Ipseity

People often say, when you’re in the midst of a romantic quandary, that you need some time to be single. That maybe some time away from the pursuit of someone’s affections might do you some good. It’s an easy lesson to ignore, I mean, it sounds so boring. You mean I have to actually sit […]

Emotional Cartography: Self-loathing in the age of hyper-confidence.

I have never been confident. Actually, it’s the one thing I can say with true confidence. This dominates every aspect of your life without you even realizing it. It’s ruined opportunities for me before I even took them seriously. It’s allowed people close to me to treat me like dirt because I never stood up […]

Fear and Loathing in West Surrey

It’s lunchtime at the Bourne Business Park in Weybridge. I’m here for a training course in a brightly lit and vacuously decorated corporate office, here with a classroom of all men – IT types who are professional but distinctly laddy. Business-like yet some vain shreds of masculinity manage to creep past the curtain. At lunch, […]

On being alone and not being upset about it.

The summer of 2017 was a really hot one. I know this because my then girlfriend and I hauled everything we own across several streets in Clapham, up several flights of stairs in a flat before dumping it all on the floor of our empty front room. I held several boxes in my clutches, a […]

Yawning (and how I learned to stop worrying and love sleeping pills)

Life is cruel. You lay your head on the pillow at night and try to go to sleep and your minds synapses start to flare up like a dirty engine, sick with oil, spewing out flames in time with your brains wild flexing. The possibility of a good night’s sleep ebbs away. Thoughts incoherent and […]