When people do things that are even just a little embarrassing in front of their crush, it always feels ten times worse than it is. We all have moments when we try a little too hard and our plans backfire. If you have ever been so infatuated by someone that your brain completely shuts down and you appear to glitch in real-time, then you will surely relate to some of these Reddit users’ most embarrassing experiences involving their crushes.
1. Crash & Burn
I crashed my motorcycle in front of my crush and her new boyfriend—but there was a bright side to it.
I got hurt and she left her boyfriend to come with me to the hospital. So, I won.
2. A Salty Somersault
I tried doing a somersault in front of my crush and all of her friends, forgetting that I had ripped my pants earlier in the day. I rolled over and my junk fell out of my pants. It took a minute to figure out why everyone was laughing.
3. Pushed To Her Limit
My crush and I were on a trip with a whole bunch of friends at this one guy's cabin. The sleeping arrangements were pretty cramped, so she and I ended up on the same air mattress. We both had our own sleeping bag. I woke up to her shoving me over, because I rolled over so far that she was laying on the ground.
Freepik,wayhomestudio
4. Misdirection Works
I was texting my best friend about the girl I was interested in, except that I accidentally sent the message to her instead! Thanks to my stupidity though, she is now my girlfriend.
5. Hanging By A Thread
I was at a friend’s house for a get-together. There was a very attractive person there who caught my attention. I was lightly leaning on a railing beside the above-ground pool. I was trying to do my best “I’m-just-a-chill-normal-dude-whose-definitely-not-super-nervous-in-front-of-this-very-attractive-person” pose. That’s when disaster struck.
Suddenly, the railing snapped and I fell backward hitting my head on the wooden part of the pool as I went down, according to others. The railing didn’t fully detach and my ankle got caught in the bars. I was hanging upside down, head and torso completely submerged. The pool was barely five feet deep, but I was completely stuck. The woman I was trying to impress jumped in, lifted me out, and got all the inhaled water out. Luckily it wasn’t a whole lot. She literally saved my life. I luckily only sustained a mild concussion and sprained ankle.
In exchange, I landed the date. She is now my beautiful, wonderful, strong fiancée—an amazing human being I get to call my love for the rest of my life.
6. The Cringe Is Real
I purposefully cracked double-meaning jokes in front of my crush, since he laughed a lot at them and enjoyed them. It got to a point where I was trying to make something dirty out of everything. I became annoying and unfunny. I was trying way too hard. He avoided me after that.
7. I Soiled Myself…In Her Pants!
I will start by saying that my crush and I have the same size waist. We were doing some dares at a friend’s house one evening and she and I ended up going to another room and swapping clothes. But there was something I didn’t know.
My friend had secretly slipped me a prank laxative, something called “the evacuator”. My stomach started making dark chants and I tried to excuse myself. I didn't even make it out of the room before my bottom blew like Mount St Helens. I had to go to the bathroom, and suffer from stomach cramps. I showered while my crush went and washed her pants!
I was just sitting there thinking I got food poisoning when the prankster came in to apologize. Apparently, he misread the dose. He gave me 15ml instead of 5ml. So, I spent the next two hours in the bathroom conducting a rectal exorcism.
Freepik, pressfoto
8. Biology Blunder
In 10th-grade biology class, the girl I had a crush on was sitting in front of me. She had forgotten her textbook that day, so we were sharing. As the teacher went around the room having each student read aloud.
When it was my turn, I stumbled over a word that would haunt me for weeks to come. Instead of saying "organism" like I was supposed to, I said "orgasm" out loud. The class erupted into laughter, and I was mortified. I could feel my face turning red as I sank lower into my chair, wishing I could disappear.
To make matters worse, my teacher only added to the humiliation. Instead of correcting me, he made a comment that only made me feel more awkward. "Keep going, you're on a roll", she said, causing the entire class to laugh even harder.
Looking back, it's a funny story, but at the time, it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
9. How Do You Like Them Apples
I was at an apple orchard, on my first date with a guy I really liked when I had a grand mal seizure—but that’s not the worst part. I fully peed my pants during it. I went unconscious and a nurse who happened to be at the orchard carried me to an ambulance. That’s when I came to, and he was nowhere to be seen. I was mortified. I hadn’t heard from him again after that.
