“It Was Biblical”: 25 Horrible Experiences People Have Gone Through That Still Make Them Cringe

Pain, sadness and loss are some of the big emotions that come up when someone asks about bad experiences. But chances are, you are a lot more likely to encounter that horrible, grating feeling of embarrassment on a “regular” day. But as they say, comedy and tragedy are a matter of perspective. 

Someone asked “What’s the most uncomfortable situation you’ve ever had to sit through?” and netizens detailed the worst experiences they went through. So get comfortable as you read through, brace yourself for the second-hand cringe and be sure to share your own stories below. 

• Read More: “It Was Biblical”: 35 Horrible Experiences People Have Gone Through That Still Make Them Cringe

#1

We had a farewell party for a colleague who was leaving our workplace and during her goodbye speech in front of everyone including our bosses, she started talking about how stressful the job was, didn't get much support, wasn't able to take proper breaks and that no job is worth the mental stress.
Needless to say, the room fell in awkward silence and our boss's face looked uncomfortable.

Image credits: Moon_Jewel90

#2

At my nans house I used to sleep in her bedroom on a sofa bed, there was a curtain separating my section of room from hers. When I was 14 and staying there for some time, I came upstairs to bed one evening after playing xbox, and got into bed. I then hear the unmistakable sounds of them boning and dirty talking eachother. They hadn't heard me come up so I had the awful decision to make, either sit through this absolute pain for however long it lasted, or try and sneak across the incredibly creaky floorboards back downstairs without letting them know I overheard them.

Somehow (God was with me that day) I managed to sneak back downstairs, played some more xbox for a couple hours while contemplating my mental scarring, then went back to bed.

Image credits: The_Intel_Guy

#3

Not me but a friend who worked in tech support. A client complains that, whenever the phone on her desk rings, weird character strings appear on her screen. He goes over there, she uses a basic landline and a word processor, no connection between the two.
Then, while he is there, her phone rings. She reaches over to it, leaning her huge bosom over the keyboard and of course, a string of characters begins to populate the word processor window.
He had to explain it to her.

Image credits: iroze

#4

So are you two dating?’ He said yes at the same time I said no, to which his friend told him ‘I told you you didnt ask clearly enough’.

Image credits: sufishams

#5

A new boss was hired for my department at work, and a high level woman from corporate was brought in to show him the ropes.

My new boss was a sleazy little weirdo. He sort of looked like Beans from “Even Stevens” crossed with Mads Mikkelsen. He kept awkwardly trying to flirt with this incredibly professional and visibly uninterested woman who was just trying to do her job by teaching him how to do his.

Things reached peak weirdness on her last day.

There we stood, my new boss on one side of the room, our guest on the other side, me in the middle doing some work.

New Boss: Well, are you ready to go to lunch? Corporate Woman: Yes, just let me run to the restroom first.

New Boss: Oh, why, you gotta POO-POO?

I have never in my entire life wished that I could turn into a puddle of liquid and slide out of that room, Secret World of Alex Mack style, than I did at that moment.

Fun Fact: He was fired a few months later, but that’s another story for another day.

Image credits: flannelfrankenstein

#6

I had to tell an acquaintance/friend that his 15 year old son was sending me highly inappropriate (and illegal) texts. I’m a 41 year old man.

Image credits: Human-Magic-Marker

#7

I'm a dental hygienist.

I had a patient that was flirting with me pretty heavily and telling me how pretty my eyes were. I'm used to compliments and got good at brushing them off, so I managed that this time.

I kind of forgot about him he rebooked 4 months later for another cleaning.

This time, he was more forward, saying how I'm young and beautiful.. and then he straight up asked me for an affair WHILE HIS WIFE AND KIDS WERE IN THE FRONT LOBBY WAITING.

I politely declined and finished my work, informed the Dr's about it, and he was promptly banned from our office.

Image credits: dilapidatedfungus

#8

Every instance of my friends getting yelled at by their parents while I'm just standing there watching awkwardly.

Or vise versa.

Image credits: Snake101333

#9

In the cinema. I interlocked my fingers with the kid sitting beside me for a full minute.

