Sometimes my wife rebukes me because, she claims, I have been embarrassing. In other words; I’m embarrassing. I (of course!) have an alternative way to describe the same phenomenon; I’m not embarrassing it’s just that sometimes, some people, including my wife, are embarrassed by my behaviour. You might think this is hair-splitting, but not so. In one explanation I’m embarrassing, i.e. I’m the problem, and in the other, some people have chosen to feel embarrassed by something I have said or done, i.e. it’s their problem. You can guess which explanation I prefer – indeed, insist is correct.
Far from me being embarrassing, I’m often the one who chooses to feel embarrassed. I once showed my elderly parents round the garden and paused to point out a beautiful clematis in full bloom. Unfortunately I asked them to admire a beautiful clitoris. Fortunately, they didn’t appear to notice.
Many years before, when I was a newly qualified psychologist keen to impress, I foolishly thought it would help my career along if I read a paper at a conference organised by the British Psychological Society (my professional institute with the power to defrock me etc). Psychologists in those days didn’t mention people; they referred to them as organisms. I therefore prepared my paper carefully making sure that I included a sprinkling of organisms. When the day came to present my paper and the first organism loomed up, I had an internal crisis and couldn’t remember whether the word was organism or orgasm. Of course, in my confusion, I chose the wrong one.
Once, in Brighton, I spotted some glass paperweights for sale in the window of a junk shop. At the time we collected paperweights (not any more – no room) and so I went in and asked to look at a couple that interested me. The man duly retrieved them from the display window, huffing and puffing because he had to reach over a large brass eagle. I examined the two paperweights and asked how much they were. The man replied, ‘Two fifty mate’. I chose one and he wrapped it up. I thanked him and put £2.50 on the counter. He looked at me as if I was mad. Of course, he meant £250 – a price I considered extortionate. I scurried out with no paperweight.
Then there was the time I accidentally locked myself out of a hotel room in the early hours with no clothes on, and the time I stepped into a sauna in Germany with trunks on when everyone else was naked, and the time a woman caught me fast asleep in her bath………..
So, you see, I’m not in the least embarrassing but I do often succeed in embarrassing myself.
