
Awkward People Share The Most Cringeworthy Things They've Ever Done In Public
[rebelmouse-image 18345132 is_animated_gif=We can't all be James Bond level smooth. Most of us aren't even cobblestone road level smooth, let's be honest. Oh, you thought you were the only one? Nope.
One reddit user asked:
The answers are helping us feel better about ourselves. Here are some of our favorites.
1. "I Just Accepted My Watermelony Fate"
[rebelmouse-image 18346241 is_animated_gif=One time I saw watermelons at the store in a big box labeled "19 cents." I (stupidly) thought this meant the watermelons were 19 cents each. I put eight in my cart.
Imagine my surprise, then, when the cashier rang up my watermelons for thirty-some odd dollars. Baffled, I just stared at him and realized it was nineteen cents PER POUND.
I was too awkward and embarrassed to tell the cashier I misunderstood or changed my mind, so I just accepted my watermelony fate. I ate watermelon for breakfast and lunch and dinner. I made watermelon margaritas and watermelon sorbet. There isn't a watermelon recipe on Pinterest I didn't consider.
It was halfway through the watermelon fiasco, after complaining about the stupid watermelon for days, that I realized that even if they HAD been only nineteen cents ... I still bought too many goddamn watermelons
2. Printing Blank Paper
[rebelmouse-image 18346242 is_animated_gif=I needed one sheet of blank printer paper from the computer lab at my college. There were maybe 5 other students in there when I walked in and I was afraid that pulling open the paper drawer on the printer would be super loud and disruptive so I logged on to a computer and printed out 5 blank pieces of paper instead.
3. Not Staring...
[rebelmouse-image 18346243 is_animated_gif=One time in middle school I was standing in a line in this little building where the school sold concessions at lunch. There was another line right next to me (to my right) and in that line there were two girls talking with each other, just slightly ahead of me. One of the girls had some writing on her shirt on the chest and I was bored and trying to read it.
I overhear the other girl tell her "That little kid over there is staring at your boob." So instead of just being normal, and saying "Oh no, I'm just trying to read your shirt." I instead start staring at the wall past her, like staring into the distance is just a normal thing I do. I let people walk around me in the line because I'm so committed to my new staring gimmick.
What an idiot I was....
4. Emotionally Taxi-ing Situation
[rebelmouse-image 18346244 is_animated_gif=Once I was in a taxi and I think the driver must have misheard my address. I noticed he was going the wrong way, but I didn't say anything because I was too awkward.
Finally he drops me off about half an hour from my house. And I'm all like "that's perfect, thanks mate". Paid with a tip, got out, walked around for a bit, waited for him to go, then called another taxi to get me home.
5. Oh So Cringey
[rebelmouse-image 18346245 is_animated_gif=I hugged a job interviewer when I was 16. The interview had concluded and she opened the door and stretched out her arm towards me to indicate I was free to go. For some reason I saw it as an invitation to hug and we had the most awkward one-armed hug/back pat ever.
6. Money Problems
[rebelmouse-image 18346246 is_animated_gif=When I was in high school, I had a huge crush on a girl who worked at the drive thru of my bank. I would go to a different branch, withdraw some cash and then deposit it at her branch's drive thru in hopes she was working. It wasn't until much later that I realized she could more than likely see I had made a withdrawal for the exact amount I was depositing just minutes before.
7. Biiiiiicycle
[rebelmouse-image 18346247 is_animated_gif=I rode my bike to college one time and had no bike lock. So I tied it up with an extra show string I had hoping any passerby would see it was "locked" without investigating too closely. As I'm leaving class I see a couple students standing by my bike taking pictures of my lock job and laughing. I sat like 50 yards away in shame waiting for them to leave before I retrieved my bike and left.
8. New Tweezers
[rebelmouse-image 18346248 is_animated_gif=I bought tweezers to groom my eyebrows (I'm a man). When my female friend saw them in the bag in my back seat, she asked whos they were and I was too embarrassed to say they were mine so I said "I don't know, somebody must've left them," and she took them for herself and I had to buy new ones.
9. Horrific Handshakes
[rebelmouse-image 18346250 is_animated_gif=I was really anxious for one of my first adult meetings that I was doing so I looked up the person I was meeting with and when they came in to shake my hand I introduced myself as them.
They thankfully laughed it off and just said, "no, that's my name". I cringe every time I think about it.
10. "Drive Safe"
[rebelmouse-image 18346251 is_animated_gif=I ran into a past coworker at a bus depot, had nothing really to talk about and it got awkward fast. A bus came and the guy said this is me, it was the one I was waiting for too but I didn't get on cause what the hell would happen if I did. Made it worse as he got on I said drive safe.
