u/stephfowler asked:
Dear Reddit, what is your all-time most embarrassing moment?
Here were some of the answers.
Pale And Exposed
I had a great day at a waterpark / outdoor pool and towards the afternoon a woman came up to me and whispered in my ear that I have a problem with my swimsuit. I reached behind a noticed a huge gap.
The fabric was torn right in the middle and you could see my white, untanned buttcrack. I was running around like this all day and no one said anything.
Almost Revenge
Was on an airplane years ago with my girlfriend and her parents. My girlfriend couldn't get a seat next to me and sat directly behind me. During the flight I thought I would surprise her and reached me hand back onto her knee. Slowly I kept extending it up her thigh until I heard giggling. Looked behind through the seats and saw that my hand was on the leg of the guy next to her. He saw my face and said, "I just wanted to see how far you'd go." Of course my girlfriend was in on it and started laughing along with the rest of the row. Was so embarrassed.
Achoo!
This was during my Sophomore year in math class. I sat between two gentleman. I was really congested that day and thus pretty tired at the same time. I was resting my head in my hand and hunched over my math book when I felt a sneeze coming. I went to lean back but apparently didn't move quick enough when the force of this sneeze sent my face hurling into my desk. My head smacked the desk so hard that I bounced back up like a basketball. At that point I was just dizzy and like "Uhhh....". Meanwhile, the two guys next to me just completely lose their sh*t. The one on the right is howling with laughter. The one on the left has his face in his hands and is snorting. The teacher looked at us so confused and all I could say was "...I sneezed."
Pantsed By The Moonwalk
I was at my friend's birthday party and was super drunk. Ran up to a group of people and said "Watch this!
I then proceeded to run and dive into a bounce house only for the Velcro lined entrance to grab my sweats/boxers and pull them down to my ankles.
I'll never forget the looks of horror on their faces while I laid there on my back with my legs in the air showing off all my goodies :(
Don't Build Yellow Sand
I don't know if it was more cringeworthy than embarrassing, but thinking back I definitely grimace...
I was in kindergarten and was playing in the sandbox at recess one day with my friend. We were making a sandcastle but didn't have any sand that was wet enough to form a solid structure.
I had been holding my pee for a while, and being 5 years old I didn't want to stop playing, so i let it out while I was sitting and promptly let my friend know that I had magically found some wet sand that we could build with, and no one was the wiser.
We built a damn good castle.
Sorry, Matthew.
Nice To Meet You
Recently went on a vacation with some friends + a mutual friend who I don't know that well. Him and I took the pullout couches, and his was right next to the bathroom. Later one night, when we were all walking around away from our hotel, I got the stomach rumbles. Then the nausea hit. I have never felt so sick in my life. It felt like someone was grabbing my insides and twisting them.
The second we got back to our hotel I made a beeline for the bathroom. Through that paper thin wall, this guy I barely knew heard me sh*t pure liquid out of my *ss, cry, and vomit in a trash can in front of me. I spent the rest of the night shivering in bed and making runs to the bathroom. I hit the "been married for a decade" barrier with them in a single night.
Food poisoning is a b*tch.
I Am Your Singing Telegram
My sophomore year of high school I had a crush on a girl that I had a class with. We'd talked a few times but I didn't know her that well. It was around Valentines Day and our school did a thing where you could pay $10 and student volunteers would go sing a song you picked, in class, to whoever you picked, and give them a card.
So instead of approaching her like a normal person for a date I decided to go with the singing Valentine. I plunked down my $10, signed up, and started getting extremely nervous about the next day.
That afternoon I told my friend what I'd done and he started laughing. And laughing. More than if he were just laughing at a bad idea. Finally he told me that the girl had a boyfriend, he was a senior, and I was an idiot.
The next morning I explained the situation to a friend of mine that was involved in the program and after he finished laughing he told me it was too late, singing assignments were out, it was going to happen. My only hope was that, since singers and time are limited, they wouldn't get to mine, which is a thing that would sometimes happen and you got your $10 back and not humiliated.
