My face actually hurts from grimacing soooo hard.
Reddit useru/A55A55IN100997recentlyasked, “What is the worst secondhand embarrassment you’ve ever felt?”
The thread quickly filled with hundreds of genuinely painful, cringey stories.
Here are some of the standouts:
1.
I was shocked but also proud.
I think about her often."
u/No_Difficulty_3203
2.
“I once went to an Italian restaurant with someone who was learning Italian and knew quite a bit.
None of the staff were Italian; it was essentially just a pizzeria in a small town.
She insisted on ordering for the whole table in the language with the correct pronunciation, etc.
The waitress was about 17 and didnt know what was happening while we all just sat there.”
u/Scotchtokberfest
3.
“We have a parents' Facebook chat for the parents in my daughter’s class.
Clearly, he texted to the wrong chat.”
u/National-Opening-506
4.
“I was home watching TV, and we had a huge indoor sliding glass door.
We had a repairman over; he was walking fast with his face hanging down.
He looked up right as I was trying to warn him and smashed face-first into the glass.
He quickly opened the door and ran out, leaving his face printed on the glass.
Omg, I died for him.”
She wasn’t pregnant.
u/Beneficial-Salt-6773
6.
“A girl graduating from college fell repeatedly on the stage.
Even she had a ‘WTF’ expression on her face.”
u/Smile_Terrible
7.
“There was a guy in college who walked into class late.
We heard it finally stop as he was about to leave the building.”
u/bang-a-rang47
8.
She was wearing white."
u/Electronic-Thanks-13
9.
“I walked in on my ex-boyfriend’s mom having a swingers party.
I stood still before processing what I saw, and then I ran away.”
u/lawsonmonster97
10.
I die every time I think about this."
u/bbennett106
11.
“I went to an open house, and this older realtor was helping the listing agent.
He was excitedly walking around this empty house and discussing features while looking back at my husband and me.
It happened so quickly we couldn’t even warn him.
We both still cringe when we think about it.
We saw him out at the supermarket recently, and both whispered, ‘Oh nooooooo.'”
u/whatsnewpikachu
12.
“When I was a teenager, my mom sold our old couch on Craigslist.
A local college student bought it, and she brought her dad to help load it into a van.
He asked if he could use the bathroom before loading it up, and my mom said sure.
He was in there for a long time about 15 minutes.
Finally, he emerges holding the bathmat crumpled up by the edges (like a dumpling).
He just says he ‘missed.’
Without being prompted, he clarified that the bathmat contained poop rather than pee.
The look on his daughter’s face was indescribable.
They still had to get the couch out.”
u/dodecagon
13.
“I almost don’t even want to write this down; it made me so uncomfortable!
I was at a leadership course with about 150 NCOs in the military.
I’ve never seen anything like the holding power of this thing.
It ended up being down at least 8 or 10 inches, just dangling.”
u/mahjimoh
14.
I’m sure you’re free to see where this is going.
We all just looked around at each other in shock and awkwardly laughed until he came back.
No one said anything to him, and I hope no one ever did."
u/ardnassila
15.
“I went to school for software development.
It was a very difficult program with a high failure rate.
Now, in the first semester, he struggled.
We all knew he struggled.
I was kind of surprised to see him.
We talked about grades, and he said, ‘Oh wow, you guys saw your grades?
Yes, he’d gotten through the semester and never checked his grades.
We pulled up the school website, he logged in, and we pointed him to the grades section.
He asked, ‘What do these Ws mean?’
You should talk to the registrar’s office.’
He was honestly more confused than anything.
He wandered off, and we never saw him again.”
u/shaidyn
16.
Later, he told me he was holding in his farts the whole time.
I had to fake a trip to the bathroom because I was crying from laughing so hard."
u/Valuable-Bicycle-713
17. u/buttbutt2000_
18.
The doors were closing, and some lady tried to run to get on.
I cringed so hard."
u/DeliciouslyCaramel
19.
She bonked her head straight into the glass.
She thought nobody had noticed until she saw me laughing, and then she just about died."
u/Theduckbytheoboe
20.
“I sat across from two ladies at lunch.
When they got up to leave, the tablecloth had been sandwiched between one lady’s thighs.
The tablecloth pulled down her skirt to her knees as she stood up.
u/NotBadSinger514
21.
This girl was in my department, so I knew she was from the tri-state area and not British.
The professor asked her to repeat herself because he hadnt caught what shed said.
Instead of taking the out, she said the whole thing again.
Maybe it doesnt sound that bad, but it still makes me cringe to this day.”
u/ContentHermit_13
22.
The dance floor was in the center of the venue, so she quickly attracted the crowd’s attention.
I recoiled in my seat as if I had been the one who mooned the wedding."
u/emptyshampoobot
23.
“A colleague of mine put in his two weeks.
For context, he’s a fairly attractive man.
Anyway, she gave him a lap dance right there in front of the entire office.”
u/Buckus93
24.
Damn, that was a theatrical fall."
u/Nightmare_Tonic
25.
“I walked into the breakroom at work and caught two coworkers making out.
They were both married, but not to each other.
They both turned beet red, mumbled something about getting back to it, and hurried off.
u/non_clever_username
26.
“At a large pre-wedding rehearsal dinner, a close female childhood friend of the groom gave a speech.
u/mister-burns1
27.And: “I was in fourth grade at the elementary school spelling bee.
u/nuggetkween
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
