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The Carcass of Dignity: a thread for unrelenting humiliation and shame

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08:21 / 17.05.06

Because I don't think there's been enough good old schadenfreude and catharsis on Barbelith recently.

To get the ball rolling, for some reason I keep returning to a particular incident that happened a couple of years back. It was a sunny Saturday morning in Brighton and I set off for my creative writing class with a spring in my step. Sadly, thanks to delayed buses and a bunch of recalcitrant cash machines I arrived at the university an hour late.
The class was being delivered by a visiting tutor and literary luminary, and was comprised of people I'd never, or only just about, met. It was with trepidation, then, that I crept through the door and came face to face with the disappointed gaze of the tutor and the frustrated mumblings of a newly distracted class. No one smiled, no one welcomed me. I was an intruder.
I smiled awkwardly, babbled some excuse or other, and tried to look inconspicuous, thinking that perhaps I could find a seat without causing any further disruption. Unfortunately it turned out that I would have to lift a heavy metal chair over the heads of my classmates (who resolutely refused to stop discussing my lateness and get on with the lesson) in order to position myself at a desk. Gingerly I hoisted the chair over the head of a disapproving woman in her early sixties, then over the head of a scowling man, and then... well then I smashed the casing of a beam of strip lighting, spilling glass all over half the class. Talk about winning friends and influencing people. There followed a vigorous debate about whether we could viably continue with the session (bear in mind that this was a special one off class) as hordes of people ran screaming to the toilets to remove shards of glass from their hair, clothing and skin.

Oh my god it was awful, but somehow we did continue and somehow, don't ask me how, I made it through the day.

The shame, however, the shame has stayed with me.

09:02 / 17.05.06

While I was reading I hoped it would end with "That´s when I realized, I was in the wrong class."

09:15 / 17.05.06

Ahem. Just last night I was supposed to go and see our Seth play Dadaist classical music in St Michael's church. I dutifully googled the event, the venue, texted Seth who was in a pub that I was on my way and got a taxi. I got a taxi because the church was virtually in Shoreham, a fair distance away (£13.70 away as it happens, ouch!) only to discover that it was St Michaels & All Saints, a delightful rural Norman church that was not in any way showing Brighton Fringe events, and was in fact shut.

So, I waited for a bus home cursing my own stupidity, missed the gig, wasted fifteen quid and a couple of hours of my finite life to get back where I started when I just wanted to sit on my sofa, and the ironic thing is the event was about eight minutes easy walk from my house.

Gah. How embarrassing. But at least I didn't shower anyone with broken glass.

09:31 / 17.05.06

Ha! I remember one embarrassing moment.

When I was still working in city hall, I had consultation-hours three times a week and often had to ask personal questions.

A client came in and I asked: "How far along is your pregnancy?"

She replied: "I gave birth three weeks ago."

And my colleague sitting across from me couldn´t stop laughing.

09:39 / 17.05.06

Oh, Quantum, that's nothing. I've travelled forty miles for work only to find I was forty miles away from where I needed to be. That's not just embarassing, that's job threateningly stupid.

Mist, if only, mate. Granted, it would've made for a better punchline, but sitting in that class for another six hours being alternately ignored and frowned upon was bloody hellish. And don't forget, it was a writing class, you know, where you have to read your work out and suffer the criticism of your peers.

Not nice at all.

09:59 / 17.05.06

another six hours crikey dude, that's some hard larning right there, I hope you are an incredibly creative writer after all that.

10:11 / 17.05.06

Not really.

15:55 / 18.05.06

Haha- brilliant

I’d love to have been in that class to slip on a tape of the theme from Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em at the crucial class-glassing moment.

I’ve got so many memories that make me bite my knuckle and go all tense just thinking about them (but I usually laugh too).

13:46 / 10.09.07

Oh fucking Christ, I've just sent a completely unnecessarily bitchy text to my partner about one of my mates, but, hey, I didn't send it to my partner I sent it to him.

He is, unsurprisingly, rather pissed off, and probably a bit hurt.

I have sent him a further text apologising profusely and explaining that I'm in a very shitty mood (true) and that I value his friendship a great deal and don't make a habit of slagging him off (also true).

He has yet to get back to me. I feel like a complete shit.

14:11 / 10.09.07

He's just sent me text saying it's cool, but it isn't and I am a prick.

I really value my close friends, and I'd hate to think they didn't know that.

*

14:52 / 10.09.07

We know you're not a prick. Right guys?

15:08 / 10.09.07

THAT'S RIGHT!

15:13 / 10.09.07

Thanks, guys. I'm going to apologise to him in person on Wednesday morning. I will be bringing a gift.

I'm not above reinvigorating our friendship with bribes.

15:33 / 10.09.07

Uhm. What about this one:

I'm at this party where I don't know anyone save for this one friend. Groups cluster and scatter as the conversations stop and start, people greet each other amicably and make small chat over drinks and snacks... the usual fare. I'm sort of clinging to my friend as she is the one with acquaintances in this place, so I follow her towards a small circle of people, where some run-of-the-mill conversation soon starts rolling. The talk turns to diseases - not life-threatening ones, but the small ones, those irritating swellings, painful suppurated infections, sore throats, that type of thing.

