Navigating the 'Walk of Shame'

[LSN80]

In all the talk of the Boston Marathon bombings(my thoughts and prayers are with Boston and their victims), conspiracy theories and extremist views, let's shoot for something less serious here, shall we?

What is the Walk of Shame, you ask? I'm sure most of you know, but for those who don't and don't wish to look it up, I'll explain. The Walk of Shame generally involves a situation where one must walk past strangers or, even worse, peers, family members, or friends in the same clothes from the day before in a compromising situation. Generally speaking(but not always), it's after a sexual encounter, and requires an explanation of some kind. Most of us on this site have likely experienced the 'Walk of Shame' in some shape or form, whether it be after a sexual experience, or an extremely drunk night out. For those who don't want to share a 'Walk of Shame' experience, or don't have one, an embarrassing situation amongst family or friends will do just fine. Since I have no qualms with this sort of thing, I'll go first.

Before she became "Mrs. LSN", Julie(my wife) was a 24 year old girl(31 now) who lived at home with her parents. My job at the time had me living an hour away, so we generally saw each other only on weekends, and we took turns visiting the other. Since my parents lived just 10 minutes away, I usually spent the night at their house when I came into town to visit her.

About 6 months into our relationship, Julie hurt her back working out, and was bed-ridden for an entire weekend. It was my turn to visit anyways, so I rented two movies from RedBox and came into see her. It was uncomfortable enough watching movies in her room with the door shut with her parents home, but the lateness of the night and the unexpected physical encounter that took place left me exhausted, and I spent the night.

My travel bag was in my car, as I had no intentions on spending the night. I'm an early riser, and my plan was to get up early and leave before her parents got up. Her parents held an unexpected view of their daughter as being quite pure, which made the situation even more uncomfortable. I had spent time with them, had dinner with them, and drank beer and watched hockey with them, but I had never discussed where the relationship was going with her parents. And quite simply, the stories she told me of her now deceased father had me mightily scared of him.

I woke early, only to peak out and find her dad sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. Julie woke up as I snuck back into her room, and we spent a large chunk of time debating and discussing how to handle the situaton. I had dressed into my work clothes from the night before, which included a dress shirt, tie, and khakis, hoping that an encounter with her parents would make me look, at the least, respectable. But the decision of how to handle the situation was clinched when my future wife said the following:

"Dumbass, your car is in the driveway. How could you possibly think my dad hasn't seen it by now?"

She told me a story of how she had taken the 'Walk of Shame'(even using those words) before, and how it was my turn. Still, I decided that I would try to just leave without running into her parents, trying to avoid any further embarrassment. Unfortunately, her dad was still sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper after two hours, so unavoidable pleasantries, at least, were needed. It turned out to be far more then that. After saying hello to one another, her dad heartily welcomed me to sit down and have some breakfast with him. As I did, his first words to me were:

So, what are your intentions towards my daughter?

Part of me, taken aback, thought to answer, "To f*ck her as much as possible, then eventually leave her", but I was generally afraid of the man.

I'd never expressed a desire to Mrs. LSN yet of my desire to marry her, as I'm not sure I had thought it myself, to be honest. But I for darn sure expressed that to her father, which lead to a disucssion of when, where, and how things would work with our jobs being an hour away from the other. I came up with a nice narrative for her father, which he apparently bought, as he divulged the entire details of our conversation to his daughter after I left, which lead to another uncomfortable conversation with my now wife as to why I had never told any of this to her, and her frustration with me for making future plans for us without discussing them with her.

My rebuttal that the discussion with her father was just a smoke screen to avoid further grilling was highly unsuccessful. So not only had I endured the Walk of Shame, I was faced with the expectation of a father expecting me to marry his daughter, and a girlfriend conflicted because she didn't want the pressure of marriage at the time. At that point, I wished I had stayed in her room all day, waiting for her parents to go to bed again before leaving.

I'm not sure I learned anything from it. Did her parents think I took the couch and she my bed, or vice versa, on the weekends she came to visit me? From her dad's interrogation, it felt that way. Fortunately, only 4 months later, she was quite happy to accept my proposal of marriage, and we're going on 5 years now.

Experienced the 'Walk of Shame', and care to share your own story regarding it? If not, how about an embarrassing moment?

Were the 'consequences' from it worth the experience?

Did you learn anything from it?

Any discussion regarding this is welcome. It's not limited to your own experiences, feel free to expand it even to your thoughts on the concept of the 'Walk of Shame.'

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Walk of conquering fucking hero, is what I call it. I suppose the best one was after treating a 37 year old lady to a wonderful evening, seeing her 18 year old son in the living room as I went into the kitchen to get some pizza and dr.pepper. I of course struck up a conversation with him about his Madden franchise (he was playing the game in the living room)....I did this, because well, I was 19 at the time.

another time, a drunk girl who had been on my shit all night dragged me to her bedroom, and proceeded to take all of her clothes off while she was on top of me....when I left the room a little later after she had passed out, her roomate was in the living room.....I then explained to her that I had fashioned a sort of tube top and skirt out of blankets / the clothes she had taken off, so as to cover her breasts and vagina(I couldnt just entirely swaddle her in blankets, because there was just one small one, with ducks or some shit on it I think...wtf?)....and that i had (fucking obviously) not touched her. she was drunk, I dont get down like that.(the timeframe which had elapsed, and my lack of dishevelment made it obvious I was telling the truth)

Any other time I have walked past family or friends on the way out, a friendly hello or good morning is what they always get off me. I dont do things that im ashamed of, so I never saw a point in being sheepish.

