Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

i like the physical bit of it tbf

I usually let my hair grow long, like shoulder-length, then buzz it to about a quarter inch. its such a weird physical sensation stepping outside for the first time afterwards

haircuts in general make me IE - having to tell the barber what I want, giving my opinion on it once it's finished. once a month for the past 35 years and i still don't really know what to say. i don't even like having it done in places where I'm visible from the street; in the office is almost too much to bear.

― fetter, Thursday, September 19, 2019 2:35 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Never had a clue either, and it was trial and error but I finally found a woman who understands "short but not too short" exactly the way I mean it.

Then again I only have to go once every 6 months or so. My fresh short do will evolve into an ok longer-ish do over the course of six months.

The most IE feeling of all time is definitely that moment when the haircut is finished and you have to look in the mirror and the give your judgment as the haircutter smiles at you in the mirror

It’s like “get meeeee outta here!” yeeeeek

When he wasn’t ranting on a public platform, Enoch Powell was a man of few words. Asked by Stephen, the notoriously gabby House of Commons barber, how he’d like to have his hair cut, the ice-cold Tory replied: “In silence.”

haircuts are definitely embarrassing. the worst was the couple of times i went to this hipster revival barbershop with heavily bearded dudes with slicked-back hair talking about game of thrones while they cut your hair in a room covered in vintage cigarette ads and motorcycle paraphernalia.

Incidentally I had a haircut just last week, and again noticed how awful and IE I find it to look into a barbershop mirror. It's like they're completely different and way more warped (or way closer to the 'truth' :-/) than other mirrors. You'd expect those mirror to be 'nicer' to look in, but the contrary applies. ymmv

truth bomb

really nothing worse at the end of a haircut than giving the barber a little wink-wink while unbutting your pants before realizing it's not *that* kind of barbershop

.. what?

you heard me

for a second I was wondering why your barber gave you pants in addition to the cape

Large groups of adults playing ukuleles in unison

Being given tasters by enthusiastic barstaff, shopkeepers etc. It's to do with having to give an opinion again, I suppose. Can anyone really tell how much they will enjoy a pint of beer by trying a thimbleful of it first? I can't.

Being sold anything can be vaguely embarrassing if you let it

xxp Ukuleles have become inherently embarrassing and are only acceptable when played by Labi Siffre or actual Hawaiians

Not just hold on a minute there...

http://photos.geni.com/p13/b6/05/e9/74/53444839fb6b4fb9/tiny-tim_original.jpg

oh yeah TT goes without saying

and Magnetic Fields are good for a grandfather clause

It's not the ukes, it's the people that sing in an affected, breathy, pseudo-30s jazz club voice while playing them

^this

Would like to hear some uke in Dirty South rap

Careful what you ask for!

uke aren't handle the truth

O ye who wish to exonerate ukuleles, look no further than the 'Deep Water' -> 'Machine Gun' sequence on Portishead's Third.

haircuts are definitely embarrassing. the worst was the couple of times i went to this hipster revival barbershop with heavily bearded dudes with slicked-back hair talking about game of thrones while they cut your hair in a room covered in vintage cigarette ads and motorcycle paraphernalia.

― na (NA), Thursday, September 19, 2019 7:21 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

was this some Floyd's Barbershop type joint?

Taste of peepee on his lips

haircuts are definitely embarrassing. the worst was the couple of times i went to this hipster revival barbershop with heavily bearded dudes with slicked-back hair talking about game of thrones while they cut your hair in a room covered in vintage cigarette ads and motorcycle paraphernalia.

― na (NA), Thursday, September 19, 2019 7:21 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

was this some Floyd's Barbershop type joint?

― omar little, Friday, September 20, 2019 1:07 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

irving park barbershop (which i think has moved across the street since i went there), but basically yeah

I was all, what the hell are they talking about? Looked it up and fuckall, someone had to go and ruin the Andy Griffith Show for me.

When a podcaster or radio host (or even a cheap documentary presenter) starts reading a quote and switches their tone from "informative but casual and friendly" to "dramatic movie scene voice" - it really makes me wince whenever I hear it and I hope they can please all stop doing it immediately, even Dan Carlin's horrible "QUOTE... ...ENDQUOTE" is better.

Q&As.

