My thoughts go out to the first people to ever experience cringe, whether they were on the giving or receiving end. Having an uncontrollable, icky wincing feeling overtake your body due to witnessing or dishing out pure embarrassment is never going to be pleasant. 

When it was an unknown sensation, though, the whole thing had to be a heck of a lot worse. This is fight or flight on self-conscious steroids, and there’s no getting away from that emotion once it has already begun. What’s even more confusing is how once we’ve felt it, we actively come back looking for more. Well, at least the masochistic people out there do. 

Like spice lovers who are on the endless quest for the spiciest, most mind obliterating chili, cringe connoisseurs dream of experiencing so much secondhand humiliation that they spontaneously combust. Maybe this list will achieve that one day, then we can all be at peace.