Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

i could list these things all day but i am too embarrassed

i used to get embarrassed when my dad would ramble on and never listen to the person trying to talk to him but now i don't care. i'm just glad he's still alive so i just watch him and smile. its like watching a big demented baby talk to people. who is hard of hearing. and who listens to jazz all day long and reads the wall street journal. okay, that's a really weird baby...

guys trying to flirt on facebook, publicly

People who comment on the food I am eating, or have just ordered. A truly irrational pet peeve.

People trying to impress their favourite musicians on facebook by posting fawning comments. It's even worse in real life. Note : I have done both of these things myself.

i told kim gordon that i really liked the harry crews album when i was drunk years ago. #bigfatliar

eating chobani yogurt fills me with disgust and self hatred, but i like this one flavor so much that i will suffer through the shame to eat it.

why does it make you feel that way? also, which flavor?

passion fruit

1) the name is so focus grouped that it makes me ashamed to say it, or even think about it
2) yogurt is for woman, and i am a woman
3) stirring up the fruit from the bottom is the worst sound on earth
4) i have long had an aversion to watching people eat yogurt, it's at least 20 years old
5) do i need another reason?

all completely valid reasons! especially #1; that's one of those words i do anything to avoid saying, and if i absolutely must say it, i involuntarily shudder.
passion fruit is one of the best flavors, though. recently i've been buying cabot greek yogurt which is cheaper and way better, but doesn't come in the individual sized cups so i can't bring it to work.

i hate this brand of yogurt so much that i have thought about ways to create my own passion fruit yogurt by making the pulp myself and freezing it in little individual tubes so that it defrosts by lunchtime and i can enjoy my yogurt with peace of mind.

empty shops/restaurants that are clearly struggling for business

people baby-talking to their kids, especially if it's about their faeces.

people pronouncing things wrong. my favourite is when people ask for the beer "bombardier" (pronounced in the ww2 spiffing way) and say "bombard-e-ay" in the french way, just a perfect failure. (i definitely pronounce things wrong myself, obv, sometimes, and then get even more embarrassed)

i heard a mom at the grocery store ask her toddler "do you wanna do oj or peach mango?"
kid in the cart: "let's do oj"

me: shame at having overheard that, it was just too personal and also since when did little kids say "let's do _____" when they want something?!?!

live theatre :-/

i think you mean bad live theatre

there is *a lot* of bad live theatre though, so yeah

Cartoon characters on generic products.

hockey players in advertisements

overheard conversations

generally

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrvdvczpEA

improv

People who comment on the food I am eating, or have just ordered. microwaving.. A truly irrational pet peeve.

"ooh, that smells nice..."

DO YOU WANT SOME?????

there is *a lot* of bad live theatre though, so yeah

painfully true. but i do tend to be irrationally embarrassed by people ~acting~ in a live setting, regardless of the quality of performance/ production. the closer they are to me physically, the more embarrassed i get.

improv comedy or improv anything?

comedy i guess? i'm not sure what other kinds of improv i'd run into

omg hahaaaa, mooks knows what i'm talking about
that clip is practically canadian
xps

http://youtu.be/vDggoBZ2A48

though the wayne gretzky ones of the 80s/90s were prob worse and more ubiquitous...

Everything I say and everything I do.

irish politics

Oh man. When I correct someone, or answer a question earnestly, and then immediately realise they were only joking. I guess it's rational to feel some embarrassment about that, but probably not rational to feel so much shame I just want to leave work straight away, get the train home, run upstairs to a cupboard, turn out the light and hide under every bit of linen I can find.

stop correcting ppl, it's ama awful habit, even when they're wrong. get home.

*points out typo*

*kills self*

witnessing people bragging

good one

I probably embarrass people when I temporarily bond with sales people (usually at the cosmetics counter).

empty shops/restaurants that are clearly struggling for business

I end up never even going into these places since I know that if I go in and start browsing I will feel obligated to buy something because I feel bad about their business not doing well.

I don't really feel embarrassed or anything though, this is just expensive sympathy.

I feel embarrassed about being a semi-regular small spender in probably not failing local businesses - like the local corner shop you only ever buy emergency toilet roll or teabags in because you do your regular shopping elsewhere. This is related to the embarrassment about whether or not to cultivate a nodding acquaintance with the people you only ever see on the way to or from work. It feels a stupid basis for an acquaintance so I never do, but then when you walk past them every day for months and years... i walk past a guy setting up a jerk chicken stand in the park every morning and i want to break this awful cycle of studied aloofness but i don't know how, and if i do i'll probably feel no less stupid in nodding to him every morning.

people pronouncing things wrong. my favourite is when people ask for the beer "bombardier" (pronounced in the ww2 spiffing way) and say "bombard-e-ay" in the french way, just a perfect failure. (i definitely pronounce things wrong myself, obv, sometimes, and then get even more embarrassed)

― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 5 December 2012 16:47 (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd probably be guilty of saying Bomard-i-ay cos I'm an idiot. I also can't stop myself saying "Kraftverk" and "Volksvagen" (who else does this? NOBODY!) and yet shudder when people like Stephen Fry don't pronounce the final "T" in 'restaurant' or insist on saying "gar-arge" when referring to music.

