Sometimes, people can take things way too far and not know when to stop. The second-hand embarrassment is real, watching these people make fools out of themselves. Just ask these people.
People on Reddit share the moment when they saw someone go too far when trying to impress someone. Content has been edited for clarity.
“We Had Second-Hand Embarrassment”
“My best friend in high school used to come up with the most insane lies to be more interesting. She used to tell us her dad owned multiple houses in an area similar to I’d say Malibu. She used to say she was a child model, and that her family opened the first Coke factory.
It never stopped and a year after we graduated, she bought a ring at something like a dollar store and told everyone she was engaged to a model from the US. When we asked to see a photo, she used a stock photo from Google. We constantly had second-hand embarrassment.”
He Had That Coming
“My friend and I were at a pub. Just two girls having a drink and a laugh. There was a dude who was bothering us all night, he was pretty hammered and very annoying. We were polite to him at first and conversed but he was getting very dirty with his comments, so my friend just told him to get lost.
He left us alone, but at closing time we were outside waiting for our cab and he started again. Only this time he was being an even bigger idiot, calling us horrible names and being a terrible person.
A big guy who was close walked over and told him to go away and stop bothering us. The hammered guy then tried to punch the big guy, but misses. Then realizing he’s about to get his the stuffing knocked out of him, he runs across the road and gets hit by a car.”
“What The Heck Is Happening?”
“There was this dude in high school who kept talking about how he was going to sing a song to a girl he was crushing on and win her heart. We all thought he was just being stupid.
Well, charity drive week comes, and you could ‘rent the mic’ in the café to raise money. Most people used it to like, play their favorite CD, or make their friends suffer through the worst 70s pop music or whatever.
Well, this idiot Gary rents the mike and sings something to the girl, and yeah dedicates it to her. So she’s embarrassed as heck, and walks out almost immediately. I don’t even remember if he was terrible or not but basically everyone was just like ‘What the heck is happening?'”
This Is A Thing?
“I was in the smoking area of a busy bar with a friend of mine, and he started chatting up a girl. I was doing the usual small-talk with her friend – you know, the small-talk that has the subtext of ‘Well, those two are probably gonna bang, how about this weather we’ve been having huh?’
My hammered friend decided to do the rubber trick to impress his new-found lady friend. The trick where you unroll a rubber, snort it up your nose, and spit it out your mouth.
Well, it went a bit wrong. The rubber went up his nose alright, and some of it managed to drop into his throat, but the base of it stayed lodged somewhere around his sinuses. Within seconds, theatrical snorting gave way to uncontrollable coughing, choking noises, and then projectile vomiting that sprayed out his mouth and his one unblocked nostril, covering the table, a large area of a floor, and (of course) his new-found lady friend.
Cleared the entire smoking room, got us both thrown out of the bar, and needless to say he did not get laid that night.”
“I’m Good, But I Have To Get Better”
“Two years ago at a four-day camping music festival, it was two or three in the morning. Our group had made our way back to our campsite, sitting around and chilling for a bit before those of us who were turning in did so. Occasionally the group picks up stragglers in the forest, and for the most part, they’re cool people. This one guy was being obnoxious, though, and I don’t know who he was tagging along with. Perhaps that person had left again, and this guy felt he had found an audience.
He was on an inflatable sofa between a couple of others, the rest of the circle made up of camping chairs. Some people are sitting, some are walking around or going in and out of tents preparing to head back out.
He keeps asking people for topics to freestyle about.
‘Give me a word, man. Or a thing. I’ll freestyle about it. I’m good but I have to get better, and you guys can help me practice.’
He would just keep repeating that until someone humored him and give him a starting word. For the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of the prompts he dragged out of us. But when he got one, it would always go the same way. He’d start improvising four or five-syllable lines that included the initial word, then he’d get maybe one or two coherent lines after that which rhymed. Then he would just kind of fall into a mumble, not saying anything but keeping the rhythm he established. Occasionally words would bubble up out of the mumblemush, usually things that rhyme with his starting word.
After he’d run dry on a word, which never took long, he’d immediately start pestering someone else for a topic.
Even when it was hinted at that we were after a quieter, calmer atmosphere, he just went, ‘Yeah man, that’s cool, I get it. Give me a word, man. I can freestyle about anything.’
