People who randomly remember cringey things you said years ago, what’s that one moment that still haunts you like a side quest you never finished?
People who randomly remember cringey things you said years ago, what’s that one moment that still haunts you like a side quest you never finished?
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once fake-cried to get out of a school presentation. now i cry for real during work meetings. full circle.
Me rejecting a girl confessing to me to act “mature” on my high school day.
Still Single until now.
In high school this girl asked if i had a pen and i just… froze. stared at her for like 3 seconds, then handed her my lunch. don’t know why. didn’t even have a pen in the first place.
When I was 12, I asked a Korean woman if she spoke Chinese. 🤦♀️
I was talking to my girlfriend in class and then wanted to ask the teacher something and I called the teacher the nickname I used for my girlfriend at the time. The whole class burst out in laughter, it felt like those nightmares where everyone points and laughs at you
Just one moment? More like all of them
oh there are a lot
1 i once explained what ‘coming’ is to one of my classmates in 6th grade the teacher took me outside to talk and i cried and acted it was all deep now whenever i see him i avoid this guy like the plague
2 i was RPing all kinds of stuff in this one book for all my friends to go in i had 2 pages left which really frustrated me so i made a page for the ppl i RP
3 the things i was watching back then it was these play dough elsa spiderman things and i lwk enjoyed them
even writing all of these made me cringe
“I can help you become a better person. ”
……🧘♀️
And bro left me in trauma.
I ask my friend a homework answer, in a group chat with the teacher in it. I thought I send the text to the group without her.
waved back at someone who was waving at the person behind me, then tried to style it out as stretching
So many things that I’m frozen right now trying to think of just one
UK school – aged 11. History teacher was talking about white makeup being used – and asked the question “who at that time would have had dark skin?” And I, for no obvious reason, and using language I have never used, my parents never used, and not used at school – I threw my hand up and loudly said “N*****s” – why?! I have no idea why!!! Still haunts me to this day – 30 years on!
I was drunk and jumped a fence at a festival, security got me and kicked me out. Then i jumped the fence again, almost broke my wrist on the failed landing, big crowd laughing, then security came and kicked me out again. I wish i was blackout drunk so i couldn’t remember any of it.
Said “thanks” when someone told me their dog died. No idea why. Brain just panicked.
I was at a funeral and said “Congrats” instead of “Sorry for your loss.” I don’t even know how that happened. My brain just panicked.
I complimented the shitty band of a guy I later found out was having an affair with my wife. Like way over the top compliments. I was trying to be included in a friendship my wife had that I felt left out of. Ugh.
A teacher at school lost a baby late in pregnancy and had time off. We (the older kids) were told what had happened.
The year after, she told some of us in class that she was pregnant again, and would be taking time off next term. And my teenage unfiltered response was “Wow. Again? After what happened last time?”.
And even though I know I was a teenager and quite dumb, I want to go back in time and slap myself.
during covid and online lectures, a classmate sent a funny remark in the meeting chat. many people were liking his message and laugh-reacting to it. I then sent a joke that played off of his. Nobody reacted to it. In a classroom of 60 people. for the remainder of the lecture, nobody wrote anything else in the chat.
I can guarantee that 90% of people here have called their teacher “mom” or the equivalent at some point in their lives.
My main one that still haunts me was calling my male geography teacher “mum”.
It still haunts me to this day and I’m 39 now 🥲
I once said “you too” to a waiter who told me to enjoy my meal. Still haunts me. It plays in my head like a broken record every time I go out to eat
Waved back at someone who wasn’t waving at me. Tried to play it off like I was stretching. I still think about it.
i told a boy i liked that i had been “fingering” my guitar, and that i found it super hard but rewarding sonically. obviously i meant FINGERPICKING lmfao
I remember one time in fourth grade, my teacher randomly said the carefully phrased line I had never heard before of, “Mississippi is a hard word to spell. Can you spell it?” I, being a socially awkward and diligent straight-A student at the time, jumped at the chance to show off my spelling abilities, so I put my hand up and spelled “M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I”. The teacher laughed and said “Nope! Class?” and literally the entire class all said in unison “I-T” and all laughed uproariously while I sat in embarrassed silence, wanting nothing more at that moment than for the earth to just open up and swallow me whole to put me out of my misery.