Turns out, he wasn't my kid.

Image credits: sufishams

#10

Helping my friend pack up her stuff when leaving her husband. While he sat on the couch and cried.

Image credits: SmurtGurl

#11

We were getting internet installed when I moved to the town I live in. I was 16 at the time. I had surgery the day before and was bleeding slightly off and on and kept a hand in my pants to prevent the material from sticking to my wound.

Anyway I thought the internet maintenance guy had left. I went to the living room and turned on the tv. It immediately was on some kids show. He walked back into the room and saw me with my hands in my pants.

In his view it could only possibly look like I was touching myself to kids shows. The silence was horrible as he slowly crept back out of the room.

Image credits: Newfie-Girl1989

#12

That would be the time in college that I got invited to a surprise birthday party for two of my other friends who shared a birthday. The party was very nicely planned with cake and presents for them, but I honestly shouldn't have even gone... because, as some of the people at the party belatedly remembered, the party was being held on the day of _my_ birthday. I ended up third-wheeling a birthday party on my birthday. All the while some of my friends tried to forcibly include me in the festivities even though it had obviously not been part of the original plan.


 I was able to at least leave early, but my friendship with that group was never really the same afterwards.

Image credits: laevian

#13

A few years ago I went on a weekend girls trip with a friend. Her marriage was rocky and she needed to get away. Her husband dropped us off at the airport and picked us up after the trip, and we chatted casually in the car on the way back to their house. Everything seemed normal. Unbeknownst to me, he had specifically told her that if she went on this trip, he would leave her. Midway through the drive he told her he had a group of people at their house for her "intervention," and that her car was already packed with her belongings and to get out. (I don't think he knows what an intervention is, but whatevs.) So now I'm stuck in the backseat watching their marriage dissolve. We get to their house and people are standing on the front porch observing. The couple starts arguing in the driveway and I just wanted to leave so badly, but I needed my suitcase from the trunk. I had to interrupt them to ask him to open the trunk. And then my car was blocked in by the vehicles from the "intervention team," so I had to interrupt again to ask how I could get out. It was so, so awkward.

Image credits: Cute-as-Duck21

#14

I was at a wedding and the best man went off the rails during his speech at the reception. It was your stereotypical drunken rambling but it was the guy’s second marriage so he was talking about his first wife and how he’s good at most things except relationships, etc. People were audibly groaning and booing the guy and telling him to sit down. It was a truly Michael Scott moment. So awkward.

Image credits: Sea_Drink7287

#15

Was at work and we were in a conference room about to have a meeting. Not sure what the meeting was about but my coworker "JT" thought he
It was a good idea to go around and ask us if we have ever cheated on our spouse. (He seemed to enjoy being on the cusp of being sent to HR)

I wasn't married at the time so I said no. Every one says no. "BH" says yes. Now BH is a 60 something woman who's as wholesome as Mr. Roger's. Her voice is so soft. She was my first trainer when I started. She would talk and I'd get lulled to sleep..I had to drink 3 cups of coffee to avoid passing out. I hate coffee.

So when she says yes every one turns and looks.. JT is excited he's like, "Ooohh, how many times? With who?" She says, "All the time, in my mind of course."

He asks this lady who had worked at our agency in the past and left. She had just come back. JT asks her if she's ever cheated.

She says no. "But my boyfriend constantly cheats on me. He doesn't even try to hide it. He brings them to the house. But what am I going to do? I can't afford to live on my own so I just sit there."

JT is speechless. The rest of is don't know what to do or say. It feels like we're just sitting there for so long. Finally JT starts the meeting and we just start talking about our audits. It was so uncomfortable and sad.

Image credits: weezeloner

#16

Having my friends mom drive me back to my parents' after we totaled said friend's car ripping it around through a corn field. She couldn't even like form full sentences, she just kept repeating different iterations of "... what were you *thinking?!*"

Image credits: Lemp_Triscuit11

#17

It was my senior year of high school. I was sitting in the library during a study hour with two girls in my class, I’ll call them Amy and Jane. Jane and I were actually fairly close, Amy didn’t really interact with us much outside of class but we got on with her well enough and neither of us had any other friends during study hour.

