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You know those moments when you’re out in public, minding your own business, and suddenly you witness something so awkward that you have no idea where to look? You try to pretend you didn’t see it, but it’s already too late. Maybe someone says something wildly inappropriate, starts an argument over absolutely nothing, or does something that makes you think, “Surely they didn’t just do that in front of everyone.” Somehow, these are the moments that stick with you.

Today, we’re taking a look at some of the most cringeworthy things people have witnessed out in the wild. From painfully awkward conversations to bizarre behavior that left everyone nearby wondering what was happening, these stories are a perfect reminder that public places can be surprisingly entertaining. Keep scrolling, Pandas, and get ready to experience plenty of secondhand embarrassment from the safety of your screen.

#1

A botched proposal at someone else’s wedding.

#2

High school talent show this spring. Some girl dressed up as Elsa from Frozen, the whole getup, and sang Let It Go. She was very intense and did all the motions from the movie, and also could not sing for her life. I cringed the entire time.

#3

Outside a pizza place, a Mom yelling at her 10 year old child saying, “YOU’RE EMBARRASSING YOURSELF!”

We’ve all had those moments when we lose our cool and immediately wish we could hit a rewind button. Maybe you snap at your partner after a long, stressful day, lose your patience with your kid, or say something you really didn’t mean during an argument. The mistake itself is one thing, but sometimes our brains take it several steps further. Instead of thinking, “Okay, I handled that badly,” we start spiraling into, “Wow, I’m a terrible person. I’m toxic. Why am I like this?” Suddenly, one bad moment feels like proof that there’s something fundamentally wrong with us. That heavy, painful feeling is what we call shame.

#4

In the que at a festival a month ago. Big black bouncer tells me to pull my stuff out of my pockets and put it on the table.

He sees my smashed up S4 and asks about it, I tell him “Ex-girlfriend” and he laughs.

I assume we are having “banter” and when he puts his arms up I go for a double hi-5. I realize that’s obviously not what he was going for and go in for a bro hug.

He didn’t want a bro hug.

He wanted to frisk me.

I’ve never felt so white.

#5

I absolutely hate seeing kids embarrassing themselves. Talent shows, recitals, stuff like that. I cringe so hard that I can’t stand it.

#6

When I worked retail there was one regular customer who would come in frequently, and was missing his left hand just below the wrist. One of my frequent greetings was “need a hand?” or “can I give you a hand with that?”

I managed to keep from saying that to him although I thought of it every time. Well…one day in ~2011 I was training a new cashier who had apparently picked up some of my mannerisms. The guy missing the hand comes up to the counter and looks like he needs help so the cashier looks right at him and says “Need a hand?” She then let out an audible gasp and just proceeded to stare at him then me, him and then me, with a “WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST DO” look on her face.

Finally the guy just busts out laughing, maybe because this sort of thing has happened before, maybe because of her reaction, maybe because he’s just awesome. He was a really nice dude. I start laughing, and she’s just hysterical with “OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY!”

It turned out great in the end, but for that 1-3 seconds frozen in time it was borderline unbearable.

Shame is an intense emotional experience that can arise when we believe we have done something wrong, failed to live up to our own standards, or fallen short of what we think other people expect from us. It can make us want to retreat rather than face what happened, but avoiding the feeling isn’t necessarily helpful in the long run. Psychotherapist Joseph Burgo, Ph.D., author of Shame: Free Yourself, Find Joy and Build True Self-Esteem, explained in Glamour that when something hurts, we naturally try to protect ourselves from it. Sometimes that response is useful, but avoiding shame completely can also prevent us from sitting with what happened and learning from it.

#7

I love my best friend but he is without a doubt the most socially inept human being I’ve ever met in my life.

We were at a music festival a couple weekends ago and a guy came up to him and asked if he could take a picture of his shirt. He got all excited and was like “oh okay! yeah! sure! take a picture of me!” and I just kinda stood there awkwardly and watched my friend attempt to make small talk with a stranger. At first it was pretty normal, he asked the guy’s name and they talked about the band on his shirt. But a few seconds later he said with a completely straight face “Do you wanna be my friend?” and the guy was like… sure… yeah…

So my friend immediately adds him on Facebook and gets his phone number. As soon as the guy walks off, my best friend looks at me and says “Wow, I don’t even know how I did that! He probably thinks I’m so social and cool now. And did you see how he wanted to take my picture? I think he likes me a lot!” I have never cringed harder in my entire life.

