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Your most embarrassing moments?

Matt N

Matt N

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Hi guys. In life, I'm sure we've all had those moments that have embarrassed us. I'm sure that at some point, we've all done something or had someone say something to us that has made us feel like a complete fool or totally mortified us in some other way. But I'm sure that looking back, we all have some of these moments that while they were mortifying at the time, we look back at them and laugh with a little bit of hindsight! So my question to you today is; what have been some of your most embarrassing moments?

I'd like to just clarify that I know this could be a sensitive topic, and I'm not expecting anyone to share anything that they don't feel entirely comfortable sharing or that still touches a nerve with them. Only share things you want to share.

I'll get the ball rolling with some of mine.

I could probably regurgitate quite a few if I put my mind to it, but many of mine revolve around one certain thing.

Over the years, I have had many embarrassing encounters to do with my age, or more specifically, people mistaking me for being younger than I am. Now I was by no means a late bloomer, and I've never been excessively short for my age by any means, but I have quite a young-looking face which often leads people to believe I'm younger than I really am. This is less of a problem for me now than it used to be (this mostly only crops up if I ever need to use ID these days), but I've had countless dealings with this over the years. Some of the more memorable occasions include:
  • When I was in Year 11, I accidentally got caught behind a group of Year 7s in the corridor at school, who were going to some sort of induction assembly. As I was moving along minding my own business, someone taps me on the shoulder and says "My god... you are one giant Year 7!" and then multiple other people gazed at me like I was some freak of nature. I can't remember exactly how I responded, but I definitely didn't burst their bubble... even now, they still must think I was a freakishly tall Year 7 as opposed to the average-to-short Year 11 I actually was! This did make me die a bit on the inside...
  • Later in the same corridor, I was trying to go down a certain path to reach my lesson, and a teacher came and shepherded me in the opposite direction, saying "The sports hall is that way, my lovely!". Not originally knowing why she said this to me, I said "Thank you!" and moved along my original path. She then came and shepherded me a little more obviously in the opposite direction to where I was going, saying "No, no, no; you need to go to your induction assembly in the sports hall, which is that way, my darling!", while gesturing in the direction she wanted me to go. I then apologised profusely, said "Thank you!" once again, and moved in the direction she was gesturing, simply taking a very long detour to my lesson...
  • When I was in Year 10, it was once Year 6 Induction Day, to allow the primary school kids joining that September to gain a taste of secondary school life. I was leaving the canteen after lunch, and a boy 1 or 2 years below me came up to me and said "You all right, little fella? You enjoying your first day?". I appreciated the gesture, so I just said "Yes, thank you!" and moved along, but this encounter had me truly mortified at the time... but many people I knew found it hilarious, albeit they were also gobsmacked I was mistaken for someone so young and insisted that I looked much older than this encounter implied! One ironic element of it was that even though he called me "little fella", I was at least 5'8" tall at the time, and he craned his neck up to look up at me as he was saying it...
  • More recently, I had a rather embarrassing encounter at a bar while on holiday. I was helping my dad to carry a round of drinks from the bar back to our table. As he placed the drinks on the bar after making them, the bartender said to my dad in a slightly hushed voice "Just to be clear... none of the alcoholic drinks are for the young boy, are they?", gesturing towards me. My dad then revealed the truth of me having recently turned 18, and I've never seen anyone look so apologetic... the bartender insisted it was his perception of time and age growing more broken than me looking excessively young or small (his comment was something along the lines of "god, I swear 18 year olds seem to look younger to me every year..."), but it did leave me feeling pretty embarrassed, I won't lie...
I could probably think of more mortifying memories if I put my mind to it, but those are some of my more memorable ones!

But what are some of your most embarrassing moments?
 
I’m not going to share any major ones but I will say I’ve had similar experiences to @Matt N in terms of looking considerably younger than I actually am. The worst was in a supermarket, I’d gone with my mum and the cashier said to me “hello darling are you going to help your mummy pack her shopping“ I was in year 9. I then asked the cashier how old she thought I looked and she replied “like 10”.
 
JAperson said:
I’m not going to share any major ones but I will say I’ve had similar experiences to @Matt N in terms of looking considerably younger than I actually am. The worst was in a supermarket, I’d gone with my mum and the cashier said to me “hello darling are you going to help your mummy pack her shopping“ I was in year 9. I then asked the cashier how old she thought I looked and she replied “like 10”.
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Glad I’m not the only one! I’ve certainly had encounters similar to that…

In my instance, I don’t think it helps in some cases where I’m accompanied by my parents (such as my case with the bartender) that I topped out at 8.5 inches shorter than my dad… he’s 6’6”, while I’m only 5’9.5”. As such, I can imagine that us walking together gives off more of a “little boy holding daddy’s hand” type impression rather than the “dad and fully grown adult son walking together” impression that is the actual truth… in fact, I remember he once blurted out “cos you’re short!” as a reason why everyone thinks I’m younger than I actually am!

