Every now and then I have a sleepless night, kept awake by the prodding of my memory bringing up an endless reel of all the dumb shit I’ve ever done in social situations. Like the many, many times I’ve said “How’s it doing?” as I hamfistedly bumble towards a suitable greeting, or the one party where someone mistook me for someone else entirely and I just kinda… went with it. For four hours.
At least now I know that I’m not alone. Like, extremely not alone. After Twitter user and artist MooseAllain shared an initial cringeworthy moment, they were greeted with a flood of commiseration.
Turns out, almost everyone is awkward as fuck.
Accidentally said “Many thank you” to a woman in a shop.
— Moose Allain Ꙭ (@MooseAllain) November 9, 2017
If I wasn’t already running. I would have probably ran away
— cMc (@Mcallistercal91) November 9, 2017
‘Large Cockporn’ in the cinema once
— fogz (@tweetfoggy) November 9, 2017
https://twitter.com/thesaralovejoy/status/928743624828964870
at school a friend wanted a packet of smokey bacon crisps but actually asked the dinner lady for a “smacket of pokey bacon”
— sonofajoiner (@sonofajoiner) November 9, 2017
I answered the phone at work and instead of saying ‘Can I help you’ or ‘Please hold for a moment’ I said ‘Can I hold you’
— annie (@biggybaggyboggy) November 9, 2017
I was complaining that I’d printed something on the wrong type of paper whilst also answering a call. I said “good afternoon, yellow paper” and then immediately hung up in shock/embarrassment.
— NeRJD (@NeRoJoDo) November 9, 2017
every birthday. Someone says “happy birthday” to me and I answer “you too”.
— Lulu_Helle (@Lulu_Helle) November 9, 2017
In the shop buying birthday cards and as I took the Change instead of saying “Thank you” I said “Happy Birthday”. Perfect. 👌🏼
— JH Lew (@JenHLewi) November 9, 2017
On one occasion when spelling out my surname over the phone I began with “M for millipede…” I then proceeded to spell out ‘millipede’.
— Lee Madgwick (@LeeMadgwick) November 10, 2017
Went to a Catholic christening. Person shook my hand saying ‘peace be with you’. I replied ‘pleased to meet you too’. Mortified.
— Helholds (@helholds) November 11, 2017
https://twitter.com/nwhepcat/status/929186957107789824
Worst I’ve done (into a live mic) was confuse ‘county’ and ‘country’ and say ‘cunty’ instead. Bad.
— Chris Martin🎙 (@christweets) November 9, 2017
Once thought I’d overheard someone introduce themselves as “Dave”, so when they subsequently introduced themselves to me as “Gareth” I was so taken aback that I introduced myself as “Dave” instead. Had to keep up the charade for some time afterwards.
— Peter Benson (@PeteBeno) November 9, 2017
Worked at a local paper with different titles, so standard way of answering the phone was “hello, newsroom”. A colleague was wasting time one day looking at pictures of dogs and answered a call with “good afternoon, newsdog”.
A nickname was born.
— Andrew Raeburn (@andrew_raeburn) November 10, 2017
😂 Caught sight of an ex-boss of mine from some years ago. Brain not sure whether to go for ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’. Greeted her by shouting an enthusiastic ‘ ‘Ho!’ across the street. I can never leave the house again
— SybilX (@idit5) November 9, 2017
How many of these do you think are British? Bless those dear, awkward folk for imbuing the rest of the Commonwealth with a tenacious strain of foot-in-mouth disease.
May god have mercy on us all.
