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Embarrassment is one of those emotions that is so profound and human, that we can often still feel it intensely when it’s second hand. Indeed, entire comedy series, most famously, the Office, have been built on inflicting both hilarity and cringe-worthy moments by putting characters in deeply embarrassing situations.
Often, the embarrassing things we go through are so intense, that many of us consider taking them with us to the grave. However, there is evidence that sharing your embarrassment, much like ripping off a band-aid, might hurt in the moment, but is actually a pretty good way to start feeling better about the experience. Humor, after all, is a great healer.
A netizen asked “what was your most embarrassing moment?” and some brave people shared their mortifying experiences. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote the worst ones and be sure to share your own stories and thoughts in the comments section below.
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#1
I tore my last good pair of shorts at work. Wore them like a kilt to go into Walmart and spend my last few dollars on essential food items for the house. A lady noticed my shorts were torn and wouldn't let me leave the store until she paid for a pair of shorts for me.
I was nearly in tears. Some people are still nice, folks.
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#2
My favorite one was an account of an event on the work forums. A manager was working through a transaction with a couple. Whenever the man was asked a question, his wife would answer. He asked "does she ever let you speak for yourself?". The wife responded with "No. Not since his stroke."
F**k.
Ellie Ahmed 2 months ago (edited)
And that is why, even if you're internally judging the c**p out of a situation, it's often best to hold it in. I remember the first time our extended family met my cousin's boyfriend (now husband). We were having a barbecue dinner where everyone served themselves, and everyone was so taken aback when she got up and got his entire plate of food for him while he just sat there, we're all silently thinking "dude, get off your butt, she's not your slave". After they left, my aunt dropped into conversation that he had a degenerative vision impairment. Dude was almost completely blind in low-light settings, and would have had no idea where or what any of the food was. Hence why my cousin got it for him. We've now known him for 10 years and our first impression couldn't have been more wrong - he's incredibly motivated and active and if somebody is helping him it's because he REALLY can't do it
#3
I went to Catholic school, and during my first confession, when the priest put his hand up to bless and forgive me for my sins, I high-fived him.
#4
At a retreat we all were sitting on a hard wood floor.
Speaker: "Let us have a moment of silence to reflect upon God's word in our hearts."
At that point, my stomach was bothering me. I knew the best thing to do was to let out a fart. I thought, well this is just a little fart, if I let it out slowly it will be silent. No one will be the wiser. So I let it go.
The fart was extremely loud and was amplified by the wood floors and the silence of the room. It echoed and sounded as if my a*****e had torn in half.
Elicited chuckles and laughter afterwards. I claimed it.
#5
I had a great day at a waterpark / outdoor pool and towards the afternoon a woman came up to me and whispered in my ear that I have a problem with my swimsuit. I reached behind a noticed a huge gap. The fabric was torn right in the middle and you could see my white, untanned as*crack. I was running around like this all day and no one said anything.
#6
It was the first day of school in 4th grade as I’ll never forget lol My mom had bought me a super cool Velcro jacket to wear to class and I put it in the dryer to make it warm in the morning. I took it out and threw it on and went to school all excited to show it off. The teacher asked everyone to go around the room, stand up, and introduce themselves. I VOLUNTEERED to go first, stood up and started talking. Some kid sitting next to me, interrupted and said wait you have something stuck to your back and proceeded to take this balled up thing stuck to my Velcro. He unraveled it very confused - in front of everyone - and it ended up being a massive pair of my mom’s maternity underwear 😂.
#7
Getting cars mixed up and jumping into the back of some strangers car in muddy football gear.
To make things worse I was zoned out so took me a solid 10 seconds to look up and realise that the husband, wife and their kid were staring dead at me.. I still cringe to this day.
#8
I was doing a play. It was children's theater so we entered from behind and among the audience to help suck the kids into this magical world. I'm playing Mike Teevee and I had to come in a side entrance and down these steps. Each step in that theater was like a small landing . So it's step down, take two strides then step down.
I had to time it so that by the time I've finished my monologue I'm standing in the front of the stage between the two narrators. It's our final dress rehearsal and my mom showed up to record me.
I'm making my way down and I stepped wrong and from what I saw on the recording what everyone else sees is me literally dropping out of view and then everyone laughing.
I basically somersaulted my way back to my feet and jumped back up to my feet blushing the rest of the way to the stage mortified.
I didn't realize it until I watched the recording back though. I never stopped monologuing. Not once. I was still doing my lines as I fell and as I was popping up without missing a beat.
Embarrassing as hell in the moment but kind of proud of it after the fact.
#9
I said to my cousin's wife: how's the children? She said: oh they're not here yet. Then it hit me. She just had a miss carriage not a week ago. I mistook her for another cousin's wife.
