Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

start doing something that makes you do embarrassing or confrontational things in public

starting some sort of thing where you do a performance: learn a musical instrument from a teacher that has class recitals, go to an improv group, anything where you're publicly having to do something where the stakes are low but you have attention on you

spending time in public with a small child is great if you have friends with kids, because kids are constantly doing something awkward and, while you might have to apologize to strangers, kids are 100% expected to do weird/awkward things

basically, get yourself in a situation where the level of embarrassment goes down because you're able to put it in perspective

challenge yourself
i feel this pretty much never

...these days, anymore

also there is a difference between self-consciousness and "irrationally embarrassed"

I feel like there is a link, but there are strong areas where there is no overlap

I'm irrationally embarrassed whenever I'm in a store and i overhear a weird mild disagreement with an undercurrent of hostility between a customer and an employee, usually at checkout. usually involving the customer being mildly peeved by something they didn't understand about a price or a discount, and the employee not de-escalating but rather standing a bit too firm. it rarely gets to be a full blown argument but i'm standing there listening to it and it's embarrassing for both of them. and me, irrationally.

mh thanks for the kind advice

I'm used to performing in public, doesn't really embarrass me - I was thinking more about the irrational, neurotic embarrassment I feel on behalf of other people, like when someone is talking during a movie in the cinema, it's annoying, but mostly I feel embarrassed for all of us that this is happening

would be nice to have a kid though, and surely would give perspective on many a matter

that seems like kind of an anxiety -- this person is talking, all of us notice it, what if one of us has to deal with it when they don't stop?

fwiw I used to get horrible anxiety as a kid (and I still do! *rimshot*) and actually puked on stage, twice

the first time was in fifth grade, we were rehearsing for a school chorus concert during the day and I felt lightheaded and threw up, went to the school nurse

the second time was sometime in maybe.. seventh grade? it was insanely hot because the auditorium had no a/c, I'm once again standing on a stage singing, and I nearly pass out from the heat/anxiety/standing combo. one of my classmates behind me had the presence of mind to nudge me and I ended up getting out of there and splashed water on my face outside

oddly enough, never had any problems playing in orchestra or string ensemble. but in any case, thinking back about it, I guess I do understand the "embarrassed for others" bit -- I feel worse about the fact all these kids and parents had to experience this than I feel personally embarrassed by what happened

I always think of it as being neurotic, but I guess it's a kind of anxiety

I try to do kind of mindfulness excercises when it happens, which works to some extent, but (and this is perhaps because of Freudian propaganda) I can't help but think it's caused by a more general unease that should be addressed in a different way

coworker bitching out her cable company on the phone (no doubt deservedly, but still)

responses to tweets

The excelsior thread

when people tweet at companies about mildly negative customer service issues

guy i follow tweeting at chipotle because some fajita vegetables had fallen into the pinto beans and made it into his burrito accidentally

stop ratting out the workers at Chipotle #587 to corporate

or just take it back and get a new burrito

but also oh no i got a couple of vegetables in my burrito is hardly something to complain about jesus

Imagine, having vegetables fall into your meal.

Now, an onion ring in your french fries - there is no complaints made about that.

the hypothetical here is someone with an allergy, but if you had an allergy you'd be stating that and probably be careful to not eat at places with allergens right next to the ingredients you'd pick, anyway

You wanna follow https://twitter.com/customercaring

I made a trivial throwaway remark 5 minutes ago which I just realised is false, and now I am wondering if everyone else is wondering why I said a stupid false thing or if I'm just being weirdly and needlessly sarcastic, but it's far too trivial to bother correcting and everyone else has probably forgotten I said anything already

("it's too bad there isn't a shop selling x on y street" which should have been "it's too bad the shop I am thinking of shut recently but in fact there is another one nearly opposite which has been there for much longer and is kind of a local institution" duh)

that is classic

imo you should double down if questioned. there was NEVER a shop selling x on y street :)

Mh otm

Whenever I'm corrected on something that's very obviously and provably wrong, I like to employ Hank Kingsley's incredulous 'I don't think so.'

Went on Nextdoor to log my complaints about a neighborhood traffic issue. Called the street in question CrestWOOD instead of its actual name, CrestVIEW.

My Lord, those grannies skinned me alive.

u r an unadulterated monster

Crestwood is where all the murders happened

Gonna start walking through their front yards and really piss 'em off.

Walking into a bathroom that the previous occupant has stunk to high heaven and then vacated, taking a perfectly mild and harmless whiz yourself, then walking out of the still stunk-up bathroom just as one of your coworkers is walking in.

for sure

Nice try, how's life. We all know what really happened.

The cafeteria staff at my workplace have started playing music recently to liven the place up. Honestly, it's made all the difference in making another bland Sodexo trough feel more comfortable and relaxed. They usually play older r&b hits, so one morning we'll get Stevie Wonder, another morning we'll get Michael, sometimes we'll get a smattering of Motown hits. Today it was Marvin Gaye and I ended up purchasing my oatmeal to the sounds of Sexual Healing.

lol
that's awesome
if only every oatmeal purchase were that memorable

Just a few minutes ago, a woman in the plaza of the building where I work struggling and struggling to open one of the outward-opening doors against a very strong wind, when there was also a revolving door right there.

When people call Theresa May 'Tresemme'

Also when people call Corbyn a 'cockwomble'

total IE: when I ask for help in a store to locate something, and I'm the one who ends up finding it, and usually I spot it well before I actually grab it because I still want to give them a chance to find it first. and sometimes they do but most of the time they don't, and even more embarrassing and irrational is how i'll sometimes wait for them to give up, tell me they don't have it, then after they walk away i grab it.

When grownups talk about “superheroes” or “superpowers” as a metaphor

Omar, I’ve been in that position so many times! Feeling this.

Kind of like when at work you boss tells you something like "that report should include the red information" and you know this but you just nod gratuitously pretending this is helpful new information.

just mispronounced someones name on the phone at work - i pronounced the surname Blades as in Rubén Blades, it should've been blades like the english word

damn I've been pronouncing Rubén Blades wrong all this time

not that I've ever had occasion to say his name out loud

i just realized that's a dumb comparison because the spanish pronunciation is different but i think Rubén Blades does actually use the english pronunciation himself to an extent

I find it easier to get over embarrasment if you say "forgive me I am not of earth and I don't know yoru ways"

I'm still embarrassed about using Rubén Blades in that anecdote

I pronounced Erik Satie incorrectly once 20 years ago and I still feel embarrassed when I think about it.

the longtime phenomenon of people taking the same "funny" image and editing it into macro after macro, e.g. in an ilx thread or a twitter thread, still popular today after all these years. It was kind of funny the first few times but even then not all that funny, and something just makes me sad and uncomfortable about scrolling through tweet after tweet of each person taking their turn at not being funny in the same way.

i sort of feel that way about all attempts to be funny on the internet -- but i actually came here to post that i basically feel embarrassed posting anything personal on social media, or attempts at humor, or anything that directs attention toward myself. i am not embarrassed of myself, i find the act of drawing attention to myself embarrassing.

this thought brought to you by labor day, one of several genuinely meaningful holidays marred by their parades that i had to endure being in as a young person. imagine being forced to smile and wave at hundreds of strangers multiple times a day.