I wish it was only like a side quest i never finished
At almost 60 there are several and I am not going to relive them online (>.<)
When I was 11, I intentionally locked myself in my locker. Why? Genuinely have no idea. Cannot even imagine why I would have thought that was a good idea. I yelled out to one of the custodians and gave him my code and he opened it to let me out.
I remember dropping that lore on my mom like two years ago and she just looked at me like I was crazy while I was doubled over laughing at my own stupidity.
I asked “is the 24hr spar still open”.
Still ashamed
When I was about 10, we moved to a house right across from a church, and my mother decided that we should attend every Sunday. My little ADHD ass did not like sitting still for hours on end, and when is younger folk were excused to head down to Sunday school, it wasn’t much better.
The Sunday school teacher was a mean, unhappy bitch. I turned to the girl beside me and whispered “I don’t like her, she’s mean.”
The girl then replied, “That’s my mom.”
Baby Jesus did not save me that day.
I was in Portland training one of the child psychiatrists I worked for on a particular process we were starting. I had never met her face to face before since I worked on our sister campus most of the time. she had a short, butch haircut with bleached tips and was wearing a pretty masculine outfit. we’re making small talk and I’m trying to explain some DSM coding stuff. she says, “oh, I’m actually familiar with some of this. my partner is a medical coder!” my stupid ass, without missing a beat, replies with “wow that’s so rare! I’ve never heard of a male coder!” silence. it drags. she gives me the weakest smile and says nothing. we move on.
chat, I grew up with a lesbian mom, surrounded by queers. I myself have munched muff on many occasions. I helped start my high school’s GSA. and yet. and yet.
While job hunting I applied for a job that was supposed to be a combination of customer service and sales. At the interview I made clear to them I had a lot of customer service experience but none in sales, but I was happy to learn.
They decided to pull that cringe “sell me this pen” bullshit on me, so in a panic all I could think to do was the bit from the end of Wolf of Wall Street where he takes the guys pen and is like “but how can you sign anything without a pen?”
It was predictably terrible and one of the interviewers recognised it from the movie.
Told a woman who later died of cancer that her buzzcut and overall style was awesome! Didn’t find out her hairstyle was controlled by cancer until I heard she had died …
I was in high school. A girl I was interested in asked me if I liked her. Because there were other people around, I said “no.”
Referring to my teacher as mommy while giving a presentation in front of everyone. This was during 2nd year at college. Philosophy class.
Once I was running errands and this guy randomly approached me then introduced himself. He proceeded to ask what I was doing later that night and I immediately said “ oh I’m going to go clean my apartment” with the dumbest smile ever because I love cleaning. He said he’ll leave me to it and I was so confused but brushed it off. A few weeks later I learned that it’s a common thing for men to say this if they have plans they want to do with you later that night. So basically the best thing you can do in this situation is to say that you have no plans even if you definitely have plans. I’m autistic and it was literally next to impossible for me to understand this. What’s worse is this guy was actually one of the most attractive fit men I’ve ever seen in my life 🥲. Anyways never making that mistake again.
Was in an Uber going home. The guy had to take a right to get to my home, I kept telling him to make a left and he was doing it, but my brain had decided the left is right and vice versa… The guy was like “do you mean right?” And I was like “I don’t know, I just know you are going the wrong way”
These comments are giving me relief that the cringe things I said weren’t that bad
10 years ago I recently moved in with my GF into a shared apartment. I lived alone before in a different city and my sleep was terrible in the new place. I went to my new workplace after a week of half-awake-sleep and in a meeting with my new team I mumbled “thanks baby” to one of my female coworkers, it was a pretty quite “thanks baby” so I am not sure if anyone heard it or they just politely ignored it.