So our class together rolls around (which of course I had sent it to that one) and I start watching the clock. A couple other people got the singing Valentines but with about 10 minutes left mine still hadn't come.
Then the door opened. And instead of the one person with a boom box we normally had there were three. One was the guy I had begged to cancel it, who gave me the biggest smile as they set up.
Now, song options had been limited. This was before streaming existed so it was just what they happened to have CDs of. I honestly didn't know most of the songs, and didn't want to go sappy, so I went with the one higher tempo song I knew: Wild Thing.
So they announced who the Valentine was for and she blushed, I'm sure assuming it was from her boyfriend. They started singing and she blushed harder. They handed her the card that I had written my name in and her face stopped being pink and went far more red. She looked over at me and all I could do was shrug. After they left she said, out loud, "But I have a boyfriend!" and then everyone knew it was from me. I just muttered that I'd found out too late and happy Valentine's Day and I'm sorry.
That was the most embarrassed I've ever been.
Edit: Well that blew up. To answer a couple questions no we never ended up going out or anything. We're both happily married to other people now. I assume her boyfriend found out but I don't think he knew who I was and I never heard anything from him about it. I don't know if he sent her one in another class or not. Yes my friend is a dick for not cancelling it but that's what friends do. Also thanks for the gold!
Edit2: Looking back the correct play would have been to tell her before class what had happened and tell her to pretend it was from her boyfriend. So if you ever find yourself in this situation I guess do that.
Cafeteria Fiasco
In high school, the homecoming dance was coming up. I happened to confide that I had a crush on a popular girl to another girl in my math class. Unbeknownst to me, they were very good friends and this girl offered to put in a good word for me. The next day she told me my crush would totally say yes if I asked her. So in between periods I found my crush in the hallway, asked her to homecoming, and she said yes! booyah....
Well homecoming is on Saturday, today is Thursday. My crush, her friend and I go to lunch together and I offer to pay in the hopes that will make her like me even more (Yes, I was bad at this). She tells me she wants 2 bags of chips, burger/fries, and a small carton of chocolate milk. No problem. I go to the cafeteria and get those items like a boss. For some reason, I decide to jog over to her even though that really only shaves off like 10 seconds from my trip. I have 2 bags of chips in my mouth, one hand with a burger and fries, the other hand with a carton of chocolate milk.
The girls are sitting in the common area. The common area is carpeted, adjacent to the cafeteria which has a tile floor. these rooms are separated by a relatively small metal line on the floor. As I meet that line, my left foot catches on the metal. No problem, I have another foot, I will just swing that foot forward real quick and save this. Nope, the other foot also catches. As I fall straight forward I instinctively try to catch myself with my hands. Well one hand has chocolate milk in it which promptly bursts, sending chocolate milk in every direction. My other hand didn't help me either, slips on the burger in the bag and the fries go all over the place. The last thing to break my fall is my own face. The face with two bags of lays potato chips in my mouth. You know the jokes about lays chips being full of air? they are true.
As my face collided with the ground, both the bags of chips exploded at the same time. It sounded like a gunshot. somehow one of my shoes flew off. I tried to melt into the floor and fade out of existence for a moment, then peeled my chocolate milk and chip soaked face off the ground. this happened at the meeting point of the common room and the cafeteria, so everyone in both rooms either saw or heard this fiasco and looked over. about 100 students. It's deadly silent for another couple seconds, and then the laughter. Dear god, the laughter. It was like a jet engine. Every person there was laughing the hardest they have ever laughed in their whole lives. I saw the janitor doubled over laughing, bracing himself with a mop handle. A teacher was trying to walk over to help me, but she stopped every couple feet to use her whole body to laugh at me. All of this happens not 10 feet away from the table in which my crush and her friends are sitting. Everyone is having a great laugh, but my crush has the greatest laugh of all. She has fallen to the ground, with one hand bracing herself on her knees. the other hand is clutched at her ribs as she laughs so hard that no sound comes out, wheezing like an asthmatic dolphin.
There is no recovery from this. I walk to the bathroom to clean myself up. The teacher could only manage to hand me my shoe along the way and continue laughing. In the bathroom the laughter didn't die down at all for what seemed like an eternity. When the bell rang I was still in the bathroom, and people were still laughing.
While I spent the whole day wallowing in easily the most embarrassing moment of my life, I thought well maybe i'm the funny guy now and she will like that. The next morning I see my crush before class and she walks up to me. She says "So homecoming is tomorrow." Eager to totally not talk about the sh*tshow yesterday, I just excitedly say "yes, yes it is." She then delivers a crisp "So this guy that I actually like asked me to go to the dance. So I'm gonna go with him" to which I replied "Ah, yeah, that makes sense." I totally did not go in the bathroom and cry after that.
The Shoe Project
I had made a short film that had gotten into a festival and I had to travel down to Busan from Seoul on the fast train - super expensive.
I was looking good, wearing cool clothes including a pair of leather shoes I had thrifted. Bad mistake.
By the time I left the subway in Busan and walked 100 metres towards the theatre (where I was due to give a speech) the top of one of the shoes was starting to flap. I managed to hook my big toe over it to hold it down, but the sides were now lifting up. People I was passing were starting to notice as it looked like I had a club foot. In the end, I had to take the shoe off and throw it away.
I now had one shoe and a limp. This was in an area full of apartments NO SHOPS not even a convenience store.
I hopped along, then the other shoe came apart and I had to throw that away.
What the hell should I do? I'm in an unfamiliar city, shoeless, and on top of that the glue had left big black oily patches on my feet.
I walked shoeless to the theatre (if you know Korea at all you know how well dressed people are). I honestly didn't know what I should do. Not go? Even though I was expected and it would ruin my reputation? I honestly felt like crying.
I made it to the theatre and was ushered to the front before I could explain my situation to my co-director.
I had to give a speech shoe-less and with oily feet to people I was trying to impress.
Then I had to walk to find a store shoe-less.
Not the most embarrassing, but definitely stands out as one of the most hopeless situations I have been in.
(In the end I had to buy shoes from a department store. Not only were they $300 designer sneakers - they were too big so looked like clown shoes. I couldn't sell them because they were full of oil from my dirty feet. Worst trip of my life.)
Every Teenage Boy's Nightmare
Sigh.*
I was 15 or 16, sitting at my table in my room, browsing the internet. I had one hand in my pants playing around with my random-boner. It was nothing sexual - I was just keeping my hands occupied as I would if I were tapping my foot or twiddling my thumbs. So I was doing a helicopter, stretching, pulling, etc. At one point, I must have pushed against the shaft too much, because I immediately heard a click as you would hear when cracking your fingers or knuckles and my then-prominent wang started to deflate. I started panicking quite a bit, as you might think, as this had never happened to me before. I did not get a spontaneous boner for the next two or three days after that, which for a teenager, who would get them several times a day, is practically unheard of. I went to Dr. Google and thought that I had a penile fracture, though it did not look at all like the pictures (no purple swelling and no misshapen form). Well, I finally had the courage and sheepishly told my mom about this, and exactly how it happened. She scheduled an appointment to the urologist. I begged her not to go with me (helicopter mom), as I was already so embarrassed.
I went the urologist, and told him about the clicking, the deflation, and the lack of boners for the subsequent couple of days - leaving out exactly what caused it all. He checked me and said, "Yeah, definitely no penile fracture. Just take it easy the next time she is on top."
"Yeah, I actually didn't have sex...."
"So then how did it happen?"
My face went absolutely red and my teenage angst went into overdrive. I sighed and awkwardly explained to him exactly what transpired.
I could tell that my urologist was trying to keep a straight face while I was explaining it to him, but he just started laughing towards the end, apologizing and saying that that was the first time he's ever heard something like that in his 15 years of practicing.
I just wanted to die right then and there.