My wife reading ilx over my shoulder

How about creating a nodding acquaintance with people you see in work? I keep trying but at a guess I'm well south of 50% success rate. And it's not even just people you pass daily in the corridor, at the printer, etc - even some of the people I've worked fairly closely with for several days retreat into non-acquaintance mode as soon as the project is done. I feel embarrassed to be part of this.

It's not just me btw, I've checked - it appears simply to not be how it is done.

I think I'd say Kraftverk, but also Volkswagen - not sure it comes up much tbh.

anyway, it's folksvagen

play it safe and say folkwaggon imo

or 'b*ngbus'

People who comment on the food I am eating, or have just ordered. microwaving.. A truly irrational pet peeve.

"ooh, that smells nice..."

DO YOU WANT SOME?????

― Mark G, Wednesday, 5 December 2012 17:05 (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"mmmmm, looks good, what did you go for?"
"it's a new thing, it's called a sandwich, now fuck off okay?"

People sitting too close at 'communal eating' tables. However, if you are this person and you want me to budge over while I'm actually chewing, you can fuck off.

Commenting on the food of strangers: this is only OK in busy Chinese restaurants, where you see a group of diners with something good and you want to make damned sure you order that thing.

How about creating a nodding acquaintance with people you see in work? I keep trying but at a guess I'm well south of 50% success rate. And it's not even just people you pass daily in the corridor, at the printer, etc - even some of the people I've worked fairly closely with for several days retreat into non-acquaintance mode as soon as the project is done. I feel embarrassed to be part of this.

this whole area is a nightmare. do i say hi to someone i work with each time they pass me in a corridor? do i say hi to people i work with occasionally or whom i know? offices are the worst.

I get embarrassed when I get the lyrics wrong to a song I've known for years. Especially when it's in front of my kids.

My wife savagely (and rightly) mocked me for believing that the Talking Heads song "And She Was" included the lyric "and she could see an earmuff factory."

The lyric is, sadly, "she could see a nearby factory." Allegedly the factory that made Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink.

I was vindicated shortly thereafter, because she had spent 20 ywars misunderstanding the lyrics of the Elton John song "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues."

Specifically she sang "rolling like flounder," where the actual lyric is supposed to be "rolling like thunder."

When we started dating, we made a mixtape, and titled side A "Rolling Like Flounder," with the B side titled "Earmuff Factory."

I think there's a whole thread for this, but one time I got clowned hard by a girl who for some reason was friends with me, despite being vastly cooler than me in every way, for thinking the line from "Eyes Without a Face" was: "Got no human race".

Look over there / a dry ice factory / good place to get some thinking done / if only my ears weren't so cold

When The was 7 or 8 my mom bought me some brown corduroy pants that were supposed to be for special occasions. The sound of my thighs rubbing together as I walked was horribly embarrassing to me. I wasn’t a big kid, the embarrassment was totally irrational. But it killed me, I seriously thought about hiding them in the trash because I hated that noise so much. I don’t think I’ve owned corduroy since then.

Now that I think about it, I have always been embarrassed by corduroy unless it's really fine-grained and soft. It's bulky-looking and it crunches and rustles and I find all of that inexplicably awkward. Sometimes I forget and buy corduroy pants and then never wear them.

I had a similar reaction to a pair of corduroy pants as a kid.

Have you heard about the new corduroy pillows?

They're making headlines

(That was my favorite joke in 1975.)

lol

I liked Hua Hsu's description in his memoir of his college self wearing an "audible amount of corduroy."

I think corduroy embarrassment must be a common experience for people of a certain age. I'm wondering how much of it is 80s kids who had parents stuck in the 70s.

My wife savagely (and rightly) mocked me for believing that the Talking Heads song "And She Was" included the lyric "and she could see an earmuff factory."

The lyric is, sadly, "she could see a nearby factory." Allegedly the factory that made Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink.

Until I read this post, I, too, thought it was "earmuff factory."

Which, tbf, is a better lyric.

I know, right?

my Dad convinced me that "Big Time" was actually called "Pig Time" which I believed until I was like 20 years old

I never really questioned it because my Dad isn't really a funny person. but he got me on that one.

acquaintances mildly laughing at something I've done i.e. "lol you're silly, Neanderthal".

if I know you well and we're good friends, or we've worked together for a long time, that's a completely different story, but if we're just meeting, it's off-putting to me and starts us on the wrong foot. I get embarrassed easy and makes me want to go back to my room and put on my headphones.