We eventually convinced him to go try to find his friends. But of the people who were around, no one was impressed, and everyone just wanted him to stop.”
What Does That Even Mean?
“I went out with a group of my brother’s friends one time, and one of our group was a smarmy, frosted tip and pooka shells kind of guy named Devin. We were shown our seats at a Thai restaurant and a few of us are ordering drinks. Devin is sitting across from me next to a girl, and he’s bragging about some bottle he had recently (tangentially, I discovered years later). This girl is totally falling for all his lies. She’s very impressed with the $30 bottle that this guy said he had one time.
The server brings us our drinks and he proceeds to put on this ridiculous performance with a $9 glass of cheap red liquid – swirling it, holding it up to the light, sniffing it and then tasting it. He nodded – not sure if that meant the drink was good or bad – and then the girl asked him if he would taste hers and tell her what he thought.
Surprisingly, he didn’t do any of the swirling or sniffing with her drink. He just took a sip, set down the glass and put on his best thoughtful face. He then put his hand up, made magic fingers for a second and pinched the air with his thumb and two fingers.
‘It’s a bit…brighter?'”
“A Snaike Boyte!”
“This happened at an overnight camp out on private property with a loose-knit group of ~120 people who had worked around the state on some cause, which made for good camaraderie among many who just met in person for the first time.
This one guy who nobody seemed to know brought a container of a strong drink that looked like it was repurposed from a gasoline additive bottle. It was one of those bottles with TWO caps and a graduated side bottle and tube molded together, so you could squeeze a measured amount from the main bottle into the smaller part and dispense it.
In a fake Australian accent, he kept introducing the drink it contained to people as ‘A Snaike Boyte!’ every time someone wandered up to our campfire. It was mildly interesting the first time you saw it. After a while, he was smashed from repeatedly demonstrating and offering it to people who all declined, so he’d take the shot to ready it for the next prospect. It didn’t help that this was his only line, he couldn’t follow it up with commensurate banter or even normal conversation. Eventually, he was openly starting the same spiel with people he’d already introduced it to several times.
People started to leave the campfire or yell ‘Shut up!’ at the words ‘Snaike Boyte,’ but he didn’t stop till he was ready to pass out in his tent.
The next morning he was hungover, and didn’t participate in any of the group activities including breaking and cleaning camp. After he leftm I found the empty Snaike Boyte bottle discarded in a bush, minus one cap.”
He Was Put In His Place
“I was at a club with a few friends. Two of the friends were fighting (over a guy, long story) and I took them outside to try to talk it out.
We were sitting on the windowsill of the store next to the club, and this guy who kept trying to hit on us in the club came over and tried to sit down next to us. I told him we were trying to figure some things out and could he please give us some space. His friends came over and he started calling me horrible names, telling me it’s a free country and he can sit wherever he wants, etc.
I said ‘Please just leave us alone,’ and he kept going off on me.
We ended up crossing the street to get some space, and I see a much bigger guy approach the guy that was bothering us and punch him square in the face. Guess we weren’t the only people he annoyed that night!”
“It Was A Train Wreck”
“In one of my college classes, this guy had been trying to flirt with the attractive and charismatic girl at our group table for a few weeks. I was on her left, he was on her right, so I had to endure hearing this nonsense every class as he wasn’t very quiet. She was a good sport about it, probably led him on a little, but this guy was relentless and probably thought he had some mad flirting skills.
He flew too close to the sun one day and never recovered. On that fateful day, he decided to go all in.
He went from ‘We should grab a coffee sometime.’ to ‘We should have a threesome with your mom,’ within a span of three minutes. It was a train wreck. He wouldn’t stop and kept trying to convince her that it would be fun. After a few minutes of failure, he tried playing it off as if it was just a joke.
As you can expect, she didn’t take the threesome suggestion very well. All further attempts at flirting were met with one syllable responses. We all still had to sit awkwardly together for the rest of the semester as there were no other available seats.
On the plus side, we could finally do our group projects without getting sidetracked every five minutes.”
He Wasn’t Picking Up On The Hints
“On our last week of high school, we had ‘Senior Day’ where the school rents like 10-15 inflatable awesome things for kids to do and we just have a giant field day.