Jane had told me, just the day before, that she was pregnant. She was feeling a lot of mixed emotions about the whole thing. My high school had a very high teen pregnancy rate (there was a daycare in my school) and somehow the topic of another pregnant girl in my school came up.

Amy went on and on about how stupid it was to get pregnant in high school, how teen mothers aren’t good mothers, and that they’re just throwing their life away. Jane and I were both sat there, knowing she was pregnant. Finally, when Amy was done with her rant, Jane just looked at her, said “Amy, I’m pregnant.” She got up from the table and walked out of the library. Then I had to sit there with Amy for the rest of the hour and it was one of the most awkward hours of my life.

Image credits: chernygal

#18

My cousin's wedding... His brother doing the best man speech.

He started it off with "You know what they say when a brother is the best man... No friends" and it spiraled downhill from there. It was so bad even their mother was trashing the best-man brother's performance to me best time I saw her.

Image credits: 87CSD

#19

A joint therapy session with me & my therapist and my ex & his therapist. We all just sat there after I’d made a few points and waited for my ex to talk. After a while, it was so unbearable that I said “I don’t think this is working”.

Turns out my ex (and the therapists) thought I was talking about my marriage. Which…was also correct, but I was talking about the joint therapy. So I kind of accidentally ended my marriage that day, even though it wasn’t finalized for another year or so. I’m still embarrassed about it.

Image credits: Wise_Neighborhood499

#20

Family dinner with my brother and his high school girlfriend about twenty minutes after I had accidentally walked in on them. My brother kept sending me glances that said "please don't tell mum and dad." I kept that secret until I was an adult, I mentioned it to mum randomly one day and she just goes "oh, you poor thing! That must have been so traumatic! I had no idea!"

Image credits: Silent-Zebra

#21

We got free tickets to a small time comedian.  We live in rural Nebraska.  So we show up to the comedian at a local "club" and they have rappers opening for them.


So there was a bunch of middle aged/older white people in what you would imagine farmer clothes to look like in a club that seemed like it was trying to emulate what us hicks would think a big city club is like with two black dudes on stage dropping n-bombs mother-fers.  Sort of a toned down gangster rap.  And the crowd just sat and watched politely.


It wasn't terribly uncomfortable but was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

Image credits: conservation_bro

#22

Was at a cafe alone, sitting a table. I saw my friend's brother, let's call him Matt. I hadn't seen Matt in maybe 5 years at thia point but figured I would say hi. Matt sat down ans proceeded to have a weirder and weirder convo. What started as a rant about his favorite Assassin's Creed game (bad social etiquette but not too weird) eventually morphed into government conspiracies. Couldn't get out of their fast enough but also didn't want to be too rude so sat through it for about 20 minutes. Told my friend and she was like "Oh yeah Matt has veen going through some stuff. Definitely don't recommend talking to him."

Image credits: breakermw

#23

I was visiting my cousin's house. For some reason, her mom was asking her about her childhood and if she had any trauma or something like that. What followed was my cousin lowkey trauma dumping while clearly still mad at my aunt for some parenting failures. Both were trying to stay polite-ish but dear god it was so tense and awkward. Aunt kept deflecting just about anything the cousin said too. Couldn't really leave the room because cousin was blocking the only exit.


Afterwards, Aunt asked me if I had any grievances. I kept my mouth shut.

Image credits: thrownawaynodoxx

#24

At church, 4th of July, and our pianist who thought she could sing (she couldn't) singing Lee Greenwood's I'm proud to be an American in the most god-awful high-pitched voice for the entire song. (She was using head voice the entire time for those in the know.) My husband and I were literally sitting there in shock, heads bowed, totally embarrassed with second hand embarrassment for her. This was about 20 years ago and we still talk about it around the 4th of July to this day. Had to be the longest few minutes of our lives.

Image credits: drrmimi

#25

My baseball team was at a hotel and we loaded like 30 guys in an elevator and it got stuck. We were packed in there unable to move for like 2 hours.

• Read More: These 29 Historical Facts Will Mess With Your Perception Of Time

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