When you look back on all the dumb mistakes you’ve made and the bizarre situations you’ve found yourself in over the years, you can’t help but laugh. Either that or you start cringing so hard, you want to hide! The fact is, embarrassing situations make for (potentially) great memories, so long as you have a healthy sense of humor.

But when you’re in the middle of that weird, shameful moment, it can feel like your entire life is imploding. The AskReddit community opened up about some of the funniest and most embarrassing situations they’ve been in when they genuinely wanted to tell everyone else that it wasn’t what it looked like. We’ve picked out their most interesting stories to share with you. Scroll down to check them out!

#1

There was a dead branch in my yard I wanted to cut down so I needed an axe. We also have a rat problem , so ran to Home Depot for a quick fix to each problem. Quickly walking to checkout and on the way there was a stand with a sale on duct tape. Sure we always need that so without thinking grabbed one of those too. So I ended up at the cashier with only 3 items on the belt: duct tape, rat poison and an axe. The cashier did a double take and asked if she “needed to ne concerned”.

I’m sure I’m still on some kind of list.

Image credits: pro_nosepicker

#2

When I was 12 or 13, I told my friends that if you spray hairspray on a sink and light it on fire, you’ll get a sink full of fire without it burning the sink. My friends wanted to see it so we all went into the bathroom together. At that moment my mother came downstairs and asked what we were doing in there. We didn’t want to tell her that we were lighting the sink on fire so we stayed quiet. Absolutely horrified, she asked, “You guys weren’t showing each other your privates, were you?”

My friends still bring it up to me. We’re all in our mid 40s.

Image credits: Sayvray

#3

My wife and I were at a crowded restaurant with our 18 month old son who was sitting in a high chair. The waitress was beside him taking the order of a table behind us, and she bent over to hear them better. Our son looked at her butt right beside him and without any warning he goosed her! I mean, he REALLY got her! She spun around and raised her hand to slap the innocent man at the table next to us who didn’t have a clue what was going on! We quickly jumped up and intervened, explaining it was our son! We apologized profusely, thoroughly embarrassed. She instantly went from rage to “Oh! He’s sooooo cute!” The poor guy that almost got hit looked terrified. Even though we were poor students at the time, we left a generous tip and never ate there again! 

Image credits: Biffers2000

As reported by the Independent, some of the most common embarrassing moments that British people have experienced include returning a wave when the person was actually waving at someone else, forgetting a friend’s birthday or anniversary, and accidentally wearing warm clothing on a hot day.

The study of 2,000 adults by haircare brand Aussie found that 43% of people would ‘ride out’ the awkward moment, while a tenth of respondents admitted they would hide in the restroom because of how embarrassing everything was.

Other top cringeworthy moments, as per the poll, include spilling your coffee on your shirt, dropping your phone in the toilet, leaving the tag on your new clothes, and accidentally ‘liking’ an old photo of a person you’ve been stalking on social media. Moreover, people are super embarrassed when they accidentally send personal emails to their coworkers by mistake, text the person they’ve been gossiping about, and bump into someone they’ve canceled plans with.

#4

My late father had suffered a brain injury and though he was still lucid and in command of his faculties, he did sometimes need help with things. One time we were out at a shopping centre and his belt was too loose and he was worried his trousers were going to fall down. We had popped into the toilets and I was trying to help him fix the belt. A cleaner walked in to find me kneeling in front of my dad, playing with his belt. Her eyes widened, she went bright red, my dad blurted “this isn’t what it looks like”, and the cleaner hurriedly made an exit.

I was a young guy in my early 20s and it was the most embarrassing thing to happen to me at that stage of my life.

Image credits: Binro_was_right

#5

When I was a young man in college my girlfriend at the time came crying out of my bedroom. She was holding a pair of panties, and kept asking me “who’s are these?” I told them they were hers because that was the only logical thing I could think of. I was not cheating, and there was no other women ever in my room. She knew they weren’t hers, so she was devastated. Turns out when I brought my laundry home, a family members got in with my clothes.

Image credits: mnmike701

#6

When I was in basic training, I developed a tendency to get random nosebleeds. I’d be standing in formation, and they’d just start.

Well, one day the guy in the cot next to me (a kid by the names of Johnson) was told he had a leadership position the next day. He knew he’d have to get up 15 minutes before everyone else in order to attend a leadership meeting.

Five o’clock rolls around the next morning, and the drills start banging on everything. “Get up, get up!” They start yelling over the intercom. Johnson, who had not woken up fifteen minutes early, yells, “oh f**k!” And sits up so quickly that he bashes his head on the bunk above him.

