Exciting Times

by Naoise Dolan

he laughed and said he could always count on me for brutal honesty. That wasn’t true. I often lied to spare others’ feelings or to make them like me. Most of my directness was by accident. But I got more social capital from pretending it was on purpose, not least because it made people assume my compliments had to be sincere.

‘You keep describing yourself as this uniquely damaged person, when a lot of it is completely normal. I think you want to feel special – which is fair, who doesn’t – but you won’t allow yourself to feel special in a good way, so you tell yourself you’re especially bad.’

Plenty of people are willing to offer you intimacy. That terrifies you. You prefer feeling like no one will ever love you.’