Embarrassability Scale – ES

Suppose you were just beginning a talk in front of a class.

Suppose you slipped and fell on a wet floor in a public place, dropping a bag of groceries.

Suppose you were a dinner guest, and the guest seated next to you spilled his plate on his lap while trying to cut his meat.

Suppose someone stopped you on the street by asking you something, and he turned out to be quite drunk and incoherent.

Suppose a group of friends were singing 'Happy Birthday' to you.

Suppose you discovered you were the only person at a particular social occasion without a dress (or coat and tie – i.e. you are informally dressed).

Suppose you were watching an amateur show and one of the performers was trying to do a comedy act, but was unable to make anyone laugh.

Suppose you were calling up a person you had just met for the first time in order to ask him or her for a date.

Suppose you were muttering aloud to yourself in an apparently empty room and discovered that someone else was present.

Suppose you walked into a bathroom at someone else’s house and discovered it was occupied by a member of the opposite sex.

Suppose you were watching a play from the audience when it suddenly became clear that one of the actors had forgotten her lines, causing the play to come to a standstill.

Suppose you are unable to stop coughing while listening to a lecture.

Suppose you were being lavishly complimented on your pleasant personality by your companion on your first date.

Suppose you were in a class and you noticed that the teacher had completely neglected to zip his fly.

Suppose you entered an apparently empty classroom, turned on the lights, and surprised a couple making out.

Suppose you were talking to a stranger who stuttered badly due to a speech impediment.

Suppose your mother had come to visit you and was accompanying you to all your classes.

Suppose you were a dinner guest and could not eat the main course because you were allergic to it.

Suppose you were alone in an elevator with a professor who had just given you a bad test grade.

Suppose a shabbily dressed man accosted you on the street and asked you for a handout.

Suppose you were walking into a room full of people you did not know and were being introduced to the whole group.

Suppose you tripped and fell while entering a bus full of people.

Suppose you were opening some presents while the people who bought them for you were sitting around watching.

Suppose you asked someone on crutches if he had suffered a skiing accident and he blushed and replied that, no, he was crippled by polio when he was a child.

Suppose you had forgotten an appointment with a professor, and remembered it as you met him in the hall the next day.

Suppose you were talking in a small group that included a blind student, when someone next to him unthinkingly made a remark about someone being 'blind as a bat.'