11. Coming Out Of The Closet, Literally
[rebelmouse-image 18346252 is_animated_gif=My work friend and I were working on a sort of secret project in a big closet that's behind a conference room. We were almost finished when people started filing into the room, so we quietly closed the door and continued working, figuring it would be a quick meeting. Five minutes pass, ten minutes pass, and oops! Now we're in too deep and can't leave without it being awkward. We were in there for nearly an hour before my friend finally gives up and opens the door to the room. We profusely apologize to our coworkers for interrupting as they sit there stunned. Of course instead of just being people we knew who we could laugh it off with, there were a couple of people visiting from one of our international offices and some of our international vendors. They probably think it's standard for the US branch to stuff younger employees in a closet now.
12. Starbursts
[rebelmouse-image 18346253 is_animated_gif=Last weekend I was eating starbursts and a lady approached me so naturally, I put a wrapped starburst in my mouth.
13. Run, Forrest, Run
[rebelmouse-image 18346254 is_animated_gif=Back in primary school I had a crush on a girl, her younger brother was kind of a friend, so I'd hang out at their place every once in a while.
Thinking it would be weird to ask if I could hang out, I'd go for a run past their place and hope they'd notice me and invite me in.
It worked, but most times I had to turn back and run past at least 4 times before they'd invite me in.
14. High Five
[rebelmouse-image 18346255 is_animated_gif=I was at a club once, the DJ was taking requests to make a request you had to fill out a slip of paper and give it to him. Anyways I do this walk over and hand it to him and he was like
"Alright man nice" and held out his hand.
For some reason I though, oh he wants to hold hands and held his hand for like 10 seconds (fingers interlaced even) and just looked at each other the whole time. Then It hit me that he wanted a high five and I got super embarrassed.
15. Not Korean
[rebelmouse-image 18346256 is_animated_gif=Spent an entire Thanksgiving weekend pretending I understood Korean, because I felt too awkward to correct my friend's Korean mom who assumed I was Korean too.
16. Calm Down, Spiderman
[rebelmouse-image 18346257 is_animated_gif=Accidentally locked myself on the roof of my office's parking garage ... it was my first week there and I didn't know the doors closed behind you and locked, I'd left my access badge on my desk.
Rather than call for help and be "that guy", I ... climbed down the side of the parking garage.
17. Pennies From Heaven
[rebelmouse-image 18346258 is_animated_gif=I saw somebody open a roll of pennies before by smacking it on the drawer. I had never opened one before and I had two customers watching me as I smashed pennies all over the place. Now I just tear it open instead of trying to be cool.
18. Watching Paint Dry
[rebelmouse-image 18346260 is_animated_gif=I got a random bout of social anxiety once while having to go in to a Home Depot to pick up my dad's order of tile and was just so unwilling and afraid to actually talk to an associate that I called my dad and took the phone up to the employee at the counter while I just awkwardly stood away from them and looked at paint.
19. Bathroom Hopping
[rebelmouse-image 18346262 is_animated_gif=Sometimes when I'm alone in a strange place and don't know whether I should go sit somewhere by myself or join a group of strangers, I visit a bathroom, sit in the stall for a while, go outside, visit another bathroom and repeat until a friend shows up or class begins.
Now that I think of it, it is hilariously awkward.
20. "You Were Great Last Night"
[rebelmouse-image 18346263 is_animated_gif=When I was a freshman in college, I saw a production of some Shakespeare play, and developed an instant crush on the lead actor. I saw him at lunch the day after the play, and my friends urged awkward, shy, 17-year-old me to approach him and say how much I enjoyed his performance in the show. I'm not sure if they really thought this very attractive senior was going to have any interest in me, but apparently I got talked into it, because I marched over to his table and he and all his friends fell silent as I approached.
I stood there trying to think of what to say, now that I was actually there. I opened my mouth and said, "Very nice!" (I was a teenaged girl, but I said it like Borat, unfortunately). He had no idea what I was talking about, and didn't say anything, so I tried again.
"You were great last night!" I said.
As soon as the words left my mouth, his friends lost their shit and started whistling and laughing. I was mortified, and slunk back to my table awkwardly. I swear I still cringe about this, almost 30 years later.
H/T: Reddit
People Break Down Which Things About The Early Days Of The Internet Most Folks Have Forgotten
Oh, the beginning of the interwebs.
Those were the days.
We definitely did not see what was to come.
Maybe it should've stayed simple.
We'll never know.
Computers rule the world now.
Let's see where we are in another twenty years.