“Who’s this handsome gentleman?”
“This is my daughter Abby”😬
She still laughs about it because her daughter dressed like a boy
Went on a group trek with my friends from high school. One of the girls there was quite like an influencer. Matched her beanies to her outfits and overpacked when we were specifically asked not to. She was a good person though.
Cue to me loudly taking about her to all my friends. With the theatrical hand gestures and mean girl comments. She was sitting behind me all the time. She heard everything. In fact she piped in while I was in the middle of my rant saying “you know I can hear you right?”
Most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. Wish I could take it back.
My life
I am female, and when I was 12, was answering a question in science at school. The correct answer was “something something something organism”. I got mixed up and said “orgasm” instead. All the boys started laughing hysterically, including the male teacher, who made a slightly inappropriate joke. I had no idea what that word meant, apart from some sort of sexual connection, but wanted the earth to open up and swallow me right then and there. I still, decades later, remember the level of humiliation I felt 🤦🏻♀️
I used to go to a pub quiz with my friends every Thursday. One of the barmaids was absolutely gorgeous and was the sister of my friends gf at the time, who told me I was definitely her type.
So friend comes to the bar with me to introduce us as I get a round in. She hands me my pint, smiles and reaches over to shake my hand. Unfortunately, I have kind of shaky hands and a bit of beer spilled down over my right hand.
In a truly brain dead moment, I swapped the glass to my other hand and licked the beer from my hand before reaching over to shake hers. I don’t know why I did it, just a deer in the headlights moment.
I saw her later in the beer garden having a smoke and went over to apologise. We had a good laugh about it but I had definitely blown my chances.
Still makes me wince whenever I think about it twenty years later.
I was “in love” with a boy in my class for years, and one day my friend decided to embarrass me by telling him I fancied him. He just raised his eyebrows and goes *”really?”, and I immediately started to sweat and said “ouch my leg hurts” and turned my back on him.
Fuckin hell I’m sweating with embarrassment even thinking about it 25ish years later.
I work a cash register and I can think of daily incidents…
8 years ago I sat down next to a mother at a play group, she’d had a baby a few weeks prior. I asked her if the baby was a boy or girl and said “girl” and then I asked her if she was sure…
🤢
How I asked my later-to-be wife out ( now ex lol but it lasted 15yrs ). She was born and raised in the Philippines. Her family had moved here just a few years prior to us meeting at a job and she made the move in her early 20s. Her English wasn’t great at the time and I was super nervous and really worried about being clear. I went to her desk, leaned down with my elbow all cool like and actually said, “So you like Americans?” and just smiled foolishly. Luckily she already thought I was cute so saved the moment with a giggle and an arm touch and I stopped speaking.
in middle school i bought some cheetos from a vending machine. saw my friend sitting at one of the computers in the common area thing. walked up behind her and bonked her on the head with my cheetos by way of friendly greeting. she turned round. wasn’t my friend, it was another girl i had basically never spoken to.
Took my 80 yo mom and 2 of her older friends to dinner. It’s important to note that I was a writer on Martin. I was a middle aged white woman. On the way home, the women were thanking me profusely. And, for reasons I’ll never know, I said, “I knows how to treat ma hoes!” There was no sound just, the air moving as they physically recoiled. I had to drive everyone home in silence.
I used to hang out with a lot of older people. Me a teen, they in their early 20’s. One guy called me condescending. I confidently said “I can’t possibly be condescending because I don’t even know what that means!!!”
I cringe at the thought often.
I was fired once and knew the person who fired me before the job. It came out of absolutely nowhere and I was completely blindsided. I literally couldn’t speak and for whatever reason I still can’t comprehend I stood up and hugged them and just walked out. I wish I had done 100 things differently in that moment.