#10
I went to a mortuary for a friend’s funeral. The place was packed. Everyone was in line to pay respects and I couldn’t help but notice the overhead music: really good song, familiar sounding. Then I noticed people looking at me. I left my music app on in my pocket….
UndertaleLover (She/Her) 2 months ago
This happened to my mom once. We were in the grocery store and she was like "huh, these are the songs from my playlist. Weird." Then she took out her phone to text dad, and we realized...it WAS her playlist. She had never turned it off when we got out of the car. 🤦♀️
#11
Somehow in science class the teacher was talking about a girl in class who had a crush on someone. He started guessing names of boys in the class. When he guessed my name, all the girls in the room went "EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!" it was pretty humiliating.
#12
When I was in fourth grade I s**t pants in front of my entire class, including my crush. I held it in for about three hours, when I just couldn't anymore. In my defense, I had asked the teachers multiple times to go to the bathroom, but no one let me. Since then I've taken the motto " If you won't let me s**t when it's just my problem, then I'm going to make it our problem then. People I have s**t my pants before and I will s**t them again".
Apachebathmat 2 months ago
At a friends house once and went outside to have a cigarette (since given up) and I got that feeling that I had a tiny fart awaiting release… cue me walking back through the house, jeans covered in explosive diarrhoea… I can still hear the “happens to the best of us” comments
#13
When I was younger, my mom didn’t teach me how to put a pad on and I started my period for the first time…while at school 🫠 Someone asked me if I spilled BBQ sauce on myself. And then during a test, my pad slipped out and fell out in front of everyone because I didn’t take the wrapper off.
#14
I did a talent show and forgot the lyrics in front of 100+ people, so I just stood there staring until the song finished. I was 8.
#15
I was at a networking event for women engineers and tech leaders at hosted by a big company. Sit down dinner in a large room. Every seat was filled.
I was asked to give an example of work I was proud of because women rarely talk about their successes. I started to describe a successful non-profit project I did in college then suddenly bust into uncontrollable tears. I couldn’t stop them, I didn’t even know why it was happening. I had to stop and sit down. Sadly, I haven’t been invited back.
I did figure out I was describing a time period when, “home” was my dad’s house. He had passed away a couple years earlier, we were close, I miss him every day. Remembering this project brought back memories of this time and my grief was sudden and overwhelming. I can’t think about how much losing him hurts every day. If you ignore it long enough, grief will find a way out. It was so surprising and sudden.
So, yeah, super embarrassing, especially given no one present will ever know why.
#16
I walked face first into a street light lamp post because I was staring at a beautiful girl walking towards the direction where I was coming from. It was in front of the main gate of our university. Hundreds of students saw it. My friends laughed hard as hell.
#17
Was picking my son up from school and the hot male preschool teacher was letting the kids go, I am holding back a fart when getting my son. I get him loaded into the car, get into drivers seat and let it rip…the hot teacher starts walking and I’m thinking oh he is going to talk yo another parent…nope came to my car and wanted to tell me he forgot to mention that my son got hurt but forgot to write it up…(was just a bump on the elbow). When he is telling me, I could tell he smelled it…by his face and my son laughing.
#18
I was at my friend's birthday party in high school and was super drunk. I ran up to a group of people and said, 'Watch this!' I then proceeded to run and dive into a bounce house, only for the Velcro-lined entrance to grab my sweats and boxers and pull them down to my ankles. I’ll never forget the looks of horror on their faces while I laid there on my back with my legs in the air showing off all my goodies.
#19
Recently went on a vacation with some friends + a mutual friend who I don't know that well. Him and I took the pullout couches, and his was right next to the bathroom. Later one night, when we were all walking around away from our hotel, I got the stomach rumbles. Then the nausea hit. I have never felt so sick in my life. It felt like someone was grabbing my insides and twisting them. The second we got back to our hotel I made a beeline for the bathroom. Through that paper thin wall, this guy I barely knew heard me s**t pure liquid out of my a*s (complete with loud, wet farts), cry, and vomit in a trash can in front of me. I spent the rest of the night shivering in bed and making runs to the bathroom. I hit the "been married for a decade" barrier with them in a single night.
Food poisoning is a b***h.
#20
I asked my cousin, who I hadn't seen in two decades, how long he and his girlfriend had been together. He informed me that it was his daughter.
#21
I was freshmen in highschool playing at soccer game. We had gotten our a**es totally kicked, 0-4 by the best team in the league. At the end of the soccer game usually the moms would bring snacks and drinks for everyone, well my team didn't really have a great support network and nobody brought them for us.
I was so tired and sad that we lost I got confused and followed the other team to the snack area. They had twinkies, jerky, those little juice boxes that looked like grenades.. the best stuff. Started scarfing them down. Then noticed I was the only one on my team eating with these guys.
