Patricia Grisafi
Awkward situations are a part of life. But have you ever had an experience that felt so immensely awkward and awful for so many people that you just could not wait to escape? A few elephants in the room are pretty typical: everyone knows that someone is getting fired except for that person, someone is cheating and their partner has no idea. Others are more extraordinary.
On Reddit, folks are getting real about the biggest “elephant in the room” moments they’ve ever seen.
1. Anti-Sexual Harassment Training
“Last year one manager Robert became obsessed with, sexually harassed and stalked a young female coworker but somehow managed to keep his job. Fast forward to the start of this year and my company has mandatory anti sexual harassment training and the name of the harasser in the training example is Robert. Big f*cking elephant in the room.” — Big-Secretary9144
2. Cheating With The Host
“I was at a party once, where a girl cheated on her boyfriend with the host of the party. Her boyfriend was at work, and they were really loud so everyone knew. Well, fast forward an hour or two, to her boyfriend knocking on the door to pick her up. That shit was the most uncomfortable I have ever been. I cut those people off, and told the boyfriend the day after. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, but I reasoned…if it was me in that situation, I would want to know.” — RaceCarGoFrrr
3. Filed For Divorce
“Friend had filed for divorce, her husband hadn’t been served the papers so he didn’t know yet but everyone else knew it was coming and they came to a party together.” — le_fez
4. Awkward Car Ride
“A friend of mine gave his ex-girlfriend and the girl he cheated on her with a ride home at the same time after a party. Silent car ride the entire way until the ex got out she sarcastically said, ‘This was fun, we should do this again.'” — iiAmQuake
5. You’re Getting Fired
“Someone was getting fired at the end of the day, and EVERYONE knew, except for her.” — ThisIsForFood
6. School Scandal
“My senior year in high school, the band director was f*cking one of my classmates. We students knew it. The band director and my classmate barely tried hiding their relationship. It was almost done in the open. The faculty knew too. Everybody knew. Except the band director’s wife, who worked at the same high school.” — OhYeahThrowItAway
7. Mistress At The Wedding Party
“Guy invites his mistress to his wedding after party, sits next to her and spends more time talking to her than his wife.” — ThaddCorbett
8. “They’re Back Together”
“A girl in my social circle broke up with her husband and father of her children and shacked up with this crazy guy and for about 4 months was all full of comments on Facebook and in conversations, “You don’t get to judge my love” and “I’m finally doing what I want FOR ME for a change so you shut the f*ck up” and all that. And then one day she just wanders in with her husband, they’re back together.” — HawkTheHawker
9. “Squash It Like A Bug”
“I had a father talk to me at parent teacher night one year…. He had cheated on his pregnant wife years ago, but everything was ok now, (still with wife), but his side chick had gotten pregnant also. I had both son and daughter in my class, but they didn’t know they were related. The daughter just ‘didn’t know her father’ and had been eventually adopted by her mother’s husband. Anyway, I was told ‘I’m letting you know so if they start gettin’ interested in each other, you know, romantically, you should squash it like a bug.'” — xchucklesx13
10. Secret Daughter
“It was at my great uncle’s funeral. Everyone in my family is extremely close, everyone knows everyone. So when we saw a young 20ish woman hanging around, people were confused. Everyone knew she wasn’t part of the family but no one would dare to say anything. Finally an aunt had some small talk with her and learned who she was. Turns out she was his daughter from when he cheated on his wife. No one even knew he had an affair, much less a daughter from it.” — -PM_me_your_recipes
11. Arrested Then Promoted?
“A coworker of mine was arrested and escorted out of Lowe’s because he stole over $3,000 in the cash office. (He was a head cashier.) Fast forward to later on that year where he was HIRED as a FINANCIAL AID advisor at Mount Saint Mary’s College. Then they PROMOTED HIM. Imagine having a financial aid officer at a university; only to find out they are handling your financial aid package. But was arrested for theft. This college claims to run background checks.” — InformallyGuavaCado
12. A Total Karen
“My family was eating dinner a when I was still home a little over a month ago and my mom asked my dad, brother, and I to describe her in three words, none of us said anything because my mom is a total Karen and even my bro (the golden child) thought she was a horrid parent. She described herself as, great mother, kind person, and pretty. My bro and I said ‘I thought you could only use 3 words, that’s 5.’ The sad part is what we said went right over her head.” — OofPleases
13. Watching Porn
“I was one of several teachers who had a conference with a grandmother who was raising her twin grandchildren… both boys. The boys were only 12, but were always tired in class and made very inappropriate comments to female classmates and even female teachers. We asked about the boys’ internet usage, and the grandmother, who didn’t seem to know anything about computers, said that the boys took their laptops to their bedrooms every night, but they promised that they were just doing homework on them. A quick check of their history revealed what we suspected… the boys were up all night watching hardcore porn, and the grandmother was totally clueless.” — StarCana2
14. Hypocrisy
“Had a gay (important for context) VP who vilified a Jewish (important for context) coworker for speaking up because the VP was being an ahole during our meetings. The VP did all he could to make our coworkers’ life miserable. I would find him crying at his desk. He, coworker, was out for a month because he was suffering from neurological issues. During the time our VP did everything in his power to fire him. When co-worker returned he was already looking for another job within the company (large compact with many branches) and found out VP was calling everywhere telling folks not to hire this man. Finally he left. Last month VP mandated that we all sit in 4 day 6 hour meetings about Critical Race Theory. He talked about how important it was to feel heard, be a ‘co-conspirator’ for others, speak up for those who can’t when the situation happens and not after the fact, confront the attacker regardless of power structure and not hold back because of gender, race, sexuality, etc etc…We all sat there fuming because the elephants ass was in our face and making it hard to breathe.” — Kephla
15. “So Pure An Angel”
“In a sweet 16 dinner party some years ago the whole classroom were invited, the grand father of the lady was ready to make a toast and he was praising her granddaughter so proudly then he said some words like ‘you are so pure an angel…’ Then the boyfriend of the girl a little tipsy start lo laugh really loud and said ‘pure? I bang her brains out all the time’ awkward silence took over the dinner the whole night everyone act like they didn’t hear what just happened.” — Billyetbill
16. Not Invited
“Mate and me show up to the hottest school party of the year. We thought we were invited. Turns out, we weren’t. Worst part—we’d already been seen, and we had to hang out outside for quite some time because neither of us had a car and the parent who’d dropped us off couldn’t come pick us up right away. Made the next few days pretty awkward.” — Deathappens
Featured Image: Unsplash
