Awkward List

Awkward moments and more weird stuff

walking

4. Waiting for your dog to finish pooping

by 2 Comments

If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, you probably don’t walk your dog. Or worse: you don’t have one.

It has come to my attention that I don’t really know how to react when my dog starts doing his pre-pooping routine, which involves a Look of Guilt and begins to go around in circles with his hind legs a little too close to his front ones. Here it comes.

He’s sniffing around.

He’s embarrassed.

Oh.

..Yeah!

I find myself just standing there. Motionless. What if someone is watching? I’d rather avoid the eye contact. I always carry around the little baggies and the scooper thing. Sometimes I don’t bring the scooper thing and I just use the bag as a glove and flip it inside out. (Yeah, I don’t like thinking about it either. Oh, its warm by the way.)

Oh what!? That picture says “Pet waste pollutes drinking water sources.” What about all of those people guilty of public urination? Wait, we drink.. huh? Where does the water from the drinking fountains come from?

Anyway, so your dog is pooping and you’re just standing there. You don’t want to look at your dog taking a crap, you don’t want to look around in other directions because then you look like a troublemaker, and you can’t just avoid it and pretend it isn’t happening.

It has always been an awkward situation.

49. Accidentally touching someone's butt while walking

by 7 Comments

The title of this post was going to be “. . .someone’s hand while walking” because it is way more common, but I figured that when you touch a butt, it is way more awkward.

There are many types of walkers, I notice them every day. Some people like to walk with their arms on their sides, others like to swing their arms around, people sometimes walk with hands in their pockets. Some walk slow, and others walk fast. Some walk with hunched shoulders, and others walk like robots.

On a documentary by National Geographic on Solitary Confinement, I came across information on the importance of socializing. What I found very interesting was that when two people that know one another find each other on the street and begin to walk together, they subconsciously synchronize their steps and walk with the same rhythm. This, apparently, is not enough to keep people from bumping into each other while walking together.

You’ve walked around with someone before, right? Every once in a while, you might walk with someone that struggles with it. Some people have a problem with walking straight and tend to pressure others into being too close to the edge of a sidewalk. Others become easily distracted while walking. These people are usually the ones that bump into you or other objects, so watching them crash into things becomes an every day thing.

But some of us have much more experience walking, so it really throws us off when our hands touch someone else’s while walking. Of course, we have to realize that our hand can be as close as 5 centimeters from another hand while walking. . so what is so awkward about this? Nobody really knows how to address it! Do you make a joke about it? Or do you ignore it, knowing very clearly that the other person is probably thinking the same thing? What about when you touch someone’s butt? While walking, hands are not very far from someone’s behind either, so its bound to happen in your life time.

Things I’ve heard after accidentally touching someone’s butt/hand:

  • “If you want to hold my hand, just ask!”
  • “Oh, sorry!” (even though it was my fault.)
  • “Did you just touch my butt?”
  • And my favorite: “Dude.”
Image source

26. Tripping and falling

by 6 Comments

You would assume that after living for a while, a person might at least be skilled in something called walking. And its true, over the years we’ve gotten better and better at walking (with few exceptions). So it is natural to feel uncomfortable when someone falls in public.

This is one of those double-sided awkward moments, in which the person whom the situation directly involves feels it, and the spectator feels awkward as well.

The faller: First of all, that sucks. Second, what the heck are you supposed to do once everybody gets to see you fail at walking? Maybe something got in the way (a cat, banana peel, etc.) but that doesn’t matter anymore. You’re on the ground, and now its time to avoid the stares. Here’s what to do:

1) Avoid eye contact with those around you, they’re only looking at you to find out how you’re going to react, so choose your moves wisely.

2) If someone comes up to you and asks you if you’re O.K., remember that it is a natural reaction for people to ask that, and they’re not trying to embarrass you even more. People would probably watch someone get hit by a bus and still approach him with “Are you O.K.?”

3) Get back up and pretend it happens to you all the time. Or you could pretend that you decided to spontaneously drop for some random push-ups –you can say that its part of your workout program.

The spectator: C’mon.. laugh. You know you want to, jerk! I once started laughing uncontrollably as a girl fell and rolled down 4 steps at my university. I felt bad shortly after, but the fall was EPIC! She threw her book bag up, (wow.. I’m mean. I’m seriously laughing right now) and made a facial expression I had never seen and will probably never see again. Here’s what to do:

…

O.K. scratch that idea, you probably won’t do it. Let me just tell you what actually happens, I call it the Five Stages of Watching Someone Fall:

Surprise– It was definitely unexpected, and someone having a hard time with gravity surprises you. Your mind might hesitate on taking any specific action. Can be identified by a :O expression.

Acceptance- Yes, you realize that what you saw actually happened. And yes, you just witnessed it. This is the part where a dog would tilt his head to see things in a different perspective.

Conscience– This is the part where you become aware that you’re actually standing there, and people usually like to take this chance to look around. If present with a group of friends, eye-contact encounters will occur.

Confusion– Should you laugh? You might. Or you might try to help the person stand up. Maybe you should ignore it? What to do, what to do? After you’ve made your decision and carried through with it, you will reach the next and final level:

Analysis– This is where you think about your actions. Do you regret laughing? Was the fall preventable . . . did you cause it? These thoughts can lead you to guilt, deep philosophical thoughts, or more laughter.

Do you see why this is double sided? Awkward for the faller AND the spectator(s). A true awkward moment, I like these . . but I avoid them at all cost.

Image sources: top, bottom

20. Being asked “Did you just wake up?”

by 4 Comments

It was a cold morning, you know, one of those mornings when your blanket reaches the perfect warmth just as your alarm clock decides to ring. It must have taken all of the effort in the world to get me up that day; I only had one lecture at 8:00am. After self-encouragement, turning on the television, putting on my iPod earphones to pump some jumpy music, I finally rolled out of bed. Brushed my teeth, got my cereal and coffee, showered, and then I began feeling mighty fine! I got ready for my class and went out there into the university.

I was early so while I was waiting outside of my building when a friend of mine decided to stop by and sit on the bench with me.

“Good morning, Edwin”, she said while giving me a look that made me feel self-conscious, “did you just wake up?”

No! I had woken up two hours prior! I’m feeling good! What have you done to me? 

I responded with a “no, did you?” and she got a bit angry and pulled out a little thing (ladies, help me out here..), a circular thing that opened like an oyster and had a mirror on it and started acting all funny, I could tell she was feeling uncomfortable. If I had known she was going to get all weird about it, I would’ve kept my mouth shut. Oops. I guess it was a little messed up.

I mean, she made her point clear. I could’ve just said many things and gotten the same response:

“NOW  I see why girls need makeup.. ”

“Bad hair day?”

“You look like crap today, but how do you feel, friend?”

I’ve been trying to think of how to properly respond to such a question, you know, something else to say besides “No, did you?”.

Any ideas?

#17 The Sidewalk Dance

by 6 Comments

I’ve seen this happen, but I never realized that it was awkward until it happened to me.

I had just gotten out of a meeting and was quite stressed out because I found out that one of my programs for student residents at my university dorm halls had to be postponed due to some paperwork problem. I left my coordinator’s office and went outside for a walk. Usually, I look up at the trees and say hello to people while I walk around, but not that time; my mind was elsewhere.

So while looking down at my blue Vans shoes cross the cracks on the sidewalk every other step, I encountered a pair of small black Converse shoes. I looked up and smiled nervously, a pretty girl had crossed my path, literally –and almost crashed into me. Almost immediately, I moved over to the left. But so did she. I shuffled over to the right. But again, so did she. This is where things got serious, no more messing around. I moved to the left and stayed there. . . at the same time that she did. Then I solved the problem by figuring out a cool trick: instead of moving in the other direction, I moved to the left again. Magic! It worked! At the time, I didn’t really stop to think of a solution, it came mostly by mistake. Oh well, great things are usually discovered by accident.

“There we go,” she said, “that was awkward.”

I replied, “It was fun, thanks for the dance.”

Of course, the encounter lasted no more than 5 seconds, but it seemed to take forever.The thing is, this –the Sidewalk Dance– kept happening with other people, up to the point where I believed that I was the cause of the problem; that I was doing something to trigger this. Though I still haven’t discovered exactly what I was doing, it was pretty awesome to begin getting used to awkward moments like these and finding the fun in them instead of making the situations worse for myself.

The laugh that the girl and I got from that Sidewalk Dance reminded me to smile again, and it changed my mood for the better even after having a rough start to my day. Awkward moments are awesome.