“I’d Crawl Into a Hole and Die” — Woman Accidentally Records Awkward Encounter With Ex

A woman, who recorded a walk while she was out with her friend, accidentally captured an "awkward" interaction between herself and her ex that left her embarrassed.

And while a number of TikTokers told the content creator, Noelle Cornelius (@noellecornelius), that they shared in her humiliation, there were a number of others who said that she didn't really have anything to worry about.

"Watch this video to see an awkward interaction with my ex <3*...that I accidentally filmed" Noelle writes in a text overlay of her video as she walks down a sidewalk and narrates, "Oh so another person joined the tour so it's five people now," she says.

People can be seen walking into the camera frame and she bounces up and down on the concrete tiles. She passes by a folding table that looks like it has a basket of candy on it."

She then curses aloud, saying "f---" and then posts another overlay in the video explaining why the audio briefly cuts out in the video: "**muted bc I said his first AND last name for some reason???**"

"How are you?" she says to the man she bumped into, her ex, who is wearing a blue shirt and light-colored pants. "What's up?" she asks him. He replies that he's "going to work," she then introduces her friend Ava to him.

"What's up Ava?"

"Hi," she says, and then Noelle goes on to explain she's "staying with Ava for a couple of days, she's my queen."

His strained attempt at being cordial can practically be heard squeezing through his vocal cords off-camera.

"Fun, you're lucky," he states.

"How are you?" she asks him before he tersely states, "I'm good."

"Do you hate me?" she asks before he quickly says, "No!"

She then journals her inner embarrassment with another overlay which states: "WHY DID I ASK IF HE HATES ME. He dumped me y'all," she writes, appended with several cry emojis.

"OK," she says with a chuckle before there's another brief pause. Her ex then begins to speak: "I wouldn't have stopped you and said hello if I hated you."

"OK, very valid," she says to him off-camera before the guy thanks her and begins going on his way.

Ava can be heard asking off camera, "Who's that?"

"My ex," she replies as the video closes out.

Some of the commenters who replied to her video stated that they could feel second hand embarrassment coming through the TikTok video on their own screen.

"This was a hard watch!" someone wrote.

While another replied: "'DO U HATE ME' SCREAMING."

However, there was another person who remarked that they thought her ex was being nice making the comment to Ava and telling her that she was fortunate to have Noelle staying over.

"That’s sweet that he said, 'You’re lucky'!!"

According to the TikToker, he actually is a really nice guy, but it's just difficult to see your ex out of nowhere: "He’s very nice!! It’s just always awkward running into your ex hahahaha."

Someone else thought that her interactions were very akin to the main character in a famous sitcom: "No bc are you Jess from New Girl?" another person asked.

And there were those who actually didn't think their conversation was all that painful to begin with: "This was the funniest cutest interaction."

According to Discover, people's brains tend to have very complex reactions to seeing their ex and it isn't abnormal for the thought of immediately wanting to get back together with them, or at least entertaining, or immediately shunning the thought as it passes into one's head, due to "learned patterns."

The author who penned a piece about thinking about and wanting to reconnect with an ex wrote the following: "Apparently, my urge to reconnect with an ex makes sense. 'The brain develops pathways based on learned patterns,' says love expert Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. 'So, if you laid down a powerful pattern that this person was your life partner, your brain can retain traces of that circuitry, even after you’ve bonded with someone new.'"

Oftentimes, these bonds that people make with partners when they're younger become an ingrained portion of their "circuitry" and lays down patterns for us in the future:

"Experts say the neurological attachment that happens between young lovers is not unlike the attachment a baby forms with its mother. Hormones like vasopressin and oxytocin are key in helping create a sense of closeness in relationships and play a starring role in both scenarios."