Inevitable Awkwardness

So as I've mentioned before, I have the ability to be somewhat socially awkward at times.  As I've gotten older, the intense pressures of everyday life have eased, but those little moments that make your blood pressure spike to stroke level and help to create sweat stains the size of Texas on your newly dry cleaned silk shirt will forever remain.

Tom, it's a problem when you sweat through a blazer, just sayin'.

Here are just a few of those moments:

+  The Bathroom Visitor: It's a toss-up on which is worse, being the one to walk in or the one to be walked in on.  Both are pretty terrible, but if I had to choose, it would probably be worse to be the one to walk in, especially if the person were male.  I once inadvertently walked into an unlocked, occupied dressing room where a woman was removing her shirt, bare breasts exposed.  Can't get much more awkward than that.

+  The Run-In: You catch eyes with someone you know and haven't seen in a while.  It's too late to try and pull the whole look away and pretend as though you haven't seen them routine.  All you can do is go up and exchange pleasantries and pray to God that your phone rings or you pass out.

+  The Long-Drawn-Out-Oh-My-God-It's-Painful-Silence: A couple of weeks ago I was out with some friends and was left at a table with a guy I didn't know very well.  He was very nice, cute, but not at all talkative.  The awkward part of this silence for me is not really the silence itself, but the way I react.  In an attempt to avoid these painful silences I develop word vomit.  I found out what this guy did for a living and I started rambling on and on about things that may or may not have been relevant.  Regardless of whether they were relevant, I know he definitely didn't care.  So instead of an awkward silence, I got an awkward stare.

+  The Stow-Away Panties:  This has actually never happened to me, but it has happened to friends of mine.  You're running late so you throw on a pair of jeans you wore the day before.  You get out in public and all of a sudden feel something creeping down the leg of your pants.  If you are fortunate enough to feel them, there's a possibility of retrieving them before anyone finds out*.  On the other hand, you could have no clue at all and find yourself in the middle of a classroom full of your peers staring down at yesterday's panties beside your desk.

* This happened to me in college.  Thankfully I was able to pull them out in the stairwell on the way to my 200 some odd person lecture class.


Anyone else have any inevitable awkward moments to add?  Please tell me I'm not the only one who is this anxiety ridden.