People seem to be very confused by how I turned out so short given my dad is so tall. Given my mum is only 5’3” and has a selection of average-to-short relatives (her dad/my grandad is only my height), my relatively short stature does make sense, but people always seem to reckon that having a tall dad should have automatically made me tall as well… perhaps that’s part of why everyone thinks I’m so young.

Genetics is so weird…
Vik said:
I always find it amusing, we spend our teenage years and early 20's trying to look older than we actually are, then after that spend the rest of our lives trying or wishing to look younger. :p
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It is funny how the tables turn! My mum always told me about how she continued to get ID’d well into her 30s, and she said she initially found it embarrassing, but went on to find it rather flattering!
 
Probably when I was in my teens, I was in a restaurant toilet and instead of going out the exit door I followed another guy into a cubicle. He looked at me like WTF? 🤣 In my defence, the exit door and cubicle doors were all the same size and colour.
 
Alsty said:
Probably when I was in my teens, I was in a restaurant toilet and instead of going out the exit door I followed another guy into a cubicle. He looked at me like WTF? 🤣 In my defence, the exit door and cubicle doors were all the same size and colour.
Click to expand...
Oh dear, that sounds like a mortifying one… an honest mistake, I’m sure, but I hope the man wasn’t too upset with you!
 
My existence.

Nah, being serious for a sec, I've had the odd one over the years. Managed to get stuck in a church toilet once when the bolt seized, which then led to me getting rather upset & stressed, and my dad - who managed to get me out - then had the gall to get annoyed at me for still crying afterwards. I was probably no older than 10 at the time, so a little while before my autism diagnosis.

Back in 2013, I'd gone on the TS South meet, with the plan to get the train back to Cornwall from Staines following visiting Thorpe. As it was, we ended up bailing and went to LEGOLAND part way through the afternoon, so my plan to get home had to change - bus to Windsor, train to Slough, train to Reading, and then pick up my planned train there. Unfortunately, when I got to the bus stop outside LEGOLAND, I realised I wouldn't be able to make that train. I panicked a bit, but managed to crash with some friends in London before heading home the next day. At least it wasn't quite as bad as when I was heading home from a meet the previous year, I'd missed my train from Paddington back to London, and had a proper meltdown due to it being the last train of the day. Thankfully, Mike came to the rescue and got me sorted on another train (needed to make a change at Plymouth as opposed to going direct to Truro, where I would've had to change for Penryn anyway).

I'd say it's perhaps strange that my meltdowns have caused embarrassment, but it's really not. Yay for being autistic. :rolleyes:
 
I fell over at Monkey World once. I was okay but there were a lot of witnesses. Falling over is always embarrassing as an adult, kids can get away with it.

There was another time where I was showing off to my kids and went on a particularly violent zip wire at a local park, the force of it hitting the stopper at the end caused me to go flying into the air and then crashing into a heap on the floor. Someone I know was there to see the whole thing and came running to see if I was okay (I somehow was), which I of course appreciated, but the circumstances were embarrassing. Grown adult going flying off the end of a zip wire - not a good look.
 
I've got a few but most are only suitable for the Tavern...

There is one I can share. When I was working my first job in a petrol station, which also did video rental, my manager told me to hold back Basic Instinct 2 for a regular and put the box (minus disk) on the till counter. By chance someone asked for the same film earlier in the day and I found the disk in the cupboard, not clicking that it was the same movie. It didn't occur to me to remove the box from display either. When the regular arrived he was a huge guy with loads of tattoos and piercings and looked properly scary (so did his girlfriend). When he requested the film I realised what I'd done and genuinely though he was going to kill me. Rather than fess up I made a big show of looking for the film in the cupboard before telling him it must have gone missing. In the end he chose another film and my manager never found out!
 
I travel around 200 hundred nights a year for work and you would be surprised how often people get confused between the toilet and the room door in the middle of the night.
Receptionist told me happens around once a week someone stark naked comes down for a spare key card.
 
Matt N said:
Hi guys. In life, I'm sure we've all had those moments that have embarrassed us. I'm sure that at some point, we've all done something or had someone say something to us that has made us feel like a complete fool or totally mortified us in some other way. But I'm sure that looking back, we all have some of these moments that while they were mortifying at the time, we look back at them and laugh with a little bit of hindsight! So my question to you today is; what have been some of your most embarrassing moments?

