6th May - It's okay to be boring (sometimes)

I'll start by adding, that I've been called some truly heinous names over the years. I've been subjected to online abuse, in-person abuse, and spent most of my youth under the ruling of bullies. Like many of you reading, I'm no exception to any of those things. In fact, I'd bet huge chunks of money on the fact that all of you have experienced similar issues over the years. But for every C-bomb, or venomous betrayal, the comment which hurt me most came in Autumn 2013, when I was labelled 'boring'. I can remember it to this day, and what infuriated me most about such a comment, was just how far from the truth it was at that particular time in my life. 

You see, post-Uni, I was dipping around from job to job, trying to make ends meet all whilst ambitiously attempting to wedge my foot into the famous 'doorway' people speak of, when looking to forge a career within media/journalism etc. Bills still had to be paid, children's mouths still needed feeding, and with this in mind, I had excelled in phone sales jobs, working my way up the leaderboards of regional and national sales reports when it came to target-smashing KPIs. Still to this day, I maintain that sales was never the job I 'enjoyed' the most, but it was - arguably - the one I excelled in most. I'm still not 100% sure what makes 'the perfect salesman', though I'm lucky to have been blessed with good social skills, charm, and a polite yet assertive charisma; all vital ingredients needed in such a trade. 

But elsewhere in my life, 2013 crumbled like nothing I've seen before, or anything I'll ever see again in future. Horrific life circumstances led me down a path of truly hopeless depression, even culminating in calls with Samaritans, and thoughts of suicide. My Mum, still to this day, admits she's angry with the events of 2013 as they took the Son she knew, away, forever. And whilst she acknowledges I'm now healed, she also remarked how the person she sees in front of her now is 200% less soft, and 300% more cut-throat, or 'no nonsense'. With all these feelings swirling round my mind, I still knew I had to drag myself out of bed in the morning and had started a new job with a now defunct store known as 'Phones 4 U', situated in the heart of London's busiest shopping mall, Westfield. There was no place to hide here, such was the insane footfall to the store on a daily basis, and the aggressive sales tactics we were taught verged beyond sleazy salesmen in our Florence & Fred suits, and verged on harassment, as we were told to follow customers to ATM machines to withdraw notes for certain transactions, standing behind them like police escorts until the deed was done. When I look back, it's truly remarkable this was allowed to continue, and of no surprise that less than a year later, the firm was in administration.

But throughout the initial 'induction' period of this new job, I was paired with a young Asian girl from Hounslow, Harpreet (or 'Happy' as she liked to call herself). Unaware that my sales ability was already far exceeding of her own, Happy patronised me and condescended me, using a 'paint by numbers' approach into her 'teachings' on how I should speak to customers etc, pairing up with me as my 'buddy' during my first week in the role. With everything else going on in my life, I didn't have the energy to fight it, so smiled politely and nodded at her musings. I went along with the ride, too exhausted inside to do anything else. After one particular interaction with a customer in which Happy stood behind me like a shadow-esque patrol officer allowing a rapist to visit the Zoo on day-release, she pulled me aside after the transaction and sat me down on a desk, with a sheet of paper and a pen, adding two columns: One titled 'what you did well' and another headed 'room for improvement'. The only remark she made for the latter, was that my sales technique was 'boring', and that I needed to work on being less boring as a person, to 'wow' the customers.

I didn't feel like I had a soul at the time, such was the plague of depression which rippled through every fibre of my being, but that comment, somehow awakened what little soul I had left. Simply because, anybody who had met me then, or to an extent since, would use this word at the very bottom of their list of personality descriptions for myself. I was the life and soul of every party, the court joker, the jester, the leader, and 'the clown' as my friends affectionately referred to me. Even to this day, my partner - who sees now witnessed a diluted comparison of the wild party boy I once was - still refers to me, even in my now paled state, as 'the hype-man'. So for Happy to assess a suicidal man, within 2/3 hours of meeting him, as 'boring', that really triggered me. No jibe has ever stung as much as that one did, and I even angrily ranted to friends that night - and in following years - how I'd rather be dead than ever known as 'boring'. 

Much of any frustration I felt in surrounding years... 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and especially 2018, was also centred around that word. We were in the peak of our lives, our mid 20s, and life was there to be lived. Parties, and travel. Gigs, and concerts, and festivals. Casual sex, and junk food, and questionable powders. Copious amounts of alcohol were consumed (there was a period around 2013-2017 where pre-drinks would last a minimum of 5/6 hours, and each attendee would consume at least 1 x 70cl/1L bottle of vodka each, backed to the soundtrack of mammoth EDM playlists and exterminate drinking games and dares) and my mentality was full-on savage. It's not coincidence that my best friend during this period was a man who had just split from his first love after a long-term relationship, and together, we'd rebound our way through various continents, our antics each more wild and legendary than the last. 

But by around 2018, there was a shift in momentum within the friendship group. The elder statesman of the group would now employ various excuses to attend such events, pressuring his younger (and frustrated) partner to follow his lead. The general consensus of 'enjoyment' now verged on escape rooms, dogs, sewing, Cotswolds walks, and 'going for meals'. I'd declare that unless an internationally-recognised DJ was in attendance at any suggested event, there was so little enjoyment in the thought of attending, that I'd simply not bother. Always a man of my word, that's exactly what happened in Summer 2018 when one of my friends rented a parked barge for her birthday, and suggested we all sit on it, tied up to the shore in East London. My non-attendance was a 'story' at the time, but my mindset was clear: Free time is precious so why spend yours enduring feelings of boredom? I feel the same way even now, hence why nobody ever dares invite me to a Popworld-style venue.

As I've grown older, influenced by the pandemic, I've partly become the very villain I once sort to destroy. Now, I've realised that life is about balance. When friends would wheel out the 'we're so old' line in their mid-20s, I'd argue that you're as old as you feel, and that was, and is, always true. I found it inexplicable how - by mid-2018 - we'd amassed a growing army of ravers and would attend concerts in groups of 20-30 friends, but 12 months later, and all before the age(s) of 28 or 29, at least 95% of the group had seemed to come to some form of secret union of agreement that they'd never attend live dance music events ever again. I was baffled, because age and musical taste have never been linked. But now, unlike the 28-year old me who would spent 4/5 hours after work gallivanting around London and only returning into his house at midnight to grab a few quick hours of sleep before starting a new day, I will sit indoors at night and watch something on TV. I might take a day off from month to month and chill on my PlayStation, or read a book. I'll indulge in quality time with a podcast in the bath. Life can't be lived at 100mph all the time. But nor can it be spent in the slow-lane during the peak of our lives. I've finally realised, it is entirely okay to be boring... 

... As long as it's only sometimes.