13 People Share Cringe-Inducing Memories From Which They Won’t Ever Recover

Embarrassment is a universal experience. It's that flush of heat in your cheeks, that sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize you've made a blunder. But what if we told you that these cringey moments can also be the source of some of our fondest memories? Yes, you heard it right! The very moments that make us want to crawl into a hole and disappear often end up becoming the anecdotes we laugh about for years to come.

• In 5th grade, I went to school on Halloween Costume Day completely dressed up like a pirate: makeup, costume, hair, everything. I walked into school, only to realize no one else was wearing a costume, and that the dress-up day was tomorrow. I had to wait until lunch for my mom to bring me new clothes. skyrizi / Reddit

• Doing a “prom-posal” for a girl who broke up with me two days after or... 3rd Grade Spelling Bee... I misspelled “field” and lost it on stage. chieflikeanindian / Reddit

• When I was 16 I got set up with a family friend's daughter. We started dating in a long distance relationship. After a month or so, it was school holidays and I went up to visit her. I didn't have a lot of money, but I wanted to buy her a gift. A settled on a beautiful jigsaw puzzle.
  She wasn't too happy about the gift. Because she was blind. Yes, I bought my blind girlfriend a jigsaw puzzle. In the moment it seemed very appropriate because each piece was unique, right? She can feel the pieces, right? Pure effing cringe. Still haunts me. BionicGio / Reddit

• I fell into a fountain, not once but three different times in three different fountains, on a trip to Europe with a group of kids from school when I was in seventh grade. Of course, my crush and his friends went on this trip, and they preceded to call me fountain girl till high school graduation. Kelleymr / Reddit

• I was interested in a guy but didn’t know how to start a conversation with him. We were standing next to each other while preparing food for a barbecue and I just thought it was a good idea to start a conversation with “I like the feeling of touching raw meat.” ldhkmg0406 / Reddit

• The time my professor asked what I did over the summer, and I wanted to say "hanging around" and "catching up with sleep." All I managed to blurt out was "sleeping around." That wasn't even true!! truthinlies / Reddit

• Went for an interview and handed the person my coat when they were trying to shake my hand. ilikedthecore / Reddit

• The time my internet access was shot over a weekend, so I went to work as usual on Monday, and stayed and worked all day, and only found out I’d been fired the week before when I got home. Small, very high-profile business. Everyone was acting weird all day. I soft-boil myself to sleep in this memory. RandomRavenclaw87 / Reddit

• When I was 16 I offered to take a girl I liked to the movies. I approached the ticket counter and asked for one movie ticket, immediately realized I was an idiot, but was too embarrassed to rectify my mistake. She purchased her own ticket to the movie. Still haunts me almost 10 years later. DontForgetToLookUp / Reddit

• Trying to run away from home when I was six, only to stop at the start of the driveway because I was always told that it was dangerous to walk on the street without an adult.
  My parents have this really nice photo of me, with my little backpack, standing there looking really conflicted. Unknown Author / Reddit

• I fell asleep in my high school history class, I was all the way in the back of the room so the teacher never noticed. Until I farted in my sleep so loud that it woke me up and my head shot up and smacked against the back wall. Never heard the end of it...
  The guy in front of me was just kind of shaking, he turned around to look at me and was laughing so hard he was crying. Also, should mention my crush was two seats over, oof. pyloricstenosis / Reddit

• So I was having a psychological evaluation for a military school, the psychologist gave me two pieces of paper to draw a male and a female and name them. The male one was easy, I just have to draw myself and use my own name. I was having difficulty drawing a female and couldn't think fast, so I drew the psychologist because she was cute.
  Then came the part where she started asking about the drawing, the male part went smoothly, when she asked about the name of the female I said, "Actually it was you!" (plus a smirk) then she straight up wrote the name of the drawing, "Actually it was you". I still cringe about it up to now. CheeseKimbap_ / Reddit

• Touching tongues with my younger sister. We wanted to know what tongues tasted like. So we stuck our tongues out, booped our tongues together, and almost vomited. Light_Witch77 / Reddit

Are you brave enough to share your most cringe-worthy moment like these people? If you’re interested in reading similar stories, you can find them here.