10. A Little Help From My Friends
While on a camping trip alone with a woman I was interested in, I got violent diarrhea. I had to ask her to go get me some toilet paper and a change of pants because I soiled myself in the other ones. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
11. One Wrong Move After Another
I was new to driving and wanted to impress my crush by parking right next to him in the student parking lot. He watched as I struggled to find where the headlight switch was for the darn thing. And then I proceeded to turn on the windshield wipers in search of the lights. This went on for agonizing minutes, and I drove away humiliated.
12. The Swoop-And-Toot
I was playing around with a girl I had a huge crush on. I went to literally sweep her off her feet and I passed gas as I picked her up. Not only was it loud, it was stinky too.
13. Uninvited Party Date
The time has come to tell this absolute cringe moment that I can’t seem to forget. I liked this guy A LOT. Well, we were talking at school and he tells me all about this party a mutual friend is having, so I think he’s inviting me so we can hang out, maybe even like a date!
So, I drive 40 minutes to get to this party and it’s almost two hours before he even rolls in. When he walked in, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was with his girlfriend! I’ve already told like five other people I’m meeting him here and now I know why they looked at each other awkwardly.
At this point, I was unsuccessfully trying not to cry as I hopped into my Jeep, and proceeded to angrily stomp the gas to make a point of vehicularly storming off. But I turned so fast that the back latch opened up and I threw a basket of laundry all over the yard where everyone was. I can only pray that it was clean laundry because I didn’t even stick around to pick it up. I just kept going.
14. Letting It Rip
I was in gym class, doing leg lifts on a basketball floor. I was pretty confident and focused, and noticed my crush noticing me. I unexpectedly passed gas so loud and so long there was no covering it. My crush and all the other people in the class just laughed their heads off. I was mortified.
15. The Eye Of The Storm
My friend invited me to the county fair in my town, and my crush ended up being with her too. We walked around for a bit and I got something to eat. After a while, we decided to go on this ride called “The Tornado”. It just spun around really fast and there was a wheel in the middle of our cart that you could spin to make it faster. It was a huge mistake.
I ended up throwing up all over my crush and friend, and had the whole county fair looking at me as I walked to the car covered in puke.
16. Leaving Your Mark
I was in a rush and not quite paying attention to where I was going. I walked right into a glass door and my makeup left my face on the glass. How embarrassing! I started wearing a lot less makeup after that.
Freepik, lookstudio
17. Hoisting The White Flag
I was really, really into my best friend going into freshman year of college and summer was quickly running out. I didn’t tell her anything yet and wasn’t sure if I was going to get a good chance. A few of us were getting together to swim at one of our friend’s houses and we had the whole house to ourselves. Eventually, our friend group mixed and the ladies were invited over.
Everything was going great and it was the first time I was able to see her in a bikini and I was really into it. As always, a few drinks led to more and soon everyone was stripping down to their underwear to swim. I had never been so embarrassed. At the time I wore “tightie whities” and I did a very good job of making sure no one knew. About 15 people found out that day and I got roasted for it. You could pretty much see everything.
18. Pseudo-Smart
I was at a writer’s conference. I spent a good long time talking to someone I was interested in about some controversy surrounding the use of pseudonyms in a writing contest. I was pretty proud of how well I stated both sides, as well as my fairly well-researched thoughts on the matter. They didn’t add much to the conversation, but I could tell they were interested.
About fifteen minutes later I realized that every single time I’d meant to say “pseudonym,” I’d said “surname” instead. I never talked to them again. This was 30 years ago and it still hurts.
Flickr, Ubud Writers & Readers Festival
19. Declined And Dejected
I was on a first date with a woman I really liked and after racking up a pretty hefty bill, my credit card declined. I had no other way of paying. It was pretty bad.
20. I Kissed, But I Missed
I went in for a kiss but I missed his mouth and kissed his jacket collar instead. My reaction made things even worse. I instantly panicked, laughed, stuttered an incomprehensible, "sorry", laughed again, and ran away as if I was being chased by a velociraptor. It was humiliating on all levels.
21. Clear History
I was with my crush and I googled something with her looking over my shoulder. As soon as I started typing I realized that I completely forgot to delete my recent search history last time, and sure enough it all popped up. She saw all my recent inappropriate searches.
22. Mixed Messages
I was standing in a group of people when someone asked me how I knew everyone. My crush was standing next to his girlfriend and I was trying to say "...and she's my friend's girlfriend" but it just came out all wrong. Instead of calling him my friend, I called him my boyfriend. Everyone just stared at me awkwardly.