There was so much silence as an entire team of players and their support parents just looked at me. I was like, 'oh... I shouldn't be here'..They all started laughing at me. Then I walked back to my side of the field.. with my entire team started laughing at me.
Yea it was a tuff day.
#22
New kid in HS, first day of school. Wearing my favorite jeans. Apparently my mom's granny panties hitched a ride on the inside of my pant leg and started coming out the bottom later on in the day.
Beak Hookage 2 months ago
And it just HAD to be on the first day, groan. I'll bet the other kids never let the poor thing hear the end of it.
#23
1982. 4th grade. I got one of those s****y plastic costumes for Halloween. Decided not to wear anything under it. It degraded. Long story short, you know that common nightmare where you are sitting in class in your underwear? Ya.
#25
Farted in a patient's room, who I thought AMS after cleaning her up with the nurse.
Everyone could smell it, nurse thought the patient had pooped again. I told her I though she just farted. But she insisted we check the patient again, so we turned her, there was no poop.
The patient points a finger at me and loudly says "it's not me it's you! You're the one with the stinky poo-poo!" I turned bright red, the nurse was not pleased with me.
Rachel Pelz 2 months ago
That's really mean toward the patient. Still, let's please normalise body functions.
#26
For grade school, I attended a religious school. We went to church every week. One week, the weather was particularly warm and muggy, and we were in church. I was wearing the school uniform shorts, while sitting on the wooden pew/seats and my skin was very sticky.
The priest was droning on through his homily, and I adjusted my position in the seat. The back of my sweaty sticky leg stuck to the pew and made the loudest farting sound against the hardwood of the seat, and it echoed through the church, and everything subsequently went silent. *Everyone*, including the priest looked my way. There was a long, awkward, silent pause while everyone gazed at me while I flushed red like never before.
Nothing else came of it, the priest continued droning on and everyone else continued being bored, but that moment of thunderous fart noise and the world standing still while everyone stared at little 2nd grade me was absolutely mortifying.
#27
I walked into a glass wall/full sized window at a gas station, bounced off, and then fell on my a*s.
The employees and customers inside all saw what happened and laughed. Even a few people pumping gas laughed.
Tempest 2 months ago
An ex friend of mine once walked so fast into a glass wall of a store (thinking it’s the door) that the sound of her head hitting the glass echoed through the entire floor of the mall we were in. Everyone looked our way. I found it funny and started laughing but had to soon contain myself cause people were looking concerned and my friend looked like she was about to cry (her head hurt). Another time, although I didn’t walk into it, I stood waiting in front of a glass wall thinking it’s an automatic door. The said automatic glass door was just to the left of the glass wall. It took a friend of mine pointing out the door for me to realise that I was waiting for a wall to open up.
#28
I s**t my pants at my ex's nephew's first birthday party.
We had a small party at a local park with pizza and cake. I'm dairy intolerant, so I asked my ex to stop and get Lactaid before the event. He told me we were near bathrooms and I would be fine if I had to go to the bathroom.
We were not near any bathrooms. I felt the urge to go number two, which was coming quickly. I told my ex, and we started walking towards the restrooms, or so we thought. Turns out we were walking in the wrong direction.
I could not hold it anymore. I started s******g myself. He told me to go into the thicket along the walking trail/bike path we were on to finish relieving myself. He went to get baby wipes from his sister. I cleaned up and left my underwear and my pride in the thicket.
#29
So I have this issue when I'm stressed, scared or sad I laugh, so I once laughed at a funeral I felt so bad and I literally wanted to burry myself 6 feet under.
Beak Hookage 2 months ago
I'm the kinda guy who laughs at a funeral, can't understand what I mean, well you soon will
#30
Caught fire making corn dogs then my friends came over as the EMT's were carrying me completely naked down the stairs on this weird chair thing.
#31
I made a light joke about a co-worker in what I thought was a DM to a friend but was actually a channel that the co-worker and our whole team was in. It wasn't personal or intentionally hurtful, but it did hit home for him and he was REALLY really hurt. The friend that I thought I'd sent it to knew that I'd put it in a channel but didn't tell me so it was up for several minutes.
I felt like such an incredible a*****e. Had a call with the person to apologize but the fact that it hit home meant the damage was done. It's been over a year and I still think about it all the time.
#32
Not me but a friend. Went to the ladies room back in the day when we wore panty hose all the time. Well, she tucked her dress in her pantyhose by mistake, was commando of course and walked around the whole rest saying hi to all these ppl she knew. Her husb kept calling her name and saying she was showing her a*s and she thought he meant she had too much to drink lol. They never went back.
