Am I Embarrassing?

I wouldn't take it to heart. It's part of being a teenager. Most grow out of it and become human beings again.

I would have been too shy to say hello to a neighbour, but might have replied if they had spoken first.

Yes, it’s an age thing! I might have felt the same, can’t really remember. It’s such an awkward time of life for young people but they will all grow out of it.

Worry not. When I was chair of governors at her school, my daughter flatly refused to notice I existed if I passed her in a corridor.

A few years on, you’ll be delighted when young men and women you don’t even remember greet you warmly. I was eating in a pub the other night, and the waitress, whom I briefly taught 8 years ago, was eager to say hello and chat, even though I couldn’t remember her name.

It is quite normal, I know I was the same, being painfully shy. I am not much better now and will sometimes pretend I haven't seen a slight acquaintance if I think I can get away with it!
I once saw a 13 year old boy hiding in a phone box so that his grandmother wouldn't see him and possibly embarrass him by hugging or kissing him.
Unfortunately she saw him and dragged him out by the ear, much to the amusement of his friends.

Did it and had it done to me!

Oh the possibility that you might want to actually engage in a conversation would be flipping scary.

I would have been pleased to get a word out of my 13 year old son if we were alone in our house!

Definitely an age thing

Not just an age thing. There used to be a colleague that in work was more than suggestive, when I met him outside with his wife he replied with a very quiet Hello to my greeting him with a big smile!

My neighbours children (13 & 15) are very polite. I was out weeding the front garden the other day when the boy walked past and said Good Afternoon even before I saw him

Had I been walking with a group of friends I'd have ignored my own mother!

Very normal behaviour for a youngster

Agree,it`s the norm at that age and they do grow up eventually.

I agree with all the above. I get accused of being embarrassing because I talk too loudly in public apparently.
My sister in law calls it ' the sausage machine'; they go in about 12/13 and come out at some point as a wonderful adult.

I remember shopping with my teenage daughter and her friend. I was complaining to a shop assistant in M&S about their service, when I looked round for the girls they were both hiding behind a rack of clothing. " You are so embarrassing Mother ".

I remember being excruciatingly embarrassed by

My breath showing in the frosty air

Needing to go to the toilet

My first bra

The sofa (not what my friends had)

My father's car

The list is endless

On the other hand my daughter found me so embarrassing she told people she was adopted?

Same here. I have 4. Teenage GC at the moment. 18yr old Dg lovely and chatty. Twin boys 14yrs grunt hello, if pushed. 14yr old GD lovely indoors but tries to avoid me outdoors.

I think something you said in the first paragraph stands out for me Calendargirl. You know her mum!! Now if I were 12 years old, that would be bad news. You could well be the one to tell my mum, (in a couple of years' time), that I had rolled my skirt up too high, that my friends were loud, that I was with a boy etc. etc. You are best kept at a distance and ignored just in case!
So no, you're not embarrassing as such, but you are in the enemy camp at that age!

DG ‘took’ us for lunch in her town as we didn’t know the way, she walked 15 feet ahead of us the whole way......she was 14 then and her excuse was that we were slower than her, we would have had to run to have kept up with her!

Funny to see this topic raised as I was just chatting to my Dil teacher about it recently. She notices some teens 13-15 group can become very shy and not want to engage in chit chat although previously well known to her and had been outgoing personalities. She said after a couple of years when the hormone storm settles they come out of their shell again. I can see my 14 yr old GD in this phase now and seems painfully shy out with immediate family.
I remember feeling the same at that age.

When my son and his friends were in their first year at university, there was a lot of chat from one of them that financial constraints meant he mainly lived on rice and lentils yeah right! although that may have been because of the cost of the liquid content of his diet. I occasionally meet up with one of my old school friends in Brighton, we happened to be having lunch in Pizza Express, out of the corner of my eye I spied "rice and lentils" who was at Sussex Uni, he and his table were ordering food and drink like it was going out of fashion, maybe a birthday celebration before they got back on their meagre diet of gruel. I said to my friend who I was with I've just spied one of my son's mates, but I'm not going to go over there to embarrass him!

Our neighbour's daughter used to cast her eyes to the ground and scurry past if she saw me, although most teenage friends of my DC didn't seem like that.
Now she is one of the loveliest, friendliest young women I know. We rarely see her as they moved away but if we do she is always ready with a big hug (pre-flipping-COVID).

It's a phase.

Am I Embarrassing?

In answer to your OP, Calendargirl - Yes
We all are!

Hahahaha, Callistemon, we certainly are----and invisible.

I wonder which is worse?
I can be both!