"Door Tags"

I would just die if you ever walked in on me:

1) Having sex.

2) Removing unwanted hair.

3) Vamping in the mirror.

4) Having made-up, speak-out-loud conversations with people who only exist in my head.

Yes, I do all these things, but no, you will NEVER catch me doing them. My fantasies about Ryan Reynolds are nobody's business but my own, thank you very much (but for the record, those fantasies do not involve hair removal).

I prefer to keep personal and private things "personal and private." Unfortunately, privacy is hard to come by when you live with other people. For ten of the last eleven years, I have lived with roommates, making me an expert at secrecy and stealth. Thankfully, I have never been walked in on doing anything mortifying, but I have caught some of my roommates in the middle of several embarrassing acts. 

For instance, I once caught a roommate flirting with himself in the mirror. He had been home alone trying on shirts in preparation for a big night out. From what I could gather, this process involved striking a GQ pose in the mirror while casting a sexy smile at his reflection. He had left his bedroom door wide open.

Now, preening ain't all that bad - Hey, I do it all the time! I wouldn't have thought twice about what my roommate was doing had he not totally caught me catching him in the act. In mid-pose, he saw my reflection behind him in the mirror, and he jumped. He tried to act casual, like it was perfectly normal to wear a designer shirt with pajama pants at 3:00 in the afternoon, but we both knew that I knew that he had been macking on himself. He got all awkward and shifty; that made me awkward and shifty. I tried to think of something, ANYTHING, to say in that split second: "What's for dinner," perhaps. Or, "What's on TV?" Anything but what I actually wanted to say: "What the hell are you doing?"

Embarrassment sucks, but feeling embarrassed for someone else is even worse. There is nothing quite like feeling ashamed on behalf of another person. It's a combination of sympathy, pity, inappropriate humor and relief (that it didn't happen to you) that always leaves me feeling awkward and, well, embarrassed. So really, in the end, when you catch someone in a compromising situation, everyone loses! God help us.

Luckily, we have invented many things to help us preserve privacy and avoid embarrassment: Doors, locks on doors, curtains, Keep Out signs, vicious dogs, booby traps. Hotels provide guests with door tags. People on TV are always hanging lingerie or socks on door knobs to warn roommates that salacious acts are underway. Well, I don't know about you, but I have never known anyone in real life to actually hang clothing on doors, and I am always embarrassed to use the door tag in a hotel. I mean, doesn't a door tag do exactly what you DON'T want?: They tell the whole world that you are up to something on the down low! And no matter what it is you are doing in there, you know that everyone is going to think you're up to something perverted and nasty.

There is just no winning.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I must away.
I've some unwanted hair that needs removing.

Thank you to Young Hee Kim of Washington D.C. for this topic.

Comments

[melissa]

Oh, I do the made up conversation thing all the time. And I am certain that people catch me. But I do use the door tag at the hotel...unless there are people who know me there, why not?

[Anna Swanson]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has imaginary conversations (and
sometimes arguments)! :)

[Zeb L. West]

I feel like one of the most endearing qualities a person can have is the ability to gracefully deal with embarrassment. It implies humility and healthy levels of self-honesty.

I really want to submit a topic!