Let’s just go ahead and clear one thing up: I have not been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and I’m not trying to be the poster child for anxiety.

However – and I am quite sure of this – I am wayyy more anxious than your average Jane. But while I may sometimes stumble around in an eye-twitching state of quasi-panic, I don’t generally consider myself diagnosable. In fact, most of the time, once I’ve gotten comfortable with a person, I’m… well, comfortable.

That being said, if there is a Foot in Mouth Disorder or a Brain Fart Disorder, or perhaps even an Awwww Shit Everyone’s Looking at Me With Their Forehead All Wrinkled Disorder, then I probably have one of those. I get a little flustered and I do super embarrassing stuff like fall in pools and blurt out random shit that nobody wants to hear.

And because I clearly don’t mind embarrassing myself for the entertainment of others, I’m sharing with you my 10 most noteworthy awkward moments from the last few months:

  1. While walking outdoors with some women I had just met, I exclaimed, “Wow look how cool those blades of grass are!” Sadly, “grass” was not a metaphor for something awesome like marijuana. Just, you know… ordinary grass. I probably pretended to be excited about grass because there was a half second of silence that nobody else noticed but that I was desperate to fill.
  2. I asked, “So, is your son going to join the team?” to the mother of a boy who had clearly been on my son’s soccer team for three weeks already. This mom is one of those moms who seems effortlessly cool and confident, so naturally, I developed short-term memory loss every time I saw her.
  3. On various occasions, I smiled wayyyy too big for farrrrr too long at noooobody in particular. Because look how cheerful I am! I am totally normal and definitely happy to be here!
  4. Or on other occasions I didn’t smile at all and showed everybody what “resting bitchy face” looks like. Sometimes I don’t have the energy to be cheerful. That’s when people ask, “Hey, are you okay? Having a rough day?” Yes, I’m fine, thank you. This is my face.
  5. While at Disney World trying to fold a very uncooperative stroller so we could board the bus, I shouted to everyone on the bus, “Yeah, that’s right, I’m the lady who can’t shoulder the fold!” Obviously I meant to say, “fold the stroller.” But even if I had gotten the words right… what a fucking weirdo.
  6. At a dinner with new friends, I waited until everyone’s mouths were full of food and then exclaimed, “I used to be a slut!” At least everyone laughed. One person laughed so hard she choked. (I don’t regret this moment.)
  7. In one instance, I spoke at length about how interesting brick buildings are. Oh, an extremely brief silence that is only perceived as awkward by me? Here, let me fill it with inconsequential drivel about turn-of-the-century architecture!

    Huh?
    Yeah, that’s about right.
  8. While walking my dog, as a random neighbor walked by, I held up my dog’s poop high in the air as if it were the World Cup trophy and bellowed, “Don’t worry, I’m picking up the poop!” I wasn’t even in his yard. He was just a random guy out for a walk. But in the moment, it seemed totally reasonable to alert him to what a responsible citizen I was being.
  9. At a wedding, I prattled on and on about random nonsense for so long that the person I was talking to finally just turned around and walked away from me.
  10. I called no fewer than ten people by the wrong name. One day I will learn to use indiscriminate pronouns in social situations.

If you’re a nice person, you’ll share at least one embarrassing moment of yours in the comments. Are you a nice person? ARE YOU?

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45 Comments

  1. Tanis Shaw

    Just one moment? Since being diagnosed with PPD, life seems to be one giant embarrassing moment hahaha….*ahem* well when my daughter was a newborn I was a part of a mommy group and one week I flew into the group in a tizzy wanting everyone to smell her belly button. I had convinced myself that it was infected and I wanted someone to smell it. Oh the looks I got, they ranged from “been there, done that” to “get this crazy lady with the stinky baby out of my face”…..hahaha, good times….

    • I freaked out with my 5-month-old at a friend’s house because he was constipated. I borrowed her tweezers to pull out his poop. You can’t make this shit up.

  2. See pretty much ANY of my blog posts….
    Especially the last few. I may have pushed my neighbor off thw wagon. Whoopsy. But we’re having fun hanging off the back of the wagon so there’s that 😉

  3. This evening I went to the drug store. When I parked, I noticed that there was an empty space between mine and the next car, and the car that was on the other side of the empty space was parked badly–6″ into the empty space between us at least (you’ve got all this, right?).

    When I came out of the drug store, someone had parked between me and Stevie Wonder, to the point where my car door only opened 8″. I’m not obese, but neither am I a member of the thigh gap crowd. I dumped my purchases on the driver’s seat, and was trying wedge myself into my car, saying as I did so (LOUDLY), “I CAN’T EVEN GET IN THE FUCKING CAR.”

    Guess when the owner of the car right next to mine walked up?

    Yeah, that was tonight. FORTUNATELY she was nice, and we both agreed that the asshole in the Pathfinder deserved to have the air let out of his two front tires, BUT STILL.

  4. One time, I sat on the toilet for a post-workout pee and read a blog post by this girl named Kristen. I laughed out loud, snorted, and then almost started talking to her – all with my shorts ’round my knees – because I was so desperate for our friendship to instantly manifest itself into real life. This was mostly just an awkward moment for me, yes, granted. But I think it still counts.

  5. You mean like …. that one time in Baltimore when I got car sick 30 minutes after meeting a group of badass bloggers? Which just so happened to be the same grouo of bloggers that I walked past in the airport, causing endless wandering? Those sorts of embarrassing anxiety driven situations?

