#13. Older people/ Women winking at you

This is just weird because how do you interpret it? It’s like if you are a woman and some creepy old guy winks at you…I mean it’s not brain surgery why he’s winking. It’s the old ladies that put you through a brain teaser. You ask them a question something simple and non suggestive such as, “how are you doing today mam?” They respond, “oh! We are doing just fine, (wink).” Then you’re stuck in that middle ground where you’re thinking do I interpret that as a normal wink which is “no…. come help us”, a sarcastic wink, or just a ‘hey cutie’ wink. I mean the ways you could interpret the wink are endless…. then you walk away, still a little weirded out and always a little cautious. These ladies obviously don’t understand the meaning behind the gesture of a wink, so now your just awkward and uncomfortable and hoping for them to leave so the whole situation passes.

A good example of this is my mom winks at people all the time…why this creeps me out is because my mom is a naturally flirty person, she’ll flirt with anything, male, female, animal, kid… I mean it doesn’t really matter.. So when she winks at people, I just want to be like “hey mom what’s the wink for?”... and knowing that she unknowingly is winking as if it is just natural for her to wink at every stranger that accidentally blinks at her on the street is just weird. So when I get winks at totally inappropriate moments from women it makes me think back to my mom and I just get doubly creeped out.

EXCEPTION: Hot older men, in which case… wink away. 

#12. Having tags still on your clothes when you wear them

Just a bad call around. Who hasn’t done this? People who did it once and now are OCD about it because they were so embarrassed the first time. This one goes in levels of awkwardness though.

• Level 1: Tag still on our clothes, then a close friend or family member tells you before you actually are seen by anyone in public. 
• Level 2: You go to wear a shirt and the tag is still on but you know you’ve worn that shirt before…then you start thinking how many times have I worn this shirt and no one has told me? How many people must hate me that they haven’t told me all day? This are all the kinda awkward a little bit embarrassing moments…but they can get worse.
• Level 3: You notice when you are out in public that you still have a tag on. 
• Level 4: Not only having attached tags in public but having th little sticky tags that say what size you are wearing that is still attached to either your shirt or you pants. XXL striped 10 times down the back of your pants, not so subtle. 

My Dad told me this story one time and it paints a perfect picture of this awkward situation....

He was at work one day, feeling good, it was casual Friday so he took advantage of it. He works in IT and his usual get up is a little stuffy so the jeans and t shirt was a nice change from the typical work outfit. My mom had just bought him a new Led Zepplin t-shirt about a week earlier and he was pretty stoaked to bust out his new hip/cool rocker t-shirt with a nice little button up over it. This might sound like a pretty rockin outfit but a little disclaimer about my Dad first. Not only is my Dad color blind he also has terrible style, needless to say he doesn’t really care what he puts on. So that morning he gets dressed in the dark already knowing what he’s going to put on, doesn't even bother to look in the mirror. 

He gets to work, having a good day, good hair, comfortable in the outfit, overall he is looking good…had a couple meetings, they went well most likely due to the outfit, walked down the street passed a group of women, they giggled, gotta be the fit right? He’s almost done with the day when he decides to go to the bathroom…as he’s walking there his boss passes by him and says “Hey Mike new shirt?” My Dad in response turns around thinking 'oh ya I look good, Led Zepplin shirt good choice', “Ya! It is” confidently responds my dad…his boss looks at him smiles and says "ya, you still have the sticky tag on the front". My dad had walked around the entire day, through meetings, lunch, down the street with a huge XL XL XL sticker down the front of his new cool Led Zepplin shirt…. 

Great catch of an awkward moment.

This greatness is from RandomBlog.org here is the link http://www.randomblog.org/awkward-moments/

#11. Running into someone you’ve hooked up with and NOT recognizing him or her.

This has never happened to me. Thank God that I’ve never been that blacked out that I would have forgotten. But this did happen to two of my friends the other day so I had to put it in here.

Here’s how it went down. We were sitting at a restaurant having some hangover brunch, which always ends up taking place around lunch time since we can’t seem to get our lazy butts out of bed, dressed and out of the house before at least 12:00. There we were drinking our mimosas and the greasiest egg covered in deliciousness item on the menu with a group of our friends. One of our girlfriends, let’s call her Sarah for now, doesn’t hang out as much as the others and so as a few of our guy friends arrived she got reintroduced to them. She gets to our friend, let’s call him John, and he politely introduces himself to her. Our friend decided to jump on this opportunity to create awkward tension and says, “ya, you’ve met before. You hooked up with her”. Sarah and John had made out at a dance club a month back. The great part about this was that Sarah didn’t really recognize him either. She thought he was a hot Latino man named Tony. In comparison, he is a Caucasian man that goes by a different name entirely. After this leak of information both victims sat there in uncomfortable silence while both individual parties laughed their asses off. Apparently it wasn’t that good for either of them to remember each other’s name or ethnicity for that matter… better luck next time guys.