23. It Knocked The Wind Out Of Me
In between classes, I was talking to a girl I liked and we had to go to another building. On the way, we had to go down a short, marble staircase. It was also raining outside and everything was wet. I slipped on the second to last step, and I landed on my back at the bottom. It didn't terribly hurt, but it knocked the wind out of me—from both ends. I passed gas as soon as I landed. I got up quickly, and I could see her trying to stifle a laugh. So, I just said "See ya" and walked back the way I came. After that, I didn't really talk to her again.
24. Timing Is Everything
I went to chill at a girl’s place. I made the mistake of telling my friend earlier that I was visiting her. So, her and I were sitting on the balcony listening to music on my phone. She wanted to change the song, so she took my phone. That’s when disaster struck.
Right in that moment my friend jokingly texted me an extremely inappropriate message suggesting how I should end the night with this girl, and it popped up for her to read. Things were awkward after that.
25. I Sacrificed My Cat
I was hanging out in my room with a girl I really liked. I got up and closed the window and grabbed my cat to put him outside. My trousers were kind of loose, when out of the blue they fell down to my ankles. My first reaction was to cover my crotch area with my cat! I still cringe at the thought of it.
Freepik, KamranAydinov
26. That Darn Smile
So, there was this guy at work in a different department, who I saw maybe once every two weeks. He was beautiful. So beautiful every brain cell in my head fled the moment I saw his glorious face. He was very polite and friendly too, so when he would walk past, he would smile and say hi. One time he did that I spilled a whole can of Red Bull over myself trying to say hi back and doing an awkward wave—but that wasn’t the most embarrassing incident.
Another time I was about to go back inside when the hi came and I was so dazzled by the smile that I forgot that doors need to be opened and smacked face first into it.
27. Can’t Hide The Pain
I found out my crush was interested in another guy. So, I sang “Angry Rock” really loudly, with headphones on. I was right in front of her on a crowded bus. I don't think she even knew I had a crush on her. It always makes me cringe when it comes to mind.
28. Unhappy Holidays
I was walking and talking with my work crush when I suddenly tripped and accidentally knocked over the big Christmas tree. My crush instantly laughed and said: “Why do you hate Christmas”?
I was simultaneously horrified and also even deeper into crush territory because of his sense of humor. He even helped me put it back upright while everyone around us just stared and laughed.
29. Who Needs Enemies With Friends Like This
It was a cold winter morning and I was waiting for the bus to go to college. My face was numb from the cold but I still plucked up the courage to ask out my crush on a date before the bus showed up. She looked at me funny before politely declining.
I then explained the story to my mate who had put me up to it. That’s when he revealed his devious plan. He started laughing hysterically. It turned out he put me up to it because I had a huge, crusty, green boogey perched on the end of my nose like a rhino horn. I couldn’t feel it there due to the cold and wearing gloves.
This set my dating experiences back years as I was then known as “Boogey boy”!
30. Excuse Me
I had a crush on a girl in high school. I sat next to her and could feel that I needed to pass gas, so I held it in. That was a bad move. It came out as a prolonged squeak, and she turned her head and stared at me, disgusted.
31. Panic Response
I was 17 at that time and had a major crush on a girl that I saw every summer in Italy. We were at a party and she tried to kiss me, but I freaked out. I was completely taken off guard and I couldn't think for a couple of seconds. With zero thought, I immediately poured a beer over her head. I was just as shocked as she was. I have never in my life felt so ashamed.
32. Chip And Dip
My crush invited me to a BBQ at her family’s house. I was bringing tortilla chips. I was riding my bike and carrying the chips and when I got there, I tried to be cool and jump off one side of my bike while it was still in motion—which I’d always do—but my baggy jeans got caught on the peddle and I crashed super hard right in front of her and her whole family. I also crushed the chips.
Freepik, diana.grytsku
33. An Unintended Metaphor
I finally grew the courage to talk to my crush in the cafeteria line. She was holding two bananas and my first-ever words to her were, "So I see you like bananas". It was completely innocent, or so I thought. Her reaction was brutal.
She stared at me as if she didn’t know how to respond, and then quickly left. I didn't realize what I said until after I sat down. That was literally the last time I ever initiated a conversation with a girl without being introduced by someone else.