A little bit later we run into the guy again and he mentions his girlfriend. My best friend is a fairly flamboyant gay dude, and I could tell he was SO disappointed that this guy was straight. This guy then asked “Uh, hey dude.. do you like guys? It’s cool if you do, I’m just wondering cause I’m not gay, so..” and my best friend literally looked like he was going to cry. I got to stand there awkwardly and console him.

#8

There was two girls in the year below me in secondary school who wanted to sing the same song at the end of year award ceremony for the school. One of the girls was a fantastic singer but the other one, not so much. The music teacher in charge suggested they sing together so she wouldn’t have to let down the bad singer.

The whole school was talking about what a flop it was going to be but nobody expected it to go so bad. The good singer (we’ll call her A) and the bad singer (b) walk out on stage. The guy playing guitar had his head buried into his chest from the beginning, didn’t want anything to do with it. So he starts playing and after a few seconds A starts singing, she was great and caught everybody’s attention straight away, after the chorus there was some more music before B began. Everybody’s parents/guests expected her to be equally as good as A but that didn’t happen. The students knew what was going to go down.

B starts singing and instantly people’s heads start dropping, you could hear people laughing all around, shoulders bobbing up and down as others tried to suppress their laughter, snorts and coughs as people tried to compose themselves. It was horrible. She was still singing but at this stage she was getting emotional from a combination of nerves and the laughing crowd of students and parents, her voice was dwindling away and the tears began to flow. She sounded like a tuba being hit by a jet engine. It got worse and worse until she was fully crying and standing in the middle of the stage and A had to take over again. The song finished and there was a brief applause before they swiftly ran off the stage.

Two reasons why it was cringy, the disrespect from the audience and the fact that B thought she could sing in the first place and then went out and honked for a few seconds before crying and running off the stage at the end of the song. It was one of those times that you cringe so hard you feel bad for the person. B was fine the next day but I don’t think she ever performed in public again.

#9

I was on a public bus with my friend. We were sitting in our seats and chatting when these group of girls sitting behind us were talking. One girl says to the other, very loudly, “Did you brush your teeth because they’re really yellow.” Everyone sitting around them including my friend and I went quiet. It was so awkward. I felt so bad for the girl.

So what actually causes shame? According to Burgo, there are four broad experiences that can trigger it. One is unrequited love—the painful feeling that comes with loving someone who doesn’t feel the same way, or realizing that a relationship you hoped for isn’t going to happen. Another is unwanted exposure, which can happen when something deeply personal is revealed or when you suddenly find yourself exposed in a way you never intended. A third is disappointed expectations, when you work toward something important and don’t achieve what you hoped to. The fourth is exclusion—that very human sting of realizing you’ve been left out or don’t feel accepted by a particular group.

#10

I was at the mall about a year ago, and me and my friends were walking in the main area. A group of three people who were walking near us randomly screamed “WHEN DOES THE NARWAL BACON”. The entire area went silent. No one responded.

#11

“Hi how are you?”

“Good how are you?”

“Great, how are you?”

Edit: this happened to me one time while being a cashier and I still remember the look on the dudes face of utter confusion. I’m also glad there’s so many of you who do this!

#12

I had to take a speech class at the local community college and one of our assignments was for us to get up in front of everyone and present a story or something. This one girl dressed in a black Invader Zim hoodie (it was April in North Carolina) presented a summary or excerpt of her Twilight / Alice in Wonderland fanfiction. For 20 minutes.

I have another one. When I lived in the dorms, there was this freshman who was a little eccentric. When he ran places, he would lean down, face forward, straighten his back out, and throw his arms behind him, allowing them to flap in the wind (think Sonic the Hedgehog or Naruto). One day, he was walking back to the dorm holding a coffee in one hand. It was November in NC, so it was fairly cold, but he was wearing a large camo jacket with shorts and shower sandals. Someone opened the door to his dorm while he was far away, so he breaks out into a full sprint to try to catch the door. He assumes his Sonic sprint position, but continues to hold the coffee cup upright, letting his other arm flap uncontrollably as he ran.

Of course, people don’t all experience shame in exactly the same way. One person might become very quiet and withdraw, while another may become defensive or desperately try to explain themselves. It can also be helpful to remember that shame and embarrassment aren’t quite the same thing, even though we often use the words interchangeably. Embarrassment is generally connected to feeling awkward or uncomfortably exposed, particularly when we think other people are paying attention to us. It can show up physically, too: we might blush, fidget, laugh nervously, avoid eye contact, or cringe at ourselves.