RedditorEzucraAaAa wanted to wax nostalgic about the good old days of technology and its humble beginnings.
"Redditors, what's something the internet was crazy about but is now forgotten?"
I miss the simplicity of not having a thousand apps. I'm simple.
Ah Memories...
"Search engines before Google existed. Alta Vista, Lycos, Web Crawler..."
deenali
Bad Downloads
"Downloading custom cursors for your computer. I gave my family computer so many viruses back in the '00s trying to click things with a lightsaber."
TW1103
"Amazing. I had totally forgotten about all the virusy stuff I downloaded to my home computer, purely so the cursor would disappear and reappear. My parents had zero knowhow with computers either, so likely had no idea wtf I was downloading. Cursors were cool though, despite all the malware."
AdderWibble
Collections
"During the early days of the web, when most websites weren't plastered with advertising... Website view counters."
over_clox
"Back in the day of counters, one day I went to my website and the counter was in the thousands. I just thought it malfunctioned and ignored it. Years later I learned that my website, which had a MIDI collection, was published in a newspaper in another country. I couldn't say for sure if that was true and whether it aligned with the counter change."
pupeno
The Look
"Yea the internet was simpler too, layout style I mean. I like old style HTML webpage layouts. I personally don’t like hyper modern logos and designs on interfaces. Something about old slightly pixelated designs about them home screens and app logos really made them satisfying. I’ve even went as far as seeing if I could install some extensions that could change the layout of sites, make them feel older, give them that 2000’s html look."
Original_Ad_1103
Found It
"Stumbleupon.com"
idont*uckwithstupid
"I used to waste so much time with stumble upon."
lilbroccoli13
What a strange and crazy place the internet was.
notification
"Poking on Facebook."
lamspartacus
"I had a friend that poked me and I never noticed the notification. He died. I now have this unreturned poke as a reminder that I’ll never be able to poke them back."
Klaus0225
Playtime
"Flash games."
mc_mike810
"Many flash games are not dead. BEHOLD! The flashpoint project. They have saved thousands of the old flash games in a playable format. Go forth and relive your childhood Also paging u/The_Middler_is_Here"
Jayccob
I will find you...
"There was a rhythm game that I don't remember the name of that me and some friends would challenge each other in, and it had the song Guitar vs Piano 2 which introduced me to Envy, who was a pretty big newgrounds artist at the time. I wanna go check out their stuff again now, I'd completely forgot about them till now."
Silvervirage
GroupMeet
"Forums. There used to be so many, incredibly active and dedicated forums."
FromJavatoCeylon
"A lot of the forums I visited were ruined by photobucket when they decided they wanted paid a lot of money from their users. So many build threads and tutorials ruined."
jus_like_at
"IMDb had the best message boards back in the day. Chatting with your internet friends around the globe about every nuance in your fave movie. Man I miss that. Reddit is close, but nothing beats the olden days."
FeFiFoMums
Fun
"Do you guys remember those egg things that hatched little creatures after a while? You'd put one on your website and then the artist would update the source url with images of it hatching? There were all kinds of little fun things like that."
Sapiencia6
Those were the days!
Do you have something you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Not all television and movies are loved by all.
A story and its characters have to appeal to you in order for you to be engaged.
It can take next to nothing for us to lose interest and let the screen go black.
Redditor BarooTangClan wanted to compare notes on all the entertainment we've said "that's enough" to.
"What will make you instantly stop watching a movie or show and why?"
I hate bad acting, writing, storytelling... I hate bad anything.
Stop Jumping
"Fight scenes with a million visual cuts. Gives me motion sickness. Contrast the absolutely masterful work in John Wick. long cuts, realistic use of weapons (mostly), 100% skill."
StabbyPants
Louder
"When the actors whisper the whole movie and you have to crank the volume to hear what's being said - but the soundtrack or some other misc noise starts blaring at a higher volume directly after."
Blaze*itch
"I basically had to watch Stranger Things up in my attic with the windows and doors closed. I was worried the neighbors would think something was wrong or be annoyed if I watched it downstairs in my single family home. It was ridiculous."
ForecastForFourCats
"spice things up"
"Love triangles out of no where in a second or third season to 'spice things up' because studio writers are hacks and their idea of relationship drama is 'potential infidelity' at all times. It's the most tired trope on the go**amn planet and the second I see it rear its head I dip right the hell out."
amalgamas
"The whole concept of a love triangle to begin with an incredibly juvenile. Any healthy functioning adult who found themselves in a love triangle would soon choose to find themselves single."
Ouch_i_fell_down
Save your lips...
