Happened to a friend and not me so I’m not sure if it counts.
2 buddies went to a after-hours club that was in the basement of a house. The place was packed, the music loud and it had very little lighting so it was hard to see. My one buddy in a very loud voice shouted to the other " it’s very black in here" as they couldn’t see very well. Lots of people around him looked at him and he noticed that the place was mostly African Americans. They left shortly after.
You should have 100% replied with, “PIVOT!!!”
Had something similar happen at a bar. We were at a late night spot that got absolutely packed. It was karaoke night. I’d never been there so turned and shouted to one of the guys I was with asking where the actual bar was so I could go get a beer. He chose the perfect moment to motion over in one direction and then yell out right as the music stopped and it sounded something like, “it’s over there, RIGHT PAST THAT FLOCK OF LESBIANS.”
Said flock, of course, turned to us and scowled. We left not long after, I did NOT get a beer. Also to this day I sometimes still ask him why he referred to a group of lesbians as a flock.
Because all he saw was a lot of tits? :)
I would think a group of lesbians, should they even have a group nomenclature, should be a pride.
Yeah, but a group of tits (the birds, I mean) is a flock, so maybe something short-circuited in his head. ;)
Oh I understood. :) We’re both tiptoeing around what he saw but what he said.
I don’t blame his terminology, but I do blame his timing. ;)
OK, here’s kind of a softball answer. I used to work at a kind of a glorified call center, so I’d take calls from vendors and managers from a certain large retail company, “This is blah blah blah, what can I do for you?”
Except one time I answered the phone and accidentally said, “This is blah blah blah, what can I do to you?”
There was a brief pause, of befuddlement on their side and horror on my side. Then I started profusely apologizing to my vendor, but I was doubly lucky: the vendor was a cool guy and laughed at me, and my higher ups didn’t happen to choose that recorded call to review for metrics purposes.
Actually, for future ref the correct* collective noun for lesbians is a colony. Like with beavers.
* Not guaranteed.
Probably the most cringe thing that comes to mind (and honestly, there are many) was when I was an angsty teen, enrolled alongside ~9 others in a small separate class for the school’s biggest science nerds. That is to say; kind of a smaller, more intimate setting than your typical classroom. It was a physics lesson, the teacher was very cute (her first teaching job outta uni I think) and one of the scenarios that she posed to the class was something dumb to do with cars travelling etc etc boring physics guff.
Being a well adjusted social extrovert at the time I gave some ridiculous class-clown flippant answer along the lines of blastin’ the accelerator or whatever to score more points* when I hit someone. Said cute teacher (who I was totally crushin’ on at the time) burst into tears and fled the room.
When she came back into the classroom she said her best friend had died in a hit and run a week or so earlier. I apologised profusely but maybe, for whatever fuckin’ reason, kinda phrased some of the things I said a bit accidentally… I love you.
Needless to say despite the earnest affection the words landed with about the appeal of a dead, half-gutted rat gifted me by one of my cats. Good god. In front. of. everyone. At that point I wasn’t even out. I could’ve - should’ve - died. (╥﹏╥)
* I was playing a lot of Carmageddon at the time.
So as a teenager I was playing some pickup basketball with a real asshole who was exceedingly aggressive. Full court, five on five. It’s getting a little heated out there and I had had enough. But I’m not an asshole and I really don’t want to escalate the situation, I just want to say, “do you want to go fuck yourself bud” as we’re running down the court. What came out was an angry, “do you want to fuck me?”
I got a pretty unique look in return, as well as a simple, “no”.
No more problems the rest of the day though.
I really like this thread. Just wanted to say that. :)
In middle school, I developed an enormous crush on a girl I initially met in my gym and “counseling” electives (the latter is a weird one – did other school have an actual class taught by the counselors about stuff like emotions, bodies, etc.? I know they often talk about that stuff with students one-on-one, but we had a twice-weekly, like, class). I was already a pretty well-known and liked guy in school, and this was my first major crush, so, of course, everyone became very invested in “who does Armando like?!”
Including, of course, the girl herself. And most of her best friends. And my best friends. And the overlapping besties.
So, cue about a year endless speculation and mild picking from everyone around me as I tried to work up the courage to say anything in what in retrospect was a painfully obvious and evident manner, but at the time, I was sure I was being very suave and debonair. Slowly over time, I crafted an inner circle of people who knew who the target of my affections was and would give me romantic advice. It was an interesting period in my life, fwiw; nightly getting onto AIM, ICQ, and MSN Messenger after dinner as everyone else from school with a computer did the same, juggling a dozen conversations for hours as we all talked about our days and dreams and tastes and thoughts and of course HOT GOSS. It was how I learned to talk to girls! I’d even end the night by calling one or two of them for another hour or three after all our parents kicked us off the internet. Amusingly, I actually developed a crush on a few of these people as well, but nevermind that!
Anyway, by Fall semester 7th grade, things are at fever pitch in the leadup to the big Beta Club (some academic honors type organization, I dunno) field trip to the state conference in the state’s capital. Huge hotel, taking buses, overnight trip, big dance at the end of the conference, the whole nine yards.
So, I decide that the best possible time to make my move is during this trip, specifically during the bus ride up. But, ugh, of course, actually saying anything to her was mortifying – I’ve been avoiding doing just that for a year by this point for a reason, goddammit! – so it would be best to set the stage with a virtual communication and then of course cement our perfect relationship forevermore on the bus ride and then the big conference and dance, duh!
