Looking back I must have been a nightmare to live with when I was a teenager, as I was self-conscious to the point of paranoia about what other people thought of me. By other people I of course mean other people my age when the social rules are so complicated that even the people who are supposed to live by them don't fully understand them. Being seen in town on a Saturday with your parents was seriously uncool, but helping your mum with the shopping was accepted because it was seen as a gentlemanly thing to do. How then could you be seen walking down the street and laughed at because you were with your mum if you were doing something that was allowed? Did the uncoolness of being in public get blocked out by the coolness of carrying a couple of shopping bags? Maybe we will never know, I still don't know and I stopped caring too long ago to go back and ask.
Stopping to tie my shoelace was another thing that used to fill me with dread. I somehow thought it looked stupid to be seen to be doing such a thing and would hide out of plain sight if I needed to do so. Exactly who was going to judge you on your laces coming undone? If such a person exists then I don't want to know them anyway, never mind give a toss about what they think.
We all try at some level to hide those moments when we lose it slightly, how many times have you seen a person trip over a raised paving stone and then incorporate the trip into their walk to try and disguise it? Dropping money is another one, or having your shopping bag split and distribute your stuff all over the place, walking into a wall or bollard is a hazard because apart from the possibility of pain, it makes you look like an idiot. So when I was a teenager I was very sensitive to showing imperfection, not that it stopped me of course, I just got very embarrassed by it. I haven't been a forty year old for very long, not even a month yet, and yet I discovered today quite by accident that I don't care any more.
I was walking along through Broadmarsh shopping centre at lunchtime and realised that I had walked past the cash machine. The old cliche dictates that when you have to turn around you are supposed to first make a big public display which indicates that there was a legitimate reason for your change of direction; looking at your phone is one of the popular tactics. Rather than try to disguise the fact that I wasn't paying attention, I just stopped and turned around. Who cares if I look a bit dopey? None of the people around me are friends or people I am trying to impress so what right have they got to judge me on the fact that I wandered past the cash point machine and now had to go back? No right whatsoever, so in a new found 'fuck you and what you think of me' act of defiance I simply turned around and walked back. Yes, I don't care about not looking cool, I needed to draw some cash out and wasn't about to put up a front for the sake of the approval of people I am never going to see again. It felt liberating to perform such an uncool act in such a way that maybe I looked even cooler in the long run? No. Because as I turned around I tripped over one of those yellow boards they put down to warn you of a wet floor. I may have lost my self-consciousness but my sense of irony is intact.
Stop trying to be Fonzie and embrace your inner Potsie.
===
Thank you in advance for donating using the PayPal button at the top of this page. It all goes towards creating podcasts, sketches, documentaries, films and more, all of which I will make available for free in return for your generosity.