People fuck. Get over it.

 

[Барбоса]

I dont do things that im ashamed of, so I never saw a point in being sheepish.

People fuck. Get over it.

Spoken like a man who does not imbibe alcohol to levels where inhibition and common sense disappears.

Having said that, I have no "walk of shame" stories for even after many, many hours on the sauce, I do not become desperate - or is it brave? - enough to look for companionship amongst the fellow drunken clientele of a bar/club but I have plenty of friends who have ended the night with a total moose and felt ashamed by it (as well as more than a little hungover).

 

[Mustang Sally]

I was required to give a report about my newspaper's website at the annual executive meeting. They do the affair up big; a ritzy conference room in a snazzy hotel, with the cream of the corporation there: the Board of Directors, corporate officers, Managing Editor, section editors, department heads, and key stockholders. I’m not big enough in the company to be invited to attend the meeting, so they had me and others who were giving reports sitting outside the main conference room. There were dozens of people walking by us.

I was wearing an obscenely expensive pair of high heels bought just for this occasion. They were uncomfortable as hell, so I slipped them off and kicked them underneath my chair while I waited. I thought the shoes were beautiful and, apparently, so did someone else because when my name was called to go out and give my report, I went to put them on…...and they were gone.

I tried to stall, but the person shepherding us out to the stage was wild-eyed, telling me I was holding up the entire meeting. I was mortified at the idea of appearing before a roomful of corporate bigwigs in my stocking feet. With no alternative, I walked out and climbed the stairs to the stage, moving toward the podium, with everyone’s eyes on me. I looked at the crowd of 150 sitting there and was positive everyone was looking at my feet. I tried my best to hide behind the podium, but it was so narrow, I couldn’t.

I’m not adept at public speaking because I can’t tell if I’m talking loud enough to be heard by a large audience, but I was frantically trying to decide whether to say something about this, or to hope no one noticed…..which I knew wasn’t the case. Going shoeless at this conservative company’s fancy-ass affair just isn’t done and I was hoping a casual remark might get me off the hook…..because I was sure the Managing Editor was going to have something to say to me about this; I just hoped he would save it for Monday at the office.

Still trying to keep my feet hidden behind the podium, I said: “As you can see, we folks who work on the paper’s website like to be footloose and fancy free.” When I saw them laugh, I relaxed a bit and added: “I had a little mishap in the back. Hope you don’t mind.”……and the big shots actually applauded me.

When I finished, I tried to walk casually off the stage, letting everyone know that all this wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Smooth, right?

Wrong. After the meeting, a vice-president told me I practically ran from the podium, crouched over like a cat burglar.

Someone found a pair of tennis shoes for me to wear home. Folks riding the train saw a nervous woman, wearing her fanciest dress and a dirty pair of men’s tennis shoes that were four sizes too big.


One good thing: nothing was ever said to me by the higher-ups.

 

[PsychoBlack]

I actually have quite a few walk of shame stories. I wasn't shamed by them because that just isn't my personality but I have a few though.

Me and a couple of my buddy's went over to this chicks house once and took turns on her. Her dad came home right before my boy finished and it turned into a brawl with us just trying to get out of the door and him wanting a fight (why he would want to fight three people half his age and twice his size I have no clue.) Needless to say none of us speak to her anymore

I was having a party at my cousins house once and I pretty much talked this girl into giving "it" to me. It wasn't much of a party as it was some of my closest friends sitting around getting high. When we finished we went back into the living room and all of the females were staring at her like she was some dirty ****e because she hadn't took a shower and she really didn't know me that well. The girl kept texting me asking if I could take her home now, but, I was trying to get high so she withstood the ridiculing looks for about 3 or 4 more hours.

Another time I spent the night with my ex. I swear on my life her mom was not there when we went to sleep, but when I woke up I walked into the living room with no shirt on and she's sitting on the couch watching a movie. This was extremely awkward for me and it just turned into a friendly conversation since we had met countless times and I'm pretty sure she knew that we had sex before that. The awkward part was that I had a rolled joint in my hand and she thought I was smoking in her house which I wasn't. In the end everything was cool she told me she didn't mind me smoking in the garage or on the porch as long as I wasn't in the house and told me I was welcome back anytime.

From these experiences I learned that when your in a situation like this it's not how you react that determines the awkwardness of it, but, what the other person does. If you go out their trying to be polite and a middle aged man is trying to fight you and your buddies you have to do what you have to do. If you walk out and notice your girlfriends mother is looking at you about to go get high if she decides to flip shit because you have weed in her house it's going to be awkward no matter what. At the same time if she's cool about it then everything will be okay.

I don't think people should be ashamed of the walk. You weren't shamed when you were fucking so why be ashamed when people find out?