Not being talked about

Morning world. My, you look virile.

Anyway, today I finally got around to replying to an important email, so this blog is number two on my 'List Of Things To Do - Urgent!' Number three is to phone a solicitor, so I'm not looking forward to that, and number four is to phone the council and shout at them for ignoring my bins.

To digress temporarily, the council thing is really annoying. They keep not taking our recycling. So I emailed them and said "Oy, bitches. You know you sent me a letter the other week demanding we leave our bins out at very specific times and in very specific places, and how you;d be really cross if we didn't, and oooh, the penalties? Well, I did what you said and look - it's still there, and still full of cardboard. You dicks.'

Well, this made me feel all victorious. And then they emailed back, saying 'Well, we came the next day to take it and it wasn't there! So what can we possibly do? Yours sincerely, Some Moron'. So I did a dance of rage, because, right, they'd told us not to leave it out except on the day of collection! So why were they surprised it wasn't there on the day after? Why? Why, reader? Why?

So anyway, I have to phone the cretins and explain their own system to them. Which I'm not looking forward to. I might make that number five on my 'List Of Things To Do - Urgent', and make number four 'Have another cup of tea'.

So. This important email, which was important thing number one, and which is what I'm really here to talk about. A few weeks ago someone I used to know emailed me to apologise for all the times he'd talked about me behind my back. He said that some of these were probably justified, but some weren't, and he wanted to get it off his chest.

I was - well, am - quite touched by this. I would never have found out that he'd been doing this, and I'm unlikely to ever see this person again. So it was a totally honest, redemptive act. And it makes me feel better about this person, and for some reason about myself. I think maybe because it restores my faith - a little - in the ability of humans to be candid, and fair, and decent.

For various reasons I do appear to be one of those people who get talked about a lot. Occasionally the most frightful lies get back to me, and occasionally, more worryingly, frightful truths. The part of my brain devoted to making me feel bad spends hours inventing the terrible things people might be saying about me, and whispers them constantly into my mind. It imagines scenarious akin to the following:

Person A:  I say, do you hear what that ghastly Rob Reed has done now?

Person B:  Something lewd and blasphemous no doubt?

Person C: Oh, do tell!

A:   Well, people do say he keeps the company of several midget ladyboys, whom he beats and abuses for his vile entertainment.

B:   That is the kind of thing he'd do.

C:    I hear he is often to be seen in the town's most disreputable places, smoking tobacco and pleasuring himself with intoxicants.

A:    Whilst shouting 'All hail Bealzebub! For you are mighty!'

B:     This would explain many things I also hear.

C:    Namely?

B:    It is said he stands atop the churches of Wakefield on a nightly basis, naked and urinating!

A:    Yes! Urinating the fires of Hell themselves! So that Satan might be manifest upon the Earth and rip asunder the Holy Kingdom of the Lord God!

C:    Ooh! And! And, do you hear who he might be going out with?

B:    Do tell!

Enter Rob

Rob:    Hello good friends whom I trust!

A, B and C:    Hi buddy!


So that's probably what happens. In my mind. Which, as I said, is hell bent on making me feel inadequate, pathetic and villified. And so all the actual horrible, selfish, nasty things that do manifest themselves in my life, become amplified by guilt and suspicion. And I find it just that bit harder to believe in myself as good, or worthy, or redeemable. Or forgivable.

Or - worse - I get superior. And I think "Everyone except me is an idiot and a liar! I've never once summoned Satan while urninating, naked, atop a church! I am totally justified in ignoring any criticism anyone ever makes of me, for clearly I am the misunderstood hero of this age. Where are my whores, my heroin and my lubricant? There's work to be done!"

Both these equally unhelpful responses are partly the fault of my stupid, over-imaginative brain. But not entirely. No, I reserve some blame for you. And me. For we make all this possible by our unreserved embrace of character assassination.

We talk about each other, all the time. We spread nonsense and lies, or distorted truths, for the sake of amusement, or maybe to make ourselves feel superior. We invent moral scales that suit the context of our gossipy conversations and that  - conveniently - leave us untouchable and situated on some mythical moral high ground. And we destroy those we talk about by doing so, in ways we can't imagine.

I have never stood atop a church, urinating the fire of Satan. But I have sat among friends and subtly spread false ideas about those not present through my hilarious and unassailable wit. I'll try and stop. You need to stop too.