this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Image Transcription by @applesforthis on tumblr[Descriptions of images: A social media post with a series of comments.

From an unnamed user: I'm bored, tell me about a time when you seriously misread social cues and it made it weird. I'm not talking "you too" when the waiter says enjoy your food. Give me something that keeps you up at night.

From Stephanie D: One time when exiting a completely destroyed public one toilet bathroom, I mixed up "I did not do that" and "it smelled like that before I went in" and said "it didn't smell like that before me" πŸ€¦πŸΌβ€β™€οΈ

From Lbmisciagna16: I'm an RN in an outpatient clinic. When finishing with a patient I said "I plan to see u next week," combined with "Let's shoot for next week" when I confidently said "I plan to shoot you next week."

From Kris: I meant to tell a customer "if you have any questions, don't hesitate" and "it's no bother" at the same time and told her "if you have any questions, don't bother" πŸ™ƒ

From Vegas: one time i accidentally grabbed the sonic worker's finger bc i thought it was a straw she was handing me

From Cassie Vasicak: I once greet a customer "welcome to birth control" instead of "welcome to Burger King" because I was just thinking about my birth control

From Crystal: Tried to say "we're like the black sheep" and "we're like the step children" of the neighborhood and stared directly into my neighbor's eyes and said "we're like black children"

From Amanda Klatt: I meant to ask a woman what gender her baby was and I accidentally said "what flavor is that baby"

From Rach: "I was carpooling with my coworkers and a guy started drifting into my lane nearly clipping me, I screamed out "HES COMING IN ME" instead of "hes coming into my lane" πŸ˜”

From audrey may: bumped into an older gentleman by mistake. i meant to say "i'm so sorry" but also "are you okay?" so instead i just shouted "ARE YOU SORRY??" i stared at him to process and just walked away defeated

From Heather_the_Badass: I asked a waiter for a box for my remains (instead of leftovers).

From MilitaryDoc: Principal announced we'd have Monday off of school (my birthday), I jumped up and cheered... before he commented that a teacher passed away overnight and her funeral would be held that day

From appleuser7754496: I had just moved to NYC. Someone tourists stopped me on the sidewalk and asked me for directions to the subway. I gave them directions to a Subway sandwich shop around the corner

From πŸͺ¨: After an interview the hiring manager put her arm up to slide past me and I GAVE HER A HUG 😭

From lovereetks: I saw a guy trip and fall on the sidewalk and rushed forward to help them. I was thinking "I hope they're alright" and "did they get hurt." Kneeled down, locked eyes, said "I hope you're hurt".

From Jessica Linn: My husband said "whatever tosses your salad" at a work meeting because he thought it meant the same thing as "whatever floats your boat" 😭

From kirahhArgh: One time when I worked at a gas station, a guy was filling up like 20 gas cans. I meant to ask him, "are you preparing for the apocalypse?" But what I said was "are you preparing for the holocaust?"

From Mae: Got into an elevator with a woman who told me what button to press. Hesitated so bad I said "sorry I'm blind". She looked mortified, pressed the button, and I had to stare off as if I were rlly blind

From JWHigbie: I work in healthcare. Always saw the doctor in scrubs. Saw him in public, regularly dressed, and said "I didn't recognize you with clothes on!" IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE.

From FosterPupz: Guy at Starbucks took my order, and I guess my brain was thinking her was going to say "anything else?" So when he said "Have a nice day" I said "No" and he goes "ok no pressure," and I wanted to dieee

From Rachel: the first and last time I ever spoke in court I called the judge "your majesty" by accident instead of "your honor" 😫

From R Y L Y: guy introduced himself as "Pita" and I called him Pita for a week before I realized he had a Boston accent 😞 🫣

From J: This man with caterpiller eyebrows approached me while I was browsing. He asked if I needed help and I said no I was just eyebrowsing. It was 7 years ago and I think about it at least once a week 🫠 ☠️

From Desiree Taylor: In high school asked this guy in wheelchair how he kept his sneakers white...I still think about it from time to time πŸ˜”

From Tracyyy 🌊 🐚 🌸 πŸ₯₯ ✨: Taking the uber to the airport and the driver asked "American"? Proceeded to say my nationality and my entire backstory around it for him to then say "nice but American Airlines or ?" ☠️

From Roskilly's: Thought the bartender said "you look nice!" So said "aw, thanks" and did a little twirl. She repeated herself and said "would you like ice?" scoop in hand and everything. πŸ€¦πŸ»β€β™€οΈ

From Kimberly Rose: My (male) boss was excitedly explaining something to me and instead of saying "don't get too ahead of yourself" I said "don't get too hard" ?????

From Chelsey: it was summer and i went to say "it's hot out there" and "stay cool" to a very elderly man and i said "stay hot"

From Myranda Pasenelli: I had a phone interview for a job I really wanted and when she said tell me about yourself I panicked and said "I'm a girl" and we sat in silence for like 5 min 😭 my brain froze. I didn't get the job

From BJ: Worked at a dog hotel. Was sleep deprived from finals and saw a woman holding a dog and on autopilot took the dog and said "she's going to make so many new friends!" We were in Trader Joe's.