"When couples in a movie/show have a fight and one of them instantly goes to a friend and end up kissing her/him after talking for 5 minutes. I cringe so hard i turn it off and never watch it again."
Dry-Mycologist3966
"This pissed me off so much in Manifest. Girl is desperate to get back her ex-fiancé, he finally breaks up with his wife to get back with her and she's like 'nah, it's not fair to your wife, let me do this other dude I just met through a calling and be pissed at you for being jealous.' Michaela was the worst and everyone acted as if she were a saint the entire time."
gingerisla
Talk to Me
"Shows where a single polite conversation could fix everything."
Horror_Librarian_133
We are going overboard with the witty repartee. Talk normal...
Shut Up
"Annoying main character, especially if it's a kid."
abananation
"Kids who have a quippy, sassy retort to everything, and everyone just kind of crumbles before their wit."
CarpetPure7924
Speak Good
"Shows where kids in high school talk like they are 30 years olds who have done everything, been everywhere, know it all and use a ridiculously flowery and extensive vocabulary in every conversation. Like, have any of these writers ever been to high school? Literally no one talks like that. Even worse is when, in addition to this, all the adults talk normal or are just plain stupid, like so weird parallel universe."
StretchArmstrong74
Nonsense
"If the movie is too dark. Not graphic, just literally dark. I lose all sense of intensity in dark scenes and I'm not straining my damn eyes trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
TheShadowOfKaos
"I've seen about 10 percent of all DC movies recently. I've seen all of the individual films in full, just actually saw 10% of each of them."
Mortlach78
"Movies in the late 80s had a lot of dark but you could see the depth because of different shooting techniques. Now you cant see crap because its a CGI fest drowned in black color so you can't see crap because you have no depth in a scene. Compare night scenes in dark alleys in 80's movies and movies now. Utter crap show in the new ones."
Bombzey
Pay Attention Storytellers
"Bad editing would be a big one. A lot of modern horror movies can't help but edit the movies like they're trailers, with added noises to scare the audience because they are afraid the script alone isn't enough to keep people watching."
ThisIsCreation
"I remember this is where the first transformers movie lost me. When the transformers are fighting at the end, it's all a big, jumbled mess of metal and I can barely tell what's going on or who is who."
1840_NO
Drama
"When they go straight to relationship drama right away when it wasn't the selling point of the show."
LightInthewater
Do better, Hollywood. It's not that hard.
I fear death.
I wake up in cold sweats dreaming about it.
I think about it in my waking hours.
It's an obsession and clearly, I'm not alone.
But there are more preferred ways to exit.
All we can do is hope to be lucky enough to skip the mercilessly awful.
Please just let me go quick and in my sleep.
RedditorCallMehRiverwanted to hear about all the ways none of us what to leave this life.
"What Do You Think Would Be The Worst Death Imaginable?"
My list of the worst deaths is long. My imagination runs amok.
Trapped
"For me? Being trapped in a small tube or cave (like the ones you have to wiggle through) and getting stuck to where you can’t move your arms. And all you can do is wait to die. I’m getting chills just thinking about it."
Stuck
"The more I hear about cavers that get stuck, the more I think that's a crap way to go."
- braydenmaine
"There’s a great YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician and this was her #1 worse way to die. I can’t remember the exact details or their names, but two well-known divers went into an underwater cave."
"One of them became entangled and died. Years later, his friend dives back down there to try and retrieve his body, the body itself is rotten and his head comes off and the other guy also becomes tangled and dies. Really sad."
- melancholybuzzard
A Long Process
"Believed to be in a coma but coherent through the whole 20 year process until they pull the plug."
weebeardedman
"Oh man this just reminded me of a story I read on here about a guy who lost the ability to move and speak but was completely conscious. Had to just lay there and be awake but trapped in a useless body. His family thought he was brain dead or something and he couldn’t communicate to them that he was 'all there.' Crazy"
habeeb51
Slow & Steady
"Being slowly impaled by a growing bamboo. It was a form of torture probably used by the japanese during WW2 against Allied prisoners."
JazzySocrate
"My uncle who served back in the day said that people would have the bamboo slipped under their fingernails because it would continue to grow still. It would just continue growing into the body."
Payness0826
Excruciating
"Rabies."
Santolmo
"The scariest part is that once you have symptoms, you 100% will die. A 100% mortality rate has to be a psychological torture in itself."
RonaldRawdog
"Not only that, you feel irrational fear. Your brain is literally being eaten apart by the virus and it fu*ks up everything on it. You can't drink water because it hurts you. You feel dizzy, present a fever, excessively salivate, everything hurts and it only gets worse. I'd rather take a bullet and die when the symptoms are still tolerable."
