My example isn’t a funny-embarrassed situation, but rather a situation that made me feel bad facing a rude unnecessary remark from a total stranger.
I have a naturally “ruddy” complexion- the pinkness in my face can vary based on temperature, irritants, or sometimes seemingly for no reason at all. And my face is never uniformly pink, the pinkness comes in blotches.
In addition to a ruddy complexion, I also have real skin problems- psoriasis. Luckily it have it mostly in places hidden by clothes or hair, but sometimes get patches on my face.
My skin is extremely sensitive. I have found that I am best served to shave everyday because two days of whisker growth provides too much resistence to the razor- it severely irritates my skin resulting in lots of pink bumps and general pink swelling.
On the day of the incident, I had gone maybe three days without shaving. I had let myself go because I had been feeling depressed and was avoiding people anyway. On this day I actually cleaned myself up, determined to lift myself out of that funk. I shaved knowing that my face would look terrible, but it was going to have to happen sometime and I knew that I would look fine the following day.
Looking for something to do, but not ready to be social with anyone, I decided to see a matinee at a movie theater that was walking distance from my apartment. It was a sunny Los Angeles day, but even my sensitive ruddy skin would survive the five block walk to the movie theater.
On my walk to the movie theater to see a movie I had been looking forward to, determined to shake the depression and feel better about myself, an adult complete stranger spoke up to scold me for “letting” myself “sunburn like that”. She actually told me “you should be ashamed of yourself” that I better go home right now and put some sunblock on, that I looked like a mess.
This was like getting kicked in the stomache the way it added to how I had already been feeling bad about myself- and on the day I had determined to start feeling better!
Anecdote contributed to this Thread as “personal laxity” = neglecting to shave for three days despite knowing the effect it would have on my skin and appearance.