If I had my hands over my eyes as much as I want to put them there I would walk into a lot of things.
April 13th, 2010 | by TJ |Internet, I don’t know if you can tell this about me, but I’m not super easy to embarrass. I mean, I’m not un-embarrassable, but I think, if there was an Embarrassable Scale or some kind of universal, standardized measurement system that was used to determine how easy someone is to embarrass, I would probably be down near the harder to embarrass end of the scale. Part of this is due to the fact that I have embarrassed myself in so many different ways before that each day of my life, it became a little bit harder for you, the individual embarrasser, to turn me into an embarrassee. Should you want to be a TJ-embarrasser, you are in direct competition with me, and you must top whatever ridiculous thing I have done to shame myself.
The other part of it is that over the years, my sense of shame has slowly worn away. I mean, you’re not going to catch me parading down the street naked – BELIEVE me, I still have enough shame left to prevent that. But say a situation arises in which Phil decides that when he sees me heading for the bathroom, he is going to race in there first. Ok, actually what happens more often is that HE heads for the bathroom and I go running after him telling him that I need to go first because seeing him get up to go made me realize how badly I really have to go. Normally this ends in an all out race/wrestling match, but mostly he lets me go first. Sometimes, though, he gets it in his head that he is going to stand his ground and stay in the bathroom. No matter how many times this happens, he still somehow seems surprised when I’m perfectly happy to go on ahead and do what I need to do whether he wants to leave or not. Also useful for road trips when he won’t stop for a bathroom break or tickle fights. I tell him, “Do not even think I have enough shame not to pee right here on the seat of your car because I do NOT have that much shame.”
Anyway, my disgusting threats aside, there is one thing that will always get me to cringe, blush, throw myself on the floor in unbearable agony, fast forward the television, cover my face with my hands, or look around wildly for some kind of escape, and that is seeing OTHER PEOPLE be embarrassed or do something embarrassing.
For example, take the movie Borat – Bruno, too, for the matter. I’ve never seen either of them. I would probably shrivel up and die from the inside out, because all of my blood would be used for blushing my entire body so furiously red that I would look like nothing but a deflated tomato with eyeballs sitting in a skin-pile on the couch. Gross? Yes. But that is HOW DIFFICULT watching something like that would be for me. Setting out to deliberate embarrass or make uncomfortable people who have no idea what is going on? I just had a full body sympathy-twitch just thinking about it.
Or the show Jackass – I can only watch the clips where they’re hurting each other and/or hurling their bodies off of things. None of those ones where they pretend like they can’t zip up their own pants, or poop in the fake toilets or anything like that. I get so, so, so embarrassed for the people involved that I am having a hard time writing this because I keep stopping to nervously chew on my finger.
I don’t watch American Idol at all anymore (I still hold that I do not really want to be a part of a process and system of voters that will not have Elliot Yamin as its idol), but I used to try to watch the auditions before they, too, became intolerable. It’s not just the bad singers that get me – it’s the ones that then try so hard to argue with the judges who decided to not let them through. Oh, my stomach just tried to hide behind one of my lungs. Or? Or worse? The ones who, after being denied, keep trying to sing another song, even as the judges talk over them and try to stop them.
I just had to take a break and try to hide my entire head in the dog’s fur.
And it’s not just limited to television and movies. I have a hard time eating inside of any restaurant where you pick up your food at a counter and carry it on a tray to your table. Not because I’m afraid of dropping my food because, haaaa, that is definitely something I would do and have done, after which I immediately score myself on a 10 point scale (taking into account grace, close-callness, broken dishes, clothing involvement and bystander casualties) while triumphantly waving my arms in the air because WHAT CAN YOU EVEN DO, RIGHT? But what if someone ELSE drops THEIR tray? And they don’t have a scoring system or triumphant arm wave? And I see it happen? Auuughhh, I am hanging upside down over the arm of the couch because that is the only way to handle this.