#13

When I went to community college in MA, there was this weird kid that was always harassing people. One of those dudes that was overly friendly, but said really weird things – he might have had Aspergers? Something like that. I remember him walking up to construction guys and yelling at them because they were doing their job wrong. I generally tried to avoid him because he was always harassing.

One day I saw him running full speed through campus with one of those old iMac’s. If you remember, they were a giant monitor that also had the entire PC inside it. As he’s running I’m thinking “what the hell is this kid doing”. Just then, he trips, falls, and the iMac is shattered all over the ground. I felt horrible. There really wasn’t much anyone could do at that point.

Never saw the kid again.

#14

Pulled up next to a car at a stop light and witnessed a lady pick her nose, look at it, then proceed to eat it.

Best believe she saw my face of horror.

#15

Had a delivery guy turn up at my house, knocked on the door to make sure I was home and to sign and I noticed then he was missing one arm, from the shoulder.

He walks back to the truck to start unloading and I knew the stuff was going to be heavy so I called out to him, “my husband will be out in a second to give you a hand.” 2 seconds later, “omg I’m so sorry I didn’t think.” He was totally cool and laughed it off.

Then he carries the stuff in to my house to be met by my adorable but extremely blunt 6yo who sees him and yells “oh my god where is your arm?!”

Psychology Today has also discussed different forms of embarrassment, including mistake-related embarrassment, which can happen when we make a blunder that doesn’t fit with how we want other people to see us. Picture spilling a drink all over yourself in a crowded restaurant or confidently saying something completely wrong in front of a group of people. There is also compliment-related embarrassment, which is that familiar feeling of not knowing what to do when someone praises you. Instead of simply saying thank you, you may immediately start insisting that it wasn’t a big deal and that anyone could have done it.

#16

While driving to the local lake a couple weeks ago with friends, we noticed this young kid (middle school) hitting a ramp on his bike in an attempt to impress some college girls. He was prepping like Evel Knievel, and oozed confidence for a 12 year old kid. Anyway, he hit the ramp only for the front to give out, front flips into a 6 yard face plant, and somehow manages to lose his shorts to the handlebars. I felt bad for laughing. Not really.

#17

My dad was a truck driver, and growing up I would often go on trips with him. We were at a truck stop in Florida, and my dad was sitting on the curb outside smoking a cigarette, talking to his wife (my stepmother) on a Bluetooth headset.

While we were sitting there, an employee at the truck stop came outside, presumably on his smoke break. My dad’s Bluetooth was on the other side of his head, so the employee couldn’t see it, and he thought my dad was talking to him.

So for the next few minutes the employee was responding to everything my dad said, thinking he was talking to him. I don’t remember what their conversation was about (this was probably 6-10 years ago), but eventually the employee realized that my dad was talking on the phone and not to him. I remember the guy’s face getting red and him putting out his cigarette and going back inside.

#18

Used to work in a planetarium giving constellation tours and stuff, and I’d periodically stop and ask the audience if they had any questions. During one show, a woman asked, in front of the whole crowd: “How did the Greeks have mythology about the constellations when they didn’t have satellites back then?”

I was so confused I had to ask her to clarify, and it turns out she believed that the so-called “stars” were just satellites and space junk that we could see from Earth. I don’t even remember what I said, because even though it was dark, you could FEEL how embarrassed everybody was on her behalf. The worst part was she had a child on her lap, and I can only hope they paid a lot of attention to the show.

For a long time, researchers largely viewed embarrassment as a social emotion—something that happened when other people were present and we became worried about how they were judging us. The American Psychological Association has defined embarrassment in terms of feeling awkward or flustered in other people’s company or because of their attention. Earlier research similarly emphasized the connection between embarrassment and concerns about our public image. In other words, the classic idea was that embarrassment happened because someone else saw us being awkward.

#19

Lady said “I don’t let my kids watch sesame street because they have a gay agenda.”

#20

Watching men use pick-up lines in bars.

#21

I was at a Costco with my dad, my brother, my uncle, and my grandmother. Were sitting, eating hotdogs whatever… and very suddenly, my dad yells out “WOAH! DID YOU SEE THAT”? Apparently my dad, father of four, was dumbfounded to see a woman breastfeeding her newborn in public…

I dunno if it was a really nice tit, or what… but SOMETHING possessed my father to call our table to attention in what was probably the rudest possible manner, in that moment.