The issue was, On our Senior Day, the stuff didn’t show up on time. So they crowded us all into the auditorium, gave us a microphone, and essentially just let us all hang out for like an hour and a half. There were impressions of others, jokes, people sharing heartfelt memories, some people singing.
So this one kid, who was a definite Loner, runs to his car and brings back his speakers and a guitar. Hooks everything up and just started playing and playing pretty well.
But he’s a loner, so it’s not really mainstream stuff and he’s not singing or anything, just playing.
It was great for like 3 minutes. A lot of us were impressed, saying ‘Hey we learned something about Mikey, good for him.’
He wrapped up the first song and went into the second and a third…and a fourth. And didn’t relinquish the stage for like 20 minutes. We were all mostly quiet and polite, gave the occasional cheer and clap. But we would clap after each song like ‘Okay buddy, take your bow, you’ve earned your moment, let’s go.’
But he just took every applause as ‘Let’s do it again,’ so he’d started right back up.
It was the most awkward thing watching him and realizing that every single person in the room wanted him to stop but he just kept on jamming.”
“Funniest Thing Ever, But Also Embarrassing”
“When I first moved to Texas I made friends with two guys, which made us a three-man group. Well fast-forward a few months and we are at the mall waiting for a movie to start when we see a really cute girl. We are middle schoolers and this girl was probably 18-21.
Well, our friend decided he was going to get her attention but in the dumbest way possible. He walked over to her and purposely tripped himself in front of her (to try and get her to help him up and talk to him). She ended up just stepping over him and continued to press on like nothing happened. It was the funniest thing ever, but also embarrassing for all of us because we let this dude do it.”
He Went About It The Wrong Way
“So, I work at a little malt shop in my town. Back when I was first starting, there was a cute group of people (ages 13-14), a few boys, a few girls, waiting to order their food. The oldest guy got the attention of the group when it was their turn and went to order the groups’ food. He proceeded to belittle my coworker, being super rude, and downright horrible, and glancing back at the group. This was all because we were out of peach snow cone flavoring. Only one of the girls is giggling, and so are a few guys, but the rest look disturbed and upset.
I gave him that ‘you’re stupid’ look, and he finally relented, before giving the rest of their orders. They sat down in our little outside eating area, and suddenly one of the girls, with pretty green eyes, comes and hands me her number.
‘Can you call me and pretend to be my mom? I don’t want to sit with him anymore.’
I burst out laughing but nodded anyway. I gave her a spoon and straw and called her phone five minutes later. She left, and the group followed afterward. The boy comes back with his mother, fifty dollars in hand, and apologizes to my coworker. That boy just wanted to impress those girls.”
“The Entire Hallway Had Gone Silent”
“I watched some kid go up to a group of girls as my buddies and I were having a conversation with a couple of the girls in the hallway of my high school. I immediately noticed as this kid is trying to start a conversation with the girls who are talking amongst themselves. His friends were standing about 20 feet away trying to duck down and were laughing.
Immediately I knew this was going to be a train wreck, but I couldn’t break away from the group fast enough to stop this kid before he made a fool of himself. Anyway, this kid had a massive crush on not one, but two of the girls, and I guess he was trying to kill two birds with one stone here, because he just went full send and straight-up started singing a song to the first girl, and she was mortified. The entire hallway had gone silent, except for the kid singing.
Now, both these girls were both very attractive and the type of girls that all the guys went after, and this guy was kind of a social outcast. So, his plan was pretty much doomed to failure from the start. What really didn’t help was he was singing ‘Just The Way You Are’ by Bruno Mars, extremely off-key, and the multiple voice cracks didn’t help.
Anyway, this girl is mortified, and when he asked her to go out with him, she politely told him no. Then this kid goes to the next girl, and she immediately says, ‘Before you waste your breath or even open your mouth, the answer is no, and will forever be no.’
I have to say I had a good laugh about it, although I did feel a little bad for the kid. Funny story, that kid ended up rebounding big time, getting into MIT and had a major glow up during college, and now is very successful while the two girls ended up peaking in high school and college. But even though I’ve become good friends with the guy, I always remind him of that time where he went way farther than he should have.”
That Solution Was Not A Good One
“I had a buddy in school who had this huge crush on the pretty girl of our grade with elbow-length hair. He would do weird things get her attention all the time.