Johnson sinks to the floor, and is rolling around, screaming, and bleeding from a nice cut in his forehead. I get up and yell, ‘Johnson? Are you okay?” And right then my nose starts bleeding.

And then the drill sergeant walked in. He sees me with blood dribbling down my face, Johnson rolling on the floor, and starts screaming that he’ll have us both for fighting. Fortunately, the other guys around us were laughing their asses off, and vouched for us.

Image credits: Thewrongbakedpotato

When you’ve embarrassed yourself or you find yourself in a super awkward position, the best defense is a good offense. Lean into the awkwardness! Show that you’re embarrassed, admit to having made a mistake, and have a good laugh if you can. People respect authenticity and down-to-earth individuals, so don’t be scared of showing that you’re less than perfect. Paradoxically, everyone will like you more for it.

In a similar vein, the worst thing you can do is pretend like you did nothing wrong or deny that you’ve embarrassed yourself. You’re clearly in a compromising position—you’re not fooling anyone, so don’t get too defensive.

#7

I was at a wedding and the water in the bathroom sink wasn’t working. So I was furiously wiping pearlescent hand soap off my hands with a paper towel when somebody else walked in. Totally looked like I was too horny to wait to get home.

Image credits: SovietBear

#8

I took a dance class (West Coast Swing), it was my first and was really out of my comfort zone.
First dance with a girl I just met, naturally I was extremely uncomfortable. Maintaining eye contact was impossible, so I was looking down while zoning out and executing the teacher’s instructions.

The girl gave me a mean look afterwards, understandably, that’s when I realize that from her pov I was looking at her breasts during the whole dance. I didn’t even notice they were there.

Needless to say I was mortified after that

Image credits: Fraestro6

#9

I had an anxiety freakout at a party when I was about 18 or 19. My then-boyfriend wanted to take me somewhere quiet to talk me down, but it was a busy New Year’s Eve house party, so the only quiet place was the bathroom. Cue the father/ homeowner catching a teenage couple together in his bathroom… He laughed it off with a certain air of “ah, young love.” But he *also* didn’t believe we hadn’t been making out.

Fast forward 13 years and we’re at this man’s younger son’s wedding. We’ve now been married 4 years. The father of the groom sees my husband at the bar and says, “oh, I still remember that night I caught you and your future wife hooking up in my bathroom!”

Image credits: thefuzzybunny1

That being said, having a more chill attitude to failure isn’t easy. It’s not something that everyone’s born with, but it’s a skill that you can develop over lots of embarrassing moments over the course of your life. Nobody’s perfect, so you’re ‘allowed’ to make mistakes. And how you react to any embarrassing moments is going to affect your life, whether you like it or not. If you let them morph into deeper feelings of shame, you’ll likely have weird hang-ups and irrational fears later.

But if you face all the embarrassment and awkwardness, you can turn it into a fun story. Opening up about these bizarre misunderstandings and your own failures can take the power away from the shame. Generally, it’s a good idea not to keep it all bubbling and roiling inside of you. Talk to your family and friends. Open up to strangers online. Heck, tell your therapist. Whatever you do, don’t run away from it.

What’s the most hilariously embarrassing situation you’ve been in recently, Pandas? If you feel like opening up, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

#10

My siblings are all several years older than me and had kids while I was still living with my mom. I have one sister who.lives four hours away and visits regularly. Whenever she and her husband would pack up, I’d keep theor two kids distracted so they wouldn’t be in the way. I also had a golden retriever at the time, and her crate was in my room. My sisters kids would regularly ask me to lock them in the crate and give them “treats” (cheez its) through the bars. I would always let them out when they got too rowdy or wanted to do something else, but one time they stayed in the crate the whole time my sister and brother-in-law were loading the car (like 30 minutes tops). BIL comes into my room to tell the kids it’s time to leave and just sees me slipping a cheez it to his kids in a locked dog crate saying “you’ve been good, you get a treat.”

Image credits: trashpandagoddess

#11

First holiday trip with my gfs family.

We got to the hotel and decided to bring all the luggage to the rooms, freshen up and meet in 15-20 min.

We enter the room, I sit on the bed and it instantly breaks down!

Telling the staff in front of my gfs parents was super awkward and of course nobody believed us!

Image credits: redlukes

#12

Was 10 sitting in a tree outside waiting for my dad to come home (worked late often). Neighbor girl 15 comes out and has a whole flirty convo with her bf on the phone. After she hangs up she realized I was there and I could just hear the creeped-outness in her voice when she says “….Austin? Is that you?” As if I was sitting there for the sake of spying on her ?

