Have you ever had a moment where you just couldn't do the normal, rational thing? Where you had to jog around the block because you tripped over the sidewalk and just needed to convince everyone it was part of a leap into your daily run? We all have those moments, some more than others. These people make it look like a fine art!
Thanks to these folks for sharing their incredibly awkward stories with us. If you'd like to read more, check out the source link at the end of the article.
Comments may be edited for clarity.
The first time I took a bus in a new city, I pulled the stop request cord at the wrong stop. Instead of just being a normal person and telling the driver that I didn't mean to do that, I got off the bus and walked for an hour in the rain.
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.
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.
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.
Allowed my neighbor to call me the wrong name for 7 years because I never corrected him the first time he said it wrong.
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.
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.
I'm really bad at conversations with strangers when I can't hear them well.
Person: "Where's the washroom?"
Me: "Pardon?"
Person: "Where's the washroom?"
Me: "Haha yeah"
Person: "No No, do you know where the washroom is?"
Me: "Oh haha"
Person: "Nevermind..."
My friend's mom rolled my hand up in the window of the car while I was in the backseat. It hurt really bad but I was too awkward to say anything so I rode for about 10 minutes with half of my little hand squashed and hanging out the rolled-up window. I think eventually I said "um... ow" or something to alert her to the situation.
I've stayed in a bathroom stall for 10 minutes because I didn't want to walk out with another person in the bathroom.
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.
In French class in highschool everyone was talking over the teacher and she just couldn't get control over the classroom and she was getting increasingly frustrated and so was I. Just a whole room full of swirling talk and stuff. I wanted to tell everyone to quiet down but for some reason it got messed up inside my brain and I barked like a dog.
Or, sort of like a dog? Just a deep guttural noise. Everyone stared at me. The teacher asked if I was okay. I was so embarrassed. Bonus points: I did this on two occasions. I don't know what's wrong with me.
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.
I was doing a job interview in high school. The interview was going well and the lady asked me how important is hygiene to you?. During this moment I forgot what hygiene meant and shouldve asked. Instead I tried to act relaxed and said Im cool doesnt bother me.
I didnt get the job.
For all those curious: the job was for a CD store in a small town I grew up in. When my dad picked me up from the mall I asked him what it meant again and told him the story, he laughed and told me, youre not getting the job before reminding me of the meaning. I was freshly showered. Just an awkward teenager.
A week later I got my first job at A&W.
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 it 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.
Was staying the night at a friend's house when I was around 10-11. Had to take a poop and when I was all done there was no toilet paper, an absolute nightmare. I checked under the sink, in the cabinet, everywhere. My friend was outside and the only people in the house with me were his mom and his older sister that I had a crush on. So, I certainly couldn't shout out that I needed more toilet paper. I weighed my options. Towels, or cotton balls.
I wiped my arse with cotton balls.
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.
Last weekend I was eating starbursts and a lady approached me, so naturally I put a wrapped starburst in my mouth.
In 7th grade there was a girl who was super into gay people, to the point where she had gay dating apps on her phone. I guess she was just curious? Anyway, I had a crush on her, so instead of talking to her and getting her to like me like a normal person, I told everyone I was gay.
When I was younger I had a friend who lied a lot. I went to her house one day and she had those little colorful gobstoppers unwrapped all over the floor of her room. I asked her if I could have one and she kept insisting they weren't gobstoppers but wouldn't tell me what they were. I figured she was lying and when she left the room momentarily I popped a few in my mouth. Turns out they weren't gobstoppers, they were plastic balls from a game. I kept them in my mouth for probably 45 minutes until she left the room again just so she wouldn't see.
As an undergrad, I was invited to a halloween costume party. I only knew the person who invited me, and everyone there seemed to know each other, so I was the odd man out. After about 30 minutes of pounding jungle juice and standing around awkwardly, I went outside, buzzed, to escape. I wanted to go home, but my friend had driven me. So, instead, I found a gap in the shrubbery around the house's foundation and hid there, watching other drunks come and go from my cloak of concealment. This is was all fine and well until a girl noticed me and I guess it startled her because she screamed and made a scene. I booked it out of there and walked, in costume, a couple miles to a convenience store to call a relative to come pick me up. That was the last time that a friend invited me to a party.
