It’s the first of January 2026. You wear your t-shirt with the VHS cover art for 1992’s ‘Passenger 57’ on it. You bump into an old friend you haven’t seen in 10 years, let’s call him Sebastian McGillicuddy. You chit chat, he compliments your objectively awesome t-shirt, then you part ways, expecting to never see him again.
It’s the third of February 2026. You decide that it’s time to break out the Passenger 57 shirt again, because you haven’t worn it since the first of January. You somehow bump into Sebastian McGillicuddy again. You now think “dammit, Sebastian McGillicuddy must think I have one fuckin’ shirt and that I wear it every day like a fuckin’ madman”.
What’s the word for that? How do you refer to it without having to type out paragraphs of text like I did above? “Oh yeah, bumped into Sebastian McGillicuddy the other day, had a moment of [word] with him lol, hate when that happens”.
P.S. FUCK Sebastian McGillicuddy.
I’m afraid there’s no single German word to describe this feeling. The best I could come up with is “Scham über mögliche Fremdscham”. It could obviously be compounded into “Fremdschamesscham”, but the average German likely doesn’t understand that without additional context.
“Fremdscham” is what your old friend may be feeling. It’s a feeling of embarrassment on behalf of someone else. “Scham über mögliche Fremdscham” then translates to embarrassment at the potential feeling of your friend feeling embarrassed on your behalf.