If I hadn’t already been sitting at the table with him, I would have walked away as fast as possible…

More recent, although still limited, research has challenged the idea that embarrassment must always happen in front of an audience. People can apparently experience embarrassment in private, too, without anyone else watching. One possible explanation is that we don’t only care about how other people see us—we also have an internal picture of how we think we should behave. When something we do clashes with that self-image, we can feel embarrassed even if there isn’t another person around to witness it. That explains why you can remember an awkward thing you did years ago and suddenly feel your face getting hot, despite being completely alone.

#22

One time, I was trying to sell a video service at a festival. Basically my college video club would be hired to record and edit an event for a client. Well, this older lady comes up and asks what we are about. I say “we record and edit events for people. So if you’ve got kids or grandkids.” My brain said stop right now, but my mouth couldn’t. “Or great grandkids, or great great grandkids…” *shut the frick up!* “great great great..”

She finally walked away. I lost that client.

#23

Probably not the worst thing here by far, but I remember a friend of mine was trying to impress a girl back in high school by showing off what a distinguished drinker he is.

Him : “Yeah I gotta say I am a huge fan of drinking patron”

Her : “Im sorry what?”

Him : “Patron”

Her: “This is something you drink?”

Him: “Yeah dont you drink *Pay-Trun* tequila?”

Her “Oh my god are you trying to say *Patrón*, oh my god do you
actually think that’s how its pronounced?”

Me : *shudders*.

#24

I was in a run-down bar with hardly anyone in it on a weeknight. Just as I’m ordering my last beer I see a larger girl just take off her pants next to the pool table. She just casually kept talking without her pants.

It was gross, cringeworthy, and breaking of the must have pants rule.

The important thing to remember is that feeling shame or embarrassment doesn’t automatically mean something is seriously wrong with you. These emotions can be uncomfortable, but they can also tell us something about our expectations, values, relationships, or the way we see ourselves. What matters is not getting trapped in the feeling. If you’ve made a genuine mistake, acknowledging it, apologizing when necessary, and trying to do better can be far more constructive than endlessly punishing yourself for being imperfect. Everyone has awkward moments, says the wrong thing sometimes, and occasionally wishes they could rewind a conversation.

#25

Probably not the worst, but it’s one I remember.

It’s freshman year in college and I’m at a party with my roommates. We’re chatting with a group and it comes up that a guy in the conversation is an international student from Australia.

My only-a-little-drunk roommate exclaims “You’re from Australia?! Do you know my friend ____ ?!”

We all just kind of shook our heads in disbelief. She was completely serious.

#26

My in-law were visiting us from Poland, so my wife and I took them to the zoo on a nice autumn day. As we were leaving, we saw another Polish family at their car. The father was yelling at his 8 year-old son, while the mother was struggling to get a much younger daughter into the car. I don’t remember what exactly he was yelling about, but he said, “Krzysiu, ty bałwan!” (“Chris, you snowman/doofus!” – the word means both, depending on context, making for fun puns.)

We were just walking past, watching them… Obviously, he didn’t know that there were other Polish people *right there*, or he’d probably not have yelled quite so loudly. As it was, my mother-in-law just doesn’t give a darn…

As we were walking, my mother-in-law shouted back (in Polish), “Chris, don’t listen to your father! Come home with me!”

The kid stood there shocked, the father stood there completely silent, turning red, and the mother just started to laugh. We just kept walking to the car and laughed about it when we drove off.

#27

I tried to explain to a neighbor its Asian not oriental and he replies, “orientals are the slant eyes. Asians are all those people over there”.

Of course, some things really are embarrassing—and judging by these posts, there are definitely a few moments that qualify for a serious spot on the cringe scale. These people may have wanted to disappear after what happened, but thankfully for the rest of us, their stories have given the internet plenty to talk about. Keep scrolling, Pandas, and see which of these painfully awkward moments gives you the strongest secondhand cringe.

#28

My father is currently in another room explaining to a woman he’s brought around for dinner how he’s really funny and a really nice guy. I honestly don’t know how the hell he tricked my mother into marrying him in the first place. Such social ineptitude boggles the mind.

#29

He will probably see this, and I hope he does.

