Insecurity Island. Population: Me
It’s my birthday in just over a week’s time. Though I have been trying to ignore it, it refuses to disappear, taunting me with its cries of:
“You’ll be 29! That’s almost 30! And you can’t cook, or save money, and you don’t have a life plan! You are not a proper adult!”
Hearing these things sends me straight to the Internet, where I console myself with online shopping and videos of dramatic chipmunks.
With any birthday comes the expectation of holding some kind of celebration. My friends, (bless them) mean well, but refuse to believe I don’t want to do anything.
“How can you hate parties? You are always the last one on the dance floor, doing the robot and moonwalking, even if you don’t know the person holding the party!”
That’s true, and I can do a mean robot/moonwalk combination; but holding events for myself sends me into a downward spiral of what I call: Party Panic.
At first, the idea of a birthday party appeals, recalling younger days of being the centre of attention and receiving gifts, all because I didn’t die for one whole year. Eager to recapture that feeling, I send an invitation to every single person I know. And a few I don’t.
(It’s always best to maximize your potential present givers)
But shortly after pressing ‘send’, other visions appear – horrific images of what would happen if nobody showed up, or worse… if everyone did.
The lead up to the party is mainly spent in the fetal position, agonizing over what could go wrong; feeling a heavy weight of responsibility to give everyone the enjoyable evening I foolishly promised in my invitations.
By the time the night of the celebration rolls around, I am in full Party Panic mode. The seemingly endless night is spent obsessively asking if everyone is ok.
“Should we go somewhere else? I think other people are coming? Have you met so and so? Do you have a drink? Are you having fun? Maybe if you drink more you’ll have more fun? Are you just pretending to have fun?”
My incessant questions ensure that there is absolutely no “fun” to be had.
This cycle of Party Panic stems from a lifelong compulsion to force everyone to like me.
In my job on TV, I’m never bothered when I get the odd anti-fan mail from someone I don’t know. But the idea of someone I have met not liking me, makes my brain go:
Whenever I meet someone new, I generally use everything in my power to impress them. My insane desire to be liked leaves them confused and weighed down with way too many bribe presents. But I mean well.
So if you ever meet me, and my face looks like this:
Know that I am on Insecurity Island, and you may need to be extra nice.
