My Label and Me: 'Boring' people like me can still have fun

‘You’ve never had a shot before?’

I’m used to this incredulous look – I live in Newcastle, the home of the shot, after all. Thankfully, though, I’m in a bar with some good friends from work, so although it’s awkward for a second, I don’t feel like I need to make excuses. ‘Shots simply aren’t my thing’, I tell them, and then the conversation moves on.

But the next time somebody goes to buy a round, they come back with four shots – and one of them is for me. Heat pricks the back of my neck as I remind them, a little forcefully this time, I don’t do shots. What part of that wasn’t clear?

This might seem like a perfectly forgettable situation to you, but not for me. It’s a scene that has played out in different bars and clubs and house parties ever since we were trying to get served in the local pub aged 17. Whether alcohol was involved or not, the insinuation was clear: if you didn’t live up to somebody’s idea of ‘fun’, you were labelled ‘square’ or ‘boring’ instead.

I’ve been called boring hundreds of times throughout my life. Alcohol isn’t always involved, but it certainly amplifies things; not being as drunk as other friends, even when you’re out as late as them, even when you’re still drinking alcohol, sets you apart from the group. It marks you as an interloper, somebody that might observe and report on people’s dodgy behaviour, or remember conversations others wanted you to forget.

When people notice I don’t drink very much, or that I prefer evenings in to massive nights out, they make all sorts of assumptions. The first thing is that they assume there is some harrowing situation from my past to make me not want to drink (there isn’t). They assume that I’m not a sociable person (I am) or that I don’t have any friends (I do).

I’ve had it all. I was told to ‘grow up’ when I didn’t want to down the alcopop somebody had shoved in my face – at a party I’d actually organised. I was called ‘f*cking depressing’ by a friend because I quite liked the idea of a holiday cottage in the UK rather than a week in Kavos. I’ve been told countless times to ‘live a little’ or ‘let my hair down’, as if I actually hate art galleries and country parks and am secretly wishing someone would come along and save me from myself.

The thing is, ‘boring’ people like me still have friends. And not just other book-reading, coffee-drinking introverts either. One of my best friendships at university was with a certified party animal who would come back from her nights out and eat toast in our communal kitchen, recounting the tales of her evening to me. It worked because we never judged each other. It worked because if I left a night out at 11.30pm rather than 4am, she was happy to sit on the end of my bed the next morning and tell me any gossip I’d missed out on.

You would think leaving university means leaving things like peer pressure behind, but for many people it doesn’t. In some businesses, you are judged not simply on how well you hit targets, but also your stamina on work nights out. Leaving early (or not coming at all due to childcare, caring responsibilities or anything else) is met with boos and thumbs down from your whole team. I’m not saying that being there for your work friends – celebrating their birthdays, their retirement parties or their promotions – isn’t important, but we also need to respect that people are entitled to their own lives, too.

We live in a world of high stress and anxiety, where everybody is under pressure to perform, to show their social media following how incredible their lives are. I don’t want young people to feel like they’re missing something if they don’t enjoy what everybody else does. And so although I’m still insecure about being labelled ‘boring’, I’m slowly learning to lock the door at 8pm, put the kettle on, and not give a damn what anybody thinks.

Labels

Labels is an exclusive series that hears from individuals who have been labelled – whether that be by society, a job title, or a diagnosis. Throughout the project, writers will share how having these words ascribed to them shaped their identity — positively or negatively — and what the label means to them.

If you would like to get involved please email [email protected]

Source: Read Full Article