Embarrassing moments are generally considered a negative concept due to the fact that feelings of guilt or shame usually follow close behind, so saying that embarrassing moments are actually a good thing may seem like an unpopular opinion. Of course, doing something to make yourself look like an idiot is never a great feeling in the moment, but from personal experience, embarrassment has led to nothing short of success, confidence building, acceptance, and great stories to share in the school newspaper.
The first category of embarrassment is clothing malfunctions. This year I’ve had a few, and they made me appreciate that I’ve been doing more squats to make my behind look more presentable as if I knew I was going to present it to all my peers. Pro gym tip number one is when you pull your sweatpants pants down after walking in from the tundra otherwise known as Minnesota winter, make sure you are not pulling your shorts down with them. The cardio section got a front row seat to a presentation of my buns, and I’m not talking about the bun in my hair.
Pro gym tip number two is to make sure your pieces of clothing, specifically gym shorts with built in underwear, are not inside out. It only took a solid five hours of walking around sporting my trendy look of undies on the outside for a Health Services nurse to stop me and whisper that it may be a good idea to change.
So why am I glad these things happened to me? Because it taught me to pay closer attention to detail, be more cautious, and put more quality time into the little things such as triple checking that my clothes are on correctly.
“I think having embarrassing moments is a good thing because kids these days won’t have the same character we do since they have makeup and clothing tutorials on YouTube that prevent them from messing up. I now look back and have learned that clogs and silver eyeshadow was not a good look,” Sophomore Paige VanDelinder said.
To anyone who saw what God gave me that day, I hope you enjoyed the show and my lacey undergarments.
The second category of embarrassment is food fiascos. This one can range from spilling your spaghetti all over your lap, dumping your drink all over your date during your romantic dinner at the caf, or tripping and sending your noodle bowl on a flight.
“Embarrassing moments are like exposure therapy for social anxiety. For Greeter training we had to do a whole days-worth of embarrassing things to the point where it didn’t matter anymore,” Sophomore David Warner said.
To set the scene, the year was 2017, and it was the last day of spring semester freshmen year. I was excited to have made it through a first successful year at college, so I thought I’d treat myself to my favorite special k bar in the caf. It was mandarin orange Friday and I gladly got myself a heaping bowl of the slippery little buggers to enjoy with my giant plate of rabbit food.
I set my oranges next to the peanut allergy dessert cabinet, totally forgetting that in order to retrieve my special k bar, I had to open the door in which my oranges were currently sitting in front of. I temporarily forgot about my oranges and opened the door, sending my mandarins off the counter and all over the floor. With every loud bounce of that plastic bowl, my face turned a darker shade of red. Those bowls and plates show no mercy, it’s like the goal is to announce that someone spilled their nuggets to the whole campus. I was left with a soggy sad puddle of mandarin oranges, a puddle in which the guy behind me did not see. He took one step and slipped, sending his whole tray of food (he too was a freshman, hence the tray) flying in the air. I was grateful for him, because now all attention was on the guy that dumped his alfredo, giving me an easy embarrassment free escape.
Since then, I have not participated in mandarin orange Friday. What did this experience teach me? It taught me to laugh at myself because there are much worse things than dropping a bowl of fruit in one of the most welcoming environments here on the hill, and to not get so excited over dessert that you have blinders to everything else in the world.
Lastly, the category of awkward moments. We all have had one whether it be slipping on ice in front of Uhler, doing something stupid in front of your crush, or trying to impress everyone in Lund by running on level 15 but tripping and shooting off the treadmill into the elliptical behind it (I don’t know who you are, but I’m sorry I went to the locker room so I could laugh at you in private instead of ask if you were ok).
“When you embrace awkward moments, I feel like you start to see them as something that happens to everyone. When you are open about them, other people will open up about their moments too,” Sophomore Anna-Olivia Machado said.
I can confidently say that my story is a first on campus. The custodian was making his daily rounds to change out the paper towels and change the trash like every other day, so when I saw him leave the bathroom, I thought he was done and on to the next one. I went in to take my morning shower, and as I was taking my towel off, I heard a voice say “custodian.”
Before I could answer, he started walking in so I quickly hopped in the shower and yanked the curtain closed. I thought I was in the clear, but the whole shower rod decided to fall off the wall, leaving me out in the open like the show Naked and Afraid. I was the naked, and he was the afraid. As I tried to cover myself and save my dignity, I have never seen someone run so fast out of the bathroom, usually it’s the other way around. It was a situation that took all but about ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
Awkward moments seem terrible in the moment, but in my opinion, they build tolerance to even more awkward moments in the future, and leave you with better ways to deal with them in the moment. This incident made when I locked myself out of my room after my shower in nothing but a towel seem so small, but in that moment it was humiliating. Flashing a stranger has helped me feel comfortable in my own skin–quite literally–but also in being able to laugh at myself when smaller acts of embarrassment occur such my hairdryer catching on fire while studying abroad, or when Campus Security knocked on my door at one in the morning to make sure I was ok, attracting everyone in my section to the scene, because I wasn’t responding to any calls or texts. Turns out I was sleeping, imagine that.