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.

@mollycoddle77 this one was pushed to the inaccessible area and unearthed after reading this thread...

There was a party at my friend's halls in uni and it all went well (aside from the usual awkward socialising and too much drinking). I'd fallen asleep on the sofa and woke up looking for the toilet, walked out the flat door and locked myself out instead... I tried the door several times and shouted to no avail and I'd also left my phone in the flat, so I sat there in the corridor waiting for one of my friends to come out, well into the early hours.

After drifting off to sleep uncomfortably beside a windowsill a few times, and by this point desperate for the loo, I decided something had to be done. Choosing not to go to the reception area for the flats because I also had no shoes or socks on and was embarassed, I decided the only sensible idea was to try the neighbour's doors...

One opened, so I walked in and saw another door I guessed was the toilet..it was an en-suite. Someone in the bedroom saw me and called out but I ignored them and went in the loo. I left afterwards to them saying "Hello, hellooo, who's that?!" and trying to wake up their room mate. By this point I'd left, waited around the corridor for my friends for a while more then gave up and went to reception...where I overheard two girls explaining about the intruder in their flat...

I stood there and admitted it was me and I was so sorry but I was locked out of my friend's flat and desperate for the toilet!! Cue looks all round, including from the receptionist and me begging them to not press charges.

Have never done anything like that before or since and only did because I was so desperate for the toilet. Mortifying.

Aquariansquirrel - to be fair though, you did them a bit of a favour re. flat security - bet they locked the doors after that properly!

In my first teaching post, on my first day I was happily pottering about in my classroom at lunchtime, setting up for the afternoon. I was 25 but only looked very young. One of the dinner ladies came in and told me that I shouldn't be inside and to go out into the playground. I was a bit mystified about why I should be out there, but I followed her outside. It was only when she asked me if I had any one to play with that I realised that she thought I was a new pupil.

My DM said she was going to get her front door painted.
My aunt said "oh thank God, I hate that awful Bright blue colour you have on it
My DM said "I'm using the same colour, just freshening it up" 😂😂

Oh, god, these are mortifying. Also hilarious. But in an utterly mortifying manner!

My own mortal communications sin was entirely non-verbal: the old "is it two air kisses or three?" conundrum, in fact.

I'd just been "promoted" to being on air kissing terms with my altogether lovely but maybe slightly prudish boss, our COO. I was going for three, he was going for two and turned his head accordingly after no. 2, and ...

Yes, of course I kissed him on the lips!

Five years of intensive therapy later, I can (sort of - still mortified, though) laugh about it. My colleagues - yes, including the "victim" - of course, haven't needed any healing - they'll never let me live this down and bring it up during the 3rd drink at the very latest every time!

If there's one good thing about bloody COVID, I'm hoping that it'll put an end to air kissing for good. I'll feel a lot safer - more so from mortal embarrassment than from the virus.

My friend and I were drinking in a bar once wen two guys came and sat on our table and started talking to us. It was obvious they were trying to chat us up and although we weren't interested they were funny and didn't seem to take themselves too seriously so continued having a laugh with them. They were quite pissed and so were we and we all started generally taking the piss out of each other.

At one point we asked them what their jobs were. The first one said - "I'm a paediatric doctor I save the lives on babies and little- ickle children." We laughed and said 'Yeah right of course you are!' Because it was said in such a way that it was obvious he was just trying to appeal to our ovaries and 'womanly' nature and was joking.

The second guy said 'Yeah and I'm a bomb disposal expert'.
Of course you are! We said - he saves kids and you are a hero, next you'll tell us you work for MI5!!!
Again we creased up - until he said, well what do you think happened to this then?
He pulled his arm out from under the table and his hand was missing half its fingers.

My friend was so drunk she thought he was hiding the missing fingers under his hands and grabbed his hand trying to turn it over looking for them!