Please don’t yell out my car window. Especially when it’s at old people and you are saying, “Don’t die!” every time we pass them.

It’s not funny.

#30

Friends girlfriend at the time worked at a home for the mentally disabled, and him and I helped out with grilling and various things when they had a picnic at the park. Well it’s all over, and there’s us and several of her clients sitting around waiting for a van and chatting about the bad moves my friend had made throughout day, including throwing lit matches all over the charcoal and then almost spraying lighter fluid all over them, when suddenly he realizes something and loudly blurts out “Oh man, I’m such a [r word]!”

I’ve never seen someone turn so red and start blubbering apologies so quickly.

#31

“I’m not racist, but…”

#32

I used to have season tickets to the Orioles (for non-Americans, that’s the baseball team located in Baltimore, Maryland).

There was a guy near me who also had season tickets. Fat guy, old guy. Unkempt appearance, always sat by himself. He liked to do things to get the fans into the game (there’s a history.)

The worst of what he did – and he did this multiple times – was randomly shout out “I’M HAVING AN ORIOLE-GASM!!” He’d look around after he said this, see that nobody was laughing at his clever pun, then sit back quietly by himself until his next outburst.

Baltimore has some strange folks.

#33

“Oh you know I hate New Zealanders”, and then proceeded to laugh loudly as like he’d said something incredibly witty as if he were Oscar freakin Wilde.

#34

I literally saw a 4 year old poo his pants and eat it when the parents weren’t looking.

#35

Went to a friend’s first ever rap gig. Small crowd, give or take 20, maybe 25 people. Small venue, bad dive bar. Host announced his name, friend gets on stage, face turns completely white from nervousness and pisses himself.

#36

A dude wearing a single Nightmare Before Christmas glove recited poetry he made up on the spot, and then leaned in close to me and kissed my neck.

In a crowded store. On Black Friday. And I was just trying to sell him a computer.

#37

Not really someone I know, but I see him around town from time to time. A couple of years ago I saw him at a mall, sitting in the food court a couple tables away from me, with about 6-8 women and no other guys around. Because I rarely see one man chapperoning 8 women around, I listened in on their conversation to hear one quote:

“What is a pap smear? Or is it *schmear* like the cream cheese?”

I could tell the conversation turned awkward at that point because they immediately changed the topic. I left after that.

#38

So this involves my boss’s wife and another woman.

We’ll call my boss’s wife Lorraine and the other woman Clara.

Lorraine had just met Clara. She starts touching Clara’s belly and while saying “Your belly is coming along nicely, I bet it’ll be a boy. Have you felt the baby kick yet?”

Clara says “I am not pregnant!”.

#39

My sister got married, barefoot, on a beach (in Australia, in summer). It was stinking hot.

Someone had to go and get a dog blanket out of their car for her to stand on (at the altar, so to speak) so she didn’t burn her feet.

There were flies everywhere. In the wedding photos you can see little black dots all over her dress.

She’s now divorced.

#40

Broken japanese intermixed with english at anime cons.

#41

When I studied abroad in France, I found out that public affection is normal in public in Europe. Whatever right? Then as the months went on, I saw more, people making out next to you on the subway or holding infants. Sometimes both. Sometimes a couple with an she difference of at least 15 years sits next to you at the bar and the 40 year old man starts putting his hand up a girls skirt and she starts moaning.

Sometimes cultural differences are a bit too much to get over.

#42

I was at a spa in the swimming pool and this couple were squeezing each others blackheads right in the open. Gross.

#43

Watching a very good friend of mine trying to pick up girls.

#44

In a poetry class I took in college, the professor was discussing different poetic movements and he asked the class to give some historical events from the 20th century which could have influenced poetry. The first girl he calls on asks, “What exactly do you mean by the ’20th century’?” The five seconds of silence following her question…yikes. Did I mention this was an honors class?

#45

In high school, I had some friends over to my house for pizza and a movie. My older brother is almost completely deaf, but lost his hearing after he learned to speak, so he has very good diction and most people don’t know that he has hearing issues. All but one of my friends knew my brother fairly well so they were aware of his issues. The one friend tried to get his attention several times to no avail, after which she, jokingly, said, “What? Are you deaf?” Everyone stopped and stared at the two of them, waiting to see the fallout. My brother, to his credit, gave a nonchalant “yeah.” I have never seen someone go from laughing to almost in tears so fast. Needless to say that became a common joke among our group.

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