Or? Or? You know how younger teenagers tend to travel in self-impressed packs? I think the technical term for a bunch of young teenagers in a group is a Den of Dickheads. Anyway, you know how they’re all swelled up with self-importance and knowing everything there is to know in the whole world, which really is quite a powerful feeling, and they decide to make a stand about something? Only, their completely ill informed and don’t actually understand that? “You guys, let’s just sit here! The mall cops can’t MAKE us move! It’s a free country! Free speech! Other terms I have learned in civics class without paying attention to their actual application! Et cetera!” I feel embarrassment for the embarrassment they’re going to feel when they look back on their own behavior in the future.
I’m breaking out in hives right now thinking about a time I was at a place (vague, but I don’t actually remember the place?) and I was talking to an employee and I think I asked how old the employee figured a group of teenagers in the place was – there was maybe 12 or so of them. OH IT WAS A ROLLER RINK (seriously), because then two or three of them – girls – skated up to me – all of 13 years old, maybe – and said, “So, we heard you were talking about us.” And they crossed their arms, like on a mid-90s after school bullying special, and ACTUALLY TRIED TO MENACE ME. And I just stared at them because I couldn’t say any words because I was so embarrassed FOR THEM that my tongue glued itself to the top of my mouth. BECAUSE ARE YOU SERIOUS?
I could go on, but I shouldn’t, because my kidneys are already sticking out of my ears and it’s hard to type this from underneath the coffee table. Where do you fall on the now-official-since-I-just-made-it-up Standardized Embarrassment Scale, in terms of your own embarrassability?
More importantly, does anyone else suffer from sympathy embarrassment or am I alone in my hair-crimping, full body convulsions in the event of witnessed embarrassment?
Edited to add: Megan reminded me in the comments of this AWESOME post by Miss Zoot on the same subject, except SHE is so organized that she actually has an embarrassment pillow. I will take twelve of those.
By Tchann on Apr 13, 2010
Time after time in my youth I’d be watching sitcoms like Full House, or Family Matters, and I could see the massive embarrassment coming up. And I’d wince and cover my eyes and not watch, or even walk out of the room – I just couldn’t stand to witness the embarrassment.
Hell, last night my husband was rereading a storyline from a webcomic, and I was reading over his shoulder, and I had to walk away because I remembered the storyline and how humiliated the characters are at the end, and I couldn’t bear to read it again. x.x
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Jeremy Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I am, to this day, the exact same way. I don’t know why dramatized TV embarrassment makes me so uncomfortable. All I know, is that it makes me cringe and nauseous.
Darn you, Kimmy Gibbler, darn you…
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By Tami on Apr 13, 2010
QFT.
Pretttty much the whole thing, minus the part where I’m immune to embarrassment.
Still, I can’t watch embarassment comedies. The Office? Hilarious, I’m sure. By the end of the first season (original british version) I’d basically resorted to watching the show from behind the couch, to try and dodge some of the embarassment bullets.
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TJ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 11:10 am
OH MAN, how did I leave out The Office?
I wouldn’t watch it for YEARS and didn’t get why everyone was so into it because sometimes it is SO PAINFUL.
Even now that I do watch it, I still have my finger on the channel button just in case I need to make a quick escape.
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Jesse Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Anything with Steve Carrell is out of the picture for me. Awkward ‘humor’ is just not funny to me.
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Adlib Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I had that same issue with the office, but then I got over it and discovered it was much more fun just to let myself laugh at it. I don’t know how I overcame it, but I did.
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By DD on Apr 13, 2010
For my own embarrassability, I would say I’m probably pretty easy. I think?
But, I totally agree on the witnessed embarrassment thing. I won’t watch the beginning of American Idol because I have the same feelings of doom you do. My hubby will watch, and I can hear it from another room, but actually watching it is just horrific. But, I’ve also noticed that I have a lot of “sympathy reactions” watching others do things. Like ski jumping at the Olympics? I noticed that I tighten up while they are going down the ramp and then do a little, imperceptable stretch when they reach the end of the ramp. Same thing with people on a trampoline. It’s like I’m doing whatever activity along with them. Why the heck do I do that?!