Santolmo
Why can't we all just go engulfed in calm and quiet?
Suspended
"Some pulpy sci-fi book I read a while back had one of the best deaths of this real piece of crap bad guy. Left to die in a drowning sea lab under the Antarctic ice, he freezes himself in a state of the art suspended animation pod with some kind cold fusion power source that would keep it running for millions of years."
"But he forgot to inject himself with the drug that would put him to sleep. So basically he is in suspended animation at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean while his mind is perfectly awake and conscious in a near unbreakable machine that won't run out of power for millions of years and nobody knows about it."
DubiousAlibi
No Cure
"As an RN I have always thought that the worst way to die (natural process) is ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease."
randymn1963
"My mom and grandmother have Huntington's disease, which is essentially ALS, Alzheimer's, and Dementia combined into one really messed up genetic disease. I have a 50% chance of inheriting it and if I hit 40 and there's still no cure I can't promise I'll feel like continuing on with my life because that disease is absolutely freaking miserable."
DevTheDummy
Agony...
"Radiation poisoning."
binhan123ad
"The fact your chromosomes can be so destroyed your body basically lost it's genetic code and with it the ability to make any new cells. It's literally a 'dead man walking' and you slowly rot away in agony. Stuff is so unimaginably f**ked up."
yea_nah448
"What's also bad about radiation is that it affects your nerves and brain cells last, so you have everything in place to feel all the pain of the rest of your cells being destroyed."
nosmelc
Goo
"I want to believe anything that slowly kills you painfully to be the worst. Such as slowly being crushed or something where the pain is beyond compare and yet not enough to throw you into shock or unconsciousness."
Beardless_Man
"Alternatively, being rapidly crushed into goo would probably be the least painful. I'm talking one of those massive industrial hammers they use for large steel work. Basically smooshed before the nerve signals make it to the brain."
Bannon9k
Now I'll never sleep again without nightmares of death.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Foreigners Explain Which Stereotypically American Things They've Always Wanted To Try
Most Americans think nothing of their humdrum daily activities or amenities available to them.
However, others with a different perspective might romanticize the things that are otherwise commonplace ideas and concepts for US citizens, like going to a diner or riding the school bus.
One Redditor looked to foreigners to hear of their American desires to respond to the following:
"Non-Americans of Reddit: what is an American thing you have always wanted to try?"
The things depicted in film really captivated foreign audiences.
Casual Dining
"To visit a diner like in the movies. In the middle of the night, it’s raining and just a few people there with great music from a jukebox."
– TotalAd6225
Iconic Student Transport
"Ride a yellow school bus even if I'm too old. Growing up I always loved seeing them on TV."
– infiresemo
Just Like The Ones We Used To Know
"A white Christmas."
"Living in an Australian state where I've never even seen snow in our winter, let alone experiencing that classic Hallmark movie moment of waking up to a street full of it and sitting around a fireplace while opening gifts/preparing a feast."
"Guess it's not strictly American, but the imagery and trope is something I've only really seen from American Films."
– Stoibs
They may be ubiquitous for us, but they sure seem to be novel ideas to foreigners.
Let's Be Frank
"One of the hotdogs from those little street cart things."
– Who_is_lost
Kitchen Marvel
"A friend of mine from Indonesia said, 'the food chewer in the sink.'"
"Garbage disposal."
– Mnemonic22
American Pie
"Apple Pie made by white-haired grandma, placed near window, who says 'oh dear...' as I levitate towards it."
– MegaJoltik
Pre-Game Ritual
"Proper tailgating before a ball game, the kind where there's ribs and stuff."
– SpiralToNowhere
Fried Delicacies
"Deep fried foods at a state fair. I'm from Scotland and we love to deep fry everything and I wanna know if it's just as good or better."
– fenrisulfr94
There are places to see!
Places To See
"National parks."
– nhungoc1508
"America’s greatest invention!"
– nhungoc1508
Backpacking In Nature
"I always wanted to hike The Appalachian Trail if that counts. Or see Yellowstone."
– EphemeralRemedy
New Chapters
"Being able to start a whole new life 'elsewhere' without having to leave my country and going through an arduous immigration process."
– Gmtfoegy
My cousin told me she looks forward to visiting a Trader Joe's someday when she visits America for the first time.
Her bucket list option was hardly surprising. My parents used to bring treats from TJs as a novelty souvenir gift item, and my relatives ate it up. Literally.
Let's face it. The snacks at TJs rocks.
Even store locations in New York City would have ridiculously long lines during busy hours because the West-coast-based grocer was a novelty on the East Coast.