The 5 Most Socially Awkward Situations Everyone Deals With
At some point in life, we've all found ourselves in one of those horrifying social situations where something occurs unexpectedly, and it's almost impossible to recover from the awkwardness that ensues. I'm talking about those rare scenarios so awkward, nobody has ever found a good way to deal with them. Lucky for you everything I do is awkward, so I'm able to look these moments square in the eye, and at the very least describe them for you ...
Pooping in Public
Science tells us nearly 73 percent of the population poops, so this is a pretty common endeavor. Of that 73 percent, not a single one of us is happy to use someone else's toilet. On the surface this is a bit of a mystery. It's not like we're afraid of using it incorrectly, since pretty much every toilet in the world operates the same way. But as simple as the apparatus is, there are just too many potential ways for something to go wrong.
Generally speaking, when you're at a friend's and you have to deuce, you have that horrible moment of trepidation before you go in, unless you're a social malcontent who enjoys pseudo-exhibitionist defecation. Those of us normal folks have three major fears running rampant in our head;
Time: What if this is a long haul production? We're all hoping for that quick and to the point squirt, but you know there's a chance it's going to be one of those moments where the movie is on pause waiting for you to get back, and eventually the DVD player just can't hold out on pause anymore so it stops the movie, and everyone you left behind stops to consider how you've been shitting for so long, modern technology couldn't keep up with you. It had to just stop what it was doing lest it permanently damage something, because your bowels are so intensely sloth-like. And in that instant you, and everyone in the building with you will, for a second, be focused solely on what your ass is doing. And no one will be happy about it.
Now you know what he was thinking.
Stench: The laws of the universe dictate that if you're embarrassed by the fetid, nearly tangible stank you've implanted into the very floor tiles, you will have no suitable means of covering it up, and someone will go to the washroom within a minute of you leaving. Accept that, and try to think up a reasonable excuse, like you ate bad Cambodian last night, or you have stomach leprosy.
If someone does enter the bathroom after you, try to avoid eye contact. Odds are they won't say anything, they're just going to have that look on their face that says, “I know what it smells like about a foot inside of you and I'm not happy with that.” Don't acknowledge it.
The Clog: Possibly the worst outcome of all and for good reason. Here's a true story: About a month ago, someone exploded in my bathroom. I literally had to clean shit off of the light switch. I should point out that my light switch is no where near the toilet bowl. It's on a wall. Just below shoulder height. There was shit on my floor, behind the toilet, on the mat and I boiled the hell out of my toothbrush, and then threw it away. The toilet itself has been blocked from my memory but I do seem to remember what, in my opinion, was a little less toilet paper than was probably necessary to deal with what I was viewing.
I can't say for sure if the person who did that to my toilet felt bad about it after, but they should have. Because I did. Clogging a toilet is the ultimate lavatory faux pas and there's no graceful way to deal with it. The plumbing, which works in literally millions of other buildings around the world, choked on whatever hell you unleashed on it. The best thing you can hope for is to plunge it out yourself and hope no one hears the terrible racket you're making. At worst, you have to move at exceptional speeds away from the incoming tide of your insides and let someone else know the situation has escalated beyond the scope of your expertise. They will appreciate this later, or they will if they've ever had to clean poop off a light fixture.
Ill-Timed Erections
If you're a man with a penis that currently or has some time in the past functioned, you've probably had that moment when you needed to stay seated while everyone else was standing. Indeed, while you may be concentrating on your taxes or how so many people at grandma's funeral wore the same outfit, your penis can, at any moment, start playing out porno scenes for itself and respond in kind. There's no rhyme or reason to it, although it's possible you're just a bad person.
In some cases, hiding an erection is as easy as feigning laziness. Why get up when sitting is so much easier? Alternately, you can use the old high school standby of holding your books at crotch level. Just be aware that everyone on Earth knows you're doing this to hide an erection and the only thing less conspicuous would be if you actually hired someone who stood in front of you and explained to others that they were your erection shield, and could they please take one step back.
The boner isn't seeing anyone right now, please leave.
Dealing with this is trickier than you'd think thanks to a number of factors. Biologically, if you're some kind of half-horse who elected to wear soccer shorts the only real option you have is to swiftly and discretely lay your penis on a flat surface and punch it. Like seriously, kick its ass. That'll teach it.
Alternately, if you're more on the average end of the scale and are wearing man clothes, you could always flip it up and tuck the tip under your waistband.
Accidental Pissings
Losing bladder control isn't just for incontinent grandparents. Even the best of us leave one in the chamber before we holster our weapon from time to time and end up walking into a room full of people who may have gathered for some kind of urine-phobic meeting only to leave them all aghast by the oatmeal cookie-sized whiz spot seeping into your denim like an accusatory finger pointing directly at your lazy ureter as if to say, “Hey look everyone, I have piss on me.”