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Adlib Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
I did something similar when I was younger. When playing Nintendo I’d jump around or twitch while making Mario jump. It was kind of like a reflex, I guess!
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By Anna on Apr 13, 2010
Yep – same. Though I’m definitely not immune to embarrassment (not even a little bit). I don’t watch most sitcoms because they seem to rely entirely on embarrassing everyone and then laughing at them.
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By megan on Apr 13, 2010
Totally right there with you, TJ. Another of my fave bloggers (www.misszoot.com) has the same problem, so she uses an “embarrassment pillow”. YOU WOULD SO UNDERSTAND.
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TJ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 11:17 am
YES! I knew I had read about the embarrassment pillow somewhere! I remember reading her post and just nodding so hard my head almost came off my neck!
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By Capn John on Apr 13, 2010
That is EXACTLY why I had so much trouble watching “Meet the Parents”.
But it’s funny!
No, no it’s not. It’s humiliating and embarrassing. Gaylord Fokker did nothing to deserve the ridicule and abuse heaped upon him. He was a nice guy just trying to impress his future In-Laws and failing miserably, and every time he stood up for himself he got shot down. Mean-spirited humor directed against people not deserving of it is not funny, it’s just mean.
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TJ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Oh yeah, that one was just as awful. A LOT of Ben Stiller movies seem to be that way. That’s a perfect example, VERY hard to watch.
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Alex Reply:
April 14th, 2010 at 10:33 am
YES, Capn John. You took the words out of my mouth. Meet the Parents is NOT FUNNY and TOTALLY PAINFUL. I can’t even think about it without getting anxious. *shudders*
I loved “I Love You Man” but there are parts in it where I actually just buried my face in my hands and waited for the awkwardness to subside. Why do they try to ruin good movies with this stuff?
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By Rachelle on Apr 13, 2010
Thank goodness it’s not just me.
I’ve got NO shame – I’m that crazy fat girl who thinks she can totally sing, but empties a Karaoke bar with the first verse of Killing Me Softly.
But watching people on TV embarrass themselves in earnest makes me want to sink into the earth. Pretty much any time a guy sings a song he’s written for his girlfriend, I have to change the channel, whether it’s reality TV or a scripted sit-com. Gah. Even THINKING about it makes me give a big convulsive twitch.
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TJ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Oh man. “I’m going to sing an original song” is pretty much the universal signal for TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF.
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By Jade on Apr 13, 2010
I’m easily embarrassed, and I’m VERY empathetic to feelings in general. Witnessing someone else’s embarrassing moment is, well, excruciating for me. My husband laughs at me, but I can’t help it. I ALWAYS cover my eyes, cringe, blush, etc. when a potentially embarrassing moment happens (or, every scene in Twilight where Kristin Stewart’s acting is embarrassing). It’s horrible!!! I once saw a girl slip and fall on the ice, and I felt SO BAD and embarrassed for her!! (I did help her up, btw.)
Can I curl up with my blankie now?
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Jade Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Oh, and I’m so easily embarrassed, if I’m reading a romance novel on my Kindle, and I come to a steamy scene, I STILL BLUSH even though no one could possibly know what I was reading!!!
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By Diane on Apr 13, 2010
Nodding along furiously over here. I don’t embarrass easily, but I can’t STAND to see other people embarrassed. I can’t watch America’s Funniest Home Videos or anything like that, because I feel so HORRIBLE for those people. Even if they sent in the videos of their own free will, it’s still SQUIRM-INDUCING.
I also hate anything that pokes fun at the things kids say. I remember being a kid! I hated when grown-ups pulled that crap! So stuff like Kids Say the Darnedest Things makes me crazy in my head. They are not fully developed people! Do not ask them grown up questions and then laugh at their responses! It is not adorable or endearing or sweet. IT IS JUST MEAN.
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By June on Apr 13, 2010
This is basically why I can’t watch “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Yes, it’s funny, but I have to watch it from another room. Or get up and leave suddenly.
I realize this started at an early age. I can still remember watching The Brady Bunch (in reruns!) being 8 or 9 and the full body cringe in response to Marcia Brady (the early years!) looking in the mirror and saying “I’m a mature woman.”
Just…no.
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By Chaninn on Apr 13, 2010
I too have this response, perhaps not as strongly though. It depends on if the person doing/saying whatever is embarassed. If they are, then I am, but if they’re oblivious, then sometimes it’s ok to laugh.
My husband helped relax my embarassment response. He likes those shows and watches whether I want to or not (I usually leave the room).
More than embarassment, I have a crying response. I cry at the drop of a hat. I’ve cried at commercials, tv shows, movies, songs on the radio, even talk radio if they are discussing something sentimental. The absolute worst is if a guy gets choked up, then the floodgates open.
Something about guys getting sniffly just hits all my crying buttons.
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DD Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
OMG! If I see or even hear the sniffle of someone else crying, it’s over. Or one little sentimental scene in a movie or TV show will get me started too. And I’m not a pretty crier. My nose gets bright red, eyes get all puffy, face gets splotchy and stays like this for hours.
The funny thing is I get this from my Dad (mom is like a stone wall).
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Adlib Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Count me in with the crying! I cry at commercials all the time, even if they’re not sad! I’ll cry if a commercial is even just cute or something equally as ridiculous. I cried like a baby after the first 5 minutes of Up. I had to get up and cry into a towel until I was finished. I’m so glad there are others out there like me!
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DDStL Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
The beginning of Up was just the worst. My dad died in 2002, and I was watching with my mom & sisters (who inherited the same blubbering gene). Mom & our husbands were sitting there all fine, but us girls were sobbing – the big, catch-your-breath sobs.
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Adlib Reply:
April 14th, 2010 at 5:43 am
Sorry to hear that…that would be extra tough to watch then. /hug
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By Awlbiste on Apr 13, 2010
Nope nope nope. Nope. Cannot watch painful or embarrassing shows. I will try, and then just, if there is an awkward part, pause it. Then go do something else. BECAUSE I CANNOT. I tried watching Bruno with Josh and just turned it off. COULD NOT.
However, embarrassing me? Maybe I will feel dumb for a few seconds but that’s about it.
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By Delicia on Apr 13, 2010
I’m usually pretty shameless, and I think popping out 3 kids makes me pretty bullet proof as far as any kind of body-embarrassment (like going to the doc etc).
But OMG YES I get SOOO embarrassed for OTHER people. Either because they are so completely oblivious to the situation and don’t realize THEY should be embarassed, or like you said, they are being embarassed or humiliated. UGH. It makes me squirm.
*sigh* so many stories I could tell about scenarios I’ve interpreted at work, if I wasn’t bound by strict confidentiality. Enough to say that imagine almost EVERY DAY having to convey an embarrassing situation and be involved in it by the very act of interpreting it, and you just want to go, “HEY! I’m an interpreter I’m just relaying the information this is NOT ME BEING SO HORRIFICALLY EMBARRASSING” but you’re still embarassed to even had to be interpreting it. Ugh.
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TJ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Hahaha oh man, that is so awful, to be forced into the center of embarrassing situations.
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By Alii on Apr 13, 2010
I hide behind the couch. I know I’m a total dork for doing so, but if I’m watching something on TV and there’s an Embarrassing Situation(tm). I don’t think it’s sympathy embarrassment for me… but I just can’t stand it. I would rather these people be less naive or ignorant and I can’t STAND that someone hasn’t told them.
Lack of communication makes me hide behind the couch, apparently?