"The most IE feeling of all time is definitely that moment when the haircut is finished and you have to look in the mirror and the give your judgment as the haircutter smiles at you in the mirror ― Sally Jessy (Karl Malone), Thursday, 19 September 2019 15:09 (two weeks ago)"

This happened to me, this very morning, so I can relate. Part of me wants to say something witty such as "not bad" or "you've done this before" or "you shaved a bit too much off the top hahaha!", or "does the girl come with the car?" but although hairdressers are probably more attuned to hip meme-style humour on account of being young and fashionable I suspect that I'm not as funny as I think I am. Why do I feel the need to get laughs? Fear, fear and weakness.

And resentment. As the years go by I empathise with Richard Nixon even more. The reason I had a haircut is because at 18:40 tonight I'm stepping on a flight to Hong Kong - I booked it months ago - and what could go wrong? If I say "not bad" I'm worried that the hairdresser will think I'm being sarcastic. If I say "you've done this before" they might also think I'm being sarcastic, when in fact I genuinely like the haircut, or at least I'm not actively displeased. I have a number four all over. It's binary, it's either short or not, it doesn't have a qualitative aspect.

If I say "you've shaved a bit too much off the top there" then yes it's a joke - I have a bald patch, ho ho - but they might think it's a genuine complaint, in which case they're probably going to say "that's because you have a bald patch", with "you prick" added at the end in a quiet voice.

To make things worse I didn't have any cash on me. I've emptied my wallet in anticipation of going to Hong Kong. I have an Octopus card but that's no use on this side of the world, so I had to nip around the corner to get some money out of the cashpoint. A long time ago that would have been embarrassing beyond belief but at my age all the nerve endings close to my skin have been ground away so I feel nothing.

Going to the hairdresser isn't really irrationally embarrassing though. Everybody is embarrassed. The entire process is designed to be awkward. Where I go you can't tell if it's full or not until you walk in - so I walk in, scan the bench, and then awkwardly turn around and walk out if it's too full, with all the people looking at me as if to say "is this place not good enough for you, you Tory? Are we beneath you?".

Also, when I'm sitting in the chair, with the towel over my body, does the hairdresser think I'm masturbating? I'm not, but at least one person in Wiltshire must get a sexual thrill from masturbating covertly whilst having a haircut. It's a rare opportunity to have a total stranger massage your head in an innocent setting. As a consequence I make a show of flicking the bits of hair onto the floor. So that it's obvious that my hands are doing something else. That's why.

Reading a book in public that has just won a prize.

It’s completely dumb and I can only see it as based on some unpleasant attitudes. And yet..

what book?

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

You might get some really smug looks from Tokarczuk diehards.

A related embarrasment: being caught reading a book that has the movie adaptation image as the front cover instead of the original innocuous cover.

eheh good one !

"Yes and no, " says the colleague, beginning his 5-minute explanation of why yes AND no

it's not the saying of it that causes the awkward feeling, it's the reaction among me and other colleagues. i am conditioned to subtly emote a quiet "heh" or slightly audible movement of breath at the "yes and no" intro

When you're on a bus and the driver crawls forward three quarters of the way through an intersection but is stopped by traffic in front, blocking a pedestrian crossing and not being able to move anywhere, so as a passenger you feel embarrassed and guilty and sorry even though it has nothing to do with you

Minutes silence

ordering the first round

I got caught in a minutes silence while on my way to a departure gate at Heathrow once, only the Brits were taking any notice of it so I tried to look foreign while actually observing the silence cos I wasn't feeling talkative anyway. The whole thing was an embarrassment for the entire airport tbh, esp since it was probably honouring the war dead who'd perished while bombing some of the passengers' ancestors.

Minute (or more) silences in open plan offices or indeed major public spaces are excruciating and ridiculous.

Waiting to use the only hand dryer in a public toilet when I've finished washing my hands

And...drying your hands while someone waits.

Minute (or more) silences in open plan offices or indeed major public spaces are excruciating and ridiculous.

― nashwan, Monday, November 11, 2019 6:29 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

had a daft bastard of an ops manager once who, despite the fact that we were in a huge open plan office and the fact that no one was talking for once was extremely noticeable, tried to make a phone call to elsewhere in the office during the silence, then vocally bemoaned the colleague for not picking up. then ventured some sort of small talk to the group of us who were seated nearby, then was like "yous are awfy quiet". all this while people were giving him looks.

this didn't make me embarrassed mind you, thought it was fucking hilarious and was trying not to laugh

I mean, in these situations it does become like a very tense game of sleeping lions

When a taxi shows up and you're standing outside your apartment building but it's not for you and the person that ordered it isn't ready and waiting