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.
Saw a colleague I actually like in the supermarket. Did not want to stop-and-chat and engage in weird small talk in a shop.
I proceeded to awkwardly walk backwards when I spotted her in the aisle and whispered slightly loud to my SO at the time "I hope she can't see me". She turned her face, looked at me and said "I can see AND I can hear you!"
I said bye to someone and we both walked toward the elevators in the hospital. It was just too awkward for me so I proceeded to take the stairs down 12 flights instead...
Also, there was only one elevator in that wing of the hospital so I didn't want to just go down a few floors because I might run into them again. I also didn't want to have to wait for the elevator to go down and then come back up again.
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.
I was walking in the hallway in middle school and dropped my binder as the cool kids in the grade below me were walking by. Instead of just picking it up I decided it would be cooler to "barely even care" and kick my binder across the hall, towards the classroom I was going in. It instead spread it's contents everywhere.
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.
This is embarrassing, but the best stories usually are.....
It was my first week as a freshman at a Catholic highschool. It was all so new to me.
I had to adhere to a dress code which meant pastel button down shirt, khaki pants, belt, tucked in, tie, blazer, etc.... I am sitting in math class zoning out and thinking about cute girls in my grade when I hear my name called. "Would you like to do this proof on the board?" ...Like I had a choice!
Normally this is a non issue, but I look down after snapping out of my daydream and notice I have a massive erection. Now, as a newcomer to Catholic school education, I had yet to learn the classic waistband tuck technique, so in an effort to buy time, I reluctantly started moving at absolute half of a half of a snail's pace. Now another unfortunate side effect of being in the first week of freshman year, no one knows anyone. SO everyone is looking at each other like, "who the heck is this weird turtle guy?". I am not exaggerating when I say it took a full 45 seconds for me to fully stand up from my desk in the second row. I proceed to hunchback towards the blackboard bent over enough to hide the tent I was pitching from my teacher and the entire class.
I painstakingly work my way through the proof and thinking what is more of a boner killer than algebra, hoped that it would have gone away but alas no...it was still flying at full staff. So I bend over even lower like a 90 year old geriatric with chronic back problems and waddle my way to my desk and stupidly put too much force on the top of the top heavy desk when I get to it, consequently toppling the desk and myself over and falling to the ground. The whole class laughs at this weirdo with a massive boner on the ground under a desk. It would have actually have been less awkward for me to say, "Teacher I have a massive erection right now there is no way I am standing up to do that problem".
When I was around 5 or 6 I was playing at a friend's house outside and I was too nervous to ask to use the bathroom (plus I had never gone inside their house) so I peed my pants and left without saying anything lol.
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 whose 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.
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.
I took a huge bite of donut right before someone asked me a question during a work meeting. Instead of waiting or holding up a finger to say 'just a moment,' I tried to swallow it and started choking to death.
This happened yesterday.
I'm in Germany and I can't speak very good german. I'm at a canteen restaurant in a kaufhof for breakfast
I pick up a tray and get myself some bread and cheese and some blood-orange juice, as I walk over to where to pay I spill loads of the juice all over my food, my tray is just soggy red bread and cheese. Instead of trying to ask if I can replace it or just doing it anyway I go over to the cashier and pay for my soggy red sticky breakfast. The lady looks at it and back to me and back to it and says something in german probably along the lines of "Are you sure you want to pay for this?" I looked at her and shamefully said "ja, bitte", and then she counts it all up and it was almost 10 effin euros for just some bread cheese ham and juice.
My anxiety combined with my british-ness and akwardness is not a good combination at all
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.
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....
My first time staying at my long distance gfs, I didn't want her to know I pooped, so I held it from Friday morning until Monday night. Blocked up for days.
I accidentally got on the bus going in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go, and instead of getting off at the first stop after I realized this, or the next 20 stops, I rode the entire route. Just because I didn't want anyone to know what I did (not that they would have anyways).