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TJ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
“I CAN’T STAND IT” is a good, overall way to sum the whole thing up.
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By Jen_Ann_W on Apr 13, 2010
Another “Me too” added to the list. I *hate* watching people make a fool of themselves. I don’t mind so much making a fool of myself, but I also really don’t like when other people do it to me (like Brian acting like a spaz at the grocery store or something, as opposed to ME acting like a spaz).
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By Mandapanda78 on Apr 13, 2010
TJ, I think maybe you should get a community service award. Who knew there were so many people out there with Sympathy Embarrassment Syndrome? Now I know that I do not have to suffer alone, and it makes me feel better! Has anyone mentioned the interviews on the Daily Show yet? The ones where they interview real people with real issues
(or God forbid, actual public figures like congressmen) and they kind of make fun of them the whole time while the person is making that face like “No wait, I’m serious. Are you laughing at me? Why are you laughing at me??”
I need to go cry now.
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By Kero on Apr 13, 2010
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had no idea how to describe what I was feeling to JJ every time I had a case of I-am-so-fucking-embarrassed-for-you-I-want-to-puke without him looking at me like I was more than half insane.
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By Gel on Apr 13, 2010
Yes! I have this all the time! Any sitcom/movie where the ‘funny’ parts are about laughing at the embarrassment of other people just makes my skin crawl. just like my skin is trying to run away without the rest of me. Now I can be all ‘No I don’t watch ‘insert TV show here’ I suffer from sympathy embarrassment’
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By ysabelkid on Apr 14, 2010
Oh, I am SO GLAD I am not alone! I’m easily embarrassed as it is, but watching others embarrass themselves AND NOT EVEN REALISE IT is so, so much worse. Count me in with those who can’t watch Idols et al; I can’t even watch reality shows because there exists the slight possibility that someone might make a fool of themselves and I would have to witness it!
It’s not just TV and movies, though; I even get squirm in anticipation of embarrassment at weddings, showers, birthdays … anywhere where someone is expected to make a speech. I can’t listen to talk radio – ANY radio – because someone might say something stupid!
I have a nervous twitch (and possible Tourette’s) that either has me jerking spasmodically, letting out little moans of sympathetic embarrassment or flat-out swearing or humming to drown out the sounds of cringe-inducing horror. Yes, that embarrasses ME, but it’s better than watching someone else be humiliated! Show me a chainsaw murderer in action, but don’t make me watch him try to sing karaoke.
Augh! I have pins-and-needles on the inside of my skin, now!
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By JEC on Apr 14, 2010
Someone above mentioned Meet the Parents, which is my go-to example for the type of movie I can’t watch. I get a physical, often painful, reaction from a movie like that. But I’m able to watch some stuff, like Borat or the Office, and I’m not sure why it’s different. Perhaps it depends on the level of empathy I have for the person being embarrassed, although that doesn’t seem like it totally explains it.
I also hate shows like Punked where people play practical jokes on someone, but those tend to just make me angry rather than pained. It’s not right to try and embarrass someone then essentially force them to act like it was funny because you have a camera on them.
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By Ebby on Apr 14, 2010
I haven’t had the time to read your blog as often as I’d like, so I realize I’m late to the party but….oh yes, I get it. I can’t go to movies or watch shows listed as ‘comedies’ because the very idea of the stupidity that will be contained within makes me want to curl into a ball of mortification. It isn’t even that I’m embarrassed because of their embarrassment, I get embarrassed because they SHOULD BE and I get angry when they’re NOT. It’s the same with public stupidity, why aren’t these people embarrassed when they make asses of themselves?
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By Swistle on Apr 14, 2010
Oh, I am the same, THE SAME. I DIE. When someone makes a mistake I sometimes CAN’T CORRECT THEM because I am too SEEPED IN EMPATHY.
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By Swistle on Apr 14, 2010
STEEPED. STEEPED in empathy. Like tea leaves, not like leaky pipes.
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