Abstract Essay: Embarassment

Huynh Hoang

Ms. Waller

AP English (Waffles)

14 October, 2009

Embarrassment

In the school year of 2006-2007, I was in the 8th grade and had met the most perfect girl I had ever seen. She was everything that I would ever want in someone: beautiful, intelligent, quiet, and the kindest soul. One day, her best friend had asked me “Huynh, who do you like?” It was her birthday the following week, so I had promised to tell her as a present. She had already expected something, but simply needed confirmation. Carefully, I folded a heart out of new crisped five dollar bill, with a note hidden well inside the interior with my crush’s name. On her birthday, I gave her the present. Without any notification, someone had snatched the neatly folded money away from the birthday girl’s hand, opened the coin that had been hiding the interior, and my secret had been revealed. In the oncoming months, I had walked the halls of Walters Junior High with embarrassment. How was I supposed to go to school, humiliated as I was? How was I supposed to look at her without thinking that she knew, and was too embarrassed to be next to me? How was I supposed to continue living with the happiness that I had?

Embarrassment. Everyone has their own reason to feel embarrassed. Some may be embarrassed by what their parents wear in public, or how their siblings handle themselves in a restaurant. Others may be embarrassed when mispronouncing a word in front of the entire class. Embarrassment can make one feel stupid, made fun of, or even into tears. Everyone has their own perception of embarrassment, and their own way of dealing with it. For me, I try to run away from it as far as possible, hiding away under the thickest blanket I can find, hoping that it doesn’t find me.

Every time I walked throughout school, I felt the eyes of people gaze upon my presence. Every whisper became about me. Everything became small. It felt as if I was being tortured. It felt as if everyone was watching my every movement, my every breath. And the worst part? She was in nearly all of my classes. I had wanted to run away from her stabbing glances the most, and the many judgments that came with it. Any thought that I may have had a chance in my mind was shattered into many fragmented pieces as if a glass cup was impacted by a baseball bat, due to the embarrassment. It was a sickening feeling. I had no motivation to move forward. For awhile, I ignored her as an attempt to run away from the embarrassment.

The thing with embarrassment is that it’s completely optional. I didn’t know it, but I had chosen to feel embarrassed. I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to fight off my own imagination as I did in something like overcoming a math problem. After awhile, with the help of my friends, I realized that being depressed over one embarrassing encounter for too long was not a way to live my life. They made me realize that they didn’t care, and that they weren’t going to call me out on my embarrassments. They made me grasp the concept of how embarrassment was optional, and that I can now choose “ehh, whatever,” and move on.

Everyone may feel embarrassment accordingly to what they care about. For some, it’s the appearance that strangers will perceive of their mothers and fathers accordingly on how they dress, and for others is how people may perceive them as a dork since they weren’t paying attention and trip. However if one can gain the confidence in themselves to go “ehh, whatever” to all the laughter that may take part after such mishaps, he or she may overcome any embarrassing situation. As I look back into that encounter today, I feel foolish to have felt embarrassed as I realized that no one truly cared, that it was all apart of my imagination. Over the years, I had overcome that embarrassing occurrence to become the best of friends with my ex-crush.


Haha, do you know what's funny? I made her revise it for me (: Yeah she knew it was her, but I wasn't embarrassed by it. She just went *aww I never knew you felt that way* and *I think of you as one of my bestest bestest bestest friend too!* I love her as a friend (: