I had realised we were just walking barometers of other people’s opinions, I told her. How often I used to misinterpret people’s silence as judgement! It had occurred to me that all my self-criticisms were innuendo and hearsay, everything I’d ever pretended to be was for someone else’s benefit, and if people were ever looking at you, it was actually to see if you were looking at them, and if they were paying you attention, it was only to gauge your level of attention. We craved approval so unreasonably, we didn’t remove the labels others put on us, even though they were barely adhesive…
