#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…. 

#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. 

                       

#4: Dating: Saying the wrong person’s experiences with another person

I mean you could write a whole separate blog about the awkward dating moments we all have in life. One that I think I have a fair share with is mistaking specific conversations you’ve had with different guys.

I mean there is the normal name slip up, talk slip up “remember when I told you this”… the likes and dislikes.. “Oh ya you don’t like ice cream right because your lactose intolerant?” then they throw out the… “that wasn’t me…ice cream is my favorite food” comment back. I mean its not the end of the world, very easily played off… … “oh that must have been my best friend, my roommate…” generally it’s not the worst thing when you slip up. A minor awkward moment if you will.

It’s those times when you are CONFIDENT that it was that person and so you go to great lengths to describe the entire situation and how you know it was them and then at some point during the conversation a lightbulb turns on and ding….wrong person. Now you’ve gotten so far into your argument that it was them you can’t turn back. At this point you just go with it, I mean if your smooth you generally can pull it off, if you have no game…its just awkward. You both know it wasn’t him…so just try to casually stop the “I know it was you because we were on the couch after that dance club and the five tequila shots…” so that you don’t completely kill the situation you have going for you and hopefully are more careful in the future.

Along the same lines as this one is the text/technology mix up. Everyone has done it and if you haven’t…props. Everyone tries to get out of it, but no one ever believes you, you could have the best excuse in the world and honestly I have never once heard of someone actually believing the person about it.

The best example I have is I accidentally sent a text to one of my guy friends that I had no interest in but was into me “Come cuddle”, oops. Long story short, that text was supposed to go to another guy… wake up in the morning to a, “oh hey, what was that about…” and the only thing I could think of on the fly was, “Oh I was lonely, that was to my sister…wanted her to come keep me company”. I mean you can read bullshit through the words. And If I wasn’t lying, anyone that texts ‘come cuddle’ to their sister at 2 o’ clock in the morning…probably has something weird going on there too…

No one believes you, you don’t even believe yourself, you know it’s uncomfortable but you just go with it and try to avert the conversation to something else knowing both of you know what’s going on. 

#2 Mistaking a child's gender

This one is never a comfortable moment but there is a way to salvage the situation. Since in some situations you really can't get around saying ‘it or they’ when you just don’t know if it’s a boy or girl…you have to make a quick decision. When confusing the gender of some parent's God's gift to the universe child there are two ways to go about it. 


Situation 1: If you mistake a boy for a girl, you can save the situation a little easier. All you do in this situation is notice something that is just overwhelmingly beautiful about the child. 

Examples: thick curls, long eyelashes, beautiful skin.

Pick something and exaggerate just how overwhelmingly breathtaking this particular feature is on the child. The parent will most likely forget you mistook their precious child for the wrong sex and in return glow with joy about just how beautiful their child actually is, regardless of the real beauty of the kid.

Situation 2: Mistaking a girl for a boy, this one isn’t quite as easy to get out of. At this point I usually just try to blame the mistake on how I’ve been getting my words mixed up all day. Play it off as a long day or how tired you are… if this doesn’t seem to work just mention how you yourself were a tomboy or little girlie when you were young and everything worked out ok for you….

You’ll probably get looks of confusion and judgment but at least it takes the attention of the child mishap off the actual baby and onto what happened with you… 

#1. Forgetting People's Names.

We’ve all been there… whether you are that forgetful friend that doesn’t remember their own mother’s birthday or if you just happen to blackout for a second, there has been some point in your life where we all have experienced one of these three things;

1) Not introducing yourself or your friends

2) Reintroducing yourself to someone

3) Just the awkward….“Hey …you…” because we have forgotten someone’s name.

Example:

My friend and I got in one of these situations before. We were at a basketball booster banquet and you are ‘supposed’ to know everyone’s name cause, shit, they are donating money so you can play at their school. They know your stats inside and out, they come to every game to watch you play so the least you could do is remember their name, right? 

Wrong. We were new… there were a lot of people we had to remember and you know my friend isn’t the best at remembering names…if she didn’t have to sign it every time she bought a drink at the bar, she’d forget it. She’s one of those…. 

Anyways, we had to write the names of the people who were buying raffle tickets on their tickets for them. Most of the people give you their names cause they realize we are only human and we probably don’t know everyone’s name that sits in those nice little seats on that side of the gym…

However, you always run into those people that expect you to know their life bio. With these people we used this genius method we like to call, the ‘spell it out for me’ technique… pretty self explanatory, you get the person to tell you their name by pretending like you’re a bad speller. This technique was going great until this happens….

Us: “so how do you spell that again?"

Booster: “B. O. B”

Us: “Oh….. so yup it is exactly how it is spelled….perfect, so there isn’t a silent U? weird…see my Uncle actually spells it with a H so..you never know…(looks at me terrified) did you catch how to spell that without the U?”

Looks at the booster with a little oops smirk and we start writing frantically while we both know we forgot the name and try not to act uncomfortable… this is the moment when you find an exit strategy as soon as possible…

How to solve this problem you ask?

Avoid the situation if at all possible, if you don’t remember someone’s name either do the polite, direct, “I’m sorry I’m drawing a blank…what was your name again? Or have someone introduce your new friend so that you can pick up on the name before it gets awkward.

However, If you’re not the go getter type A personality, like let’s face it me, then avoid this situation at all costs…put something in your mouth, try to find someone else to talk to or just bee line to the nearest exit.