These 51 cringey life icks will make you want to crawl into a hole and die

Everyone knows about icks. They’re the seemingly normal behaviours that people do which put you off dating them – like a fit guy eating an egg mayo sandwich or seeing the person you fancy stall their car. It’s cringe and now you’re avoiding them like the plague. But icks don’t just exist in the dating world. Every day life is full of icks which will make you consider your entire being an embarrassment.

Things we do everyday such as going to the supermarket or getting public transport are full of moments that just make you internally cringe. Such as using a self-checkout or going to the top of the bus to discover it’s full and having to do the awkward turn around down the stairs. They shouldn’t be this cringey and yet there’s just something about these tiny moments of public humiliation that make you wish you’d never been born. These aren’t like dating icks, you can’t escape yourself when you trip over your own feet – you have to grin and bear it when everyone crowds around you asking “are you ok?” as your face turns increasingly red.

But they are unfortunately part of the human experience and so we must embrace them.

These are the 51 biggest general life icks:

1. Tripping over your own feet

2. Adults riding scooters – of any kind

3. Using a half broken umbrella and having to hold it pathetically above your head

4. Secretly taking a photo of someone and the flash goes off

5. Getting into the awkward polite dance with someone in your way – both moving the same way and muttering “oops sorry”

6. Coffee coming out of the little hole on top of your takeaway up and spilling on you a tiny bit

7. Standing in front of a bowling alley with everyone watching you bowl

8. Getting asked for your ID

9. Pretending to need something else at the supermarket until the person moves out of the way of what you actually need, so you just hover

10. Leaving a super market without buying anything – automatically feel like a thief

11. Putting a basket back when you didn’t buy anything

12. Returning a food item back in the supermarket when you change your mind

13. Feeling all the avocados to see which is ripe

14. Using a self-checkout till

15. Not paying for a bag at self service and having to carry everything awkwardly in your arms

16. Waiting for the supermarket supervisor to fix your self-checkout and just having the whole queue watching you

17. Your card or ApplePay not working at the tube barrier and a small queue slowing forming behind you

18. Ice breakers in any scenario

19. People who try and actually sing when around the house

20. Singing “Happy Birthday”

21. Having to sit there whilst everyone sings Happy Birthday to you and you just stare at your cake

22. Opening birthday cards and pretending not to see the money

23. Kicking a ball back to a group of teenagers

24. Using the pull along baskets in Lidl or Aldi

25. Tripping over someone else’s pull along basket in Lidl or Aldi

26. Purposefully skipping a step when walking up stairs

27. People who take their shoes off in an office or library

28. Logging onto a Zoom call and saying “can you hear me?”

29. Sharing your screen on a Zoom call

30. The wave at the end of a Zoom call

31. Chasing after a ping pong ball

32. Waiting at the bar

33. Doing the weird run walk jog for the bus

34. Going to the top of the bus and there’s no space

35. Running for the tube and missing it

36. When someone sits on the edge of your coat on public transport and you have to do the awkward pull to get it out from under them

37. Waiting for the carriage doors to open in a train

38. Checking you’ve got the right Uber

39. Going to the dentist and having a stranger stick their fingers in your mouth

40. Being in a lift with one stranger

41. Walking up stairs and trying to pretend you’re not out of breath

42. People watching you do things you can normally do but then can’t do in when they’re watching

43. Eating a pastry in public and having to wipe the mountain of crumbs off you

44. Holding the door open for someone who is a little too far away, but you can’t let go cause that would be rude

45. Doing the little jog walk towards said open door

46. Following maps on your phone before realising you’re waling the wrong way and having to turn around right in the middle of the pavement

47. Coughing on public transport

48. Sneezing – anywhere

49. Using the ladder to get out of the pool

50. Walking past a group of people the same age as you when you’re with a parent

51. Pushing the traffic lights and all the traffic has to stop for just you and everyone is watching you cross the road

Related stories recommended by this writer:

•Girls are sharing what gives them the ick, and some of them are absolutely ridiculous

•Why do all British people say these weird phrases at these exact moments?

•All the messed up food that British people still insist on eating, all the time