#33
In 4th grade I was wearing fake velvet/corduroy tweety bird overalls and we were doing parachute day in PE. The overalls split at the butt and the nurse used safety pins to keep it together for the next 4-5 hours. I went to BASE because my parents both worked and had long commutes so after school I basically just sat in a plastic chair so no one could see my butt.
Also when I was 12 or 13 I got my period in PE and bled through my underwear, pants, and a sweatshirt tied around my waist and I had to sit on the bleachers and not do field hockey which was my favorite. The rest is a little foggy but I think they had me wear stuff from the lost & found until I went home. Man I have a lot of PE related small t trauma.
#34
I was attending an online class on my phone, and went to the toilet. My mic was on, but luckily the camera was off. Still I got teased a lot that day in our class WhatsApp group.
UncleJohn3000 2 months ago
I was one of the main presenters at a large conference and *almost* took the mic pack into the men's room. I stopped at the door.
#35
Cr*pping my pants in church.
There was a special service being held on Halloween night and I ate way too much candy and my stomach got upset. I was the cross-bearer and I ran to the back right before they did the offering (where the cross-bearer has to go to the back of the church) and couldn't get the vestments off in time and just let it rip. I remember my pants expanding like a balloon and I felt the liquid goo running down my leg. The secondary priest came to the back to check on me and he could smell the foul deed I did and I remember him saying "oh god" and he went to the back to get my mom who quickly shuffled me out the back/side door of the church.
They tried to wash the vestments and my parents ended up buying the church an entire new set. Needless to say I never wanted to "serve" again.
What do you think ?
Dragons Exist 2 months ago
Like half an hour ago I sat in the wrong class for 10 minutes and had to embarrassingly walk to my actual class, so this post helped relieve some of the embarrassment
Strawberry Pizza 2 months ago
I did that too in my first year of secondary school! I only realised I was in the wrong place when the girl in front of me turned around whispered "I didn't know you were in this class!" And I was like. Oh s**t. I'm not. And then I had to book it downstairs to my real class haha
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Darth Kittius 2 months ago
I have a whole list of stories that haunt me at night but here's a story from today: I was at goodwill today and looking at the shoes. On one of the benches next to the shoe racks there was a lady nursing her baby. I picked up a pair of heels, which knocked down the pair next to it. This pair of shoes just so happened to be at the end of the road, so one of the heels fell off the shelf and onto this lady's shoulder. I apologized profusely but only got a withering stare in return. I still feel bad but I'm glad I didn't hurt the baby.
Dragons Exist 2 months ago
When I was 8 at a Goodwill I knocked down a vase, which knocked down 3 more like dominos and all 4 shattered across the floor
Load More Replies...
Adam Benson 2 months ago (edited)
I remember one time I was 17 and working in a supermarket. There was this cashier I liked and after a few weeks, I finally plucked up the courage to ask her out. She full on laughed in my face and never spoke to me again. There was another time in a different supermarket when I had a 5am start. When I got there and sat down in the staff room, I noticed some discomfort in my upper back area. I reached back and pulled out a coathanger that was inside my shirt but I was too tired to notice.
Julie S 2 months ago
You had a lucky escape from the girl who laughed in your face that's just cruel.
Load More Replies... Dragons Exist 2 months ago
Like half an hour ago I sat in the wrong class for 10 minutes and had to embarrassingly walk to my actual class, so this post helped relieve some of the embarrassment
Strawberry Pizza 2 months ago
I did that too in my first year of secondary school! I only realised I was in the wrong place when the girl in front of me turned around whispered "I didn't know you were in this class!" And I was like. Oh s**t. I'm not. And then I had to book it downstairs to my real class haha
Load More Replies... Darth Kittius 2 months ago
I have a whole list of stories that haunt me at night but here's a story from today: I was at goodwill today and looking at the shoes. On one of the benches next to the shoe racks there was a lady nursing her baby. I picked up a pair of heels, which knocked down the pair next to it. This pair of shoes just so happened to be at the end of the road, so one of the heels fell off the shelf and onto this lady's shoulder. I apologized profusely but only got a withering stare in return. I still feel bad but I'm glad I didn't hurt the baby.
Dragons Exist 2 months ago
When I was 8 at a Goodwill I knocked down a vase, which knocked down 3 more like dominos and all 4 shattered across the floor
Load More Replies... Adam Benson 2 months ago (edited)
I remember one time I was 17 and working in a supermarket. There was this cashier I liked and after a few weeks, I finally plucked up the courage to ask her out. She full on laughed in my face and never spoke to me again. There was another time in a different supermarket when I had a 5am start. When I got there and sat down in the staff room, I noticed some discomfort in my upper back area. I reached back and pulled out a coathanger that was inside my shirt but I was too tired to notice.
Julie S 2 months ago
You had a lucky escape from the girl who laughed in your face that's just cruel.
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