Off topic slightly, but I feel like those things also come down to ones' sense of humor and how it might, or might not, be received.

Price example for me - at my first job out of college, we had our first all company holiday gathering where I finally first met in person the 60% of our staff that worked at our other location. One guy gets introduced to me and says (god I still wish I was making this up), "hey, I actually saw you walking down street x (a very likely street for me to walking down, so nothing weird) the other day and though to myself, 'goddamn that is the ugliest motherfucker I have ever seen in my life'". Pretty much ruined the rest of the night for me, despite three people insisting that "it's just his sense of humor, don't be offended". Nope, sorry, I don't know you from Adam. Get the fuck out of here with that being the first words you've ever spoken to me. I still see his name pop up now and then in a professional context and I renew my wishes for nothing but bad things to happen to him. Two decades on and I still feel myself get angry when I see even his name.

wtf that is a toxic way to be introduced to someone.

I remember going to a theatre production at a black box, rather informal thing with a lot of friends performing so I didn't get dressed up as I would for like, Broadway, I wore a tank top.

I gave one of the actors I didn't know a compliment and he thanked me and then said he saw me wearing a tank top and thought how ridiculous it was someone would wear a tank top to a play.

we're really good friends now because we connected a few years later in a play we did together, but I recently brought that up as the first time we ever spoke to each other and he looked shocked and felt bad that he said that.

Progressive websites that have links to "Find Your U.S. Senators and Congressmen" where you're asked to insert your address.

If you don't know who your U.S. representative, that's pretty embarrassing but maybe excusable if you just moved to a gigantic metroplex.

But if you don't know who the two people are that represent the whole state, how are you even reading these words in the first place?

redistricting sometimes changes this, even if you don't move ... but, yeah, not knowing who the senators are?

Toys/books/general kid material that’s designed to get children into programming.

Actually probably not innocuous but I’m not sure where else this fits.

If that's actually what it's doing I don't mind it; it's more the games and things that slap on STEM and CODING on the box because they have to follow a rule or use the most basic bit of logic that annoy me.

when my lighter is the same color as my pack of cigarettes

i saw someone post pictures from an instagram-optimized bookstore that made me irrationally embarrassed. really, i feel irrationally embarrassed by any sort of irl business that is designed for people to take pictures for social media there.

haha oh man

Oh dear. At least they actually sell books. There's a whole chain of places (Selfie WRLD) where literally all they sell is the opportunity to take pictures of yourself with your own camera against various moderately compelling backgrounds. It's only $25 an hour!

Gift link: https://wapo.st/463hPn8

the poster for Taylor Swift's tour movie looks like her farting into a microphone and I can't unsee it.

Seeing this thread bumped and worrying it's about something I said or did

Ooh I've got a good one:

There's a barbershop in the shopping area of town that has the words "Men's Crêche" stuck in large letters on the front window

the poster for Taylor Swift's tour movie looks like her farting into a microphone and I can't unsee it.

― Make the chats AI (Neanderthal), Thursday, September 7, 2023 12:56 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Wasn't that a Sarah Silverman bit?

I keep getting TikToks of impressionists doing celebrity impressions to the celebrity. Like “Paul Giamatti meets ‘Paul Giamatti’”

I haven’t actually watched any of them because the concept seems excruciating

Imagine someone doing an impression of you to you and having someone else film it while it’s happening

the poster for Taylor Swift's tour movie looks like her farting into a microphone and I can't unsee it.

God damn it LOL

I keep getting TikToks of impressionists doing celebrity impressions to the celebrity. Like “Paul Giamatti meets ‘Paul Giamatti’”

I haven’t actually watched any of them because the concept seems excruciating

― na (NA), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:11 (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was once at a formal conference dinner where part of the 'entertainment' was a guy who came round to the table and drew caricatures of guests. Some people were clearly uncomfortable with the way they were portrayed, but had to sit with the thing on the table until the end of the evening when they could leave and throw it away.

i have this habit of writing posts here, finishing them, seeing something I don't like in the first paragraph and fixing it, and forgetting to re-read the second paragraph to make sure the rewrites don't completely ruin the transition from one paragraph to another.

then requiring a follow-up post clearing up what I meant when I realize it now looks like gibberish

never apologize, that's my steez.

folks will say, pplains is so profound, half the time I don't even know what he's talking about. goes right over my head.

I say this all the time

In this modern age, I feel like I have to look at my phone while waiting for my to-go order/coffee drink or else I’ll look impatient.

omg me too