Well I thought this was a one-time occurrence that would happen to me and my friends and that I was lucky to witness this go down once! But to my surprise and great pleasure it happened again the other day, which either tells me it is not as rare as I once thought or that I hang out with some really classy people, you choose. We were at a bar the other day and my friend forgets this girls name that he ran into that went to high school with him. So he decides to introduce her to his friend by using the technique that we all know so well from awkward moment post #1. Forgetting someone’s name, the ‘introduce to a friend technique’ in order to get the persons name without asking for it.

So as he was introducing his friend to the girl, the buddy looked up and open his mouth to say his name when the girl said, “I think I know you, you spent the night in my bed a couple years ago”. Once again another awesome moment that I thought would only be witnessed once for me but now I get to share with all of you. This my friends is a complete and total awkward moment for the people involved but if you are a bystander just sit back and laugh because it is quite entertaining.

I’d like to take a second to thank my friends for making these events happen, without friends like you, awkward moments like these aren’t possible. 

#10. Airport Security

Every time I go to the airport alone I also focus on the most random things. I recently have been focusing on the tension and anxiety that exists in the security check lines. Go to any other country and you can pretty much walk from the car to the plane without getting stopped, but that's another point entirely. 

It seems that  no matter how innocent or how guilty you are there is always some kind of anxiety and awkwardness you have while getting cleared through security at the airport. There is the panic and rush of preparing to put your stuff on the table. Taking off your shoes..did you remember socks? All the jewelry…were you the guy that forgot to take his cell phone out of his pocket now needs to interrupt everyone in line to put it through again? Do you have to take off your sweatshirt because you forgot to wear a tank top underneath it... Even if you have all the precautionary clothing items off…you still wonder "Did I remember to take those nail clippers out? What about that lip gloss, I mean was it more than 3 oz? what really is 3 oz anyways?" 

Then when you get to the actual metal detector it's always that awkward moment when you think about if you should leave your ticket in the bucket or if you have to take it through. It always seems to be a different story every airport you go to. 

Then when you get through the metal detector or x-ray scanner EVERYONE has that sigh of relief like “Thank god, that metal underwear you were wearing didn’t set the metal detector off?” so after the sigh of relief you move to grab your bags and they aren’t out yet…they’ve stopped on your bag…and you start asking yourself "what do they see?" You try to sneak a peak at the xray machines which are pointless…two seconds later they move on to a new bag and you are free to go. No matter who you are or what you bring with you everyone seems to go through that process with the same sigh of relief. 

#9. Dentist Appointments

One of those situations where you just walk away asking yourself, ‘Was that conversation really necessary?’ I mean there are plenty of appointments when small talk is required and you suck it up and do it. I’ll give you a quick list incase you aren’t quite sure the ones I’m referring to;

1)    Doctors appointments- do you smoke? Are you pregnant? What is wrong with you? They got to get to the nitty and gritty of your life to help…accept it

2)    At the cash register, if you don’t talk it just makes it more awkward, so a brief weather comment, love the shirt she’s wearing or something about how the technology these days is crazy…will suffice, once again accept it.

3)    Getting a massage, this one is kind of a stretch but I wanted to make it clear that even while getting a massage is it more acceptable to talk than while at the dentist…and let me tell you why in one brief sentence.

Metal instruments in your mouth.

When you have metal instruments in your mouth and your dentist is not only just asking you basic yes or no questions to keep the mood light and friendly but instead decides to have full on open ended conversations with you shit gets awkward. It not only makes the whole appointment go longer than necessary but also makes it incredibly awkward to answer any of these questions. Every time you try to answer their 3 part questions about how you are going to solve world peace, they either pull the things out of your mouth (which is actually taking away from the reason you are there in the first place) or they keep them in and let’s get real no one including you understands what you are saying.

I don’t think I have ever had quite as a thorough conversation with any other appointments than the ones I encounter at the dentist...that should change. 

                       

#8. Singing to a song that gets interrupted/turned off and your tone deaf

The key word in this one being tone deaf, which face it over 80% of the world is. The positive spin to this is that if you have somewhat of a good voice this actually helps your reputation with your friends. If a song randomly turns off and you sing some Mariah Carey high note that doesn’t sound completely terrible, everyone in the room instantly is like, ‘Whoa…Becky I didn’t know you could sing like that’ and before you know it BAM you have officially transformed into the ‘friend with the amazing voice’*.

On the flip side of this if you are tone deaf this is one of the most embarrassing times.

Picture it: it’s Whitney Houston’s I will always love you and ‘I…ey I….” is the next lyric…you know you can’t hit it but you try anyways because lets face it, it’s Whitney (best singer of all time) and you’re into it…anyways, music turns off mid ‘I’… you are definitely off key.

Everyone knows, you know, the people on the sidewalk look…do you laugh? Do you pretend like it didn’t happen? You’re already bright red, Do you say a funny remark…. I mean regardless of what you say and even though everyone in the car is probably in the same boat as you, it’s an awkward moment. Face gets red, cool factor definitely dives deep into negative numbers and after this one incident you are always extra careful of the high notes, music turned on or off.

* Downfall to being this one is that you will probably be made to sing for another month or so in front of all your closest friends displaying your kind of not off key, maybe pretty, back of the church choir voice. But hey at least your friends think you have some kind of talent.