The Uninvited Visitor

Vicarious embarrassment (also known as secondhand, empathetic, or third-party embarrassment) is the feeling of embarrassment from observing the embarrassing actions of another person. Unlike general embarrassment, vicarious embarrassment is not caused by participating in an embarrassing event, but instead by witnessing (verbally and/or visually) another person experience an embarrassing event.

Freshers’ Week

I usually catch second-hand embarrassment from others more than I actually get embarrassed myself. I find it be to be a bit worse. When the embarrassment concerns you there’s a level of control, you can still choose whether you’d like to lick the lipstick on your teeth or cover a big fat rip in your trousers with your jacket. But when you’re actively watching someone embarrass themselves in public, there’s little you can do and so you’re stuck in what seems to be this everlasting moment of awkwardness as you watch them bury themselves deeper and deeper into a hole. It’s empathy mixed with awkwardness mixed with regret for being in that place at the particular time watching someone fall over their tub of ice cream in a train station. What are the odds? Must be fate. What’s worse is you’re usually unsure whether to let them know or not, if they aren’t already aware. You don’t want to rude, or invasive. It’s a lose-lose situation.

I’ve been in this situation many times. Sometimes I’m well-behaved, and I try to keep my composure. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find myself giggling at people for missing their steps on the stairs or someone stumbling over their words constantly during my secondary school assemblies. And yes, I’m very much aware that neither of these things is funny. Please don’t crucify me. But I can’t be the only one who laughs in very inappropriate situations unintentionally. The more I try to keep it in and chastise myself for even finding it funny, the faster the laughter escapes my lips. Followed by regret, embarrassment from people’s very judgemental gazes and a panicked trip to an online psychopath test.

You’ll never find me in a stand-up comedy show for this reason. I’m so scared someone would make a joke and induce the much-dreaded silent room phenomenon and I would have to share in their moment of intense embarrassment. Despite all my attempts, however, the universe has a very cruel habit of putting me in these situations. At least once every three months. The one incident ingrained in my memory is a case that happened in the first year of my university, on what the people from the U.K call “freshers” week. A lot happened during this reckless week, from fights at house parties which later led to police interventions to finding out about a boys’ scoreboard group chat. Both incidents were the talk of our year for a while, but regardless of how eventful those incidents are, this is one story I could never forget.

I had initially missed my bus on this day, feeling slightly angry knowing I would, in turn, miss my train and then be late for pre-drinks with my friends. Sometimes my life is a series of unfortunate events, and so I knew the chances of being denied entry into one of the freshers' events for the third time that week was a staggering 99.9%. I had decided to live out of student accommodations to save up money and honestly ended up regretting it. Being miles away from classes and parties meant my social life was taking a huge hit. Finding it hard to sit still in the cold, I decided to take a walk to Tesco, 5 minutes from the bus stop to get some chewing gum. One of my biggest fears in life is having bad breath, I just think it’s unfair to others, and I didn’t want a situation where everyone moved away whenever I opened my mouth to speak.

Unfortunately for me, the self-checkout machines only accepted cards, I was buying a £1 pack of gum and decided it’ll be best to wait in line to split my notes into coins since the next bus wouldn’t be coming for another 10 minutes or so. Just another bad decision I made as a teenager.

The lady at the front somehow decided to have a full-blown conversation with the cashier, it seemed she was a staff finishing up her shift, ultimately annoying everyone else waiting patiently in line. After my purchase, I hurried out, realising my bus was already on its way to the bus stop. Normally I wouldn’t run for it, because running in heels and the risk of falling over on my face and missing the bus would be so embarrassing I might sink into the ground. I might be forced to move universities or end up going viral for all the wrong reasons. I weighed the pros and the cons very quickly in my mind and decided I couldn’t afford to miss the bus for a second time. And so I decided to make a stylish pretentious “jog” for it, hoping the bus driver would see me from the mirrors and have mercy on me.

When I finally got onto the bus, the bus was still waiting and I thought this was peculiar till I looked back. That’s when I realised there was a man in the same predicament as me. He clearly didn’t have the same fears I had and he was sprinting faster than the speed of light towards the bus. He was a very very tall dude. I’m talking NBA basketball player tall. Probably taller than an average basketball player actually. Legs hanging off the bed kind of tall. And so it was already funny and cute watching him running like slender man or the cheese string man towards the bus. I found myself a seat at the back, silently hoping I would be alone and wouldn’t be forced to make conversation with anyone. I can be very awkward and didn’t want to subject anyone to my inept social skills.

There were many other seats on the bus and since he was the last passenger in, I was rest assured he’d choose a seat at a noticeable distance away from me. But to my surprise, he didn’t. There were at least 20 empty seats on the bus, but he decided the seat adjacent to me was the one he wanted.

I simply couldn’t understand why. There was no inkling of logic to his actions. The only thing I could think of was the fact that he also wanted a seat at the back, perhaps to get away from loud students that would soon fill the bus.

