Why I Think Dan And Phil Are The Cat's Whiskers!

Dan and Phil. 

A few months ago, my best friend excitedly told me that she'd discovered "the male version of us!"  

It turned out that Lydia and Emma in male form were called Dan Howell and Phil Lester and were best known for making hugely popular videos on YouTube.  "They're so like us," my bestie said, when I next went over to her place.  "They even met online, just like we did!"  It was pretty clear that Lydia had fallen down the rabbit hole and had absolutely no desire to return, so we sat on her sofa and watched a few videos.  

And I smiled.  Then I giggled.  Then I proper belly-laughed.  By the time I climbed into my car to drive home, I was already planning which videos to check out when I got back.  I ended up spending my whole evening watching stuff online and I grinned like an idiot the entire time.  By the following morning, it was abundantly clear that I had joined Lydia down the rabbit hole and I was more than happy to stay there.

Why would I want to leave these weirdos?!

It's fair to say that I'm probably not really in Dan and Phil's target audience.  Visit the many fan pages that have been popping up online over the years and the general conversation ranges from what homework everyone has to do that night, to what they want to be when they "grow up."  Dan wasn't even born until June 1991, by which point I was 8 going on 9 (a fact that makes me feel seriously old).  But somehow, I've taken these two to my heart in a way that I haven't with any other Internet personalities that came before and almost certainly never will with anyone who follows them.  So, why?

Well, to answer that, you need to look at the reason for their enormous popularity with teenage viewers.  

Your teenage years are notoriously tricky.  You're growing up and trying to work out who you are.  There's all this pressure on you to do well at school and decide what you want to do with your life and beyond that, you're supposed to look and act a certain way in order to fit in with the "cool" kids.  If you're being bullied or you're going through any kind of personal problems, it all just adds up to a hugely confusing and sometimes scary period of your life.  I can barely believe the person I am now, compared to when I was a teenager.  I'm so much more comfortable in myself and, for the most part, a lot more confident.  In a lot of ways, I really am a completely different person.

For a start, I had surgery to remove that dog from my face.

So, just imagine you're 13 or 14 and you're not one of the particularly cool kids.  Imagine you'd prefer to be at home playing computer games, rather than trying to sneak into some dodgy nightclub with sticky floors.  You have all these aspects to your personality that you think are weird and it feels like there's nobody who gets you.  Then, one day, you're browsing the Internet and you stumble across someone who seems really confident, friendly and funny and they're saying: "Oh God, I'm so not cool."  And they're okay with it.  In fact, they're more than okay with it.  They revel in being comfortable with their own nerdiness and - as a perhaps slightly awkward, shy teen, struggling to come to terms with who you are - you think: "maybe it's okay to be me, after all."  

That random person online, for a lot of youngsters, was Dan.  Or Phil.  Or, let's face it, both.  

Suddenly you feel less alone.  And have an irresistable urge to draw on your own face.

Visit any Dan and Phil fan page and you'll find comments from teenager after teenager saying such things.  These two, slightly nerdy, wonderfully weird guys have taught youngsters that it's okay to just be yourself, whatever that means.  They've somehow made being mildly uncool the absolute epitome of cool.  I can say, with my hand on my heart, that when I was a terribly shy, scared and awkward teen, I would have given an arm and a leg to have discovered someone older and wiser who was proud to be themselves on camera, telling me that "school won't last forever" and "life gets better."  

And what's really, genuinely lovely is that both Dan and Phil know that they have enormous influence over a huge proportion of young people and have used that influence to speak out against bullying, to reassure kids that there's nothing wrong with preferring to stay in and play computer games rather than trying to keep up with the "in-crowd" and to let young people know that they're not alone with the problems they're dealing with and that things really will improve with time.

And so we come to me.  I'm not a shy, awkward teenager, anymore.  No.  I've blossomed into a shy, awkward thirty three year old.  YAY!