I'd like to just clarify that I know this could be a sensitive topic, and I'm not expecting anyone to share anything that they don't feel entirely comfortable sharing or that still touches a nerve with them. Only share things you want to share.

I'll get the ball rolling with some of mine.

I could probably regurgitate quite a few if I put my mind to it, but many of mine revolve around one certain thing.

Over the years, I have had many embarrassing encounters to do with my age, or more specifically, people mistaking me for being younger than I am. Now I was by no means a late bloomer, and I've never been excessively short for my age by any means, but I have quite a young-looking face which often leads people to believe I'm younger than I really am. This is less of a problem for me now than it used to be (this mostly only crops up if I ever need to use ID these days), but I've had countless dealings with this over the years. Some of the more memorable occasions include:
  • When I was in Year 11, I accidentally got caught behind a group of Year 7s in the corridor at school, who were going to some sort of induction assembly. As I was moving along minding my own business, someone taps me on the shoulder and says "My god... you are one giant Year 7!" and then multiple other people gazed at me like I was some freak of nature. I can't remember exactly how I responded, but I definitely didn't burst their bubble... even now, they still must think I was a freakishly tall Year 7 as opposed to the average-to-short Year 11 I actually was! This did make me die a bit on the inside...
  • Later in the same corridor, I was trying to go down a certain path to reach my lesson, and a teacher came and shepherded me in the opposite direction, saying "The sports hall is that way, my lovely!". Not originally knowing why she said this to me, I said "Thank you!" and moved along my original path. She then came and shepherded me a little more obviously in the opposite direction to where I was going, saying "No, no, no; you need to go to your induction assembly in the sports hall, which is that way, my darling!", while gesturing in the direction she wanted me to go. I then apologised profusely, said "Thank you!" once again, and moved in the direction she was gesturing, simply taking a very long detour to my lesson...
  • When I was in Year 10, it was once Year 6 Induction Day, to allow the primary school kids joining that September to gain a taste of secondary school life. I was leaving the canteen after lunch, and a boy 1 or 2 years below me came up to me and said "You all right, little fella? You enjoying your first day?". I appreciated the gesture, so I just said "Yes, thank you!" and moved along, but this encounter had me truly mortified at the time... but many people I knew found it hilarious, albeit they were also gobsmacked I was mistaken for someone so young and insisted that I looked much older than this encounter implied! One ironic element of it was that even though he called me "little fella", I was at least 5'8" tall at the time, and he craned his neck up to look up at me as he was saying it...
  • More recently, I had a rather embarrassing encounter at a bar while on holiday. I was helping my dad to carry a round of drinks from the bar back to our table. As he placed the drinks on the bar after making them, the bartender said to my dad in a slightly hushed voice "Just to be clear... none of the alcoholic drinks are for the young boy, are they?", gesturing towards me. My dad then revealed the truth of me having recently turned 18, and I've never seen anyone look so apologetic... the bartender insisted it was his perception of time and age growing more broken than me looking excessively young or small (his comment was something along the lines of "god, I swear 18 year olds seem to look younger to me every year..."), but it did leave me feeling pretty embarrassed, I won't lie...
I could probably think of more mortifying memories if I put my mind to it, but those are some of my more memorable ones!

But what are some of your most embarrassing moments?
Click to expand...
I'd say accidentally speaking on 100% volume when maybe 20%? Would do is certainly up there!
 
I have a new nomination for this thread… although it might be more funny than embarrassing, it was certainly a cringeworthy mistake nonetheless!

After recently watching The Reckoning, the 4-part dramatisation of how Jimmy Savile’s crimes unfolded starring Steve Coogan as Savile, my family and I were having a rather serious conversation about Jimmy Savile and his crimes.

During this conversation, I mentioned how people desecrated Jimmy Savile’s grave after he died… except I accidentally mixed up “desecrated” with “defecated” and said, entirely seriously, that “Jimmy Savile’s gravestone had to be taken away because people defecated on it”…

Everyone fell about laughing, and I quickly realised my mistake and laughed too, but it was certainly a pretty embarrassing mistake to make in such a serious conversation!
 
Not a serious one... Back in the day working at KD, my area had the log flume. Being a water ride a supervisor with a life saving certification needed to be in the station at all times... on this day it was me. I was working front left load. You got the guests into the boat, told them not to be idiots and had to push a foot pedal whilst using your other leg to push the boat to get it moving. It was a skill!

It was a busy Saturday, the queue was to the entrance. It went along side the trough at the other side, over a bridge into the station - where it spit right/left load. Needless to say, on this day I slipped and ended up in the trough. The full queue of people witnessed it, cheered and made lots and lots of comments. Guest services even recieved comments of Joy at my misfortune. This spread to the other supervisors and managers who dined out on it for about a week.
 
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