That's when I find it suitable to introduce the subject of this same friend's horribly inflamed vulva. Because, you see - as I disclose to whomever is within hearing distance - my friend's vulva, which I had seen up close and agape that morning, happened to be in a sorry state, all swollen red - almost purple, indeed - a purple mountain of mad flesh, so to speak. I say things like "I'm amazed she could come here tonight, actually, her vulva was so bad - and it was aching a lot, too" while the expression on people's faces and bodies goes all over the map trying to adjust itself to the chain of sounds I'm sputtering forth. My friend stands staring at me as if I had just clubbed a baby seal that happened to be sitting upon her feet, and it doesn't take long (though it certainly took long enough) for me to realize that something is a little... off?, in my audience's reaction. Some keep doing those little chin yanks people do when they're kinda expecting some payoff in a tale, others just stare right into their drinks, looking lost in deep reflection...

And then I blurt out mid-sentence "I MEANT UVULA! UVULA IS WHAT I HAD IN MIND! OH SORRY, NO, NO, UVULA!"

I don't remember seeing more relieved faces in documentaries about liberation from concentration camps, but I still got bopped in the head with a rolled newspaper by this friend.

17:56 / 10.09.07

Man, that's tame.

Once upon a party, I saw fit to explain to my nice new friend how his nice old friend was having it off with my flatmate's mate. The explanation also contained a number of references to her boyfriend back in France, and how the poor chump was never to know.

Except he was, cause the guy to whom I was flapping my drunken gob happened to be his best mate.

I remember wondering why the women's flatmate kept shaking her head at me and mouthing "shut up, you stupid cock".

18:15 / 10.09.07

You could always combine your flair for embarrassing situations with your interest in writing though, Mr B. You could become Brighton's very own Larry David!

18:40 / 10.09.07

oh Boboss i hate the misdirected text. happens very easily with email too. i've done some shockers. i just hope that your friend has been on the other side of this situation too - it will make it easier for him to forgive if he has. good luck!

and you're not a prick - doesn't everyone vent every now and then to safe people like partners? that's why i think being a single parent must be so hard - no one to gossip about your kids with.

18:45 / 10.09.07

Thankfully I've never done it before, and I'll be working very hard to ensure I never do it again. And, yeah, I suppose I am allowed to vent every so often, I just hate the idea that I've hurt the guy.

18:59 / 10.09.07

Imagine what he's texting about you.

19:29 / 10.09.07

(I thought we weren't supposed to tell!)

12:46 / 29.09.07

My trousers have ripped and I am not an underwear fan.
I am showing serious brain and I'm not sure how one is supposed to deal with that situation.

The evangelists who run this internet cafe do not want to see my winkle.

I am fashioning a sarong from my jumper, but it does not cover all of the incursion.

This is very very embarrasing.

14:02 / 29.09.07

Oh, ouch, Princess. Tie the arms and backflap under and over, forming some sort of bastardised sumo wrestler's fighting sling (or "mawashi").

Or, could ask the manager for a stapler?

14:08 / 29.09.07

STAPLER NO!

14:13 / 29.09.07

Be quiet, .tramp. We could make this thread glorious.

14:14 / 29.09.07

I am fashioning a sarong from my jumper, but it does not cover all of the incursion.

Blimey!

14:27 / 29.09.07

Have escaped, bought a new pair of trousers, and found a new place to type.

Hooray.

25T, it was a big hole. The incursion, whilst not tiny, does not need an entire jumper to hide it. The whole was basically a full crotch.

14:53 / 29.09.07

I'm almost disappointed. I think I've got double entendre fever, though, because that last sentence...it's me, isn't?

14:54 / 29.09.07

it

14:59 / 29.09.07

It is, is it?

All Acting Regiment

15:05 / 29.09.07

BLIMEY!

22:51 / 14.07.08

Some friends came round, and once they'd left I revealed to one of my flatmates that I fancied one of said friends.

Only they hadn't left. I heard the door shut about 20 seconds after the conversation ended. So, there is a chance that this straight (mildly bi curious, maybe) guy is walking around thinking that I'm a highly predatory older guy who only invites him round so I can jump his bones.
But I actually like him in a nice, non-penetrative fashion as well!　I'm not even that interested in swapping bodily fluids! I just wanted a hug with heavy sexual tension!

23:20 / 14.07.08

Uh, are you writing in Latin?

23:29 / 14.07.08

Oh, that's weird. I wonder why that happened?

23:32 / 14.07.08

It's happened over in Policy, too, so unless you meant to bring a bunch of little boxes to the attention of the mods you might want to try editing your post.

23:44 / 14.07.08

Little boxes? I only see text with no spaces, like Latin, as per my witticism.

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