Thanks For The (Embarrassing) Memories...
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Last Saturday, my cousin’s Facebook status about having an awkward moment status gave me an idea for this week’s article. Especially since I was about to post an awkward moment status myself, until I saw all the complaints on his wall. Now if I had posted my status, that would have awkward for both of us.
TAM: An acronym for ‘That Awkward Moment’. Not to be confused with TOM: An acronym for ‘Time of the Month’, which is a subtle way of one female asking another if she is shedding the lining of her uterus, or if “Aunty Suzie came in a red Ferrari.” TOM is a very useful acronym, because if you’re Chinese/Indian, having an Aunt called Suzie isn’t very subtle. Especially if she also happens to drive a red Ferrari.
Embarrassing moments; we’ve all seen them, had them, felt them – some of you may even be having one right now. But the curious case is why do we let them bother us so much? Some magazines even have a page just for the readers’ “Oops Moments”, with a poll on how “Cringe Worthy” each story was. And for some reason, no matter how many times we do the same embarrassing thing (like tripping), we can’t ever get over the humiliation. Even though we’re so used to doing it…
Take a simple case for example (which may have unfortunately happened to you):
Female: That awkward moment (TAM) when you realise your hair is caught in that cute guy’s watch, after smoothly flirting with him outside McDonald’s.
Male: TAM when you dragged her halfway across the parking lot, before you realised her head was attached to your Rolex.
Or what about that time you wet your bed, or peed on the playground? Or went swimming and then realised you forgot to shave – everywhere?!
Don’t you sympathise with girls who’ve walked into a ‘Stop’ sign or a brick wall in broad daylight (okay I’ll admit, that last one was me) upon seeing a really hot guy? It’s not my fault I forgot to stop walking while I was looking at him…
Am I starting to make you laugh? It’s not my fault that I’m a natural-born klutz (join my Facebook group “Klutzes”, so I at least know I’m not alone here); I’m just saying that I should have been excused for walking into a screen door, tripping in a pool, falling on my ass while skateboarding on a slide (bad idea when there are actual people watching, because the skateboard made a safe landing. Unfortunately, I did not), talking bad about a former classmate to the new girl in class, who turned out to be his current girlfriend (yeah my friends have never let me live that one down), complaining about the Physics teacher in front of his wife, learning to drive (quite horribly, I might add) in front of my ex-principal and being tricked by a dude in the sports shop who convinced me he was German. In my foolish defense, it was during the 2010 Soccer World Cup, okay… I ran into a lot of foreigners. Although I’m starting to think that 60% of them were fooling me as well. What I mean is that maybe we should be forgiven for having ‘Oops moments’, since it’s only human. Why must people like me get tortured endlessly for it?
That is why I am so glad I do not live in earthquake stricken San Francisco. Can you imagine TAM when you’re in a downtown store and the ground starts shaking, so you duck in the female toiletries section hoping all the pads will give you protection – ignore the pun, I meant they’ll give you a soft cushion wall when all the boxes start falling – and then your wife tells you, “Honey, get up. It’s only the subway underneath the shop.”
And TAM when you realise you just peed in your pants…
As rocker Pete Wentz said, “If you know me you know how uncool I am. I stutter, wear bad clothes, make bad jokes, make conversation uncomfortable, the list goes on. Thank you for making me feel okay.”
I’m the kind of girl that runs into her crush wearing horrid clothes on laundry day, gets mistaken for a store assistant by old people, is caught hiding behind a trolley upon seeing a girl she dislikes (and the person that caught me doing that was the aforementioned girl. “Oh, hi… you… I was just looking for my lucky coin, thing, earring, tampon… behind this trolley…”), and whose cellphone rings only in quiet places – like a lecture room filled with 400+ people, or the library.
Just for being a walking disaster, my conscience has made me über paranoid. I check (at least 5 times) before I leave the bathroom if my fly is closed when I’m wearing jeans, my hair is neat (which never happens because my hair hates me like an American soldier to an Afghanistan dude), and that I don’t have toilet roll stuck to any part of my body, like how you see it happen in movies. I may trip on flat surfaces, but it’s never because my laces were loose. Sure I unintentionally complained about a teacher to a friend, not realizing it was their mother, but at least I expressed my opinion.
It was really embarrassing for me just to write this article and expose some of my shameful moments. But what I lack in social stability, I make up for in reliability and responsibility (aka paranoia).
We should forgive people for having embarrassing times; imagine how crappy they feel, and you terrorising them about it doesn’t help the situation at all.
I may have an uncountable amount of awkward moments on a daily basis, but at least I made you (and sometimes myself) laugh.
Something may feel embarrassing now, but I guarantee in 10 years you either won’t care, remember or will giggle about it. Embarrassing times give us good life lessons, like not to eat a huge meal before going on a rollercoaster, or wear pink underwear under a white dress. And if you’re going to stare at a pretty girl, make sure there are no sharp fences on either side and that her father is not in the vicinity.
But more so, embarrassing moments give us some of the best memories.
And hey, you never know (because this has happened to unlucky me): Next time you trip down the stairs, you might just fall into something (or someone) great…