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Shame and embarrassment can be good emotions that keep us in check. But isn't feeling embarrassed over your own actions enough? Why do we have to suffer the cringe from the antics of others?
Clinical Psychologist Marielle Collins, Ph.D., explains that it's related to empathy. "Our brains are wired to be able to simulate the emotional experiences of other people and feel what another person is feeling." That's why we feel sorry for people when they're grieving, for example. The same goes for being embarrassed when someone else does something shameful.
However, you have to admit that reading cringy stories is quite entertaining and fascinating. It seems this Redditor agreed, as they asked: "What is the worst second hand embarrassment you've ever felt?" The thread filled up pretty quickly, with over five thousand netizens rushing in to tell their story.
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#1
I used to work at McDonalds. One of my coworkers was mopping the floor and some kids Mother made a comment to her child about getting a good job so he doesn't end up mopping floors blah blah. So my co-worker turns to her and says "just trying to pay for my Mums Chemo". I'll never forget the look on her face. Keeping in mind that this guys Mum was NOT sick at all, he was taking the p**s.
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#2
Bless my ex gf. She was a waitress, and we were out to dinner with my parents. My mother pulls the "trying to use an expired coupon" move on the waiter. She simply refused to accept that time is a thing and that the written date had passed.
While I zone out and wait for my mom to either win or be escorted out by management, my ex was apparently slowly losing her mind. She suddenly snatches the dollar bill sized coupon from my mother's hand and eats it. Literally tore it and shoved the pieces in her mouth. She says that since there's no more coupon, there's no deal.
It was nice, having the crazy chick be crazy on the staffs behalf for a change.
#3
Wasn't there personally, BUT it has since become a bit of a legend at the school.
I went to and worked at a fairly large flight school attached to a university. We had a couple thousand people enrolled in the program that went all the way from 0 hour student pilot to Multi Engine Flight Instructor, and on clear calm days you can guarantee that there would be a handful of student pilots doing their first solo flight. One student, having completed his two landings by himself, taxied off the runway and switched over to ground control and asked for clearance to taxi back to the ramp and complete his first solo flight. Ground obliged, gave him clearance and congratulated him on a solo well done. Solo student read back the instructions but for some reason *forgot to take his finger off the microphone button.* Anyone tuned into ground control could not only hear but could do nothing to interrupt or stop him as he *sang a song of his own invention about how much he loved the aircraft he was driving.* For three whole minutes, this poor bastard serenaded the 50 or so pilots, ramp workers, air traffic controllers and flight supervisors with "I love you Cessna, I love you Cessna" as he taxied back to the ramp. Eventually he realized he was on the air, took his finger off the button, enabling ground control got back on the frequency and, over the howls of the tower cab crew laughing so hard it hurt, the controller thanked him for the song and would pass along the compliment at the next opportunity.
#4
I was selling some kettlebells on Facebook marketplace and a woman, early 40’s maybe, bought them.
She came to pick them up and as I handed them over to her, she obviously wasn’t expecting them to be as heavy as they were, and as she suddenly strained to counter the weight, she ripped the most extreme of farts you have ever heard. It was gargantuan. I was shocked, but also proud.
I’m usually pretty good at making light of any situation but I found myself speechless for the first time in my life. If I could, I would’ve returned serve but even on my best day I don’t believe I could create such a symphony.
We both kind of stared into each other’s eyes and she said “well…” and turned around and walked off.
I think about her often.
#5
Was going down an escalator at the mall of Georgia when the 90 something year old guy in front of me very suddenly s**t his pants. We were about 500 feet from a bathroom and he was wearing shorts. I felt so bad for him. My dad gave him his hoodie to wrap around his waist. I was very proud he was my dad in that moment and still am.
#6
I saw a friend, who was upset that his girlfriend corrected his grammar, throw himself on a couch and kick his feet and pound his fists, while he cried out, "Don't correct me. You're not my mom!"
She kicked him out of her apartment and broke up with him. I wondered how she lasted so long.