Turns out he was bomb disposal in the forces and had lost them in action. At which point my friend drunkenly muttered - Thank you for your service to our country.... they left and we dissolved into a puddle of mortification.

A friend of mine was on an overseas posting, and was hosting a swanky and quite formal reception for business leaders. He was quite new in post and was keen to get to know important contacts. He was chatting to one of the invitees, Bill, who introduced him to his ‘partner’, Bob.

My friend, who is gay, launched into a long cheery monologue about how fabulous it was that Bill was so open about their relationship (the country was a little, er, conservative in attitudes, for want of a better word), and rambled on about his thoughts on the local gay scene, and eventually, when he realised he needed to let them get a word in edgeways, asked them for their recommendations.

They looked rather uncomfortable, and then Bill said quietly “I meant he’s my business partner.”

@ThumbWitchesAbroad like your thinking..there's a positive to be found in everything!! Only after the event of course. Still feel awful about it though and wish I'd just asked if there was a loo on reception. Which thinking about it, there must be for the staff?

VenusClapTrap, this is equally excruciating and hilarious.

@acatnamedfox surely some of the mourners would see the funny side of that? Given no-one would intentionally attend someone's funeral wearing a bunny costume! Am cringing for you but you could have brightened the mood for everyone.

This happened to someone else towards Dh.
We were in the process of viewing bungalows. This time Dh was working so I went in the morning, when looking at the garden the man and wife from next door
started to chat. I thought how friendly and approachable so I asked about places I could take our 2 dogs for a walk. (I was moving to Dhs home town)
Dh went after work again the neighbours came out but this time they new Dh and asked could he please buy the bungalow as a damn woman had been that
morning and she had 2 dogs. Dh had to tell them the damn woman was his wife.
We didn't buy that bungalow but one 3 doors down. I'm so glad we didn't as he was an interfering busy body to the person who bought it.

@AquarianSquirrel

I once had to go to my uncle's funeral a couple of days after falling down the stairs and severely bruising my coccyx so that I could barely sit down.

It was quite a long-distance drive away, and half an hour into the journey I was in such crippling pain in the car (even as a passenger) that I begged DH to stop at a motorway services and buy me some kind of cushion to sit on. The only thing they had that was vaguely suitable was one of those beanbag neck pillows - which was BRIGHT purple and shaped like a curled-up cat (complete with head and tail).

It did actually relieve the pain a bit - so I had to walk into the funeral carrying this thing, which was conspicuous in the extreme, and sit on it throughout the service.

My uncle, who was an unfailingly cheerful old joker, would certainly have found it hilarious that I attended his funeral sitting on a purple cat beanbag because I had a sore arse, but I’m not so sure about the other mourners! Got a few odd looks.

I still have the purple cat. Whenever I see it in the cupboard, I think of my uncle and it makes me smile.

A mis-hearing one: at a ‘getting to know you’ session whilst at college we had to introduce someone else to the group. The softly spoken woman I was paired up with said she liked war games. I felt a bit surprised at that but decided it was wrong of me to stereotype - just because she was female didn’t mean she couldn’t be a gamer. I thought my intro’ had gone rather well until she said ‘er, actually I like board games.’

One Christmas I ordered a crate of booze to be sent direct to my best mate’s house.

A few months later I ordered something from the same website, totally forgetting they now had mate’s address on file as well as mine.

And that is how my best mate’s wife wound up opening the door to 72 rolls of toilet paper.

This is also how I discovered what it’s like to transport 72 rolls of toilet paper on a bus.

Not me but my daughter. She was out with a big gaggle of colleagues, some of whom she knew well, others less so. One woman was looking a bit down and there were a few colleagues around her. Buoyed by wine, kindness and curiosity DD bowled up and asked what was wrong, gathering thatbthe woman was really anxious about her driving theory test, DD merrily launched into telling not to worry, it’s a piece of piss, you’d have to be a moron not to pass...by this time she noticed her colleagues faces were frozen with horror. Yep, the woman had actually just failed her Theory Test. Dig yourself out of that one.

