What was the most embarrassing thing you did as a teen? We'll go first (2024)

When cult television show PEN15's Maya Ishii-Peters wonders whether she's a pervert after discovering masturbation (but keeps doing it anyway), it feels familiar.

And when her best friend, Anna Kone, steals a classmate's worn G-string because she "can't say no to a triple-dog dare" and feels like a hot girl while wearing it, it also feels familiar.

Because we unfortunately all did stuff like this growing up.

To prove how accurate PEN15 (sadly) is ahead of the release of season two, part two, I asked members of the ABC Everyday team to share some of the excruciating things they did when their brains weren't yet fully formed.

Prepare to judge us, laugh, and maybe even reminisce about the myriad ways you were also weird.

I'll go first — but before I begin, I'd like to offer a collective "sorry" to our parents. None of this is your fault.

My uncle saw my Jedward folder

When I was 15 I became obsessed with twins/boyband Jedward because of this performance:

So obsessed that I had a special Jedward folder on my laptop filled with hundreds of "sexy" and "rare" pictures of them.

About a year later the obsessive phase of my love for the (twice robbed) Eurovision stars started to wane and curating and admiring my Jedward folder slowly stopped being a daily habit.

It was around this time that I also decided I hated the laptop my dad Bruce had bought me.

So I transferred all my files (except the Jedward folder I didn't want anymore) to a USB, got a knife and stabbed my laptop behind its keys so it'd die an unrecoverable death.

Bruce didn't offer to get me a new, better laptop like I'd hoped. Instead, his brother offered to fix it. I refused, mostly because of the Jedward folder.

A few years after that I moved to the UK. One day I received a parcel from my uncle in Australia. Inside was a sticky note stuck to a hard drive.

It read: "Here is what was on your laptop. You have interesting interests."

I ran to plug the hard drive in but I already knew what was on it. The Jedward folder, and nothing else. My uncle saw my Jedward folder.

Jack just loved 2 dance

In year 8, I volunteered to do ballroom dancing lessons with my friend, because her boyfriend found it emasculating.

Now, you might think this was some kind of clandestine attempt to weasel my way out of the friend zone, but no, he refused to go because he didn't want to,"Look like a puss* in front of the boys", whereas I was more than happy to go because I just loved dance!

That's how little of a threat I posed in this guy's mind: he didn't care one iota that I was going to spend two hours each week pressing my pencil-thin pre-pubescent frame against his girlfriend.

And if you're wondering: yes, in hindsight, being that sexually non-threatening is pretty demoralising, but, it's OK, because he ended up doing a PhD in anime — so who's the loser now?

Meg told everyone she was dating Ryan Seacrest

When I was 12 years old, I told all my friends I had successfully catfished American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

Someone probably made me self-conscious at recess or made accidental eye contact during PE, so I decided to lie about tricking a 29-year-old C-grade celebrity with blond tips into falling in love with me, a tall child in New Zealand who had just discovered online fan forums.

"It's crazy, but I guess we're together now!!" I said, breathlessly.

The lie worked. People wanted to hear all about my internet love affair. But I was in too deep — they wanted more. One day I smuggled my grandma's necklace to school as physical evidence.

"Ryan sent this to me! It's so embarrassing," I said, nowhere near as embarrassed as I should have been.

A year later, I moved to Australia (for unrelated reasons, I promise). I was free.

Farz wrote a letter to M*A*S*H star Alan Alda. She never sent it

Here it is, reproduced in its entire glory and with no added comment, because it speaks for itself.

Friday 28th January

Dear Mr Alda,

I sincerely hope this letter is currently residing safely in your hands, and that you are well. Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!

I hope you had a wonderful day, you are truly a special person.

I apologise if this letter comes to you late, because I live in Australia, a small country, have you come across it? Anyway as you well know it takes a few weeks for letters to reach America. (I'm aware of this fact because my Aunt lives there, her name is Sima, she's an artist, though I doubt your paths have crossed since she doesn't go out a lot.)

Well, this letter will be brief because I'm hungry ('tis 12 noon and I'm longing for a sandwich) but, you never know, I might write you another letter later. If you're lucky.

I just hope you know that your role as Hawkeye has made a little girl in a faraway land very happy.

Lots of love, Farzaneh E.

14yrs.

Bhakthi wanted to sing Beyonce with Christian rappers

I went to a Christian high school and they had some YOUTH RAPPERS come perform for us one lunchtime.

One of the activities was that people could get up and sing a song and they would beatbox along, so I put my hand up and sang the intro to Crazy In Love by Beyonce which first of all, an ambitious choice and second of all, I didn't actually sing for long enough or well enough for anyone to pick up a beat.

So I just walked off the stage.

I still have nightmares.

Rachel wanted to make exactly five new friends

When I was in year 9, I decided we needed to add five new friends to our friendship group by the end of the school year, by outright asking everyone we met if they'd be our friend.

I claimed this was to break free of the social bubble that was an all-girls high school and our Christian youth group. But the real aim was to find at least one of us a boyfriend.

Some of the people we tried to add to our new friends list included a guy from someone's primary school, this girl we were once in a musical with, and a substitute maths teacher.

To make it to the list, you had to answer five hard-hitting questions like: "What's your favourite colour?"

By the end of our mission, we were successful in recruiting these five friends, including one boyfriend (who we were later instructed to block after an emotional break-up).

Matt found out the real reason his crush was giving him attention the worst way

I went to school in England for a few years, and when I was there I had a huge crush on one of my classmates, Fatima.

I got the vibe that she liked me too.

On my last day at school before moving back to Australia I was going around saying goodbye to everyone, leaving Fatima to last. During the final class she asked me to step outside for a chat and my heart was pounding thinking I was about to get a goodbye kiss.

Without thinking I leaned in and she said:

"No, I just wanted to ask whether you will be moving to near where Neighbours is filmed or more near Home & Away."