#7
I was at my Aunt Brenda's funeral, the priest called her "Mary" throughout the eulogy. Eventually my Uncle Hank yelled "Her name is BRENDA, A*****E!" as my Uncle Bob (the widower) burst into tears.
#8
A long time ago I worked at an airport where we had an office with a big glass tinted window through which we could watch the passengers and arrival hall goings on.
Three of us were sitting at the window doing paperwork, we were all so extremely tired after a long shift when one of the guys I worked with took a glance out and spotted one of our co-workers he didn't like through the window. He proceeded to tell us the most vicious rant...' Look at that fat so and so, etc. etc, looks like a warthog, just on and on with the most descriptive insults.
Turns out, I guess bring so tired, he had spotted her reflection in the window and she was actually standing behind us. It was just us three and her in the room. I beep beep beeped reversed out of that room so quick.
Kari Panda 5 months ago (edited)
Another one. It’s fine if you don’t like someone and if you stand up to them during a disagreement or if they harrass you. But calling someone names and shaming their appearance? No sympathy from me. Someone should have called you out on that AH behaviour as it is.
#9
I'm sure everyone felt this for me, I walked into work one day and everyone was standing around and I was like "what happened some one die?!?!"
Yep guy I worked with took his life. .
#10
When I was 18 (20 years ago) I worked at Starbucks as a Barista and I loved it! During the summer of 2004 my Grandfather passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. I was working when it happened and my Mom came in to give me the news and I left.
A few days later I’m back at work and it’s a full crew there that day and we were busy. Right before I hit the floor my manager called me into the back to check in on me and to also tell me that she had gotten feedback from her district manager that I crushed the interview I had with him for a shift supervisor position at a new store opening up. I was super jazzed and hit the floor ready to go. That day I was working drive with Jax (Jacki) and she could be a ball of energy! Whenever we worked together she would make these double shot slammers that had 4 pumps of white mocha, 4 raw sugar packets and topped with whipped cream. So essentially you were left with two cranked up baristas making drinks, sweating and heart palpitating.
During the shift it was announced that I was being promoted so everyone was really happy for me. They were also really sweet about my Grandfather passing as well. It was a bitter sweet day. As I’m making some drinks at the bar I notice a card being passed around and it’s not making it to me so I figured it was a condolences card for the loss of my Grandfather. At one point I see Jax grab it and write a message and hand it to my manager. At the end of my shift they gave it to me and it was full of sweet sympathy messages from everyone. But then my eye is drawn to a message that says, “Get it B***H! Congrats! I’m so proud of you! You better not be a stranger around here or you’ll be DEAD TO ME” - Jax . Her being hyped up on caffeine and in a rush thought that it was a congratulations card for my promotion. I started laughing when realizing what she did and another coworker read it and in front of everyone clocked her on it! Jax was mortified and took it really hard. I told her that I thought it was funny as hell and to not even stress it. She spent the rest of her shift embarrassed and took it really hard, profusely apologizing for the rest of the day. Needless to say, she probably reads the group card now before she signs it!
Shark Lady 5 months ago
Similar thing happened to a colleague of mine, she wrote "Happy birthday" in a condolences card. Luckily it was spotted before the intended recipient received it. Colleague had to go and buy a new card and spend most of the morning taking it around for everyone to sign it.
#11
Was at dinner party when my friend’s mother in law asked another one of our friends when her baby was due. She wasn’t pregnant. Anyway, MIL should have simply apologized, but instead doubles down with something to the effect of “it sure looks like you’re pregnant”.
#12
I was a server at an Americana restaurant and a family came in and the mother was berating everyone. She yelled at the server and complained about the food not being the right temperature and then she thought it was too salty, etc. She really had it in for the 17 year old server. He was fine-- but the customer wanted to pick at someone. Her husband and teenaged children looked embarrassed. She had been like this before.
There is a sign on the door that said we reserved the right to refuse service to anyone, and management decided that this lady shouldn't eat with us again so the manager went over and comped the meals and told them to leave and not come back. The woman was upset and left mean feedback.