One time when I was with my brother and father at the grocery store, I was being a moody teenager for no reason, and I lightly kicked a woman’s trolley basket. I didn’t apologize or anything (my brother did it for me) I just kept walking…
I just wonder if that woman remembers that moody jerk that kicked her basket or (hopefully) she forgot about it and my stupidity didn’t affect her beyond that moment…
Undergrad public speaking course. I noticed one girl who was supposed to speak that day didn’t, so I asked her why, and she said because her asthma was acting up. My social anxiety brain that hates public speaking blurted out “oh! I should’ve said that too!” 🤦♀️I do not have asthma. It dawned on me very quickly after that from the look on her face that I had just said a very stupid and insensitive thing 😞
Nope! Not accessing that deliberately buried memory. Hell no
I have a lot of aunts. Like, a lot.
A few years back, my aunt Carol’s mom died.
At the funeral, I forgot which aunt we were there to support. So naturally, playing cool, I end up giving Carol a big hug and a smile “how’s your summer, going?!” Not 20ft away from her mother’s casket.
The woman over the road had just lost her husband the previous day. She’s lived there for about 3 years, I had no idea she had a husband because I’d never seen him. It turns out his was pretty much bed ridden and she had never mentioned him before.
The following day, I was getting in the car and she walked over and says “Alan died last night” my response was “who the hell is Alan?” Kind of joking on with her.
She burst into tears and went “he was my husand”.
Honestly wanted to earth to swallow me up. I don’t really know this woman well but she obviously just wanted someone to talk to, unfortunately, I was too mortified to be that person.
I had to give a “comedy” speech but it was quite a conservative audience. I played it very safe, but had one highly risque but hilarious joke in it. I submitted the speech in advance to make sure it was okay. The compere introduced me, TOLD THE RISQUE JOKE, which got a huge laugh, then left me to deliver my risk-averse drivel to absolutely no laughter. It was 20 years ago and I still die thinking of how badly I misjudged it.
I was getting off the phone with a client and I ended with “love you.” Dead silence on the other end. I just hung up.
30 yr old dude, born with ok looks but a dumb wit, 1995;
3rd grade, lunchroom, inner city school, classic roast sesh. “I’ll bite your dick off” sounded more threatening in my head
12th grade AP writing/english, peers discussing their sats. They asked me mine since i was active in things and wrote some pieces that the class seemed to like, couldnt remember my score so i just spat out a number. Everyone just rolled with it, went home and looked up my scores and realized i looked like such an uppity prick with my bogus number. Equivalent of saying “my IQ is actually 250” i realized my mistake and brought a printed copy of my sats (which were decent enough for a AP student who liked writing) but only for the teacher to see, she helped me a lot in writing and i didnt want her to see me that way based on my brainfart of an answer.
1st year in college, standing on a balcony with my roommate overlooking “the quad” i guess you’d say. Group of girls and like one (obviously) gay guy walking on a path below me and my roommates balcony and the group spotted us. One chick was super hyped, absolutely living the college vibe, called up at us to party specifically me tho when she got closer. The group actually didnt look taken aback, they were expecting an answer and i said “well you look fun but, what do you have down there that i dont have up here?” My roommate takes a step away from me and heads inside. The chick is dumbfounded and looks at her other gal pals and theyre just shrugging like “maybe he’s a make a wish student” gay guy had the biggest smile.
24 years old, starting to get a little more comfortable with myself and how to hold back my cringe, working with all sorts of ages in factories and junk. One time a group of like 19 year olds were starting to get chill around me, didn’t really care cause they got their work done and makes the day go by quicker. They talked about smoking a little “sum’thin sum’thin” on break and i replied” shieeet i dabble in the greenery” trying to be sly about it. They just go “that sounds a little gay” and walk off all agreeing with each other. Never did get an invite to the smoke sesh.
I have plenty more that just appear in my mind but my biggest one is more regret than cringe.
I was at chuck E Cheese and my mom wanted one of those black and white pictures made when you sit with your parent in the little bounce car. Told her “nuh uh, thats not as cool as this” as i shoot some dumb zombies. My niece who was like 4 at that time got one and still has the picture. She looked happy but her eyes looked a little saddened. Sometimes i try to blame the camera quality of the time, and sometimes that excuse works.