Image credits: Somewhere-Plane

#13

I’m in my 30s now.
When I was a teen, my family we’re having a family day (with extended family) at an amusement park. My parents were busy so they sent for my (male) cousin’s to come pick me up and take me there. No issue

Except for the neighbor across the street who was very nice to me and my family. He’d always be sitting on his porch, so he saw 2 guys come and pick me up, without my parents home and called and told them.

Image credits: lovehydrangeas

#14

New teacher moved here from across the country. She’s from the city that is the main rival of our local football team.

We get talking in class and turns out she now lives in the same small village only I live in (in our class.)

She mentions something about her car, and I casually ask which kind of car, which she answers. 

The next morning she tells us someone vandalized her car and spray painted “F**k [our rival team] all over it.”

She never addresses me directly but then goes into a 5 minute monologue of how stupid it is to vandalize a car of someone entirely not connected to said football team. I felt so bad because she must have clearly thought it was me.

Image credits: CeterumCenseo85

#15

I was trying to get an unfortunately placed zit in my teen years, and only way I could get a good look on it was legs in the air slightly over my head.

~~Queue~~ Cue mom walking in the door on the phone with my grandpa.

Image credits: anon

#16

I was doing a school project at a friends house, along with a girl that was in our group
My friend went to get something from the backyard and in that time, me and the girl struck up a conversation where she said she was being poked by her bra and it was really bothering her, so she just removed it to show me the part of the bra that had a metal rod coming out of it

Cue my friend walking in on us while she had her bra in front of my face

Image credits: josenanigans

#17

Had a girl friend who was into cosplay. I was helping her get into a suit and we both struggled to zip it. Apparently the bumping and slight grunting I was making helping her suit up sounded uhhhh.. erotic. Our other friend busted in to tell us to f**k quieter and he sees me struggling with a zipper.

Image credits: LimpAd5888

#18

Drinking in the dorm. One friend had too much, so she crashed on my roommate’s bed. I got tired before the rest and went to bed. Heard friend roll over and thought, “If she throws up, she could choke and die.”

Someone who was less drunk, more awake, or smarter generally would have asked her friends for help in moving her. Instead, I decided to wake her up and get her to roll over. Her friends opened the door and found me leaning over their passed-out friend.

Can’t blame them for thinking what they thought.

Image credits: copperdomebodhi

#19

Recently I was ordering shoes online for me and my girl( as a surprise). They have a helpful graph where you measure your foot and reference their chart to determine the proper size to order. I left the tape measure sitting on my night stand next to our bed. Fast forward a few hours and my girl is home and she’s on the phone with her mom talking about a piece of furniture mom wants to give us. My girl starts looking for the tape measure to check the wall space we have available in a certain area. Cue me in the background “the tape measure is on my night stand. DONT ASK ME WHY ITS THERE!”

Image credits: Chloroformperfume7

#20

I was standing at a sink at a second floor window making dagwood dogs, that is battered savaloys on a stick. A woman in the square below was staring up at me with a look as to say ‘Why are you standing staring out of that Window. Are you a perv?’

To demonstrate that I was indeed not a perv I waved a savaloy at her. She wasn’t convinced.

Image credits: schizoshizo

#21

One time we did a gag on my friend by putting software on his computer so we could control it (we removed it afterward). We opened a picture of a very large women with enormous boobs on his screen, and my dad walked up behind me and my other friend who was with me, said “What are those, boobs?”, and then just immediately left the room.

My dad and I never spoke of it again. Keep in mind I was like 14 lol.

Image credits: sp0ckbot

#22

I was traveling and needed to eat some fruit. I had forgotten my camera at home and wanted to take pictures. And I was visiting a female friend.

But when the clerk snickered, I realized what buying condoms, bananas, and a disposable camera at the grocery store might look like.

#23

I came across a girl who was passed out in the middle of the sidewalk.

I was just trying to figure out if she was even alive, and checking her pulse while trying to figure out where my phone was.

Then her boyfriend who was looking for her showed up and thought I was trying something suspicious, and came up and hit me in the face.

So I kinda just went “okay f**k this,” and ran.

Interesting days in Tacoma, Washington.

Image credits: MyLifeIsJustInsane

#24

Ahhh one I can comment on.

In a past life I was a self-employed electrician dealing mostly in domestic additions and alterations. One such job had me in a client’s en suite bathroom removing a centre light and wiring and fitting 4 down lights in place of the central.

All was going to plan, rigged up the drill and Arbor with a 70mm holesaw and dust cover and proceeded to cut out the lights. On the last light, the Arbor came loose in the drill and spun out of the drill and into the clients washing hamper directly under it.

Now I should mention here that when I met the client and his wife it became quickly apparent that my client was married to an absolute stunner of a woman. Somewhere between Margot Robbie and Rachel Mcadams.

I of course was in the process of digging the hole saw out of the washing hamper when the wife returned from the gym and walked into the en suite bathroom and stopped dead at the tradesman rifleing about in her dirty washing.

After an awkward laugh and some explanation it was fine but I still got the feeling she thought I was a closet pervert.

Image credits: Growling_squid

#25

When I was around 12 years old, I used to go over to a friend’s house and hang with him and his sister. We’ll call them James and Leah. One day we were watching a ufc fight and me and Leah started talking about if we could do this and that, or how would this work etc etc. James went downstairs to go make something to eat and me and his sister decided it was a great idea for us to see if we can do what they were doing on TV. Turns out, she was pretty damn strong and she got me in top mount and as soon as I picked my head up, her dad walked in.

Image credits: Ancient_Coach_9507

#26

My college roommate brought his parents back to our room while I was doing work and watching some old Whitest Kids U Know sketches. They walked in and I paused it to introduce myself, only after they had left again and I went back to my desk did I realize the frame I had paused on had Trevor Moore in the middle of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Image credits: badjawnington

#27

This was many years ago. Was working in a startup. I worked over the weekend in the office. A good friend of mine came over so if help her with her cs homework. She sat by me at my desk while I was partially working, partially helping her out.

She was about to leave, so sat down at the floor behind the table to put her shoes on. Just then a colleague/friend came in. He goes… “Hey! You cane to do some work on the weekend as well, eh?” to which my friend raised her hand from behind the table (still sitting on the floor) and shouted “this is not what it looks like”

Image credits: DawnIsAStupidName

#28

A woman and I were arguing about “beeps” happening in our genderless bathroom. So we both went in there (and I was right about it being the automatic urinal).

When we walked out… another woman was standing there with wide eyes. She said “I heard you guys, but I wasn’t about to make it three in there.”

Image credits: anon

#29

I was out to dinner with my wife, then girlfriend, when one of the waitresses, a young, attractive blonde girl, comes running over from the other side of the restaurant. She greets me by name, gives me a big hug, and says it’s so great to see me. We exchanged quick pleasantries before she says she has to go because her and her friend just started and their boss would be upset if she spends too much time out of her section of the restaurant, but it was great to see me. All this time my wife is staring daggers into my soul. I literally uttered the phrase, “it’s not what it looks like, and I can explain.”

I had grown up next door to the girl. We were the same age and went to high school together. Our parents had been friends. There was never any romantic interest though between us, and she had been dating the same guy since high school. We hadnt seen each other since graduation, and I had no idea she worked there. Thankfully my wife and I laugh about that now.

Image credits: Spear994

#30

Lol I’ve got two

1. Back in the mid-2000s made a couple of my friends were going to our one Friend’s Wedding. It was a bit of a drive and we had to park maybe about half a mile from where the actual wedding / reception was taking place. So after a bit of a long ceremony and part way through the reception we were all jonesing for a smoke. By the time we were finally able to stand up/mingle and go outside we were desperate for a smoke my head was pounding I remember. Well of course all of our smokes are in our car. Only one friend brought some loose tobacco with him but that’s all we had so we literally got a piece of paper from one of the tables to use to roll ourselves some cigarettes up.

So there we are all huddled along the edge of this building all dudes in our early 20s passing around these hand rolled cigarettes. Randomly this little kid came up to us and asked what were we doing that’s when we looked around and we noticed everybody had come outside and was staring at us they clearly thought we were passing around joints. The groom came over to us a little later and was pissed we explained the whole thing to him. He later found funny but I know his parents and his wife’s parents still talk about what degenerate friends he has lol.

2. Was dropping my car off at the Walmart garage to have some tires changed. Me and my wife leave the car but I remember oh she left her purse in the back seat I go back to grab it quick heading to the lobby area and I see her standing there give her a little tap on the back (me and my wife are always lightly tapping and pinching each other) say all right let’s go. The woman who turns around was not my wife (same hair color and height her back was to me) her husband was staring death into me because from his point of view I have just struck his wife randomly so I hike up the purse I’m holding in order to make an exit and all these gumballs come spilling out on to the floor.