In response the feedback, a regular posted with a picture of the woman and her family. She quickly took down her bad feed back. She deserved the public upbraiding, but I was embarrassed for her family.
#13
I embarrass myself enough on my own. One situation that comes to mind from years ago that haunts me.
I was 9 months pregnant, bored out of my mind on a Saturday morning and decided to go look for garage sales to pass time. I was also super young and poor and needed things for a house my ex and I had just rented.
I went to a few and then turned into a small neighborhood I had not been in before. I see a house with tons and tons of things in garage and a few tables in driveway. I started picking through things, carrying some items, making a pile at one point. I’d say about 10 minutes go by and an elderly woman came out the house and asked me how she could help me, and I replied I was just looking and would let her know if I needed anything. She looked at me really confused. My big dumb pregnant a*s started going through some curtains and things when it dawned on me to ask prices on what I had already put aside.
I asked her if she could give me some prices. She replied: “Oh honey, I’ve been looking for whatever died in that garage but if you need some things I can help you out.”
I declined and waddled to my car.
#14
Sitting at a desk at my new job with 4 other new hires. It was like our 4th day and a new guy was there, all we heard was that his wife had been having a baby so he started a couple days late. One guy asks him if it’s a boy or girl. He says it was a boy. Asks how he’s doing. The guy says actually the baby didn’t make it. Got real quiet after that.
#15
Does third hand embarrassment count? My uncle died midway through a contentious divorce from my aunt. Nobody on our side of the family liked the guy and we were happy she had finally dropped him. Turns out nobody on his side of the family liked the guy either, his adult children and parents included, and didn’t seem phased at his death. My mom went to the funeral to support her sister and said it was the most awkward funeral she’d ever been to. There were only about 10 people who actually attended, and the pastor running the thing had set aside 30 minutes for people to come up and share their positive memories of the guy. No one moved. Nobody was willing to say a good word about him. Instead the pastor awkwardly tried to fill the space with some general “everyone has value” stuff, and then gave up and ended the service after 10 minutes total. No one in the family bothered to go to the graveside service either. Apparently they decided to go to a bar instead to get sh**faced and trash talk the dead guy.
#16
My ex had a massive ego and one of the things he had an ego about was football, even though his team was an incredibly low division and had never won. One day I drove him to his game and as we approached the field he goes "ooft yesssss, these guys are total middle aged losers, we're gonna beat them for sure" and kept going on about how some of them were fat, ugly, balding, probably only playing to get away from their wives and s****y home lives, etc. I stayed mostly quiet during this (I hate when people insult others based on looks, something I'd told him off for multiple times) and simply told him good luck.
They lost 7-nil. Not just that, but this game pushed them to be knocked down into the next lowest division because they'd lost by too much. At the time I felt massive second hand embarrassment for him but now I just think "lmao karma.".
#17
Well, many many years ago, when I was a kid, I was on holiday with my family in a remote location in Indonesia. It was NYE and there was a little party in the hotel restaurant, about half tourists and about half locals. Everyone had some food and a few drinks, and it was all going nicely.
Then a guy gets up and taps his glass. He tells the entire gathering that, as a proud West Virginian man, he would like to share something very special to him from his culture.
He proceeds to sing "Take me home, country road" by John Denver. Earnestly. A capella. With tears in his eyes.
My father is a rather blunt kind of Australian man. He absolutely could NOT reel it in. I think he tried for about 30 seconds but eventually just lost it and began laughing hysterically. So hard he cried. So hard everyone else near him began laughing too, just because it was contagious.
In the background, the guy is still singing, "West Virginiaaaaa, Mountain Mamaaaaaa...".
#18
A girl graduating from college falling down repeatedly on the stage. She fell at least three or four times and it was like something invisible was sweeping her leg out from under her. Even she had a WTF expression on her face.
#19
I went to an open house and there was this older realtor helping the listing agent. He was excitedly walking around this empty house talking about features while looking back at my husband and I and he ran head first into the chandelier that would be positioned over a dining room table had one been there. It happened so quick we couldn’t even warn him.
