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.

[TravellingSpoon]

I am cringing at some of these but will share mine.

I have an aunt who doesnt have much to do with our family, buy she lives near to me in a town not far out of our city. Once I was with DD in Costa in town, and a lady sat on the table next to us and said Hi, I said hi too and the DD asked who this was and I explained that it was Nanny's sister. To which she looked aghast and told me that we had done a training course together the previous year and that's how we knew each other. She must have thought I was some kind of nutter! Dd and I finished our drinks very quickly after that.

In fairness she looks a lot like my aunt as I remember her and I remembered afterwards I thought that at the time when I first met this lady.

[ShredMeJillianIWantToBeNatalie]

I’ve done that whole “love you!” thing on the phone to a client when saying goodbye. Awkward.

We are shielding and stuck in the house. Lovely lady came with our Tesco delivery yesterday and as she left I called out “safe journey!” And you, she called back. You could see her cringe with the realisation we aren’t going anywhere

[Dryadia]

Heavily pregnant with my eldest, I went into a cafe for something to eat, ordered and sat down. One of the waitresses came up and started lecturing me on underage sex and teenage pregnancy.

I said " I'm 21, how old do you think I am?", she replied "oh!, no older than 15." She gave me embarrassed looks for years after.

From the moment I had kids I got, "God, you must have been so young when you had them?" I had 3 under 5, so got a lot of judgement when they were young.

Now they are all getting it too, they are 25 to 30, but all get age IDed, all the time.

[ShredMeJillianIWantToBeNatalie]

My favourite though was I was once at the gym stretching on the mats and I noticed a man over by some other mats, maybe 20 feet away. He was doing this sort of exaggerated hip circling pelvic thrust while maintaining full eye contact in the mirror. I must have smiled because the lady next to me caught my eye and also smiled, to which I said “aww bless. If he does that in public imagine what he does in private!” The smile fell from her face and she said in a hurt voice “that’s my husband.”

[LikeDuhWhatever]

Once at a social gathering I got chatting to a guy who was from Poland. We were talking about food and he mentioned sauerkraut. Now I know it in English as sour cabbage but back then I didn’t know they also called it as sauerkraut, which is a German name btw. Anyway, same thing but different name. So I asked him what sauerkraut is. And he says: It looks like a bitch
Now, I was very taken aback because how can you describe any food that looks like a BITCH? So I asked him incredulously It looks like a bitch? What does a bitch look like?
His mate was sitting next to us and said He wants to say it looks like cabbage
The penny dropped and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was the guy’s accent, the way he said like cabbage sounded like like a bitch.

[foreverandalways]

F

[MaggieAndHopey]

@LikeDuhWhatever I keep saying "like cabbage" to myself and laughing. Luckily I'm on my own. It reminds me of that beer can/bacon thing (where you say beer can in a posh voice and it sounds like "bacon" in Jamaican)

[HavenDilemma]

I was once in soft play with my then-2yr old. She had just started going up the foam steps to the top of the junior slide herself and was taking quite a while. Every single time! So I was spending most of our visit pondering around outside the play frame in case she fell.
I had noticed a couple of parents glancing at me but didn't think anything of it, besides wondering if maybe they thought I'd left her go up on her own at too young an age??
Nope.

One of the them comes up to me after a few mins and says in a very accusatory and hostile tone:

"Excuse me! Do you have a child with you!?"

(This is after I'd waved multiple times, cheered and said well done to my DD as she came sliding down, twice already )

I was absolutely staggered! What on Earth was she implying?! That I'm some peadophile who walks straight into soft play, chooses a child she likes and then waves & cheers at them going down the slide?!?!

I admit I don't exactly look particularly posh as I cannot wear make-up due to my skin reacting to every single type out there (believe me I've tried them all over the years) and having naturally light blonde hair, as odd as this may sound, does make me look pretty rough without some colour added to my face. That's the only clue I can think of which led her to this awful conclusion.
If I didn't have humongous boobies I'd say that maybe she thought I was a bloke just hanging around!!
However as we all know, predators can be male/female and look/dress just like anyone else.

What made this so offensive & so shocking, was that it's soft play! A very very small soft play too. They don't just let anyone in without having a child with them and is absolutely not one where you can ever possibly slip in when nobody is looking. That is just not physically possible there.
I was also waving & cheering at ONE child who is the image of me.

It actually really hurt my feelings if I'm honest. I've never forgotten it.

[IhateBoswell]

Some of these are making me go so red 😑

When I was 21 my friend had a baby (she was 25).

The baby had to stay in hospital, and I went up with my friend one day to visit.

As we were sitting in the room feeding her a nurse came in and said to my friend "aww how lovely to have an older one at home to help you" 😳😳

I got the giggles, my friend was furious and the nurse wanted to curl up and die.

[Daybydaybyday87]

I have one, I still cringe about it now!
I was 18 and was a shy, awkward teen with low confidence. Started a job in a restaurant at the nearby motorway services and was as nervous as hell as I'd heard it was a bit bitchy among the all female staff and the supervisor was particularly intimidating. So I turned up for my second shift and went into the office area to hang my jacket up and there were loads of staff hanging around plus said supervisor. She asked me something and I didn't hear her so went to say "sorry? " and "pardon?" at the same time and ended up saying "parney?" everyone turned to look at me and I was dying. I quickly turned and went out. I was so embarrassed and felt so stupid. In it had happened to me nowadays I probably would have laughed it off but then it was awful!

[MaggieAndHopey]

@HavenDilemma that woman should be embarrassed, not you. That's awful.

[HavenDilemma]

@antipodalpizza What did you say to her?!

