Plenty of us like to think that we are above embarrassment. Plenty of us are wrong. Being alive is inherently cringeworthy, and our quality of life can be dictated by how willing we are to accept that. 

However, there are also levels and conditions to the complicated beast that is cringe. Sometimes, it happens because of a silly mistake, or an understandable lack of awareness. Other times, it comes from being a genuine douche, and honestly deserves some level of shaming. 

Whatever kind it may be, all of it serves as a useful lesson in how not to act (and gives us some interesting stories besides). While most of us believe that we don’t need these kinds of reminders, we never know when we might get tripped up. If all the people in the examples below managed to do it, it can’t be as rare as we think it is.