34. Escape Plan
I had a huge crush on this guy in college, and I’m fairly sure that it wasn’t remotely reciprocated. We had a couple of classes together as we shared a major. He sat next to me in a lecture once and I panicked. We were basically acquaintances at this point so we didn’t have a whole lot to talk about.
I felt awkward, so without much thought, I just got up and chose another seat. I couldn’t even look at him because he probably thought it was so weird that I did that.
35. Doggie Style
I was at my crush’s house and I had to use the bathroom really badly, but I was nervous to go in his house without him. I ended up trying to hold it for too long—big mistake. As I finally gave in and started making my way to the house from the backyard I had to let go. I quickly sat down, but I couldn't stop. I fully peed myself right then and there.
He tried to comfort me by saying the dogs pee in the grass all the time. Mortified is an understatement.
36. Can’t Plunge This Memory Out
I just started seeing a girl that I really liked and I was visiting her family. I had to go to the bathroom and ended up having an issue with the toilet. I tried to flush a huge log a few times, but it would not go down. There was no plunger. It ended up flooding the upstairs bathroom, leaking down the AC vents to the first floor.
To make matters worse, it was her mom that went in there and plunged my huge log down the toilet, and cleaned up my mess. I really wanted to die. Her dad just laughed and poured me a fat glass of wine.
37. Roadside Emergency
I was on a first date and I got food poisoning and had violent diarrhea. I had to pull over on the side of the road to do my business—but then things got even more humiliating. I had nothing to wipe with and ended up having to clean myself with an old shirt I had in the back of my car. She was completely disgusted. The smell was embarrassing in itself.
38. How Not To Get Laid
I was at a house party and the girl whose house it was pulled me into her parent’s bedroom. I had been crushing on her for some time. We were kissing and fumbling around like teens do on her parent’s bed. Just as things started to heat up, I said something like, “Do you think your dad does this to your mom here”?
The mood was gone pretty quickly after that. I still cringe when I think about it.
39. The Third Wheel
I invited my crush at the time over to watch movies in my basement. Instead, my grandmother sat in between us and we watched the game show channel. For three entire hours.
And it wasn’t even like she was trying to prevent us from doing stuff. She just wanted to hang out with us.
40. Wrong Way
I met someone for coffee but the coffee place was closed due to the pandemic. So, we decided to go to my place to hang out. The coffee shop was right near my place so she was going to follow me there. I was nervous and distracted and I pulled out of the coffee place onto a road where you can only go right because there's a median. I had to go left.
There was another way out of the parking lot that would have been better. However, I suddenly had a brain malfunction and just decided to go left anyway. I quickly found myself going against traffic and people honking at me.
I safely got to the end of the street, but of course, she didn't follow me. I waited on a cross street and she found me there and followed me to my place where she proceeded to laugh at me about it. Not in a mean, way, it was light-hearted, but still embarrassing as heck.
41. Fumbled The Ball
I had a date with a girl who asked me out. This had never happened before. I was pretty excited. We went and got dinner and followed up at a bar for a couple of drinks. We went back to my house and she politely informed me that we could chill at my house, but that she doesn’t sleep with people on the first date. "No worries", I told her and we hung out with my roommates and listened to some music.
After a couple of hours, she told me she had a great time but that she was going to head home. Since my roommates were home, she asked if I would walk her to her car. Once we got out there, she leaned in and kissed me. I kissed back and a light make-out session occurred for about half a minute.
We embraced in a hug and she must have felt my manhood trying to escape my jeans because she looked down. I also looked down, and what I saw is still burned in my memory. The tip of my member sticking visibly out of the top my waistline. She completely lost it, like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. I stammered out an apology. She kept laughing and got in her car and said "I'll text you" as she was still heaving with laughter.
42. Bank Of Dad, Declined
I was in high school and asked my crush out on a date. She said, “How about Friday we go out to dinner and a movie”? In the most embarrassing way ever I said, “How about we just go to a movie? I don’t think I can get my dad to give me that much money”.
Later, I admitted to how embarrassed I was about the whole situation and she said she thought it was funny I asked her out but didn’t have any money.
43. Shifting The Blame
I was crushing on my best friend’s sister. We were all outside, exploring on someone else’s land and we came upon a big boat. I wanted her to climb up with me but she refused, so I went up alone. The nerves of trespassing got to me and I instantly, and I mean instantly, needed to go number two. I had to make a split-second decision.
