How to Never Feel Embarrassed Again

In which Hank wonders at some stories of his own humiliation, and why he feels it sometimes, but not other times. The trick is finding people and places that support you in being you so that you are comfortable feeling right even after finding out you are wrong.

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[vlogbrothers]

OK, I'll go first. About a month ago I was out dancing and the bar was closing and there was a huge crowd outside of the club. Katherine and I were pushing through the club and I was like "Scuse me, pardon me, I'm old and need to get home to my dog and cat" and then this guy was like "HEY! You're awesome." and I was like "OH! Do you watch SciShow or Vlogbrothers or Crash Course?" and he was like "Uhh...I just mean for getting from over there to over here...." and I was like and then I ran away as fast as I could. 

[yarnbeforepharm]

I moved around A LOT as a child.  I went to something like 40+ elementary schools.  In 2nd grade I threw up on the little boy who sat next to me.

Fast forward a couple decades, I was telling my husband that story.  You know what he said?  "Some new girl threw up on me in 2nd grade.  What school were you in then?"  ...It was me.  I threw up on him in 2nd grade.  The first time I ever met my future husband, I threw up on him, then moved out of the school, and didn't see him again til senior year in high school.

[erikvargas]

I texted the girl I liked for several hours, flirting really romantically. Found out the next day I was texting her brother.

[skid-vrvy]

I showed up about an hour and thirty minutes early to my first day of my psychology class a few years ago. I was the first student to arrive, so I took a seat in the front row of the classroom. I had been waiting at least 45 minutes for someone to show up but still nobody had come in yet. It was just me sitting in there by myself. So to pass the time, I figured I would listen to some music. I was listening to the song Justin Timberlake made for SNL called "Dick in a Box", and because I had been waiting in there by myself for so long, I kept replaying the song. By the third time that I replayed the song, I had actually begun to sing along a little bit. Normally when I sing a song, I sing in a silly voice so it doesn't look like I take myself too seriously. But because I actually like the song and find it catchy, I was singing along quite passionately. I was using some really good headphones that day too, so I couldn't hear anything but the song. Due to the fact that I was sitting in the very front of the room and the entrance to the class was in the very back of the room, I had failed to notice that the room was steadily filling up with students behind me while I was passionately singing along to a song about presenting my genitals in a box. It was only until someone sat in the desk next to me that I had realized the error of my ways. After my classmate sat next to me, I immediately panicked. I knew she had to have heard my loud singing. But she said nothing. Then I turned around to find a room completely full of my new classmates behind me. Some of them were laughing, some of them stared in confusion and slight disbelief. Needless to say, I had made the most priceless first impression ever.

Embarrassing moments huh?
Let me think...

There was the time I snuck up behind a friend, wrapped my hands around their eyes and went "guess who!" only for them to turn around and not be my friend but a complete stranger.
Or the time I pronounced fatigue "fat-e-gew" for 18 years of my life and when my mum heard me say it she almost crashed the car laughing.
Or the time I asked my friends why Sir Gourney Weaver was a sir and not a dame (after they finished laughing they kindly informed me that Sigourney was her first name).
Or the time my friend and I were shopping for mini badges to put on our school bags and I saw one that I thought was just a funny use of the word beaver, so I walked around with a "take me to your beaver" badge on my school bag for 3 years.
Or the time I lost my footing walking to class and to stop myself from falling backwards I charged forward but there were people everywhere so I screamed "GET OUT OF THE WAY" and steamrollered up the path with people diving and scattering to avoid me.
Or the time I thought the boy I liked was waving at me so I waved back and got distracted and walked into a pole and in my reaction to walking into a pole I fell down some stairs (he was waving at the person behind me).
Or the time I was in a fitting room for 15 minutes because I got stuck in the dress I was trying on, and the sales assistant kept trying to come in to check if I was ok, and I eventually struggled out of it only to realise I'd been trying on a jumpsuit and had got stuck in one of the legs...

And these are just the stories that come to mind straight away. I have a lot more.

I hope my existence makes you all feel like you're doing ok as humans.

[woodfur]

You know what's helped me so much? I forgive people their little flubs. Every time someone is embarrassed, I remember that it could have been me; if anyone says anything, I'll defend them. It makes it easy to have faith that someone might be sympathetic when it's my turn to make a mistake. Even if that's illogical, it's like Hank said about confidence: If you can handle making mistakes, you'll seem a lot cooler. All you've got to do is break the cycle.

[gregoryperras]

OK...I broke my foot trying to tie my shoes...and I am, by profession, a physical therapist.

[QwertyPictures]

So i was sitting in bio class when i was about 14 yrs old and the teacher was talking about the human anatomy, and in particular the veins. So he then proceeds to ask the class "Does anybody know what the large vein next to the aorta is called" so hilarious 14-year-old me jumped up out of my seat and blurted out "It's called the B-orta!". A complete dead, painful and awkward silence followed while I laughed as hard as I could at my own joke. When I realized no one was laughing I just stood there frozen by embarrassment while everybody was looking at me like they just saw a ghost. I slowly lowered myself back into my seat while everybody, including the teacher, stared at me.

I never answered another question in that class that year.

[Razbeariez]

A few months ago I went to the movies with a friend and the place where you buy tickets is outside the theater. The movie ticket was $11 so I handed over a ten and then a one. Except it was windy. So the one dollar bill flew away. So of course I chased it. In heels. While people pointed and laughed. I ran across the entire parking lot, which was very large, like five or six storefronts wide. And then I ran all the way back to the highly un-amused employee who was waiting for me. And then she asked if I had a rewards card, which I did. Which gave me a discount... of one dollar.

[ashleyford]

I decided to announce in front of a class of about 30 kids that ducks cannot fly. I for some reason had them mistaken in my mind with chickens but you know whatever

[alexandrariva]

When I was in the 6th grade we wrote our first real essay. It was typed and checked many times and the final was perfect. The teacher had told us to double space the entire essay, which I thought was a bit extreme, but I did it nonetheless. When I got my paper back it wasn't graded it just said "See me!" In bright red pen. So during lunch I asked the teacher what I did wrong. She told me that I needed to double space the essay. I knew SHE must be mistaken because I had spent hours double spacing that essay. She later informed me, after an entire recess of arguing with her, that double spacing an essay did not mean hitting the space bar twice between each word. That was the day I learned that even if you double space something, it's really not double spaced at all.

[cjr]

I know a guy who broke his rib sneezing

[kikyo]

At the end of my second year of university, I had an exam that I was studying late into the night for. I had multiple exams lined up on consecutive days and it made studying difficult. After finishing all the studying I could manage, I tried to go to bed, but of course, the stress of whether the exam would go well kept me awake for quite a while longer. I don't remember when I got to sleep, but I remember when I woke up. I woke up at 10:50am. My exam was at 9am. It was legitimately a nightmare come true, and the whole time I was running to the exam building I was wondering if it really was a dream. But it wasn't. Knowing it was too late to start the exam, I decided to find my professor. When I did, I broke down in sobs trying to tell her what happened. This was a French class, and the professor's English actually wasn't fantastic, but in my mindset I could not muster the brain energy to explain in my second language, let alone muster a lot of coherence in my native English. But luckily, she was very forgiving, and said that I was a good student, and she let me write the exam later that day by myself. After meeting with her, I went into the bathroom and sobbed for a little while.
Yeah. I carry that with me. I haven't told my parents or my friends that this happened. Just my professor and I know. Thank goodness. My prof is an angel, by the way.

[GraceanneParks]

When I was an exchange student in Sweden I made it into the school musical. Of course I'm in Sweden so the musical will all be in Swedish, obvisously. I was happy staying in the background just trying to get the songs right and overall it was such a great experience. Although, I did get one line in the musical where I ran out and yelled "SAVE HER!" in Swedish which is "reda henne" but at every rehearsal I would forget it and my friends would constantly have to remind me. Mind you at this point I was fluent in Swedish and I didn't understand why I kept forgetting this simple phrase. Opening night of the musical everything was going swell and then it gets to my part. I realized I was on the wrong side of the stage and my friends were on the other side. I had to go now so I ran out onto the stage with my game face on and yelled "ROKA HENNE!" Roka means "to shave" in Swedish. So I ran out during a very dramatic scene and yelled "SHAVE HER" in front of 300 Swedish people. It doesn't stop there sadly. I didn't know "Roka" meant "to shave" so I stayed true to my role and didn't break character because I thought I said the correct phrase. So I kept yelling my line with bold intensity! Then when I went off stage and my friends just stared at me like I'd just killed someone. Then they proceeded to tell me what "Roka" meant and that I was yelling shave her shave her!  on stage. I was mortified, I felt so stupid. At curtain call when we gave our director flowers the first thing he said when he got the microphone was "Haha as you might have noticed we do have an American exchange student with us." THAT WAS JUST THE CHERRY ON THE TOP! Haha but now I'm able to laugh at it but at the time I was extremely embarrassed and just wanted to hide. 

[MissMusic]

This is so helpful for me. I have anxiety and think that being embarrassed is the worst thing in the world. But it's all part of being human!

[MsSmurffit]

I was teaching a class of young kids and told them narwhals were make-believe. I compared them with unicorns, and gently corrected the kids who said they were real. Then told my fellow teacher how cute it was that the kids thought narwhals were real, and got corrected myself. Oh my god.

[matthollingsworth]

My name is Matthew. I spelled it Mathew. For eighteen years.

[Angel]

I once tackled a complete stranger at a theme park. I was getting off a roller coaster and saw my brother, so I thought it might be funny to jump on his back.

Not my brother.

I have never run so fast in my life.

[seaweedhead]

The best reply to the video that I can come up with is that if someone is pronouncing a word wrong that means that they read it, and that they read. Nothing to be ashamed of for learning from reading.

[TerryTheNewsGirl]

My dad was in church. He got up to go to the bathroom, and then came and sat down and held my mom's hand or so he thought. Turns out he had sat in the wrong pew and was holding the hand of an entirely different woman altogether.Funny thing is, she never said anything, so he didn't even notice until the end of service, and meanwhile my mom was like, "Where the hell has Stuart disappeared to?" When he told her, my mom thought it was hysterically funny, so did I!