No Shame

by Tom Allen

Back then, a tantrum was another form of ‘showing off’,

The bill gets sent to the wrong address, yet there’s still a feeling it must be paid.

There’s a part of me that has found that if people are going to pick on you for being different, you can either work to blend in so you don’t get picked on any more. Or you can go the other way and be as different as you can be, just to show them you won’t be cowed against a wall forever. It’s not the same as retaliating with physical violence, but it is a giant ‘up yours’ to anyone who’s coming for you. Even if it does feel like freezing cold water running down your spine. You don’t do it for anyone else; you do it for yourself.

The trouble is, having total free rein over what you can do after a whole school year of being told exactly what to do for every minute of every day is really difficult.

but they’re called crushes because they crush every part of you and you can barely think or move because the crush is weighing you down.

I used to think that loving the baddies in films and TV shows meant yet another thing must be wrong with me – was I fundamentally evil? Now I realise I like them so much because the baddies get the best lines and the best outfits. More than that, they also get to have power over their circumstances. No one makes them feel silly or tells them to ‘Shhh!’. Instead, everyone has to bow and curtsey to them to make them feel the opposite of silly. Until the last act of the film, they control everything in their world. They wage wars and foil enemies and command things, and they don’t have to worry about being accepted because everyone wants to be accepted by them.

I’d whine that I was bored. ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ my parents would shout-ask me and I would have absolutely no idea. I didn’t know what options were available and I hadn’t really had a chance to consider what I liked – the whole of school was basically a training in getting on with things you probably don’t like.

It’s for this reason I think a lot of adults love business class on airplanes: ‘I can afford to travel in a big chair, so maybe I’m OK now?’

I had drive, ambition and confidence, but at the same time I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and no idea where I was going.

‘fun’ was not something I’d ever signed up for – I wasn’t good at sport and I didn’t like board games because they made a mess.