Handling Cringe Moments
We have all experienced moments that kept us up all night. Replaying the words we spoke or the actions we did that left our faces feeling hot with embarrassment.
The Cringe
It has been about 12 years now and this memory still haunts me. I was maybe 13 years old and new to high-school. I was an awkward girl (still awkward) and there was this boy in my year that I was crushing on. I’ll call him ‘J’.
Valentine’s Day was approaching and my clueless self realised that people send ‘proposals’ to the people they like via notes on a piece of paper. I was friends with one of the boys in my class and he asked me who I liked. I answered, “J. I like J.”
“Why don’t you ask him out then?”, he replied.
I was excited but terrified at the same time as I drafted my very short note and had my friend review it. When he approved, I wrote it out better and neater.
When the time came, I passed the note to J who was seated a few rows ahead of me. I kept looking up anxiously to see if he’d read it and what reaction he’d give. He opened my note which had the words, “I think I like you…”. Looking back, I don’t know why I thought my note would move the mountains of love.
Anyway, my heart rate increased as he looked up at me, looked back down to respond and then passed the note back.
With my friend by my side, I slowly opened the paper and below my ‘proposal’, his response was an even shorter, “no”. The devastation I felt must have been immense because my friend began giving me words of comfort and I could only nod my head as he spoke. Worse than the sadness, was the humiliation!
I immediately thought about how I would have to cross paths with J for the rest of that year and 2 more years to come! I wanted to die on the spot, to disappear from the school forever. It didn’t bring me any comfort knowing that it was a boarding school, far away from the feeling of a safe space like home.
Again, it has been about 12 years since this happened and I still think about it. The cringe factor has obviously reduced significantly but I greatly empathise with my past self.
Since then, I have done and said things, much bigger and worse than this, that still haunt me — argh! But I have realised ways in which to deal with such moments better than I used to and in the process, I have learned about myself and grown.
The Handling
As great as it would be to never face another embarrassing moment, I think that they are inevitable. Part of our journey through life will involve making figurative pit stops in ‘embarrassment stations’.
I must acknowledge that there are some people who have the skill of not feeling ashamed and so the cringeworthy moments may not faze them one bit. For those of us who question very small details of our past interactions, allow me to show you ways in which I started handling my cringe moments.
- Facing It
I once decided that I’ll have to start facing the scary parts of life and myself and this also applied to the times I felt like I’d embarrassed myself. Knowing that I can’t hide away from the fact doesn’t always make it better, but it gives me the feeling that I have some power over this… thing.
Knowing I had to face my crush at school every single day, sit in the same classes as him, walk past him on the way to and from class was agonising. Knowing that it was either, face him or cry all day in the dorms, gave me a push in courage’s direction.
- Acceptance
Accepting the fact that it happened only makes it easier. It makes it easier to handle when your friends are still poking fun at your mishaps. I went through a short phase where I was in crisis of certain beliefs and in the process, I changed a huge part of myself.
As time passed, so did the phase and it used to be that whenever someone spoke about it, I’d feel like I’m being punched in the stomach. I would think to myself, “Ugh, I can’t believe you were like that!!”
But time passes, and eventually, I fully accepted this past as something I had to go through. I can now look back and see from a different perspective that I was indeed having a real crisis that many people have at that age.
- Faking it till I make it
Sometimes the cringe moments are just too much and the above points don’t help me. My last resort is to force myself to act like I’m unfazed. I never really understood the phrase “fake it till you make it” but in this context it has a 80% (random scale) success rate.
The remaining 20% will be the unfortunate moments when the thoughts slip into my mind during my daily shower thoughts, or when I’m finally ready to sleep. eeek!
The Moments
You’re probably the only one thinking about it…
All the three ways I’ve pointed out above may not always work. It greatly depends on how big the event was or is and it also depends on individual personalities and confidence levels. I think it helps to know that everyone is thinking and worrying about their own self-image. They probably have just done something embarrassing and their brains are hyper focused on that and not you.
It may help to remember that no matter how big the embarrassing moment was, people forget about it eventually. How many mortifying celebrity scandals have we witnessed that you probably haven’t thought about until now, when you’re reading this question? And you’re probably only thinking about it because of this indirect prompt to think about it.
I think if anyone actively goes out of their way to remind you of the thing that still makes you cringe, they have an issue with themselves.
I will leave you with something comforting that someone told me,
“Always remember The Bigger Picture. You are here, now, in this current point in time. Millions of people have lived before you, and millions more will live after you. Your time on this planet is extremely short if you just zoom out a bit. You are simply one point in time. The “cringe mistakes” you make don’t hold a light to the vast potential of brief existence that lays ahead of you. So why not choose to live for the future instead of scowling at the past?”