From i.love.you.iknow: One of my residents was walking his dog and I asked what the dog's name was and he said "Beo," I assumed short for Beowulf. AND I REPEATED IT. The resident had a speech impediment. The name was Bear

From DrumπŸ’•BassπŸ’•Bubbles🫧: I told a girl at the bar that I really liked her hobo style... I meant to say boho. She gave me a death stare and didn't talk to me the rest of the night 😫 πŸ₯Ή

From Nat: I work retail. Tarte shape tape was on sale, so I naturally greeted a customer "Hi, SHART".... We locked eyes as she walked away.

From Hailz: Olive Garden waiter asked me if I wanted "soup or salad" 4 times and I just said yes every single time 😞

From almostdrrllylilly: waiter at a fancy seafood restaurant cut up my steak for me and had it on the fork and i leaned over and took the bite like he was feeding me, silence was deafening

From LaurenπŸ“š: I worked in a call center and said "bye bye. Love you" to a patient on the phone. We both erupted in laughter and he hung up on me πŸ˜‚

From saltyinFL: when I was waiting tables I meant to ask them if they were done with their spinach dip but for some reason in a southern accent I said dat dip done tho? 😭 My husband still says that to me 10 years later

From Poop23: Saw a dog while hiking. Shouted down "what's your dog's name?!" They said "tofu" I meant to say "I'm gonna come say hi" but I said "I'm gonna come" emphasis on come.

/End descriptions of images.]

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago

Omfg this shit is hillarious. Thank you for sharing this :D

[–] [email protected] 115 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Is it me, or are 95% of these not misread social cues but just pronunciation fuckups?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 days ago

I was thinking the same thing. But they're entertaining!

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago

I do enjoy the irony of them ignoring that particular social cue. πŸ™ƒ

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal 9 points 1 day ago

Feels like low-rated chess, where you can distract your opponent by making a move on the other side of the board. Just by mentioning mispronunciations, people were attracted to them.

Alternatively, many of them might be bots that didn't understand the "prompt".

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I was a little shit in highschool and when asked a by military recruiter if I was interested in joining up, my autistic ass channeled the raw spite of the Vietnam and Korean war vets I knew and I responded "What ya wanna get fragged? There are far simpler forms of suicide." While I hold that I was well within my rights apparently the socially acceptable response to simply say no.

Also you aren't supposed to threaten to murder folks with wide eyes and a smile, I disagree.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We used to just tell them we weren't interested in dying for oil profits.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This was around 2018 so it was a good bit after that spiel would hit hard, mostly cause I'm sure they had a cookie cutter response. Responding like a feral 1970s draft dodger is a lot more likely to work as a mental flash bang and stick.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's fair, I was in high school during the Obama years so tail end of Iraq and while they had canned answers the cultural momentum at the time was more or less that recruiters knew not to bother with kids who responded like that.

Your response was great though

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Best part is I didn't even have to think it up, I was a ball of sleep deprivation and spite so that response was instinct more or less. But I've always been great with insults and taunts in less than mentally fit conditions, once when I was in a meltdown I told my great great aunt to go fuck herself she asked me if I knew what that meant to which I responded "I don't fucken care go open a dictionary." which was extra amusing since she taught me to check the meaning of words before I used them.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

What the hell does this do?

Simply relatable.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A couple decades ago, I got a call from an ex-girlfriend who said she just tested positive for Chlamydia and recommended I get myself tested, just to be safe.

I went to my doctor, who had a bunch of questions about my sexual health before he administered the test. One of the questions he asked was, "do you use condoms?"

Of course, the answer was "yes," but for some reason, my mouth defaulted to the word, "no."

I was about to correct myself, but out of nowhere, the doctor screamed in my face, "Are you STUPID?!" I was so stunned by his sudden outburst, I froze on the spot.

He them proceeded to lecture me on proper sexual safety, half shouting at me. It was too late to fix the mistake; I felt like he'd think I was backpedaling to stay out of trouble at that point. I resigned myself to sitting through a lengthy, angry lecture.

By the way, I tested negative. My doctor was genuinely surprised. I was not.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That is an insane response from the doctor! I mean, is it bad to not use condoms? Yeah! But shout lecturing the patient is like. Not going to make them start using them, it's going to make them lie so they don't have that happen again!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)

For the record, this was while I was serving in the US military. I had a military doctor, and we were used to being yelled at when we made mistakes, so his reaction wasn't too surprising to me. What shocked me was that he was so calm and quiet before that moment. I didn't see it coming, and it took me a moment to process why I was suddenly being yelled at.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The idea that even the doctor yells at you in the military makes it sound like an unhinged place

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

I mean, it's a career where you sign up to maybe die at 18 by giving up all your autonomy. So... yes.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In a Japanese language course, students were assigned native speaker penpals. I had asked some pretty boring questions in the first letter like how old are you, what are your hobbies, etc. The teacher proofread the letters before we sent them. The feedback I got: you really don't need to ask what nationality they are, there's only one country that uses Japanese. I turned beet red on that one.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 days ago (4 children)

That's just stupid honestly. There are plenty of non-Japanese people living in Japan, who often have children.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago

Taking a break from running a TV camera at an event, I said to another camera operator who was in a wheelchair, "It feels great to get out of there and just walk around!" He considered this for a moment and just replied, "Yeah."