He got tangled in it and ripped it down as he fell face first to the ground, cutting himself up badly in the process.
We both still cringe thinking about it. We saw him out at the supermarket recently and both whispered “oh nooooooo”.
#20
That lady who took out like half the Tour de France pelaton with her stupid sign.
I only saw it on TV but that second hand embarrassment reverberated across the world for me. If that was me I would be looking into planetary relocation... I can't imagine it. I still think back on it and feel a sense of relief that I have never f****d up _that_ badly before.
#21
I didn't even have to be alive to be embarrassed for my mom dating in her twenties. Apparently she was on a date with a guy she really liked and she ordered a salad bc she didn't want to get anything in her teeth. Then mid conversation, she bit into a cherry tomato and it exploded and squirted across the table and blew out the candle in the middle of the table.
I die every time I think about this.
#22
I worked retail during COVID. This family would come in, normal looking , mom in her forties, two middle school kids. Except for the dad, who wore a Halloween Mike Myers mask with tape over the mouth and SLAVE written in "blood" across the forehead. Then they would just...shop...but his wife and kids looked like they wanted the sweet release of death every second. Edit: I should have been more clear: this is when mask mandates were in effect.
BoredPossum 5 months ago
Corona definitely made many people stupid, even before they got ill. Or, at least exposed who they were.
#23
I was ringing a girl and her bf up and she was a few dollars short on hertransaction. Bf then got in my face and insisted her redbulls were BOGO, it is true they *were* BOGO but the promo had ended months earlier. This man proceeds to yell and scream at me for five minutes about how she deserves these drinks and how dare I Yada Yada. This whole time his gf was trying to disappear into the chip display like Homer sliding into that bush, just dying of embarrassment. Eventually after I threatened to trespass him he gave me the biggest eye roll I have ever received and spat on the floor and told his gf "let's get out of here this f****t clearly gets off on denying beautiful women what they need". His exact words.
#24
A new guy started at work and a couple of us were standing around just bulls***ting. A lady that also works there who is fairly rough around the edges walks by and the new guy looks at other guy we were chatting with and states “Damn. I feel bad for her husband”. It was her husband we were talking to.
#25
I worked at a retail store and my manager was a super try hard, dorky kind of guy. He loved the sales manager and was obsessed with him like to the point of adopting phrases and mannerisms. Anyways one night we all went out for karaoke and he, completely sober btw, went up, said he was dedicating a song to the sales manager, and sang that foo fighters there goes my hero song. I literally had to walk outside I couldn't handle it.
#26
When a colleague accidentally unmuted himself in a meeting and said something snarky about someone on the call. That particular call was being recorded too.
Not me directly, but I had a colleague tell me he'd been moderating a work-related townhall meeting on Teams, and the meeting was being recorded for publishing on the website. Some poor sod didn't realise his camera was on, and took his laptop into the bathroom with him to continue listening while he took a dump. Since most people had their cameras off, his video popped up beside the presenter's on Teams. Needless to say, the recording was quietly lost.
#27
That time my old roommate told a table full of his family that “AIDS and Cancer are the same thing.” Just after talking about how much he’s been learning from his night classes. Those classes were being paid for by his parents and *Spoiler* *Alert* he wasn’t attending any classes. They realized it by the time dinner was over.
#28
I was out for dinner with my family, and my brother was a wheelchair user, he would’ve been a teenager at the time. A drunk woman came up to us, looked at him, then turned to my mum and asked “is he like that famous astrologer?”
She meant Stephen Hawking.
#29
This was years ago. Met a lady (40ish) who had a piercing in an unusual spot; upper lip, about half an inch away from the nose and more towards the cheek. It was a plain circular piercing.
My friend (M 20s) who knew the lady, sort of reached out to touch it, saying sorry you've got something on your face. She gently recoiled. He tried again. This was with others in the vicinity.
I died a bit that day.
