Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

People acting within, say, 10 feet of me. I can't handle front row seats at a play. And the thought of going to a Ren Fair makes my skin crawl.

i was at a quiet yet not uncrowded store recently and there were a couple of dudes talking sincerely and fanboyishly in that way that's a little too loud and self-impressed about superhero movies, like the meaning and minutiae of The Dark Knight Rises and something about the last Avengers movie and going on about Spiderman...it was a conversation everyone in the store overheard and it was irrationally embarrassing.

Young people being very serious and impassioned (I'm an asshole).

xpost oh that makes me think of a big one for me: self identifying as a "gamer" and making it a big part of one's identity. I've played a lot of video games in my life--probably more than average--but the idea of being a "gamer" is just gross and depressing

You guys could just lump this all together and say Reddit's core user base.

Young people being very serious and impassioned

it you

when I sit down next to someone and they glance in my direction at the same time as I glance in theirs and then I can't decide whether to acknowledge them with a "hello" or not.

xp I know!

germophobes. it seems condescending toward mankind en total, a bit neurotic, and also naive in the belief that wiping the pepper shaker with a cocktail napkin before using it is really gonna have an effect on your germcount today. it's total turnoff. and it someone doesn't want to shake myhand because they have the sniffles, well they can **** right off.

When a celebrity dies and people post really obvious stuff, like when Tom Petty died and people posted YouTube videos of "Free Fallin", it's like, yeah, we know that song.

xp

There's a corporate retreat facility we're marched to every year that makes me feel the same way. I'll wash my hands in the restroom, dry them with a paper napkin, turn around to the door, and find another dispenser of paper to use for gripping the door handle.

that eminem anti-trump freestyle

^^^

Even moreso people who think it matters.

I'm ok with the message, and can appreciate that he's putting himself out there, and I'm fine with people celebrating it. But the actual clip just had way too many cringey elements for me to really get into it.

ditto. if other people get something out of it, that's great, but just the performance style made me unable to get more than 30 seconds in.

germophobes. it seems condescending toward mankind en total, a bit neurotic, and also naive in the belief that wiping the pepper shaker with a cocktail napkin before using it is really gonna have an effect on your germcount today. it's total turnoff. and it someone doesn't want to shake myhand because they have the sniffles, well they can **** right off.

inoculant things that make you irrationally embarrassed

So many here people use a paper towel for gripping the door handle when exiting the bathroom but right before that took approximately 5 seconds to wash their hands.

I guess one way to look at that is that they are protecting the door handle from their own germs.

When journalists play themselves in a movie. Maybe not so innocuous.

Knowing the cleaner comes over the next morning, and getting into a frenzy of cleaning, because you don't want the cleaner to need to actually clean...

(currently residing in a place where I'm house-sitting, yet have a cleaner over every week, because the owners of the house have this arrangement. I am paying for this cleaner now, not paying rent, but I def figured out having a cleaner is not for me. Or maybe it is? Because it gets me to clean before she comes? But if I don't have a cleaner I probably wouldn't clean as much as I do now. Having a cleaner I *pay* to clean leads to me cleaning way more, paying her yet making sure she's got as little to do as possible. I'm going mad.)

stop cleaning imo, having a cleaner is a great luxury

When my parents split, my mother hired a cleaner. The day before her once-weekly visit, we had to tidy up. Cleaners are not for doing your dirty dishes or picking up your socks; they’re there to dust/polish, change the bedding and do a couple of loads of laundry, clean every type of floor, return kitchen appliances, sinks and toilets to a more pristine condition, and if you’re really lucky, they’ll do windows.

Knowing the cleaner comes over the next morning, and getting into a frenzy of cleaning, because you don't want the cleaner to need to actually clean...

(currently residing in a place where I'm house-sitting, yet have a cleaner over every week, because the owners of the house have this arrangement. I am paying for this cleaner now, not paying rent, but I def figured out having a cleaner is not for me. Or maybe it is? Because it gets me to clean before she comes? But if I don't have a cleaner I probably wouldn't clean as much as I do now. Having a cleaner I *pay* to clean leads to me cleaning way more, paying her yet making sure she's got as little to do as possible. I'm going mad.)

― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, 5 November 2017 23:34 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Great house-sitters are not measured purely by their cleans, but also by their assists. Sounds like your combined play in front of sink is beginning to reap dividends.

that's a fairly common reaction to hiring a house cleaning service from what I've heard (everyone I know who has hired one has reported the same urge, tbh)
totally normal?

It makes me tidy up the kitchen and toys from around the house and put washing away, clear up dirty dishes which is no bad thing. I don't actually clean though apart from the things I know she won't do...

people making simplistic analogies between big real news and nerd culture bullshit

nerd culture bullshit

i don't think it's a big deal, you tidy up your place so that the cleaner can clean without having to move things around or bump into things etc

uh the cleaning thing i mean

Elaborately intricate Stranger Things fan art

people who immediately jump to "my computer/phone is listening to my conversations" in discussions about social network/advertising privacy

after reading a thorough article detailing all the ways data actually is, provably and sometimes publicly disclosed to be collected, there's a top comment saying "I'm sure my phone is listening to what I say to serve ads"

sitting here cringing, there's a whole article just above your comment explaining how this is unlikely

I posted a song suggestion to Beyond Yacht Rock's patreon but accidentally posted the wrong youtube. Clearly suicide is the only way to salvage this situation.

haha I know how that feels

The Netflix practice of rolling out a whole series in one go a) making online discussions impossible for anyone who hasn't binged the whole lot in one go and b) loading the entire internet with instant spoilers.

(currently on Stranger Things s02e04)

yeah, part of the fun of serialized television is the waiting time between episodes where you can discuss the show with other people. Netflix has taken out the social aspect of tv watching, which is something that I'll miss very much.

Most of the fun of LOST back in the day was the crazy time travel discussions I had with other people who were following the show. This wouldn't have been possible if they just dumped out entire seasons at once.

(I guess I should be irrationally embarrassed by all time I spend thinking about time travel in science fiction, but I'm not.)

I'm embarrassed that I posted that to the embarrassed instead of the angry thread.

People who seem incapable of being anything other than completely sincere and guileless. Like, I don't know how to comport myself around someone who isn't at least a little tinged with cynicism.

I like those people.

I don't dislike those people, they just make me IE.

Like, I GET IT, PEOPLE, I'M BROKEN, STOP REMINDING ME.

conversely, have known a few people who seem incapable of communicating without some layer of irony and sarcasm and they are absolutely exhausting to be around

and when i see something like "fluent in sarcasm" on a dating profile or w/e it's an immediate NOPE

haha yeah

that and Interests: Working out

Yes to both of those turn-offs, for sure.

There has to be a balance of sincerity and sarcasm for me to feel comfortable. The people who are SO sincere that they don't seem to 'get' humor make me feel like I'm talking to aliens.

But yes, people with perma-Dreamworks-face can fuck off.

Weirdest thing is when one of the completely sweet and sincere marry one of the completely cynical. I've seen this happen twice: first one was a disaster and I'm still not sure I believe it happened (I met them both after they'd split up). Second one works really well and perhaps the cynical guy isn't as cynical as he liked to make out.

haha i'm one of those people who never gets jokes

is that why you prefixed your comment with a precautionary laugh?

idk probably! also because i thought "haha" when i read about finding those people (my people) embarrassing
tbrri think a lot of things i do could be things other people find embarrassing tbh but that doesn't stop me.

I think there's some overlap between the indefatigably-sincere and eternally-optimistic. Now I'm thinking of a neighbor who absolutely refuses to allow anyone to get away with saying anything self-negating, to the extent that she doesn't seem to pick up on humorous self-effacement. I was mentioning some small town where I was going for a weekend getaway and said in the driest tone imaginable that it was probably a murder town where I was going to get murdered and she was like, oh don't say that, I'm sure you'll be fine! And I was like...yes, I'm sure I'll be fine, too.

It's entirely likely that most of the problem here is mine.

This was all prompted by a coworker giving an unprompted gift to another coworker who's a veteran along with this very sincere show of gratitude for his service to the country, etc. And it was all very nice! And there's nothing at all wrong with it! And it made me so irrationally embarrassed!