5 people share their most cringeworthy 'f*ck ups' they wish they could take back.

Everyone has those humiliating moments that keep them up at night. There's no cure for the sting of embarrassment, but seeing someone go through worse definitely helps.

Here are some cringeworthy anecdotes from the popular TIFU (Today I F*cked Up) thread that will make you so happy that these didn't happen to you. Hopefully.

1. 'TIFU by showing my friend their doppelganger.'

u/SaltyDrink writes:

I was on the tube on the way to see some friends in North London. Whilst looking around on the tube to pass the time, I noticed someone a few seats down that looked remarkably similar to an old friend of mine who I hadn't spoken to or seen for a while, although this person was a lot rougher round the edges and about 20kg heavier than my friend is.

As the resemblance was uncanny, I decided to sneak a quick photo of the person to send to my friend. When I got out of the tube and regained service on my phone, I sent them a message with the photo with the caption 'this guy looks just like you if you packed on some pounds'.

The message was opened almost immediately...

No reply for a few minutes...

'That is me OP...'

I haven't been able to respond yet, I'm too embarrassed. I feel truly awful about it though. Serves me right for being a bit of a tw*t.

2. 'TIFU by holding a grudge for 29 years against a kid at school'

u/carrot_man_tifu writes:

About 29 years ago I was in the third grade. I took one of the carrot packs out of my lunch box, the kind that came with a little cup of ranch dressing. All of the sudden this kid Balthasar said 'Hey everyone look, Tim is a Carrot Boy!' Everyone at the whole lunch table started to laugh. I couldn't believe it.

For some reason, that incident really stuck with me. Nobody really brought it up again, but I became self-conscious in elementary school for eating carrots. Later, I lost the self consciousness, but all through school and into adulthood I always thought of that and built it up in my head as this big disrespectful insult to me.

Whenever I eat carrots, the memory pops up, basically involuntarily. Whenever I see carrots I remember Balthasar going 'Hey everyone look, Tim is a Carrot Boy!' And hear the laughter.

What you should know is that I am from a small town, and although I left a lot of the kids I knew are still there. I saw that over the holidays there was an impromptu high school reunion event scheduled. I decided to show up, I haven't seen these people regularly in a long time.

Well who should be there but Balthasar? All of the sudden the old anger welled up in me. I don't know what I was thinking, it seems so ridiculous now, but I saw a big tray of carrots meant for everyone at the buffet table, and I picked up the entire tray and carried it to Balthie's table. I started eating carrots angrily.

Everyone at the table and surrounding tables was staring at me. I then said 'Guess I'm still a Carrot Boy, huh??!'

I almost immediately realized my f*ck up when everyone looked at me like I was insane and had no idea what I was referencing. So I awkwardly asked Baltho and the other people around if they remembered him calling me a carrot boy in third grade, and nobody did.

So I was like 'This did happen, you really did call me a carrot boy.' And he was like 'Uh...okay? Sorry man?' Somebody next to me put their hand on my arm and whispered to me 'Are you okay?', as if I was having a mental breakdown or something.

I was so embarrassed that I just got up and left. Multiple people have texted me asking me if I am alright, and why did I do that, and did I really hold a grudge for some 'innocuous, silly remark that a third grader made almost thirty years ago?'

When it was put to me like that, I realized maybe I was the one being weird.

Balthasar wasn't like a bully or something, aside from that one insult he never did anything else to me and in high school was kind of known as being a do-gooder. I had built it up as this major incident, but nobody else even remembered it.

I was horrified to find that several people from the reunion unfriended me on Facebook, and I saw photos of the event and somebody had tagged me in the background as 'Carrot Boy', and none other than Balthasar responded to the post asking the poster to remove the tag, even though several other people had replied with laugh emojis.

Now I feel like I have made a huge fool of myself and can never show myself in this town again. Well, maybe that's okay, I don't like the town anyways. But I am so embarrassed I can hardly sleep and it has been a few weeks since the incident. Oh god.

3. 'TIFU by sending a call from the International Space Station to voicemail'

EmpatheticApatheist writes:

A friend of mine is currently on his second mission to the ISS (International Space Station). I saw a call come in on my iPhone and the caller ID said “Us Gov.” I first had that thought / feeling you get when the principal calls you to their office. “Crap. What did I do that I thought I got away with but maybe I didn’t?!”

I was in the middle of something with a bunch of people and showed them what it said on my phone and everyone was all 'Don't answer it!' Between everyone's suggestion and my gut feeling of being in trouble, I sent it to voicemail.

Turns out it was my buddy calling from SPACE.

I had a chance to speak to someone that wasn't on Earth and screwed it up. First thing he said in the voicemail was “You probably saw a call from Us Gov and turned it down.”

4. 'TIFU by not realising I had athletes foot for twenty years'

I (35F) saw a post on TIFU (Today I f*cked up) a few weeks ago. About someone who had thick, calloused, crusty, mother chuffing feet. And they had tried all sorts of pumice stones, metal graters etc and always envied other people their soft pink feet. They discovered they had a fungal infection and their feet got better after treating it.

“Huh”. I thought on reading about these unmanicurable hooves of my fellow Redditor. “Since I’ve been a teenager, I too have been cursed with thick hardened soles, with cracked heels. I don’t have the knarled yellowing talons this fellow describes, but I’ve tried every cheese grater, acid lined socks (seriously), intense moisturising regimens but I’ve not had a soft foot since I was a child.'

I always thought athletes foot was itchy red scales around the toes not the thick cratered callouses I’d always had. The part that really got me thinking was when OP mused that their cracked skin went up the sides of the feet. Shit. Mine does that too. Maybe….

And YES fellow Redditors. I too have been harbouring an ungodly fungal foot infection for TWENTY YEARS. After seven days of using an over the counter anti fungal cream my feet are already softer and more like that of an elf rather than a hobbit. Maybe one day I can slip my feet into bed without a crusty-edged trotter catching on the sheets.

The foot cream I’m using is canesten (cotrimazole) See you on the beach my soon-to-be soft-footed friends

5. 'TIFU by agreeing to get circumcised for my girlfriend'

samuels643 writes:

This actually happened with my ex girlfriend of 6 months. My girlfriend (22) at the time was not a fan of my foreskin although didn’t mention anything until she brought up that I can get it fixed to be able to enjoy sex better. She said she had been told by her friends it is much cleaner and overall easier to use.

At the time I had no issues with her logic and thought that heaps of men have it done, it couldn’t be that bad right?

Fast forward to just before the surgery she was very encouraging and excited to see me have the operation. I was totally fine with the decision at this point and definitely was not educated on how much my life (and penis) was about to change.

I had quite a long foreskin and the doctor removed so much foreskin from my penis that it is pulled tight even when I don’t have a boner, recovery was tough because I was not used to my sensitive tip scraping against my underwear and every step was excruciating.

Circumcision was a bit much for me and I vented my concerns with my girlfriend. She constantly dismissed my opinion and said how these issues are just temporary and everyone gets this surgery.

I started getting frustrated and said I got this done for you and you’re not giving me any sympathy. This didn’t go well. After a few days of fighting, we stopped talking.

Not only did I have to recover from a circumcision, we didn’t end up continuing the relationship due to a lack of compatibility.

Still recovering from this mentally, although I get a shocking reminder of this horrible time every time I have to handle my penis and see that it’s been mutilated for a girl I will probably never see again in my life.