So, I write a three-page long Word document love letter detailing, in excruciatingly specific terms, every single thing I liked about this girl, very creepily including very particular elements of her physical appearance in addition to countless tiny moments that, in retrospect, it was super weird to remember in crystal clear detail months later. And then I just dropped this Word doc into her email with zero preface or warning, shut down my computer, and went to bed looking forward to the consummation of my dream relationship at 6AM the next morning when we got on the buses.
Except, of course, uh, I actually had terrified this poor girl with my ludicrous obsessive behavior. She very politely emailed back that she was flattered but didn’t see me like that and then she was very careful to orchestrate things with her friends to make sure we wound up on different buses. Throughout the entire conference, every time we’d almost run into each other, her friends would circle up and provide a buffer zone/distraction. I finally managed to catch up with her at the dance, still sure I could salvage things if she’d just grant me the honor of a slow dance, which I asked for in a stumbling, half-teary-eyed slur of emotions.
She said no, oh, she’s quite tired and not up for dancing right now, then turned around, crossed half the big ballroom, and started dancing with an actually charming not-serial-killer-creepy guy she knew while I spent the rest of the night trying not to cry and walking around the dance floor picking up pieces of loose change people without pockets had dropped with the other too-nerdy-and-weird-to-dance-with dudes.
Best part of all of this is that weeks later when I’d finally come down from the resulting shametrain, I mentioned the crush I had one one of my longtime romance advice phone call partners throughout that whole escapade, who told me with a great deal of fury that she’d liked me that entire time but I was too busy obsessing over some dumb stuckup preppy girl who’d never realize how cool and dateable I was in a million years while she’d been there all along, patiently waiting to be noticed, and there was now no way in fuck (she may have used a gentler term; we were babies after all) she was interested in being my fucking backup plan.
Middle school was fun :)
Oh man, I could probably tell a dozen stories about times I futilely chased after some dream girl who didn’t know I existed and totally overlooked girls who actually had any interest whatsoever. Just to pick one at random, I recall being at a record store as a teenager, and one young woman who worked there came up to me and told me my hair was cool. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, ‘Wait a minute, my hair isn’t cool. She’s obviously crazy.’ I thanked her and left. I still punch myself a little bit remembering that one.
Lol that reminds me of another nervous misspeak.
I waited tables at an Italian restaurant for a few months and there was a super cute, short-haired latina that did dishes and didn’t speak English. I’ve been trying to learn Spanish my entire life and this was one of my earliest attempts to use it.
I knew the word for hair was ‘pelo’ and I thought I’d keep it simple to open up, so I said, “me gusta tu peligro.”
I received another unique look for the collection and shake of the head.
Peligro means danger.
I’ve never broken a bone either.
I’ve been aboard an Aircraft Carrier, but not as sea as well.
I too have never met an FBI agent.
I have met a foreign ambassador.
Me thinks someone is copying my life :)
16 or so and I had a friend with the initials JJ, so over time we started calling him Jujubee, among other harmless alliterations. I was trying to get his attention at Aladdin’s Castle, pretty noisy, so I hollered, “Hey, Ju-boy!” Many a facepalm followed.
This last summer I drove down to Ensenada (Mexican beach town about an hour south of the border) with some friends to attend a mezcal festival at one of the wineries in Valle de Guadelupe. We stayed at an Airbnb near downtown Ensenada; it was very nice condo clustered with a bunch of others in a gated complex on the slope above the bar scene. We arrived in town at like 10pm and checked into the Airbnb. I have rudimentary Spanish, and spoke it better than anyone else in the group so I followed our host around as he explained everything in Spanish, including the alarm system. He was careful to make sure I knew the code to disarm the alarm: “veinte trece”, repeating it several times. “Si, si, si. Comprendo. No problema,” I said.
We left the Airbnb and walked down the hill to the bars and enjoyed a few hours of carousing in the very raucous nightlife of downtown Ensenada on the weekend. We stumbled back to the Airbnb at about 1:30am and got ready to turn in. The alarm kept beeping every few seconds for some reason, so I made an attempt to make it stop. I pushed a likely button and nothing happened. I pushed another button and it asked me to enter the code, which I did: “20-30”. And the alarm went off. It was very very loud. And we couldn’t get it to stop. We finally, after several calls were able to get the host on the phone and he showed up after about 45 minutes disheveled and sleepy. The alarm was still going off. I’m sure you could hear it 60 miles away in San Diego. I think my ears are still ringing months later. He stormed over to the alarm unit and punched the buttons for the disarm code emphasizing angrily “¡VEINTE! ¡TRECE!”… 20-13. So, maybe my Spanish isn’t so great after all.
I was a hopelessly clueless introvert and the number of missed signals I received from girls I very much wanted to be dating is… well I need more than one hand to count it. I wish I could say I got better after middle school, but I have definitely fucked up many obvious chances as an adult too :P
Great story as always @ArmandoPenblade :)
Fair mistake, the low teens are deceptive and five hundred is a pain in the ass, especially since many Spanish countries say things in the local version of cents, so 1500 is a popular price. Mil quienientos is damned hard to hear.
See? I had to edit just to remember it and it’s still probably wrong.