I had a few nanoseconds to stare at him, and as much as I was slightly irritated by his choice of seat, I can’t deny he was a very handsome man. He was dressed in one of those vintage hippie shirts, wide-leg trousers and he had a perfectly shaped moustache I found funnier than I should have. I’d describe him best as a model from the 70s with the slicked-back hair, and funky choice of clothes. Perhaps he was on his way to a freshers costume party, I have no idea, but I’d bet all my student finance allowance he was going for the fashionable porn star look. Nonetheless, he pulled it off very well. I was going to be on the bus for about 20 minutes anyway so I thought this is not so bad, it could be worse, I could have missed the bus altogether.

I buried my face in my phone, doom scrolling on Instagram to escape the somewhat awkward silence. He seemed to do the same and was silent for the first 15 minutes or so. To my relief, so many other people ended up joining at other bus stops and the top deck became full and loud with conversations about cringe random subjects. This included a group of students, and a very stern looking woman, who I assumed to be a lecturer or even a bouncer. All of a sudden I hear the girls beside me giggling, at first I thought nothing of it but I could see they were also whispering to each other. I wouldn’t categorise myself as nosy but what piqued my interest was the realisation that they were giggling and whispering in my direction.

At first, I assumed I had something on my face or forgot to button up my shirt. I can be very scatter-brained when rushing and so it didn’t take long for the self-consciousnesses to set in. I took a very quick discreet look on Snapchat to make sure nothing was out of place but I couldn’t find anything worrisome. I sighed in relief but still couldn’t help but think the passengers were in on a joke I wasn’t in on. The woman now has a grin on her face, forcing me to go into detective mode trying to figure out why everyone was acting so weird. I was growing uncomfortable by the minute and for a moment I felt kinda helpless. After what felt like an eternity of insecurities and shady behaviour from the other passengers, I decided to take a quick look around again. And that’s when it dawned on me. Members of the jury, to my surprise and relief, I instantly noticed a bulge in the tall man’s trousers, a bulge that wasn’t present before.

A noticeably big bulge pointing forward.

It had so much of a presence that everyone on my row could clearly see it. It all suddenly made sense to me, the quick glances were not towards me but the uninvited visitor. His face was still buried in his phone and honestly, I don’t think he even realised what had happened. But it was just there, staring back at everyone to the passengers’ amusement. What made it more intense was just like me, he must have heard the giggles. He looked around for a bit but didn’t realise what they were giggling about and went back to minding his business. That in addition to the fact that whenever he looked up, the giggles would stop and resume almost immediately he went back on his phone.

Being in such close proximity to him, I didn’t immediately find humour in the situation, it felt very awkward and I instantly became very embarrassed for him. At first, I considered tapping him and moving my eyes in the direction of his crotch so he could realise what was happening. But I decided against it because I thought it would be very rude and just awkward for him. How do you tell a man he has a bulging erection on public transport without looking like an absolute perv or even offending him? I wondered why he hadn’t realised it yet as it’s literally on his body? I also wondered what could have caused the sudden erection and why it was taking so long for it to go back to its default state.

I obviously don’t understand the logistics of having a penis but I had so many questions and realised that a few people on my row had started to move seats. Poor guy, I thought. He’s clueless. About 5 longggggg minutes into all of this, I suppose he finally realises what was going on and because I was adjacent to him, our eyes met quickly. You could cut the look of embarrassment on his face with a machete.

I couldn’t help but feel so sorry for him but I was also simultaneously struggling to hold in the inappropriate and invasive laughter that was brewing. In fact, now that I think about it, perhaps a domino of laughter might have lessened the intense awkwardness of the situation.

He later tried to get off the bus, and as he walked through the bus, walk of shame style, the whole bus was completely silent. I have never felt a case of second-hand embarrassment as I have on that day and I could feel him wishing he hadn’t gotten on the bus in the first place. In fact, I wished I hadn’t gotten on the bus either. It’s not like he could cover it with his hands as that would have made things more awkward. Except, he decided to do just that. I later realised from one of my male friends that it’s the act of pushing your erection upwards to reduce its presence. But because all eyes were on him as he attempted to tame the beast, the air of awkwardness thickened. Once he got off, everyone on my row burst out laughing. I won’t pretend as if I didn’t giggle a bit from their infectious laughter but I couldn’t help but feel terrible and embarrassed for the guy.

Nonetheless, I was glad his exit meant it was all over, and we could finally put this awkward moment behind us. When women get turned on or aroused for one reason or the other in public, we are able to hide it. But for men, unfortunately, their arousal announces itself, even in the most inappropriate of places. I had a conversation with my male friends afterwards and places their erections have popped up include; singing in a choir in front of a church audience, random university lectures, at job interviews and the worst one, in a mascot costume at a kids party.

I don’t even want to imagine having a penis that could potentially suddenly increase in size in front of a giggling audience. The whole thing just seems unfair. And so in that moment, I found myself thanking the genital gods for giving me a vagina instead.