  6. Ha ha ha. I think I have those too, like the time I met a bunch of online friends at a blogging conference and then inadvertently dined and dashed leaving them with the check.

    Also, #7… Was I there for that? 😉 It sounds awfully familiar… You do LOVE buildings, and streams, boy do you love streams. <3

    • Oh I forgot that one. I took a picture. It did not turn out well, because I took it WITH MY PHONE FROM A BRIDGE THROUGH BUSHES.

      Geez.

  7. I went outside my office to have cigarette and I had brought some papers in a folder with me. I put them down beside me and the wind caught them and I had to get them back as they were confidential and in the process I totally fell on my ass running for them like an idiot in front of at least 3 people whom I’m sure we’re laughing at me

  8. Let’s just say….. uncontrollable bladder and cranky kid while in a disgusting bathroom. Yeah that ended with throwing my undies away but luckily my shorts were fine. Whew!

    • OMG!!! Well I almost shit my pants once while jogging. I waddled for about a half mile and barely made it in time. *whew*

  9. I have many of those embarrassing moments. One of the most memorable ones was when I was about eight months pregnant with my 1st baby I ran face-first into a BOGO sign outside a shoe store at the mall. Random mall people had a good laugh.

    • Oh another running-into-stuff person! Welcome to our ever-growing club of klutzes and weirdos. <3

  10. This is something embarrassing that happened TO me: I was walking a patient to an exam room and we were chatting on the way there. I’m a little overweight, not huge, but those scrubs certainly don’t help. Anyway, out of the blue the patient asked me, “When are you due?” To which I replied, “Oh, I’m not pregnant, just fat.” Hopefully my somewhat snarky response will teach her never to assume! (and I’ve lost 10 lbs since)

    • I bet that person is leaving a comment on someone else’s blog about how embarrassing it was that one time they asked a non-pregnant person if they were pregnant. 😉

  11. I will be cracking up about ‘shoulder the fold’ all damn day. Thanks for the laugh, Kristen!

  12. Hilarious! Sometimes I accidentally start talking like my children.
    4 yo: where’s the “necklace” control?” (Netflix)
    Me: I don’t know where that “necklace” control went!
    I need to get out with adults more 😉

    • We do that around here sometimes, too. It’s because sometimes their little messed-up words are too adorable to correct!

  13. Kinda like being at a sidewalk café with a bunch of co-workers, getting up to go to the bathroom, and taking the table, and everyone’s lunch with you? Yeah, and one of my co-workers had a glass of wine, which of course soaked my shirt! Lovely going back to work in your t-shirt, and still smelling of wine!

  14. I love you Kristen. Don’t you worry…………you are quite normal. Just last night after football practice my high school son told me that his friend thought I was 23. Being a woman in my 40s this was a huge compliment. Instead of saying thank you and moving on with life, I have to spurt out that I must look young because of my new bra. Awkward! I just had indicated that this high school boy was checking out my chest. Exactly what every teenage son wants to think about!

  15. Some of this sounds so familiar. While I have not yelled “Picking up poop!” I have made sure to hold it out as if it were a hard won trophy. Because, responsible.

  16. My dog will walk by like 20 empty yards before pooping right beside the driveway of the house that a car is pulling into. Every fn time.

    • Oh mine does that too. Makes a big show of it too, spinning around in like 50 circles before he finally drops his load.

  17. Oh my gosh, every single one of these sounds exactly like something I would do. Also, I seem to remember EVERY single stupid thing I have ever done or said, but I can’t remember anything positive or non-stupid. I can’t even remember where I left my coffee cup.

    • I always know where my coffee cup is… I just never seem to remember to drink it all.

    • I slipped and fell on my ass at my own wedding as they did that thing where the bride and groom enter the reception as “husband and wife” for the first time. So. Yeah. Not that it’s a competition or anything, but I win. 😉

  18. I went to Church last week, first time in I dont know how long. My husband has family that goes there. One of his relatives come up to me and say Hi, that they are glad to see me there. I say,” Thank you! He’s been trying to get me to come for a long time, but I just didnt want to. Im Catholic.” They all just stand there with a confused look on their faces, waiting for me to elaborate. But, I got nothing. Total brain fart. They finally just walk away. Its a nondenominational Church. What does me being Catholic have to do with it??? Idk. smh

  19. I relate so well to most of your list it is almost frightening. I believe I have some years on you and I can’t tell you how good I have gotten at talking to people I know, who clearly know me AND MY NAME, and I haven’t got a clue what their name might be. It is usually pretty funny when accompanied by one or both of my kids, they used to ask, now they just say “you didn’t remember their name huh?” 😀

  20. I can’t even tell you how many things I’ve done in the same vein. Once I met an author I LOVE and I got up the courage to tell him how much his book meant to me, and he said thank you and he was so glad. And then I just smiled at him HARD w/o saying another thing until he looked away uncomfortably. Thanks for the laugh.

  21. I was there for number 6 and it was truly awesome!!! Your sense of humour is incredible and if choking on my dinner was how I was going to die, at least I was laughing.

    As for awkward, my whole life is an awkward moment. I tend to over-explain things like telling the liquor store clerk that my daughter and I weren’t really sleeping in the car in the parking lot. I made that situation a whole lot worse. And I hear you on the facial expressions – I have the same range. But I didn’t notice it on you.