The Panty Police
In second grade, I decided I didn't like the feel of panties. (No, no sexual backstory or anything like that to this. Just plain didn't like how they felt.) I wore a lot of dresses back then, which made it easy to take them on and off. On the car rides to school, I started removing them and stuffing them in the driver's seat pocket in front of me. And then on the ride home I would put them back on, sometimes. Sometimes I just left them off. One day, my parents confronted me. They'd found some of the panties I ended up just leaving behind in that pocket. From that day on, for a month or more, my dad checked to make sure I was wearing panties before I headed into school. It was super embarrassing.
The Sound Of...Not Silence
The other day my brother was in the bank and waiting in line. While waiting he was playing on his phone checking out Facebook. He came across an auto looping video that had 0-9 going pretty quickly one at a time. It said "See if you can tap to stop it on 0"
So he taps and it goes full screen and turns the sound on and porn sounds start playing loudly out of his phone. He said he panicked and tried to tap and tap and it didn't do anything til he minimized the video and swiped it away or whatever you do to get rid of a video on Facebook.
He said he was so embarrassed. I thought it was hilarious.
4Loko Stories
Showed up to hang with friends and drink some beer. I saw some Four Lokos at the gas station and decided I had to drink four of them. Don't even remember opening the fourth one, but apparently I drank all four. Got in two fist fights with my friends who were trying to calm me down (Got my *ss beat), cried for like an hour apparently, and ended the night by going into a Waffle House in my underwear holding my socks screaming that my friends wanted me to starve.
Yeah. I would have gone to jail if they weren't good friends. My buddy knocked my *ss out and drove me home. We still joke to this day that we found out what was beyond the fourth Four Loko.
Awkward Existence
Don't know if it's most embarrassing but definitely most recent.
Last night I took an edible and therefore was pretty baked. I hadn't eaten in a while on top of the munchies from the weed so I needed food badly. I ordered some Taco Bell on Postmates and when the delivery lady came I already knew it was about to be an adventure getting that food. I live in campus housing so on top of interacting with another stranger I knew I'd have to at least somewhat interact with the front desk. I go down to the lobby and sign for my food and I could not tell if the lady needed me to do anything more. I kept taking quick glances unsure of what to do and she 100% thought I was checking her out. She paused and looked over her shoulder at me, and asked me a question that I couldn't quite understand. I didn't know how to react so I just said "no" really quickly and scanned back into the building. Went up to my room and shamefully ate my Taco Bell.
Yuck Yuck Yuck
I honestly hope I am not too late for this thread. So here it goes:
One time in high school I was talking to one of my teachers before class started about how I had some friends who knew his son who went to a school in the town over.
Well, he asked me what they said about his son, and me being the honest idiot it I am, I ask him "Honestly?"
And he says "Yeah."
To which then I reply, "They said he smokes a lot of weed." Everyone erupts around me because they all had been listening in on the convo, and to my horror I realized what I had just done.
My teacher responds, "No, he only smokes a little weed." He was honestly cool with it and the only teacher that would be ok with me saying something like that. I wasn't really that embarrassed in the moment because it was funny.
But looking back I cringe to high-heaven. Such a dumb thing to say. Yuck.
The False Dad Effect
I have two older sisters, they are 10 and 7 years older than me. I was around 10 when this happened.
It was coming up to summer, my mum asked me to look through all my holiday stuff to see how they fit in case I needed anything new ahead of our holiday.
I had a swimsuit on, and found my tutu from when I did ballet (when I was about 4/5), I squeezed into my tutu and went into my oldest sister's room to show her how ridiculous I looked. She told me that our other sister was downstairs studying for her final exams and she's so stressed, it would cheer her up to see me like that.
So we went downstairs, Sister 1 told me "Jump in and shout 'TA-DA!'", so I did, it went like this:
Me: (jumping in through the door) TA-D.... Oh. Hi Dad... Wait. You're not dad. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
Sister no. 2 had a friend call over and she was chatting to him, sister no. 1 was aware of this fact and set me up for failure.