#30
I went to school for software development. Very difficult program, high fail rate.
First day of second semester we're hanging out chatting and a guy I know from the program chats with us. Now, in first semester, he struggled. We all knew he struggled. I was kind of surprised to see him.
We were talking about grades and he says "Oh wow, you guys saw your grades? How?" Yes, he'd got through the semester and never checked his grades.
We pull up the school website and he logs in and we point him to the grades section. And he says "What do these W's mean?"
I look over and he's got a W in 3 classes, which is basically a grade lower than F. It's like a "Did not complete."
I'm like, "Uh, that means you can't really be here right now. You should go talk to the registrar's office."
He's honestly more confused than anything, he wanders off and we never see him again.
What do you think ?
BrunoVI 5 months ago
Worst I ever saw personally was a guy who lost a TON of weight before a board meeting dinner. He drank before the diner, and his body could no longer tolerate nearly as much alcohol. He threw up at the dinner, drowning a round table for 20 in vomit, clear from end to end. Worse than Family Guy. I might've saved his career by deliberately putting into the CEO's and other key people's ear the effect massive weight loss has on alcohol metabolism.
Frozengeckolover 4 months ago
Good on you for trying to help. I'm sure he was super embarrassed. My ex husband was a recovering alcoholic. I just gave up alcohol all together, and I didn't start again when we split up. But I was out with family one night, several years later, and they pressured me to have a drink with them. I ordered a small cocktail and didn't finish it, but it was enough to make me ill. I didn't vomit on the table, but I was too sick to go shopping with them after dinner. Their comments were not kind. I realized my family were a-holes then; for pressuring me to drink when I didn't want too, and making fun of me for not being able to "hold my liquor".
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SirWriteALot 5 months ago
I'm always embarrassed when they pick members from the audience and bring them up on the stage ... or when the circus clown is not funny
ElfVibratorGlitter 5 months ago
Ohh! I stupidly sat in the first row at a standup comedy show. I was just fodder for every dumb joke. Was funny maybe the first time. After that I was just embarrassed.
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Liz 5 months ago
Years ago, when I was a teenager, my friend frantically called me and yelled at me to take down my post on Hyves (was something like Facebook and very popular in the Netherlands). I wrote on the page of this guy I always ran into when going out but not that Weekend: he how are you? Did you survive the weekend xD .. yeah, he died that weekend.
BrunoVI 5 months ago
Worst I ever saw personally was a guy who lost a TON of weight before a board meeting dinner. He drank before the diner, and his body could no longer tolerate nearly as much alcohol. He threw up at the dinner, drowning a round table for 20 in vomit, clear from end to end. Worse than Family Guy. I might've saved his career by deliberately putting into the CEO's and other key people's ear the effect massive weight loss has on alcohol metabolism.
Frozengeckolover 4 months ago
Good on you for trying to help. I'm sure he was super embarrassed. My ex husband was a recovering alcoholic. I just gave up alcohol all together, and I didn't start again when we split up. But I was out with family one night, several years later, and they pressured me to have a drink with them. I ordered a small cocktail and didn't finish it, but it was enough to make me ill. I didn't vomit on the table, but I was too sick to go shopping with them after dinner. Their comments were not kind. I realized my family were a-holes then; for pressuring me to drink when I didn't want too, and making fun of me for not being able to "hold my liquor".
Load More Replies... SirWriteALot 5 months ago
I'm always embarrassed when they pick members from the audience and bring them up on the stage ... or when the circus clown is not funny
ElfVibratorGlitter 5 months ago
Ohh! I stupidly sat in the first row at a standup comedy show. I was just fodder for every dumb joke. Was funny maybe the first time. After that I was just embarrassed.
Load More Replies... Liz 5 months ago
Years ago, when I was a teenager, my friend frantically called me and yelled at me to take down my post on Hyves (was something like Facebook and very popular in the Netherlands). I wrote on the page of this guy I always ran into when going out but not that Weekend: he how are you? Did you survive the weekend xD .. yeah, he died that weekend.
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