I quickly squatted and did my business right there. Just as I pulled my pants back up her head popped up over the gunner. I yelled at her to get away because someone had defecated on the boat deck and she swiftly went back down before me.
Walking back, I was musing what animal might have gotten up there to have such a weird human-looking poop. Can dogs climb ladders? I rambled on, but I could tell she didn’t believe me. My crush never evolved to anything further than that.
44. The Feeling Is Mutual
I was on a first date with a guy I had a major crush on. We are both very anxious people who had little experience with dating and we were both so nervous. I threw up right before the date. Despite being almost 20 years old, my mom would not let us hang out in my bedroom at home, so went out instead.
He came to pick me up and we drove to the library where we were planning to use their Wi-Fi to watch Netflix in the back of the car. As soon as we got to the library he got out of the car and threw up in the parking lot. I then admitted to him that I had also thrown up right before the date. He tried to play it off as us having the flu or food poisoning but we both knew it was really just the nerves. We were both extremely awkward the entire time after that.
45. Muy Embarazoso
In college, I took a girl I really liked to a movie. I chose one by Pedro Almodovar, a Spanish filmmaker. I heard this guy made some stuff girls like, so I went in blindly. I was in for a seriously unpleasant surprise. It turned out to be a movie about a male nurse who was a serial defiler of hospital patients in comas.
It was disgusting and not romantic in the slightest. It was a very awkward two hours. We were silent the entire time and could hardly look at each other. The date ended with the girl telling me she wanted to walk home alone. I was mortified at what she thought of me after that.
46. Taking It To Go
I was on a second date with a guy I really liked. It was my first time at his apartment. I went to the bathroom and of course, the toilet wouldn’t flush. Normally I’d never go number two at someone’s apartment, but I was a little inebriated.
After several unsuccessful attempts to flush it down, I ended up wrapping the poop in toilet paper and I put it in my purse. But then I ended up sleeping over and the next morning the entire apartment stunk. He never found out thankfully. He blamed his roommate for the smell. As soon as I left, I ditched my entire purse in a nearby dumpster.
47. Mixed Signals
When I was a teenager, there was this girl that I really liked. We started to hang out a lot more after we ended up in a class together. Around two months after the class started, she asked if I wanted to go get coffee sometime. I of course said yes, ecstatic that she asked me out. I had no idea what I was getting into.
While we were on the date, she started saying stuff about how people always mistook her for a lesbian, saying how there is no way she would ever go out with a girl.
I was thrown off by this, because I thought that she, a girl, asked me, a girl, out on a date. I said that I thought that she asked me out, and she got really embarrassed, so now both of us are sitting in the middle of Starbucks on a sort-of date that only one of us wanted to be on. I was embarrassed every time I saw her after that.
48. Dating Isn’t A Spectator Sport
I was 13 and it was my first date. The girl wanted to meet at some place and then go somewhere else, but I was pretty bad at knowing places so I had to ask my mom where it was. She gave me a lift and I thought she'd go away but she apparently, she stuck around to see what would happen. Not knowing I was being watched I met up with the girl and we started walking.
Suddenly my mom yelled out from behind us that we were going in the wrong direction. I was so embarrassed that I wasn’t able to talk to the girl normally after. The date ended sooner than planned because I just wanted to go home very quickly. I thought the whole date was already messed up right from the beginning.
49. On Thin Ice
I thought it’d be cute to try ice skating as a first date with my crush, despite not knowing how to skate. Well, there was something that I didn’t know. I was unaware she was a competitive figure skater and she literally skated circles around me while I stumbled around the ice rink. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere when she asked if she could do a couple of laps without me. My beginner’s pace was too slow. I spent the entire date being deeply embarrassed and feeling inadequate.
50. Second-Hand Embarrassment
So, I took a girl out to a really fancy restaurant on a date. She was really nice and we talked quite a lot, so I decided to treat her. On the drive there, the conversation was really awkward but it was our first time speaking, so that was understandable.
We ordered like normal, and I ate mine but noticed she wasn't eating at all, and I asked why she wasn't eating anything. I’ll never forget what she did next. She said: "Hmm, I don't feel like it", and proceeded to pour her entire meal into her handbag.
I was a bit annoyed, but most of all felt massive second-hand embarrassment on her part. It was so weird. We then drove home in silence and all I could smell was the food that she had left in her handbag, not even wrapped up.
Sources: Reddit,