An Introverts guide

To fuck knows what.

I started this Substack anonymously for only one reason.

Because I’ll simply die of cringe if anyone who knows me reads anything I’ve written.

So, for the last 5 (ish) months I’ve been going about my business holding this secret. Not even my husband knows. That was until a few weeks ago, when we went out for the day with a couple of our closest friends. We decided, off the cuff, to jump on the train, head to the big smoke, and see where the London mood took us. And, my god, did we enjoy ourselves! So much so that I ended up praying to the porcelain princess and gave myself a two day hangover.

It was this night, after eight hours of drinking pints, that I had the absolute epic idea of showing them all my Substack. I’d had a bit of a bumpy ride with the mind gremlins, they were clinging to me like the distant smell of last weeks fried onions on the coat that you left in the kitchen, so maybe letting them in on my secret and allowing them to read it will help kick the gremlins in the dick. This is my therapy, I thought.

What. A. Prick.

Obviously, the following morning, when I was on my sweaty journey towards total recall, the feelings of shame and cringe engulfed me like a knock off perfume that gave me a rash.

And the porcelain princess was no fucking help what so ever. In fact, I’m sure I heard her sigh and call me a loser.

So, let’s rewind here a little bit.

When I was little, all I did was read. I was that shy kid who sat in the corner with a book on her lap, stuffing cake in her gob, that all the adults worried about. I rarely got involved with anything or anyone, unless I was forced to.

My mum’s family is full of readers, published and unpublished writers, card players and high achieving academics.

My dads side are musicians, drinkers, motorbike enthusiasts, market trader, pie, mash and seafood lovers. Extroverts.

I have developed somewhere in the middle, with contrasting personalities from both sides of my blood line. And, this has always been a tricky balance. Even now, at midlife, I am still trying to find my comfort zone. It’s complicated.

Even my taste in music is from both ends of a very dynamic spectrum and my kindle is stuffed full of every different genre of books, authors and writing styles.

My Amazon algorithm is in a constant state of turmoil, struggling with its own identity crisis.

You’re welcome, Bezos.

When I was small, all I wanted to be when I grew up, was a writer. I spent a large portion of my teens desperate to be a songwriter. I lost myself in stories and words and music. That was it for me. I excelled at school in English and went on to study A-level in both English language and literature.

And that’s when my life changed. College.

I’d spent all my years at school adjusting and trying to fit in and when I finally found my feet I had to start all over again at college.

An introvert’s worst nightmare.

I found this so difficult that I thought I had no other choice but to leave, halfway through my A-levels, without achieving anything. Drop out.

My parents have always been the ‘cool’ parents. My house was always the place where there was a party, the house where everyone came to sleep off a heavy night. The parents who let us be whoever we wanted to be. And I love them very much for that. But part of me now wishes that at this point they’d stepped in. Stopped me from making what I now see as the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. But they didn’t. Instead, they supported my decision. The arseholes!

It was at this point in my life when partying took control of the wheel and steered me down an eight year path of drinking, dancing and other stuff that I’ll just let hang here, unnamed.

I went from dead-end job to dead-end job, just to fund my social life. Gone were my dreams of writing, my ambitions left in the wake of endless no sleep till death.

My Brit-pop/grunge era was replaced with random Ibiza flights, and house music dive clubs where the air stank of body odour and stale beer. And I was the happiest I’d ever been. Quite how I made it to these days of no caffeine after midday, yoga classes, mother, wife and responsible designated premises supervisor, I don’t actually know. Yet here I am.

I now find myself looking at my teenage son, just about to sit his GCSEs and thinking ‘how the fuck did I get here?’

I heard myself recently, talking to him, advising him that it’s important to remember that everything will be ok, after he expressed how overwhelmed he’d become with exam stress. He is now on the cusp of the time in my life when I fucked everything up. I can hear myself telling him that he can do whatever he wants to do in life, that absolutely nothing is off the table when it comes to dreams and ambitions. That all it takes is a bit of hard work and setting goals and not letting anything or anyone stand in his way.

I know what you’re thinking. What a giant, big fat hypocrite I am.

Now, I have to say here that I am not fishing for compliments. I am not that person. Compliments make me wince. I don’t like them. They make me feel gross. When my now husband and I got married, I spent the majority of months leading up to the wedding day scared shitless about being the centre of everyone’s attention and having people tell me how lovely I looked, how beautiful the wedding was, blugh, yuck, eewwww.

I wanted to elope, but our families would never have forgiven us, so for them I needed to just suck it up and get on with it.

I don’t even like celebrating my own birthday. And don’t even get me started on having my photo taken.

I’m weird, I know.

Now, put me behind the bar…..I’m a different person altogether. I adapt. I can talk to anyone about anything, and I can give, and receive, banter of the highest order to even the most outrageous. I am unoffenable. I even make people laugh! And I’m never, ever frightened to tell someone to fuck off when needed. I’m straight talking and tell it how it is. Outwardly.

My pub community is used to me dicking around, not taking life too seriously. They would never believe what goes on inside my head, or behind my front door when I get home. I long for silence, for dark rooms and quiet spaces where I can just sit with my own thoughts.

You read all the time about actors and musicians, artists who are crippled by stage fright, introverted by nature, those who were the painfully shy kids at school. But once on their stage, they become a completely different persona.

The bar is like my stage.

Take David Bowie. Notoriously shy, his struggles with social anxiety are well documented. Assuming his famous alter ego Ziggy Stardust just to get through performances.

Kurt cobain, Bob Dylan, Prince, Jimi fucking Hendricks. There’s a list as long as your arm. All notably introverted.

(Please note, I am not comparing myself with these absolute legends of our time. But I do know some way of how difficult this must have been for them.)

I have a little saying.

There are two types of people in the world. Dog people and cat people.

Now, this doesn’t mean whether you prefer dogs or cats. That doesn’t even come into it. Dog people love everyone immediately. They thrive off the attention of others. Unashamedly they see the very best in everyone they meet. And they’d do anything for a biscuit.

Cat people are the very opposite. They don’t like anyone immediately, preferring to get to know them and sussing people out before they commit. Keeping their distance, looking for threats.

I am a cat.

This has actually stood me in good stead over the years. I’m happy on my own, an introvert’s prerogative, but the people that I have sussed out and deemed good and decent, I have kept close for many years.

I mate for life.

I have built a bubble and those that are inside it with me, stay forever.

The morning after our drunken London outing, the gremlins very nearly convinced me to delete my Substack. Who on earth wants to read anything that you have to say? You’re not that interesting, who the fuck do you think you are?

I nearly caved. I even hovered my thumb over the button.

So deep and dark was the hole that even ‘The Charlatans’ weren’t helping to bring me round.

Then I decided to come back to in a couple of days. Once the porcelain princess had finished with me.

That was a few weeks ago now.

I’m still here.

Writing about the gremlins who have now nearly dried off.

Ironically.

And yesterday I won £120 at the bookies.

Happy days.