Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

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.

tbh I still repeat to myself "it's only a show, it's only a show"

90% of sketch comedy that involves singing, especially SNL monologues and the Whose Line is it Anyway songs

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.

― Ismael Klata, Monday, 10 December 2012 12:27 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah totally - sometimes I feel like I could jump and just float down the corridor.

Josie Lawrence: "I know what you mean, about those songs, they seem very obvious and not very long..."

this is not something that makes me embarrassed. it's one of those situations where it's equally embarrassing for everyone in the bathroom so it evens out and becomes not embarrassing.

i live in a city with lots of all-gender bathrooms but recently saw bathroom signage that was new to me - instead of indicating who the bathrooms were for, the signs just said "this bathroom has one stall and one urinal" and "this bathroom has three stalls." maybe a little overly objective but still an interesting approach.

This is how we denote all-gender restrooms in Texas (as seen at the Frost Bank Center, home of the San Antonio Spurs)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ehcl77cnjn3shgquw5x1t/20250329_174746.jpg?rlkey=di6t6y8ubka86lo6zikjfxkpx&st=88agaz3w&raw=1

Are those asterisks, or are they wearing spurs?

(I'm assuming the handicapped person has bone spurs.)

it's asterisks that lead to a note saying "these people are wearing spurs, not pictured"

this is not something that makes me embarrassed. it's one of those situations where it's equally embarrassing for everyone in the bathroom so it evens out and becomes not embarrassing.

i live in a city with lots of all-gender bathrooms but recently saw bathroom signage that was new to me - instead of indicating who the bathrooms were for, the signs just said "this bathroom has one stall and one urinal" and "this bathroom has three stalls." maybe a little overly objective but still an interesting approach.

ime in Sweden it’s pretty common to have all-gender bathrooms w multiple stalls. i don’t remember the urinal situation tho tbh

Ally McBeal would've been more fun if they had urinals

sweden also has the stall doors that are actual doors, not partial panels.. so you may not even be aware of who's next to you

I think that’s all of Europe, it’s only the US and hat has the peek-a-boo doors

*that has

The place I was at yesterday has doors marked "STANDING UP" and "SITTING DOWN". I was in the Standing Up when someone walked in with a bag of hot takeway food. Strange place to be delivering an order, I quipped, in mild embarrassment.

Xp Boring — yeah, I find it a bit awkward as well, though having read and analyzed bathroom fixture requirements for various uses, it makes a different kind of sense, especially where space is at a premium.

Feeling vindicated about disliking Chobani now that they have teamed up w Ivanka T. Haha!

Totally rational

government agency accounts doing meme posts / using "very online" language. criiiinge

related: people saying "terminally online" in real life and talking about their social media drama. worse than listening to people talk about drugs.

"Omg she quote tweeted me and totally put words in my mouth, I told her that's why you only got 100 followers I mean get a clue right"

government agency accounts doing meme posts / using "very online" language. criiiinge

― map, Monday, 23 February 2026 02:33 (fifteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

God yes. This. The UK government put out one of those self-congratulatory "an apology" memes about a breakfast club scheme they'd introduced and it was just really poor taste and backfired immediately. Shit meme for a start. I don't want the government to be funny

I'd prefer cringey memes over the US version where they just straight up copy actual nazi images and propaganda.

Yeah there is that

Although that belongs in a thread about rational anger