A common assignment in psychology and sociology courses is to commit one of these deliberately, then write about the reactions. Usual suggestions include standing too close to someone in an elevator and sitting down to a meal and chatting with random strangers in a cafeteria. This troper ate a banana sideways, ear-of-corn style, in front of his girlfriend's parents, while said girlfriend, in on the scheme, tried desperately to not burst out laughing.

This Troper had one of those assignments, and he wore a giant Russian style hat everywhere. He got a lot of weird looks.

A drama class at this tropers college had a similar assignment. This troper decided to carry around a big black umbrella all day and only open it indoors. He also affected the following VerbalTic.

Bell nuts Good morning how are you? Monkey trumpets

BTW, nobody caught on that I wasn't in the class.

This troper does it all the time by accident. He also has some strange fashion choices, including wearing goggles (only when he thinks he'll get away with it) and wearing a tatty old denim jacket (which he's repaired himself in places) along with a blue waistcoat (because it has so many pockets).

While at a religious friend's house, I started in on my food, as it looked delicious. I complemented the chef, and received many, many horrified looks from her family, as I had eaten without saying grace. I just about crawled under the table, I was so embarrassed.

And thus why religious families annoy this troper to no end. It's food. If you wait, it's gonna get cold. You can pray to your money-grubbing invisible man in the sky if you want- I'm takin' care of more worldly concerns first.

Your blatant disrespect of family tradition and religious beliefs is very telling as to the nature of your character.

(Not the same troper as above) So is your criticism. And, yes, mine, before anyone can counter.

It takes less then half a minute to say grace. I'm not exactly religious myself, but geez. Show a little respect.

To be fair, not every religious family says grace. The family had no *real* justification to be all that mortified if they had not informed that troper of that custom. Alternately, they could have taken it upon themself to say grace first. Incidentally, this troper agrees with MalachiteDragon on the food getting cold thing; he was once asked if he wanted to say grace, to which he declined, and cracked a joke of the food-getting-cold nature. This actually subverts the trope, believe it or not - he knew the family were ''just being courteous'' - he knew them to be irreligious, but they didn't know he was as well and didn't want to commit a FeeFiFauxPas themselves.

Original Poster, here: The reason for my embarrassment had more to do with the fact I knew that the family was religious, and I forgot. We're actually both Catholic, except they're far more devout than my family. And they're lovely people, and certainly weren't trying to guilt or shame me, it was an honest error on everyone's part. We were also eating with a priest.

I was eating dinner with my family when my step-mother mentioned something about her father. I can't even remember what she said about him, only that I replied with "Because he was a Communist? The table went dead silent and my step-sister got up and stormed out of the room. As it turns out, yes, it was because he was a Communist, so it wasn't entirely a FeeFiFauxPas, but that was the most awkward silence I've ever had to endure.

I spent some time working the door at a small casino, where part of my job was to greet every customer who walked in (I tolerated this because they let me carry a revolver), so what did I blurt out to the overweight black guy who walked in wearing suspenders and a red beret? "Hey, ''What's Happenin'''?" He nearly died laughing.

This troper is edgy about strangers getting into her personal space. In France, it is customary to kiss people on the cheeks, even people you met two hours ago, as a form of greeting. These two facts collided somewhat disastrously on a school trip.

This troper had a Spanish housemate at uni a couple of years ago - she (as all Spaniards would) insisted on introducing herself with that. Our landlord and landlady were similarly greeted when met the first time, to which the landlady commented "Well that's not how it's usually done here, but...". This troper just about managed to keep a straight face.

A friend once said "hey, long time no see" to a blind guy, and after apologizing and talking to him for a while she said "see you later" and then covered her mouth with her hand to avoid saying anything else after that.

Interesting. I have a blind friend who uses "see" metaphors all the time because it's just the way people normally talk. She would probably have just laughed it off had that happened to her.

In my experience, most blind people are so used to this being a normal part of speech that they aren't concerned about it, and many or most use these expressions themselves. Does tend to make the sighted people talking to them self-conscious about it, though, which is probably a good thing.

People who live with disabilities for a while generally don't care when you bring it up. In American Sign Language, the sign for "I heard" (as in, "someone told me") is to point to your ear.

A friend once related a story about how he was absentminded in a supermarket when a woman with a baby stroller walked by and without thinking he said 'wow, what an ugly baby'. How hilarious.

This troper had a friend who was trying to hook up with this girl he was working with. She mentioned that her dad was a teacher at his school(and mine was well) and asked what he thought of the school. My friend answers rather casually until it came to this one gym teacher who had a vendetta against him. My friend goes on an on about this teacher, how effeminate he was, how my friend thinks he's secretly gay. Keep in mind this is before he even asked who this girl's father was. Needless to say, he didn't get the girl this time.

This troper ended up paying a bit of...ahem...an excessive compliment to a woman (we'll call her Tall Girl, because she's a bit taller than this troper) whom he thought it was only JustFriends (possibly in her late twenties or early thirties, though she looks a bit younger than that) ... #QUOTE# Me: I actually think that, were you not interested in anything, I'd at least consider making you my girlfriend... #QUOTE# Tall Girl: I've never had that said to me before... #QUOTE# ''Tall Girl hugs this troper''

'''Further:''' Perhaps she wasn't as asexual as I had assumed; the next day that I met her, she was acting a little ''too fondly towards me'' (we didn't hit it off then) - but it was a bad move, considering Tall Girl is not only a single mother ''to a severely autistic daughter'', but she also has quite a few anxiety issues as well as likely having a low self-esteem...an inversion of DamnedByFaintPraise all-around, and possibly leading to severe headache and/or heartache later... However, she is still the sort of person whom this troper would feel very much like being close to - even if her charm is more of being TheWoobie than anything else - but OverprotectiveDad and MamaBear tag-team would disagree wholeheartedly with anything such, but fortunately this troper hasn't seen her in a while. But he's always wary though...

This Troper was making fun of The Last Airbender with a group of friends, and shouted out "BRING ME YOUR ELDERLY" (a la Slumdog!Zuko at the South Pole) just as an elderly couple walked past. Needless to say, he was mortified.

This troper came home one day in seventh grade, and her mother asked her what she was doing in Home Ec. This troper replied that she was learning about young children and caring for them. Her mother jokingly asked if she learned about spanking them, which this troper misheard as "shaking". She wasn't paying very good attention in class that day, and thought that SIDS had something to do with Shaken Baby Syndrome. That led to SIDS being brought up and the discovery that her mother's twin brother had died of SIDS. Cue end of jokes and beginning of awkward silence.

This troper recently ate in a school canteen with a number of friends. Having a habit of wrapping his leg tightly around the table leg when eating, he was mortified to find that he had wrapped his leg around A leg, but it was that of his limerent object, not of the table.

This troper stumbles into them now and then, but one in particular that came to mind happened in High School. While waiting for the class to start, I turned to a friend of mine and asked if he wanted to play a quick game of chess. To which he said sure. Now, knowing that White always goes first in Chess and not everyone else knows that, I tended to try to claim it at the beginning and did so with my standard "I'll be white, you be black." Suddenly I heard the other kids in the room burst out laughing and, in the middle of putting a piece on the board, looked up at my friend who was THE ONLY BLACK KID IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL (And everyone knew it) who simply stared at me silently for a moment or two before saying "I don't want to play anymore." and walking to a seat. THEN I realized what I said.