Why do embarrassing things always happen to me?

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Eacn time I go into a shop and pay for something, or order a meal at a restaurant, something unexpected always happens to me. These things may seem very small, but I still rather they didn't happen to me. I like to slip in and out of public places as discreetly as I can (if that's the right word?) without anything happening that may make me appear stupid.

For example, when I buy something and queue up to pay, something always happens to embarrass me or show me up or make someone think I'm daft. Like after I pay (I have to use pound notes so I can get change for the bus), I am suddenly all fingers and thumbs when trying to shove all my money into my purse whilst holding my bag of items. I wish they wouldn't give such massive receipts aswell, sometimes you pay for 1 or 2 items and the receipts still as long as your arm, and so you're trying to figure out where to put the receipt whilst trying to shove your change into your purse and having to move along as you do so, otherwise you get impatient customers behind you wanting you to move. I would just throw my change into the bottom of my handbag but then I have to tip everything out to get to it, and I like it to be all in my purse.

Or it that doesn't happen, something else embarrassing happens instead, like I drop all my money and it goes rolling all over the shop, or the cashier asks me something and I don't hear what the hell she said but too afraid to say ''pardon?'' because they might snap the second time (I've found people are like that these days). Too bad self-serving tills don't come in every shop. Well, last time I used a self-serving till was at the airport, and these ones were different to the ones I've used in supermarkets, and I could not find the slot where you put your money in. I was hunting all over for it, and it took twice as long because of my object-blindness, and then I had to get an assistant to tell me where the slot was and it was in an obvious place, right in front of me. God, did I feel stupid? Especially realising there was a big queue of people behind me all giving me funny looks and made me feel like I was the daftest person on the planet.

I really don't do good when I'm doing small tasks in public. I know these little things happen to everybody at times, but with me it happens every time I go into a shop. Now I feel I've got to ask other people to do it for me, which makes me sound so childish because I just get odd looks and they say, ''can't you do it yourself?'' or, ''don't you feel embarrassed always getting me to do everything for you and you just standing next to me waiting?'' or, ''it's not that hard to work this machine/to hand items to a person over a check-out and give them your money!'' No, it's not hard, but it never goes right for me, and I can't help it if I'm sensitive to embarrassment.

How do you deal with this if it happens to you?

How I dealt with it when it used to happen was I would just accept the embarrassment and over time I felt less embarrassed and stopped making small mistakes like the ones you mentioned. Ask again, drop your change, embrace it make light humour of it.

That kind of stuff happens to everybody sweetie. You notice yours more because it happens to you.

I dont have much advice to give you except to try to force yourself to just go on with your head held high and not show worry.

Down here where I live, there is a way over distracting people from stuff like that. After I do something clumsy, awkward, or downright stupid, I just look up, give a big grin, hold my fist up and say "ROLL TIDE!" That completely distracts people here. I get a lot of "ROLL TIDE!"s back so they aren't thinking about anything else by then.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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"ROLL TIDE"

The thing to try to remember is that those people don't know who you are, and probably will never see you again. By the time they get home, they have forgotten all about it, even if the incident(s) are still burning in your mind.

I always bump into things when I'm trying to be discreet, I hate it. If I'm feeling confident, then something will happen, and mess it up. Unfortunately, I have no advice as to how to prevent the embarrassing moments, only to remember you are the only one who remembers really.

I yelled "I love you" at a cop friend the other day when I stopped and got him a Mtn Dew cause they had him posted out on the mediun in the 100 and hell degree heat because the power was out. I say "I love you" to my best friend when we hand up or leave each other. We both do it. It's habit. She had just left. It still bothers me, but as far as I'm concerned he can just think it's a quirk of mine.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

You have performance anxiety the more you focus on it the more you will freeze up. Take your time, focus on breathing through the task at hand - most Important when we are stressed holding your breath makes it exponentially worse. Focus on what you did well and put more weight on the times it goes well. Don't spend time analyzing the small mistakes let them go and they will have less hold over you. It will get better if you follow the instructions above.

A lot of the time, the people around you in public places are going to be so wrapped up in whatever is going on in their own heads, they will notice any 'mistake' you make a lot less than you think.

Also, I agree with OliveOilMom (re: embarrassing stuff happens to everybody). If it would make you feel better to know you're not alone, just start a "What was your most embarrassing moment?" thread here on WP and I bet people will share some crazy stories ...

Also remember even if you are having a bad string of things going wrong, people only are aware of the ones they notice and not the others you know of. Regardless of what happens to you, people have probably seen worse/more embarrassing.

Yer but because I have this brightly-coloured aura that attracts the human eye on to me, I always have at least 2 people looking and noticing me every second (especially in busy environments) so somebody's always going to be noticing me doing something, and then they might tell someone they're with, and then they'll look up at me and then other people will notice that this little group of people are staring so they decide to join and wonder what's going on, and I find myself scuttling away quick. Same goes for if I slip on ice, not right over, but just if my foot slips a bit, I still think that everybody in sight saw and is now all looking at me after the situation, as though when you slip on a patch of ice you deserve negative judgements (which is why I hate it when it snows and leaves ice laying all over the paths what you can't always avoid).

Back to the aura, I figured I do have very ''bright'' aura (as wrote in my signature), because people's eyes are drawn to me and I can tell they don't know why they're staring. And it's not the way I walk, the way I dress or the way I act because I know about conforming, and I can sense if I am doing something that's unusual by ''feeling'' that there isn't something right, so I know how to appear NT (I've learnt to adapt to the NT world and can easily pass off as NT, even my family says that and I can trust them). But anyway, enough with all this precise proof that I don't deserve to be watched or judged - the main point is, now that I know I'm not doing anything to attract negative attention, I've come to the conclusion that I have this aura that just draws signifficant attention on to me. When I'm sitting on a bus (doesn't matter where), I don't gawp out of the window but I always manage to catch pedestrians walking in the street peering in at me. I know it's just aimed at me personally because even if I sit at the back where nobody can see me, I discreetly see people in the street go by and they look ahead until the back of the bus gets to them and they look in right at me (even though people in front are literally gawping out whereas I'm not), so it must be an aura that attracts their eye, whatever I may be doing. This aura very quickly fades away once people get to know me. Then I start getting ignored in bigger social situations, so the aura must go very quickly.

So, having a brightly-coloured aura makes me unhappy. Many people say I'm lucky I'm always spotted, but I don't think so. I prefer to not be noticed. It makes life in public easier, and only goes to my advantage in rare situations.

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I just wanted to say you have the coolest name, monstermunch om nom.

You think that's bad? Try being nude as a young kid in primary school due to misunderstanding... now I'm really frightened to be naked at all.
Note: I was in primary school when that happened.
Edit: Is that really going to be beaten in terms of embarrassment?

My CBT counselor would tell you to drop your money, bump into things and ask questions with obvious answer intentionally. The idea is you experience the discomfort, then it gradually subsides and you realize it won't kill you. Once you are not afraid of the fear, the number of accidents you have will decrease and when you do drop your bus fare it won't make you feel so bad.

He is famous for saying "I want you to go out into the world, take chances, make mistakes and suffer. When you realize nothing bad will happen, you won't be nervous anymore."

Of course, ,y counselor might just be a sadistic jerk too. The thought has crossed my mind.

Sweet Pea hugs