Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

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.

Thoughts when I don't nod to someone in the corridor: "c'mon i'm only passing them in the corridor, this isn't reunion with a long lost relative ffs". Thoughts when someone doesn't nod to me: "arrogant fucker".

the haunted look which is exchanged goes to the heart of our problems as humans

Plus long corridors create embarrassments of their own; at what point do you start your acknowledgement?

oh god yeah "did they see me nod and mouth 'hello' back there? can't tell. maybe do it again. oh god now they think i'm mental."

doors are a nightmare too. three double doors in a row to get to the bathroom, having to say "thanks" PAUSE "thanks" PAUSE "thanks" when you don't even want to or "notatttall" PAUSE "nottattall" PAUSE "nottattall" like little steam engine.

then once every hundred times a "these doors huh?", "who are you telling?!"

still it's worth remembering that the only people who don't feel this way in these situations are the rude

At my work no fucker acknowledges a held-open door; have occasionally even been glowered at as recipient passes through. Details are obviously all stored for the day of the revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg5MJyEHKGo

Plus long corridors create embarrassments of their own; at what point do you start your acknowledgement?

and do you look at them all the way, or do you deliberately look elsewhere even though there's nowhere else to look, or? tbh i just turn around and run away.

I rarely get to do it, but running fast down a corridor is an excellent thing to do. I dunno why, maybe the air currents and echoes are all different, but it's so different to doing it in an open space.

Why not do it all the time, clutching a sheaf of papers to look busy and important, then it'll be ok to blank your cow orkers. Can't eyebrow flash! Late for meeting!

Plus long corridors create embarrassments of their own; at what point do you start your acknowledgement?

this can be so unbearably tense. often a quick distant acknowledgement, followed by the realisation that some strange etiquette will dictate another, proximate acknowledgement, which often makes both parties feel forced and insincere. it's a tricky balance between maintaining just enough eye contact to be courteous, but not so much as to make the other person uncomfortable/skeeved out, all the while acting as if the awkward steps until follow-up acknowledgement are occupied by something other than the painful endurance of having to fulfil an obligation. It can give rise to such hollow feelings, especially when you're given a perfunctory acknowledgement for what you're trying hard not to project as a self-conscious, automatic gesture. It's as if you're being confronted with a kind of diluted unspontaneity, and you're in a Tati scene, and you feel as if you're stretching a moment out far longer than any human being should ever have to endure.

People only run in corridors when they think nobody's looking though; the rest of the time they do an embarrassing fast-walk thing, with occasional trot for a few steps until someone else homes into view.

A wild-haired professor at uni is the only person I can recall who would run around openly.

When I was younger, I used to get so embarassed for people on television shows who were about to get in trouble. I can't think of any concrete examples, but like, if the Fresh Prince was doing something he wasn't supposed to, like snooping in someone else's stuff or something, and we in the audience were clued in to the fact that he was about to get busted for it. I would get beet-red flushed to the point where I'd have to turn off the TV or leave the room.

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