I am the queen of tactless
I used to be worse, but a friend took me aside in highschool and specifically spelled it out to me and I've been working on it ever since. It doesn't come easily to some of us, it really doesn't.

Most of these stories seem to be about small children - we don't come with tact preinstalled and have to learn it, so that's not really surprising - but the best stories are about adults who still haven't learnt.

I put my foot in my mouth so often I wonder why I bother taking it out, but I usually get away with it because once people know me they know I'm the tactless wonder.

However, the painful stories that stick in my mind are from when I've just met new people. Generally, new work colleagues. Like the time I had just started a new job recently and went out for a few drinks with my new work mates. They decided to head back to one girl's place to play board games (seriously, we're all nerds) and drink more wine. One of the older guys (by which I mean mid-30s; we're mostly mid-20s) was wearing a baseball cap and when asked why he said he thinks it makes him look younger. They put me on the spot and asked if I thought it made him look younger and I said "Well yeah, but not necessary in a good way". It seemed to come out in slow motion... and the gaping mouths and stares all turning towards me seemed to happen in slow motion too... what was I thinking?

I'll tell you what I was thinking - he looked like a middle-aged douche trying to look like he's still 'one of the guys' with the 20-somethings. To some extent it really made him look older, because it made him look like someone who feels the need to look younger - if that makes anyway sense. But who says that?!
(xanthine, Wed 9 Nov 2011, 10:24, Reply)