Curiously, a piss spot is generally more embarrassing than an actual, full-on pissplosion, insofar as if you totally piss yourself, you can claim drunkenness, or a punch to the kidneys or the hilarious comedy stylings of Gallagher as the culprit. A piss spot just means you're not on the ball enough to actually finish pissing before you do up your pants. That's like stabbing yourself in the face with a fork before you open your mouth because you're not so good at eating. There's another word for that, incidentally: fucktarded.
Hey, where the fuck are all the watermelons?
Again, if you don't relish the glares from people who have just dropped their opinion of you down to somewhere above a hobo who's trying to use the heat from his own shit to cook a robin's egg, you need to act quick to deal with piss spots. If it's a minor infraction, grabbing a towel or a handful of toilet paper and just mercilessly squeezing the excess moisture from your pants may do the trick.
If you really fucked up and left the better portion of a squirt in there, it's time to get crafty and blame faulty plumbing. Proceed as usual to the sink, because people who don't wash their hands after using the toilet are worse than hepatitis, and wash up. Then just dump a good handful or two across your shirt and pants, ensuring you totally obscure that piss spot. Now, feign indignity and exasperation, maybe work up a quip like “I just went to wash my hands and now it looks like I pissed myself.” Then you can laugh on the inside due to the irony of you actually pissing yourself.
CHUD Flirting
The downside of social interaction is the people you have to interact with. Sometimes it's awesome and you're having a beer with Jesus and Voltron or whatever, but sometimes it's lame as shit because creepy people express interest in touching your pubic region.
If you've never experienced an awkward pick-up, it might be because you're hideous to look upon. But maybe you're just one of a precious few lucky people who have never met one of those unfortunate folk who's a nauseating mix of overconfidence and a prolapsed rectum-like visage.
I'm not a particularly attractive man, I've been mistaken for Dick Van Patton before, so this isn't the kind of thing that happens to me as often as it happens to the beautiful people out there, but I was once propositioned at a bus stop by who I assume at the time was a very sweaty Danny DeVito. Now at a bar you might get a CHUD asking to buy you a drink or to dance, the sort of preamble we expect in these situations, but Mr. DeVito actually just asked if I wanted to have horrifying sex right then and there. For all I know, he meant while we waited for the bus.
Condoms? Fuck no, whatever you got, I want!
The short answer to this is to simply say “no thanks” and start the slow but wholly essential process of clenching. Clench everything you have. But as any woman can tell you, sometimes no isn't enough. The drunker or less infused with the proper medications someone is, the more likely they are to assume that “no” means they just haven't tried hard enough to seduce you, and perhaps more persistence or vulgarity is in order to get the job done.
Quick thinking is always good in a situation like this. Can you vomit on command? This would be an opportune moment. Likewise, if you can take a few moments in your week to design a certificate that confirms yes, you do have gonorrhea, you may want to carry that around with you. Do they laminate those? Check into that and put one in your wallet.
Parental Sexuality
Obviously your parents engaged in coitus at some point, unless you're one of those lab babies, but if that's the case you were born without a soul and probably have no sense of humor, so you're on the wrong website.
Nowadays, just like Old Faithful, your parents probably have a set schedule for having sex, something like once every equinox. And while that may be great for them, it's bad news for you if you pop your head in their room looking for the Fruit Roll Ups or a C battery or whatever and you end up catching a glimpse of your dad piloting your mom's backside around the bed like he's C3PO trying to get a stubborn R2 in motion.
R2 says that the chances of orgasm are 725 to 1.
And even if you're one of those ultra-careful types who always knocks, in this modern age traumatic familial boning is more dangerous than ever. One unlabeled DVD or a mysterious folder on the computer when you're looking for pictures from last year's Christmas dinner could lead straight to a pillar of madness if you're confronted with digital evidence that your parents actually do know what teabagging is.
Likewise, there are far more people than are willing to admit it out there who have, either innocently or while on the hunt for hidden gifts, cash or otherwise, gone rifling through a parent's drawers only to run afoul of full on dildos. Whose hands totally made real, physical contact with their own mother's rubber dong. They don't make soap that can wash that off.
Keep tryin'. Ain't gonna happen.
By the time you're old enough to realize you shouldn't wander into your parent's room or go looking through their shit, it may be too late, but from then on your best weapon is your own scarcity. You can't be traumatized by trauma that happens when you're gone. Best to leave home early and schedule any return visits well in advance. Keep them brief and cordial, shake hands, wash up and leave before anything untoward happens.