[DevilsAdvocaat]

I used to work in a pub run by a lovely guy from Jamaica. He asked me to cover an extra shift one day as there was a party on for a group of his friends.

There were also other people in the pub.

A man walked up to the bar and asked for a rum and cork. I thought he needed a cork to put in a bottle of wine. I hadn't twigged that he was Jamaican because he was white.

I felt like a massive racist even though it was an honest mistake 😳

[terrelontane]

Leaving work, a colleague asked me "Can you use a lift?" Assuming he was a bit dim, I proceeded to try and explain to him how the elevator buttons worked. Turns out he was trying to offer to drive me home.

[Supermarketworker06]

I must have the hide of a rhino, as there's been a few incidents I can think of where everyone is mortified except me.

We were at a posh do where you get announced at the door. My then OH said our names to the MC, unfortunately he gave his ex wife's name instead of mine. MC announced us before I could say anything, so I leaned round and said "actually my name is..... " so he had to re announce us. OH was devastated, I thought it was hilarious.

New job, big supermarket opening, big welcome evening where all the new staff were introduced to the management teams, get to know you type evening.
A few days later when we were all meeting up in groups to go to training sessions, this chap was there making sure the right people went to the right place etc. I was chatting to him for ages, then asked him who he was as I didn't know his name. Turns out he was the overall manager, oh I laughed. The people I was with were cringing but I thought it was funny. Luckily so did he!

[Burntoutboobout]

I was staying with my uncle and two cousins that I didn’t see very often (maybe once every 5/6 years). They had a couple of Cat’s, one was called Alfwado. I spent the whole weekend calling this cat Alfwado until my boyfriend at the time gave me a stern look and asked why I was doing that. His name was Alfredo but my little cousin had a lisp and pronounced it Alfwado. I must have look like I was taking the piss

[AtaMarie]

@MaggieAndHopey the hug on the climbing wall is too funny! Worst place ever for an embrace.

@piggleig 😂why were your pants names? Was it first name and last name?!

[DevilsAdvocaat]

And another one.
This one makes me die inside.

I was walking back from the shops with my son who was about 3.
On the way back he got a tummy ache and needed the toilet. I suggested he wee in the bush but then it became apparent he needed a poo. He was crying and in pain.
I saw a lady in her front garden and asked her if he could use her toilet. Absolutely mortified. She was lovely and said yes but had to go round the back of the house as front was locked.

She finally let us in and we went into her downstairs loo. I pulled down his shorts as he shat runny poo everywhere which I caught in my hands 🤮

It went everywhere. I cleaned up as best as I could. It was even in his shoes.

A bit went on her toilet mat 😩

When we came out I apologised profusely and said that I needed to take the floor mat to clean it and tried to give her money so could replace it. She refused and said she had children and grandchildren and not to worry. She took the bath mat from me and put in her washing machine. Whilst she was doing that, I left some money in her downstairs loo anyway!

I sent her a card the next day to thank her but oh the shame.

[Witchend]

Was asked very loudly and in a dictatorial manner to go and change my hair band as it was not part of school uniform ( I happened to be wearing a black skirt and white shirt sorest of my attire from a quick glance looked uniformity) and what was I doing and where was the teacher....

That reminds me of one when I was at school.
I played in the school orchestra, and had done since I arrived in year 7. When I got into year 11, there was a new music teacher who gradually over the year took over the orchestra. He was a lot stricter, so when study leave was coming up I thought I better tell him that I wouldn't be at orchestra for the rest of term.

The conversation, as I remember it went something like this:
Me: Sir, I wont be at orchestra for the rest of term because...
Him: That really isn't good enough. I expect attendance every week.
Me: Yes sir, but I'm...
Him: If you want to be back in next term you'll have to audition.
He turned away at this point, so I called after him:
Me: I'm not sure which 6th form I'm going to.
He whipped round at speed, and apologised profusely, asked if I had a younger sister he'd mixed up with me and told me I'd be welcome back any time, without auditioning, and if I felt I wanted to come and watch a practice I'd be very welcome. I think every time I saw him after that he apologised.

Another school one which wasn't me, but was told with great delight by one of my year.
We had a new headmaster started in the summer term of year 10. The previous head had made it a point to know everyone by name and get to know people and the new head was determined to do the same. (small school). He didn't do too badly, but this was one time he tripped up.
We had a "interested in 6th form evening" fairly early on in the winter term. In the last lesson we received an instruction that if we were coming, we should wear school uniform.
Well, Pete wasn't there for last lesson so he came in mufti. His conversation with the head went along the lines of:
Head: So you're thinking of coming to this school next year?
Pete: Yes, sir.
Head: So what's your name?
Pete: Pete, sir.
Head: And what school do you go to now?
Pete: Yours, sir.

[SunshineCake]

My boss offered to give me a blow dry and I said I thought you were going to say blow job

.

Both of us are females..

[GuiltyBark]

I saw a colleague in the workplace who I hadn't seen for a while and greeted him by name, asked him how certain projects were going. I've known this dude for 20 years on and off but we aren't usually on same site. He seemed a bit bemused for some reason.

Anyway it turned out to be someone else who I do know, very well who just happens to look similar. The penny dropped and there was awkward moment there for sure.

No idea where this temporary face blindness came from but so embarrassing as neither of them are strangers to me.

[piggleig]

@AtaMarie first and last name, fresh from boarding school

[lilgreen]

@piggleig if that happened now, you’d be shamed on student social media! Something to be grateful for at least.

[formerbabe]

This was weird...I was in my twenties...can't remember how old exactly but well into my twenties. Buying a bottle of alcohol. Man at the counter asks me how old I am...no idea why but I say "18" then show him my id which clearly shows my real age. He looks at me like