Well, one day I guess he really wanted to get the girl’s attention or something because he snipped a long lock of her hair near her shoulders. Naturally, the girl started to freak out and was about to cry, so his attempt at a solution was to stick back the hair he cut with his freshly chewed bubblegum, straight from his mouth, wet and hot, right below her skull.
I witnessed all of this happen in a matter of 20 seconds, and remember the next day she came in with basically a bob and she wasn’t the pretty girl anymore.”
“He Went As White As A Ghost”
“I’m an engineer for some huge government agency, and part of my job a few years ago was to travel around and teach other people who work for this government agency (usually engineers, sometimes technicians, very occasionally highway maintenance crews) about certain things that pertain to our work, be that certain research subjects or design topics related to a certain building material.
One class was a rare one that was full of nothing but highway maintenance crews, and this one dude decided he was going to try to impress me. (I am, for lack of a better way of describing this, a conventionally attractive woman in my 30’s. I have no shortage of stories about dorky guys trying to impress me at hotel bars at conferences, but one doing it in a class I was teaching was a first.) The way he was going to impress me was with his military service, and he started randomly telling stories about all the people that he killed in, and how he was Special Forces and all sorts of other stuff that was obviously not true.
I let him finish, and then said, ‘Oh, really? You said you were in [province] in [year]?’
He confirmed that he had. I said, ‘And you said you were with # Special Forces Group?’
He again confirmed that’s what he said. I said, ‘You know, that’s pretty wild because I was in [province] in [year] with [my battalion], and I don’t remember any of that. Also, all the SF we had there at that time was from ## Group as far as I’m aware.’
He went about as white as a ghost, and the rest of the class started laughing. Women being hit on with fake military stories are not supposed to be veterans.”
Good Time To Call It A Night
“I hate clubs, but every now and again I try to be a good sport and chill with the boys. After a day-long pub crawl, we ended the night at a local club to kill a few more drinks, chat up some dancers, then go home to sleep it off.
My buddy who had consumed way too much finally dealt with karma in the worst way. He pauses mid-sentence with the dancer he’s talking to and starts heaving. I’ve never seen someone try so hard not to puke, but after a few heaves he spews all over himself, thankfully avoiding everyone and everything else somehow.
I used this excuse to make my exit, helping him to the front for an Uber home. He was a good sport, and for some reason the dancer he almost trashed even came out and invited him back in. But I made sure he got his Uber before leaving myself. It was definitely time to go home.”
“He Did Not Deliver”
“I am complicit in an embarrassing high school situation. A friend convinced me and two other friends to help make a love letter ‘music video’ of Take On Me so he could show it to his crush. I thought I was being an excellent friend and wingman through this process. Had to wear a helmet and painted myself black and white, and I chased him through a mostly empty house. We were promised lunch (which he delivered) and that the movie would have some loose effects applied so it doesn’t look so horrible. He did not deliver.
Instead, this disaster of a piece ended up being shown to a bunch of girls because he had been crushing on quite a few girls. None of them wanted anything to do with him because (and I should’ve picked up on this already because he is a friend) this guy’s a total weirdo and moron.
Kinda had this Rufio-Matrix styling and none of the charisma.
Anyways. One of the girls showed her brother, and this video began being circulated around the school on CD. I’m super glad streaming video platforms weren’t a thing when I was in high school or I could have been a part of a viral video or meme.”
They Were Not Cheering Him On
“A house of engineers built a funnel that went from the roof to the street. They were on the roof offering drinks to whoever could funnel them, and eventually, a crowd gathered to watch.
This absolute train wreck of a dude shows up and funnels a drink People cheer him on. Next up, this smoking hot girl walks up, asks for them to double it up, and then proceeded to funnel the whole thing in like five seconds.
Not to be outdone, my man Chad steps back into the ring. Tells the guys on the roof to make it a triple.
Now, from my vantage point, I have a clear view of the roof boys and Chad on the ground. Guys up talk to each other for a second, then one of them drops his pants and just pees right into the funnel.
People are screaming at Chad ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it,’ but Chad can’t hear and is like, ‘Heck ya they are cheering me on.’
Gets on one knee, and funnels like 24oz of pee.
Should have stopped dude.”