@turquoise50 Purple cat bum-cushion 🐱 That's the best!! Love that it reminds you of your uncle now when you see it. Stuff the funny looks, you don't have to be wearing black with a sullen face to be mourning.. though you may well have had one given the coccyx circumstances!

Didn't happen to me, but I laughed a lot when a colleague recounted how he'd been on the underground with his fold up bicycle, and a kind stranger 'helped' him off the tube as she assumed it was a wheelchair....awkward!

I was a receptionist many years ago, I answered a call one day to a mouthful of what sounded like absolute gobbledygook, followed by what I thought was a clearly-enunciated name. So I put the call through to Sales, with the cheerful announcement that 'there's a Ray Kerrick for you, line one!' To which my colleague equally cheerfully answers: 'morning Ray, how are you?' It turned out to be one of our senior Icelandic dealers, calling from Reykjavik. As long as i stayed with that company, I never lived it down ...

'And that is how my best mate’s wife wound up opening the door to 72 rolls of toilet paper.'

Well, if that had happened recently, it might have been seen as the equivalent of winning the lottery!

Another thread just reminded me of something that happened when I was about 14.

I went to visit my nan, but had to sleep at a B&B since her independent living place didn’t allow overnight guests who were under 16.

Nan took me back to B&B at night and picked me up in the morning.

Second night, got into bed to discover plastic sheeting on my bed. Bit weird, but okay.

Cut to end of trip, nan says, “hope the hot water bottle I tucked into the bottom of your bed was okay, it tends to leak a lot.” !!!!

Why would you put a leaky hot water bottle in someone’s bed??

And how exactly did the B&B owner think I was managing to pee only on the foot of the bed? Magical urinating toenails?

It took me many years to get over this event at school as it was so embarrassing. It was fire drill and we were all lined up on the tennis courts. My form teacher says 'can you go and tell Miss (Headteacher)' we are all here please.' For some reason I took it into my head that she was telling me to go into the school to the Head's office and tell her the whole school was there, not just across to where she was standing quite close to us with all the registers. I hadn't seen her, and I thought this was a huge privilege to be chosen to tell her the whole school was there. I raced across the tennis court, into the school, up the stairs, across the main hall and found the office was empty. I realised instantly what had happened and knew I had to go out and cross that tennis court again in front of the whole school. To say I was embarrassed or mortified doesn't cover it. Everyone was looking at me, the whole school was standing in silence and my face was very very red from running and embarrassment. It took years before I could tell anyone about that, it really did. Funnily enough no one I was at school with remembers it at all even though they were there that day. I think the worst moment was where I realised what I'd done. Until that moment I thought I was so important and privileged.

I was at a summer music school which had a disco on the last night and we had to bring something suitable to wear. It was the era of long dresses (very 70s). We were shopping pre-trip in M and S and my mother found a long nightie which she decided to buy for me to wear at the disco because"It will just look like a long dress and is much cheaper".

Cut to last night disco my 14 year old self trying to impress the lads. Needless to say virtually everyone at the disco could tell it was a nightie and I fled back to the dormitory in tears of mortification.

I could not face going back the following year.

@muckandnettles 😂😂😂 it's funny now!

I'm so glad this has come up in my feed.

In the grand scheme of things it's not that exciting but my partner has a lump in his balls, the doc doesn't think it's serious right now but tonight he said to me, I've got a sore on my dick. I didn't know what to say, we don't exactly have a physical life and I know he's not getting it elsewhere. I said, and you've still got the lump in your balls, he said yes. He said there's now a smaller one further up inside and it's called a canker sore. I looked it up online and saw pictures on people's lips. He's got a sore ares inside his lip where he bit it. I said, you told.me you had a sore on your DICK? These are on LIPS. He didn't even question why I asked about his balls. I don't know which of us should feel sillier really. I was imagining all sorts, knowing about the lump.