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15 Cringy Things People Did That Gave Off Second-Hand Embarrassment For Those Around
Article created by: Mindaugas Balčiauskas
Shame and embarrassment can be good emotions that keep us in check. But isn't feeling embarrassed over your own actions enough? Why do we have to suffer the cringe from the antics of others?
Clinical Psychologist Marielle Collins, Ph.D., explains that it's related to empathy. "Our brains are wired to be able to simulate the emotional experiences of other people and feel what another person is feeling." That's why we feel sorry for people when they're grieving, for example. The same goes for being embarrassed when someone else does something shameful.
However, you have to admit that reading cringy stories is quite entertaining and fascinating. It seems this Redditor agreed, as they asked: "What is the worst second hand embarrassment you've ever felt?" The thread filled up pretty quickly, with over five thousand netizens rushing in to tell their story.
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#1
Bless my ex gf. She was a waitress, and we were out to dinner with my parents. My mother pulls the "trying to use an expired coupon" move on the waiter. She simply refused to accept that time is a thing and that the written date had passed.
While I zone out and wait for my mom to either win or be escorted out by management, my ex was apparently slowly losing her mind. She suddenly snatches the dollar bill sized coupon from my mother's hand and eats it. Literally tore it and shoved the pieces in her mouth. She says that since there's no more coupon, there's no deal.
It was nice, having the crazy chick be crazy on the staffs behalf for a change.
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#2
I was selling some kettlebells on Facebook marketplace and a woman, early 40’s maybe, bought them.
She came to pick them up and as I handed them over to her, she obviously wasn’t expecting them to be as heavy as they were, and as she suddenly strained to counter the weight, she ripped the most extreme of farts you have ever heard. It was gargantuan. I was shocked, but also proud.
I’m usually pretty good at making light of any situation but I found myself speechless for the first time in my life. If I could, I would’ve returned serve but even on my best day I don’t believe I could create such a symphony.
We both kind of stared into each other’s eyes and she said “well…” and turned around and walked off.
I think about her often.
#3
I saw a friend, who was upset that his girlfriend corrected his grammar, throw himself on a couch and kick his feet and pound his fists, while he cried out, "Don't correct me. You're not my mom!"
She kicked him out of her apartment and broke up with him. I wondered how she lasted so long.
#4
A long time ago I worked at an airport where we had an office with a big glass tinted window through which we could watch the passengers and arrival hall goings on.
Three of us were sitting at the window doing paperwork, we were all so extremely tired after a long shift when one of the guys I worked with took a glance out and spotted one of our co-workers he didn't like through the window. He proceeded to tell us the most vicious rant...' Look at that fat so and so, etc. etc, looks like a warthog, just on and on with the most descriptive insults.
Turns out, I guess bring so tired, he had spotted her reflection in the window and she was actually standing behind us. It was just us three and her in the room. I beep beep beeped reversed out of that room so quick.
#5
Was at dinner party when my friend’s mother in law asked another one of our friends when her baby was due. She wasn’t pregnant. Anyway, MIL should have simply apologized, but instead doubles down with something to the effect of “it sure looks like you’re pregnant”.
#6
I was a server at an Americana restaurant and a family came in and the mother was berating everyone. She yelled at the server and complained about the food not being the right temperature and then she thought it was too salty, etc. She really had it in for the 17 year old server. He was fine-- but the customer wanted to pick at someone. Her husband and teenaged children looked embarrassed. She had been like this before.
There is a sign on the door that said we reserved the right to refuse service to anyone, and management decided that this lady shouldn't eat with us again so the manager went over and comped the meals and told them to leave and not come back. The woman was upset and left mean feedback.
In response the feedback, a regular posted with a picture of the woman and her family. She quickly took down her bad feed back. She deserved the public upbraiding, but I was embarrassed for her family.
#7
Sitting at a desk at my new job with 4 other new hires. It was like our 4th day and a new guy was there, all we heard was that his wife had been having a baby so he started a couple days late. One guy asks him if it’s a boy or girl. He says it was a boy. Asks how he’s doing. The guy says actually the baby didn’t make it. Got real quiet after that.
#8
Well, many many years ago, when I was a kid, I was on holiday with my family in a remote location in Indonesia. It was NYE and there was a little party in the hotel restaurant, about half tourists and about half locals. Everyone had some food and a few drinks, and it was all going nicely.
Then a guy gets up and taps his glass. He tells the entire gathering that, as a proud West Virginian man, he would like to share something very special to him from his culture.
He proceeds to sing "Take me home, country road" by John Denver. Earnestly. A capella. With tears in his eyes.
My father is a rather blunt kind of Australian man. He absolutely could NOT reel it in. I think he tried for about 30 seconds but eventually just lost it and began laughing hysterically. So hard he cried. So hard everyone else near him began laughing too, just because it was contagious.
In the background, the guy is still singing, "West Virginiaaaaa, Mountain Mamaaaaaa...".
#9
I went to an open house and there was this older realtor helping the listing agent. He was excitedly walking around this empty house talking about features while looking back at my husband and I and he ran head first into the chandelier that would be positioned over a dining room table had one been there. It happened so quick we couldn’t even warn him.
He got tangled in it and ripped it down as he fell face first to the ground, cutting himself up badly in the process.
We both still cringe thinking about it. We saw him out at the supermarket recently and both whispered “oh nooooooo”.
#10
I didn't even have to be alive to be embarrassed for my mom dating in her twenties. Apparently she was on a date with a guy she really liked and she ordered a salad bc she didn't want to get anything in her teeth. Then mid conversation, she bit into a cherry tomato and it exploded and squirted across the table and blew out the candle in the middle of the table. I die every time I think about this.
#11
I worked at a retail store and my manager was a super try hard, dorky kind of guy. He loved the sales manager and was obsessed with him like to the point of adopting phrases and mannerisms. Anyways one night we all went out for karaoke and he, completely sober btw, went up, said he was dedicating a song to the sales manager, and sang that foo fighters there goes my hero song. I literally had to walk outside I couldn't handle it.
#12
When a colleague accidentally unmuted himself in a meeting and said something snarky about someone on the call. That particular call was being recorded too.
Not me directly, but I had a colleague tell me he'd been moderating a work-related townhall meeting on Teams, and the meeting was being recorded for publishing on the website. Some poor sod didn't realise his camera was on, and took his laptop into the bathroom with him to continue listening while he took a dump. Since most people had their cameras off, his video popped up beside the presenter's on Teams. Needless to say, the recording was quietly lost.
#13
That time my old roommate told a table full of his family that “AIDS and Cancer are the same thing.” Just after talking about how much he’s been learning from his night classes. Those classes were being paid for by his parents and *Spoiler* *Alert* he wasn’t attending any classes. They realized it by the time dinner was over.
#14
I was out for dinner with my family, and my brother was a wheelchair user, he would’ve been a teenager at the time. A drunk woman came up to us, looked at him, then turned to my mum and asked “is he like that famous astrologer?” She meant Stephen Hawking.
#15
This was years ago. Met a lady (40ish) who had a piercing in an unusual spot; upper lip, about half an inch away from the nose and more towards the cheek. It was a plain circular piercing. My friend (M 20s) who knew the lady, sort of reached out to touch it, saying sorry you've got something on your face. She gently recoiled. He tried again. This was with others in the vicinity. I died a bit that day.
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