‘What is the worst case of secondhand embarrassment you’ve ever experienced?’ – 22 stories that will make you cringe yourself inside out

Doing something embarrassing is bad enough, but what about when you do something so ridiculous and shameful that it makes other people feel embarrassed on your behalf? That’s truly awful.

Over on the AskUK subreddit, Responsible-Tie-2570 posed this question:

What is the worst case of secondhand embarrassment you’ve ever experienced?

And, honestly, the answers will leave you feeling utterly mortified too. Read on if you dare…

1.

‘At university we had to do presentations for our engineering projects. I was ok, nobody was great, but one guy just couldn’t get the words out. He was there for 10 minutes, completely failing to speak through his short breathing. We heard about two full sentences the entire time.

The professor just did nothing, perhaps allowing the guy to continue because not continuing would be a fail. By the end most students were looking down at the floor. It was a very hard watch. I still think about it now and then.’
–MagmaTroop

2.

‘We had a guy in our college speech class who broke down in tears, ran for the door, and couldn’t get it open. So he just fell to the floor, crumpled into a ball and sobbed until the teacher could get up and open the door for him. That was terrible to witness.’
–VespineWings

3.

‘I went to my local arena to see a Motley Crue concert in like 2006. Before the show, as the stadium was filling up, all the lights were on and people were filing onto the floor section while everyone else was finding their seats. Tons of people were already seated and there was nothing going on, except someone in the upper levels pulled out a beach ball and it started getting bumped around through the crowd, slowly descending from the second level to the first level.

It seemed like everyone was watching this beach ball, and then it made its way down to the empty rear portion of the floor section. A guy was walking onto the floor carrying two full stadium beers in his hands. He saw the beach ball and took a running start to boot the ball up in the air… he slipped backwards like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football and landed on his back while both full beers spilled directly on his face.

The entire arena erupted in laughter since all the lights were on and everyone seemingly had their eye on the beach ball! I’ve never forgotten that, and I bet he hasn’t either.’
–DokterManhattan

4.

‘My boss sneeze-diarrhea’d his pants during a meeting. He sneezed and then he got really antsy and scurried out of the meeting with brown stains in the back of his khakis.’
–milkycadaver

5.

‘Lady on the train told off a young girl for talking too loudly. The mom explained that she’s mostly deaf and can’t hear herself well.’
–belowaveragebathroom

6.

‘In high school I was hanging out with friends and one of them excitedly revealed to us that he was in a relationship with another one. She was sitting right there and corrected him that they went on one date and it was more of a ‘hangout’ than anything romantic.

He started blushing from embarrassment and then tried to argue with her that that counts as a relationship and the argument went on for like 30 minutes while we just helplessly watched.’
–blart_institute

7.

‘In a VERRRRYYYY conservative office, the director of sales walked in in a kitty cat bodysuit costume on Halloween. It would have been a cute, appropriate costume if ANYONE else had dressed up. She must have forgotten that she was supposed to lead a company wide training on a new software.

Which was filmed to distribute to sites in case anyone missed the training. A room packed with absolutely dead silent people watched this woman walk through the training. In a kitty cat bodysuit costume.

The training was over an hour long. It was straight out of a parks and rec episode. Just excruciating. I. I had my disagreements with this woman but… damn. Damn.’
–elcasaurus

8.

‘My friend’s dad stood up at a school talent show and started doing the Macarena to “support” his daughter’s ballet performance. she was 16. she didn’t speak to him for a week.’
–Material_Head6138

9.

‘Was in college taking a final chemistry exam in a classroom full of about 100 people. A girl was apparently using AI to cheat and forgot her phone was at full volume, it was completely silent and then you just hear “Sure! I can help you with that” from her phone as she tries to turn the volume down.’
–pooppants2413

10.

‘In the middle of a crowded corporate office, I watched a coworkers drawstring pants fall to her ankles as she carried a cup of hot coffee in each hand from the break room back to her desk, and then panic looking for a spot to quickly set the coffee down so she could pull up her pants.

This all happened in a few seconds, too fast for me to react and help her. I felt sooo bad for her. If that ever happened to me I honestly think I’d quit on the spot.’
–Sanchastayswoke

11.

‘People at work did a presentation in the auditorium from the ridiculous book ‘Who Moved My Cheese’, and some of them had to portray mice. It was truly awful.’
–MissHibernia