You know how sometimes your brain decides to relieve your mightiest missteps at two in the morning?
TikToker Elizabeth (aka @elizabethao037) sure does. And when she revisits her horrifyingly embarrassing memories, she’s sure to dwell on the time she attempted to hug a waiter and was absolutely shut down. Even worse? It was all caught on camera and millions have cringed with Elizabeth.
The clip starts with Elizabeth and a caption:
“Thinkin about the time when I thought the waitor [sic] was giving me a hug for my birthday, but he was just grabbing the candle.”
Then a sound clip from The Real Housewives of New Jersey plays; the sound has gone viral in a TikTok trend in which users recall their most embarrassing moments.
In the video, Elizabeth is at a restaurant; it appears she is celebrating her birthday. Next to her, a waiter smiles and excitedly waves his arms. When he leans over, it does indeed appear to be for a hug.
Elizabeth accepts it! Why wouldn’t she? Hugs are great. But as she hugs him, he keeps leaning forward to grab a candle off the table. The waiter removes the candle and dips out without comment.
The video has over 14 million views, most of which expressed just as much mortification as Elizabeth must have suffered.
“That just physically hurt me,” one person wrote.
Another commented, “This is what panic attacks are made of.”
“I would honestly never recover from this,” another person wrote.
“The more I watch the worse it gets. I would never be able to forget this if it was me.”
Most people agreed that the waiter really did appear to be bending for a hug but also praised his “wholesome” response to the whole thing.
