Just thought of another one. When travelling with my best friend in our early 20s, we had just arriges at a backpacker hostel in St Kilda, Melbourne. I went outside to call my mum, and a couple of cars beeped and waved at me. Didn't think anything of it. Every time I stood outside for a fag, occasional cars would beep or shout things, ranging from "hey sexy!" to "slag". One man asked if I "wanted a ride".
What a strange area, I thought.

Making conversation with another girl in the hostel kitchen, I mentioned all the beeping and she cracked up. Apparently our hostel was in the middle of a red light district. I had seen a few ladies standing at the other end of the street earlier, and come to think of it they were wearing quite revealing clothes, but I reasoned it was Australia and really hot.
Yes, I had been mistaken for a hooker.

This happened to my sister not me but i still found it highly amusing.....so my sister and her dh had his parents to stay for the weekend....on the friday night sister and her mother in law went to bed leaving the men downstairs having a nightcap....sisters just drifting off to sleep when her husband climbs into bed beside her....she lays there for a few seconds listening to him breath before realising its not her husband....her poor father in law had gone into the wrong bedroom...my sister had to say 'ooh Brian you are in the wrong bed'....Brian fled and for about 20 mins she could hear her mil in hysterics in the room next door.

I was working as a receptionist and checking a group of hens in. They were also having beauty treatments in the hotel spa so I was going around the group confirming treatments, they were all hyped up and excited for their weekend, it was hard to hear them all amongst the chatting, anyway they all pretty much picked the same treatments, the last lady put her hand up and I gave her an almighty high five and said 'YEP SAME FOR YOU TOO WOO!' just to join in their whole excitement! her friends looked over at her and started sniggering, a few mins after she raised her hand again but every so slightly and asked which way the toilets were... I wanted the ground to swallow me up

This isn't so much about misunderstanding what someone's said as lying awake cringing at night.
I had a major stomach operation a few years ago. I came round (in serious discomfort) to find I was wearing an extremely tight black stretch corset which had been put on me while I was under. It was like the lower half of a wetsuit... it had legs & it stretched from the top of my rib cage all the way down to mid-shin.
In my drugged state I vaguely recalled that this was designed to keep everything in place for a week or so after the op. But on waking it was incredibly uncomfortable! In fact I was in such hot itchy discomfort that I bent my legs, let my knees fall apart & threw off the covers, just as the surgeon came round with a group of medics to see how I was. Through my post operative haze I was aware of a certain anguished distaste on the surgeon's face, but it was only later on I that discovered that this skin-tight one-piece had an enormous hole cut out of the crotch area, to allow me to go to the toilet for the next few weeks. I was in such a daze I didn't realise... and there I was, legs akimbo, with my huge hairy post-operative minge on full display. What really gets to me is that in my drugged state I couldn't put my finger on the cause of the obvious tension in the room, so I was babbling away chattily to diffuse it !!!

One day when it doesn't make me want to turn inside out, I'll share the story of how I breezily chipped in on a conversation with new work colleagues.
I thought they were talking about a newborn baby. They were talking about a very recent vasectomy scar.
The shame. The shame.

@KitchenDancefloor

Tell us now...you know you want to!

One that I think I have told on here before but crops up in my mind sometimes and I still feel hot when I think about it.

I was temping for about 6 weeks so never really got to know anyone apart from a few members of the team i was on.

Very sadly on my last week a man from another department (and different floor entirely to me) passed away, he collapsed at lunchtime and died in hospital later that day. I’d obviously never heard of him but nonetheless very sad when everyone was told and a few people from my floor started crying.

Because it was my last week my team brought me a bunch of flowers and I put them in water in the department kitchen. At the end of the day there was a gathering of people around the kitchen as I walked in to collect my flowers.

‘Oh’ came voices from the group of people. ‘How lovely of you, we are also just about to put our flowers down on Johns car, we will pop down with you’

‘No’ I said ‘these are my flowers not for Johns car’

Omg, what a bitch I felt! But I was so shy and awkward to properly explain and I also didn’t want my team to think I’d taken their gift to me and put them on the dead mans car to make myself look good. I was just glad I was leaving.

So few men ever find the cheeseboard shuttup, it's such a shame

Okay @formerbabe I'll brace myself and pretend it happened to someone else.

So a 'friend' butts in on a conversation with her new work colleagues. When she's shy she overcompensates by being friendly to the point of hyper.

These two men were wondering 'how long they'll stay blue for'. The friend overhears this private conversation and decides to give the benefit of her wisdom. She knows that one of them has just become a father again and therefore must be talking about the colour of his new born baby's eyes.

"I've heard they can stay that way for a couple of months. You'll only know their true colour after that." She says with confidence.

They stare at her open mouthed and then slowly resume talking about how the vasectomy scars are slow to heal and how his testicles are an unnatural colour.

As I said before, the shame. The shame!

They never really gelled with me my friend after that.

When I was about 11 (final year of primary school), I went on a residential course to improve my Welsh speaking (lived in Wales but a learner). On the coach journey, I started to feel unwell, so went down the front of the coach and asked if I could sit at the front for a while. On these kind of courses, you were encouraged to speak Welsh as much as possible and I think the teacher reminded me that I should try to speak in Welsh. Anyway, after about five minutes I started to feel better so I tried to say to the teacher that I felt better and would return to my seat. I must have said it so badly in Welsh that she immediately turned to the driver and got him to stop the coach as she thought I was actually going to be sick! So I had to get off the coach and had to stand in a lay-by in the cold pretending to take deep breaths until an appropriate length of time had passed by and I could get back on the coach!

Many moons ago I worked in our local council offices, and while we were having our tea break all sat around in the typing pool the dirty jokes always came out. This day I was mid flow with one I had been told by one of the chaps down in another department, when unbeknown to me the chief executive was stood behind me. I shut up pronto, but he said he needed to know the punchline, so carry on. I was on bleeding fire and told the rest of the joke. He cracked up and then apologised for making me blush 😳