Unfortunately, we now live in a world where people want to
constantly tell you how perfect they are. From instagrammed pictures of dream
jobs to smug assertions of infallible relationships on facebook, it seems all
people want to convey about themselves is how invincible and unafraid of life
they are. It’s a shame really, when everyone is so brave and eternally
successful you’re never going to hear amazing stories of phenomenal swears said
in front of children or messy break ups which end with a former lover begging
to be taken back on a crowded train. Well, you’ll be glad to know that I am not
one of these people. I fail at heaps of stuff and am scared of a whole bunch of
shit and love to tell everyone all about it. So in my attempt to buck the trend
of being brave and perfect please read on for my catalogue of cowardice.
Ghosts
and monsters. This
is just as ridiculous as it sounds, but I am more scared of ghosts and monsters
than I am of rapists. Recently I couldn’t sleep and snuck downstairs to watch Candyman. Usually after watching horror
movies I do my best to avoid looking out windows for fear of seeing someone
looking back in at me/the reflection of something behind me/my reflection
having morphed into that of a gruesome dead version of me. The thing is though,
usually when you do look out the window there is nothing there and you are
reassured that monsters aren’t real and you’re just being silly. On this
particular night however, I walked over to the floor to ceiling sliding glass
doors to reassure myself there were no monsters hanging around outside and a
fucking BAT flew at the window. My knees gave out and I went flailing to the
ground. That’s a fun characteristic I have, my knees give way when I’m frightened.
I would literally be dead if I lived in the wild.
Greetings. Here’s one for you. Before every
social event that will include people I do not know (and some I do) I
stress to no end about how to greet them. The way I see it there are four
options:
i) Shake their hand
ii) Kiss them on the cheek
iii) Hug them
iv) Wave from a distance
More
often than not these four alternatives morph into one socially awkward hug/high
five/half mouth kiss. I’ve made peace with the fact that this is one situation
I’m never going to figure out, but am bolstered by something I saw last year.
On set of a promo shoot for The Voice
I watched as will.i.am made his way through the crowd taking selfies and fist
bumping his adoring fans, when one woman gleefully stretched out her arm and
shook his fist. I knew then that I am not alone in the world.
Bird
of Paradise flowers.
I’m telling you this from a place of vulnerability, so DO NOT USE THIS
AGAINST ME. I am terrified of Bird of Paradise flowers, they freak me out
more than you would believe and I have been known to cry in their presence. It
may seem hilarious to be scared of a flower, but the definition of a phobia is
an “irrational fear” and this is mine, so if you’re judging me right now,
you’re being a dick. And if you approach me with one I will think very poorly
of you.
Getting people’s names wrong. Maybe this is due to the fact that
people constantly get my name wrong. When I was eight years old and
started learning clarinet (the king of the instruments) my next-door neighbor
was my clarinet teacher. For whatever reason, she thought my name was Miriam
instead of Marion. She was my teacher for four years and I never had the
courage to correct her. Consequently, I don’t have any qualifications in
clarinet, but Miriam Reed has a fourth grade AMEB certification. It makes sense
in light of this that I don’t want to inflict the same name shame on another
person, so I FREAK out about getting people’s names right. Sometimes if I have
a meeting with someone at work (despite having met them two or three times) I’m
so scared that I will get their name wrong I will literally google them as
they’re walking towards me, frantically trying to find a linkedin or facebook
profile that will confirm how I should address them. Sometimes, even despite my
extensive research I'll still be so concerned
I’m about to get it wrong that I bail last minute and end up calling them by a strange muffled
whooshing sound.
So there
you have it, now you know how to terrify me to my very core. You just have to
be a monster who greets me with the wrong name and then offers me a bunch of
flowers. I'm shuddering at the thought.
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