100 Social Situations You've Screwed Up In

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45. Most notable and humorous of mine....Discussing, at length, human sexuality with a nun at a Christmas party (she was wearing "civilian clothes" so I had no clue she was a nun...probably would have been inappropriate with anyone).

Not often but I worry about it a lot. I'll elaborate about some of my biggest mistakes I HAVE made when I return from work. I gotta head out.

51. I have allergies, so my nose is always stuffed up. It took me a really long time to understand that blowing your nose on your shirt and that picking your nose in public really alienated people.

52. In high school I used to play with the hair on one spot on my head. I also chewed my knuckles until they were raw. It took a long time for me to accept that those habits really bothered people.

53. At a residential week at breakfast talking about people snoring in the dorms overnight. I told the woman opposite that she had a very nice gentle snore compared to most and it was actually quite rhythmical and soothing. Apparently while it is OK to discuss snoring that keeps you awake, you must never actually mention snoring that sends you to sleep. Or identify any individual snorer in front of a group who are discussing the topic. Who knew?

There are more, obviously, but that'll do for now....

54. I was collected once from the train station by somebody I didn't know very well. I got into his car and, perhaps because I was a bit nervous, shut the door harder than was strictly necessary.

At this, I recall that he said: 'Shut the door a bit harder, why don't you?' And of course, this is what I duly did.

The worst thing was that I then had to sit next to him for the next fifteen minutes...

55 patiently explaining to a cousin when she asked if "I missed my mother when she died" I replied "No, she was the only corpse in the room"

56) Just recently:

Me - "Do you know if Command and Conquer works on Windows 7 64 bit?"
Cousin - "I don't know, I use 32 bit XP"
Me - "Yeah, so do I"
Cousin - "well duh... lol"
Other Cousin - "lol... that was really stupid"
Me - Why did I say that?

Today in the doctor's office.

Nurse: Do you breastfeed
Me: Yes
Nurse: How often are you breastfeeding him?
Me: Everyday
Nurse: No I mean how many hours. Every three?

57) I was walking around the school in Tye-Dye for some cause. A few students walked up to me and said, "You know what tye-dye is associated with, right?" I said, "Well, it's for 'blah blah blah' cause!" They subsequently told me I was a ugly **** and laughed while walking away.

58) I had somebody ask me, "Who's your daddy?" I answered, "[Father's name], why?" That group of kids laughed at me, saying, "WTF? Crazy b****," and walked away. I had no clue at the time it was a gangsta term.

59) At a birthday party, the birthday girl asked me to do a special dance for her. I decided to go crazy and do some random dancing. The video got 10k hits on Youtube (didn't know it was being filmed, obviously) and was sent to every person in school. Four years later, this video was used to coerce me into a suicide attempt, which I also reacted to wrongly ... I said, "Really? That only happens on TV," when I started getting threats over facebook. They were pissed and said, "I'll blow your f****** head off if you don't kill yourself by [such and such date]!" and a bunch of other crap. I dumped the facebook and haven't heard from any of them since. That video was evil ... well, at least it's not on Youtube anymore. Thank god.

And those are just the biggest social screw ups stemming from junior high.

Me, getting fitted for contact lenses. I'm not sure if this counts, but I felt embarrassed when it happened. My eye doctor's reaction suggests I said something unusual.

Dr: Did you ever get an eyelash in your eye?
Me. No
Dr. (Long pause, blank expression) I was just explaining how the contact lens was going to feel

A week ago: I was talking to our head of computing. We were wondering why a certain individual was promoting his student helper, since she was not particularly qualified. Our head of computing said, "He is promoting his mistress." I started to explain that I did not think that she was his mistress. Fortunately, I was interrupted before I said anything. Afterward, I realized that it was sarcasm. Duh.

I told my sister she looked like she was going to a funeral while she was wearing her favorite outfit she received for Christmas (it was all black.) I didn't mean it as intended; in fact, I immediately regretted saying it.

When I was six my best friend's grandfather died. Instead of saying I was sorry or something similar, my immediate response was to ask whether he had left her anything in his will. She started crying, but I didn't understand why this seemed insensitive. I got in trouble.

Once when I was a kid I was in the grocery store with my mom and I started making weird clacking noises inside my mouth. She told me to stop it. I was shocked that anyone else could hear me.

When I was in third or fourth grade I was a Brownie. We were getting ready to go on a fall camping trip and the leader told us about how it's important to wear layers because it gets cold at night. I piped up with how the nomads in Mongolia dress in layers because they don't have central heating in their yurts. At the time Central Asia was one of my special interests, and I was young enough to be totally clueless that other people don't necessarily find the same things fascinating that I do. She told me to be quiet, and later pulled me aside and said "You know, the other girls would like you better if you tried to be more normal." I would still like to punch this woman in the face.

Multiple times every day I interrupt people because I can't tell when they're finished talking. (How the hell do NTs do that, anyway???)

At least once or twice a week I respond to someone as if they were talking to me when they are actually talking to someone else.

I like babies but am sort of curious about them as if they were an alien life form. A couple of days ago I asked my coworker whether his baby daughter had a fully formed skull yet. His wife answered that she won't for another few months. At home I asked my (NT) girlfriend whether this was an inappropriate question. She said "It wasn't rude, but definitely pretty weird".

60) I remember when I was in 4th grade, I thought I'd make a joke about my teacher's belly and make him laugh so I told him "You're pregnant" and he doesn't say a word so I say it again and he goes "what?" and I say it again and he just goes "Beth, that was rude." I was a little embarrassed because he didn't laugh and told me off instead. I never made that joke ever again.

61) I remember when I was six I had learned to say in class "I am sorry but I can't talk to you because I am working" when doing your school work. One day I was doing my school work and the aid in class calls everyone to her table and I told her "I am sorry I can't talk to you because I am working" and she goes "excuse me, what did you say?" and I said it again. She then told me you are not to say that to your teachers and I am to get to the table now. I learned that didn't apply to teachers and it only applied to other kids.

62. Once, in a particularly bad mood during one Friday's lunch break back in high school, I called a group of my brother's friends junkies and whores, half under my breath, because of how much I disliked the polar "drugs and sex" high school partying mindset. They heard me. I didn't really mean it, but it sounded enough like I meant it that I instantly felt terrible when several of them stopped and glared at me. I immediately left, wanting to crawl in a hole and die.

63. That same year of high school, I was in a bad mood again, and posted an angry rant blog post that included mention of a friend of mine and things I didn't really approve of him doing or respect him for. He came across it, and it heavily damaged our friendship. I apologized for it and explained why I wrote what I did (depression and social alienation, among other things), and we're still sort-of friends, but not to anywhere near the level we were before I published that post.

Lesson learned: Keep your negative opinions of people to yourself, no matter how strong they are. You'll only end up regretting it if you let them out.