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 days ago

I was working at a local auto parts store and two of my coworkers were commiserated about how their first month they'd both answer the phones with, "thank you for calling Autozone." Instead of the store name out of reflex. We all had a laugh and I proceeded to immediately answer the next call with "thank you for calling Autozone."

I've never worked at Autozone.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Holy hell I haven't laughed like that in months my god, thank you so much

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Dude I'm fucking wheezing while having hotel breakfast. What is this style of humor called? It's like a perfect combination of all my worst fears somehow made hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (12 children)

When my kid was but a newborn, they were having trouble latching. We had to take them in for a very small procedure to get them to be able to feed properly. I could see their mother was having trouble dealing with it, so I tried to say "the doctor says it won't hurt" and "do you want me to hold [the kid]?" Ended up saying "do you want me to hurt them?"

The doctor counseled against that action.

On a separate event, years before that kid was born, I had to take my first dog to the vet and he had to get a shot. He was clearly nervous but the vet tech was holding him, so I rubbed his neck and ear to comfort him throughout. Only just as they were finishing up did I realize I had also, entirely accidentally, been rubbing the vet tech's hand. She didn't say anything until I realized and apologized profusely, but it was still mortifying.

edit: Punctuation.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been on the opposite side of that, with a human patient.

Was providing some care that required me to support the patient with one hand while doing some less than comfortable work (impaction removal). The patient's daughter was rubbing his shoulder, only my hand was there, so she was actually rubbing my wrist.

She didn't realize it until I had to shift my position with that hand and warned her I was going to be moving. Like you, she got embarrassed and apologized. I just shrugged and said it was no biggie, I would have said something but I was concentrating and needed the moral support. Which turned it into a mutually humorous thing, so we had a good laugh.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That sounds like a mutually beneficial thing, then!

My aunt, a nurse, once told me of how manual impaction removals are. I was never quite sure whether to believe her (she liked to go for shock value) but eventually found out she was telling the truth.

That was some twenty years ago. Once or twice since, whilst struggling on my own, I've hoped that the process has improved since then.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lmao! If only it could be improved.

I always hated doing them, not because of the nature of the job but because even when I was younger, my hands (and therefore fingers) were on the large side. Large hands means large fingers. I guess you can see where that would be a detrimental trait for impaction removal lol.

At one point, I wore a size 15 ring and my company had to special order gloves for me. And that was roughly around the same time as that patient. So the fingers I had to use were bigger than 15 by a good bit. Plus, I was still lifting some, but had taken up a casual practice of what's called iron palm training. That's where you repeatedly slam your hands into things to make them tougher. That's an exaggeration, it isn't all that harsh, but still.

So I ended up telling the one company I worked for that I really needed to not be doing them. The supervisor at the time was a pretty great lady, but she didn't quite get the issue. I took a risk and just slapped my hand down on the desk with my index and middle fingers out and asked her if she'd like me to help her clear her bowels. It worked! I cleared her bowels and got a raise.

Nah, that last part is obviously a joke, but I did get her cooperation lol

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Next time I'm constipated, I'm not calling you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You sure? I'm told I have a reassuring voice that almost makes it an enjoyable process

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You know what? If it ever gets to that point, perhaps I'll reconsider in the moment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Have gloves, will travel reads the card of a man!

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was a server at TGIF. New menu item - the Cedar-seared salmon Caesar salad. Try saying that fast.

Anyways, can't remember if I was repeating the order back or what, but I said "cedar-seared Caesar semen salad" and paused for a second, made a face and pretended I didn't say it. Noone said anything and I avoided the table as much as I could.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago

Back when cell phones were uncommon I did the sentence merge thing. When the GF came home I said "Hi mom." Instead of "Hi [GF], your mom called." She and her coworker who had come over for dinner didn't know what to say.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago

When I was in middle school I walked straight through the middle of a fight. Even went right between the two dudes who were throwing punches at each other. I was really confused as to why people were bunched up in the hallway until an old teacher who used to be in the military came out and started yelling at the top of his lungs.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Half asleep walking to work I said hello back to a guy. Turned out he was talking to someone on the phone with earbuds.

Friend of mine was moritified when I asked a Mormon elder who started talking to us if they still believed in bigamy. She thought I meant sodomy.

Also, one of the commenters here said they worked at a dog hotel? Is that a thing?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Dog hotel is a nice name for a kennel

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

Dog hotel could either refer to a doggy daycare place or a hotel that allows pets, I'm assuming the former based on what they said.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago

In retrospect this is barely a tumblr post, but it's still really funny

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

Got into an elevator with a woman who told me what button to press. Hesitated so bad I said "sorry I'm blind". She looked mortified, pressed the button, and I had to stare off as if I were rily blind

How would they have pressed the button for themselves?! Elevator buttons have braile!!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

these made me die of laughter lmao

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