The night before we were at the bar and this bar randomly had a huge bag of old hard gumballs that they were just giving out so she literally filled her purse with them and just forgot to empty them out that night. So there I am standing there, a guy holding a purse that just spilled out a s**t ton of gumballs who randomly hit a woman. I’m standing there and shocked silence as I have no clue what to do from sheer embarrassment and the cashier behind the counter comes out and asks me the way you would ask a child “do you need help with anything sir?” I realized they thought I was mentally challenged. All I could do was answer no as I bent down to clean up the gumballs while other people in the lobby help me I did not say a single word, just put the gumballs in my purse and went away. It was the most embarrassed I’ve ever felt in my life lol

Image credits: WraithKaiser

#31

Was outside my house just standing there thinking about stuff and completely zoned out. I suddenly realised that my neighbour a very nice young woman, had come out of her house and I had turned to face her simply because it was a noise. I was still zoned out but looking directly at her. She was wearing a towel and it wasn’t a big one, but she had obviously just popped out her front door to check something. I must have been staring at her for 30 seconds without seeing her at all before my brain registered what I was doing, I snapped out of it and waved. She wasn’t bothered at all but I felt bad.

#32

Ran out of quarters to properly rinse off in a national park restroom shower. Resorted to standing in front of the sink trying to rinse off one crummy handful of sink water at a time. Door swings open with a father pushing his young son through the door in a wheelchair, they panicked at the sight, and tried to back out of the door quickly but the chair got jammed in the doorway. Everyone walking past the bathrooms looked to see what the commotion was as I was scrambling to pull my clothes onto my wet and soapy self.

#33

I was trying to teach myself how to hula hoop in the backyard when the mailman arrived. It looked like a failed TikTok attempt, but I was just doing cardio.

#34

Not that deep but I was showing my housemate some of my Skyrim mods and I’d got this cute mushroom house and I would get any followers I wasn’t using to hang out there. I liked to give them armour I wasn’t using too, but sometimes they’d default to their standard, lower stat and worse looking armour if I didn’t remove it from their inventory with another mod. It’s Skyrim so for some reason it glitched and removed their armour and when I showered her one of the rooms had some female NPCs walking round in their underwear.

Image credits: duckroll420

#35

Not a looks like, but sounds like. I was on the phone with an insurance adjuster while at work. I work in a zoo, and we had just reintroduced a young bird back into his family flock (he has some medical issues and had to be human-raised for a couple of months). Despite our precautions, the little bird got a bit spoiled in our company and felt that he was entitled to my hoodie string. At one point he was being super obnoxious and I informed him that this was why his dad punches him in the face (a normal form of discipline for this particular species). The insurance adjuster was very uncomfortable as I desperately tried to explain that I was at work and not talking to another human being.

I’m still not 100% certain that that incident alone was why it took so long for my claim to be processed.

#36

A few years back a friend pranked another friend with a fake NAMBLA membership card. I had no idea what it was until they told me.

About three months later two cops, a customer, and my brother are talking in my brother’s shop. I am sitting off to the side on the computer listing Ebay.

There had been recent news stories about NAMBLA. Someone asks “What is this namba or namboa thing everyone is all stirred up about?”

Without thinking I said, “It’s NAMBLA, North American Man Boy Love Association.”

Everyone just turned and stared at me, finally one cop asked me how I knew this. Ah f**k.

#37

When I was in music school, I had an hour to kill between classes. I decided to study in my car. I drove up to the top level of the garage because it was a sunny day. I was practicing conducting, which involves lots of right arm motions.

I was holding a score in my left hand, and conducting with my right.

Out of nowhere a campus cop raced up to my car on a bicycle and slammed on his brakes. He jumped off and stared into my car accusingly.

He looked confused for a few seconds, then waved and rode off.

Guy thought he was catching a masturbater, but nope, it was just a music geek.

#38

I was a quiet A-student in high school and got bullied a bit. One day one of the bullies tried to hit me with a yardstick and I had enough. I grabbed it out of his hand and knocked him down. Just then the principal walked by. “I want to see you in my office!” I meekly followed him down the hall. When we got there he smiled and said, “I’m sure Charles was the agitator. You’re a good student – go on, get out of here.”

#39

My SO found women’s clothes in my nightstand. Specifically underwear and leggings.

No I’m not cheating on her, I’m a femboy. Wasn’t really ready for that to come out yet.

#40

I was working in a restaurant and at the time I don’t remember what I was weighing maybe meat but had a fat bag of dry oregano on the bench and one of the servers came into the prep room looking for me, she just looked at the bag and scales and just walked out. It looked even worse because we’d wrap the oregano up in cling wrap to keep dry so it just looked like something straight out of a cartel movie.

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