Seriously though, regular readers will know that I delight in my own weirdness.  I think it's so important to be accepting of yourself and know that whatever makes you you should be celebrated, not put down or hidden away for fear of ridicule (I even wrote a blog called "Embrace Your Weirdness!" a couple of years ago).  So, to find people who not only agree with that sentiment, but embrace it wholeheartedly and try to ensure that the concept is shared with the people who really need to hear it, is actually rather beautiful.  It makes me want to give both Dan and Phil the biggest of squishy hugs (avoiding touching Dan's neck of course, not that I could reach it).

I guess what I'm saying is, in amongst the hilarious videos, the games, the "day in the life" anecdotes and the general fun of Dan and Phil's world, there are genuine lessons that you're never too old to take to heart.  With great power comes great responsibility and these two aren't afraid to speak to their audience about real life and how to treat other people with respect as well as respecting yourself.  That's worth more than just a "thumbs up."  That's the kind of thing that makes an isolated person feel like they're not alone.  It's the kind of attitude that we want to be encouraging the next generation to adopt.

So, thank you Dan and Phil.  Thanks for making me laugh and for encouraging me to bake more, blog more (seriously, every video makes me want to write, for some reason), play games more, cherish my best friend more and be proud to be the weird little nerd that I am.  Don't ever change.  You're the cat's whiskers.

Reasons I Fail vs Reasons I Am EPIC

I REGRET NOTHING.

So, I have this thing, where I sometimes feel compelled to list the reasons why I am an epic, epic fail.  The trouble is, all too often, we're more likely to self-deprecate than we are to build ourselves up.  And the fact is, almost nobody is made entirely of flaws.  We're all made up of reasons why we're stupid and reasons why we're actually awesome.  Those reasons fuse together to make a fully rounded person and that's actually pretty cool.  So, you see, I am a total failure as a writer, because I just used "actually" twice in quick succession, but I'm a total epic win as a writer, because I'm attempting to use my blog to make you - yes, YOU - realise that your flaws are just human and that being human and having flaws is OKAY.

With all of that in mind, I've decided to have a look at some of my biggest reasons for failure and contradict them all with some of the reasons I actually think I'm doing okay at being a human.  Although someone needs to take the word "actually" away from me, before I use it again and am forced to add "ACTUALLY ADDICTION" to the list of fails...

FAIL: I am extraordinarily sensitive.

You know how some people are really tough and nothing ever seems to affect them, emotionally?  I am not one of those people.  In fact, I am the polar opposite of those people.  I cry at adverts.  I have been known to lie awake until the early hours of the morning, regretting a casual sentence I may have uttered once ten years ago, because I'm suddenly concerned that someone might have taken it the wrong way and been upset about it and now it's too late to take it back.  I've been known to lie awake at night analysing things other people have said to me, brooding over whether or not I've taken it the wrong way.  Literally everything I do and say is tempered with a desperate need to not upset anyone, combined with a constant fear that I'm not a nice enough person.  Add to that the fact that I have the total opposite to "thick skin" and you have someone who bruises like a peach in the emotional sense, given the slightest metaphorical knock.  It's annoying and I hate it and I want to be all tough and strong and ROAR, FEAR ME, WORLD!  But that's not me and it never will be.

WIN: I am extraordinarily sensitive.  SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!

Sometimes, your flaw doesn't always have to be a flaw.  I am massively sensitive and in a strange way, it's like a bizarre superpower.  I can tell when someone is upset, even when they're doing a highly convincing job of being all "I'm fine."  I know how to talk to someone who needs a bit of emotional support.  I am tactful, because I know what it's like to accidentally take someone's words the wrong way and be awake until 3am internally beating myself up because I can't stop replaying them over and over.  Someone once told me that I'd be one of the first people they'd go to if they were upset about something, because they could guarantee that I would be sensitive enough to handle it in the way they needed.  I'm taking that as quite the compliment, frankly.  Epic fail done good.

FAIL: I have really bizarre fears.

I am scared of having my blood taken.  Like, actually terrified to the point that when someone has to take my blood, I freeze and they often can't get any out.  Weirdly, I don't have a phobia of needles in the slightest (I have tattoos and I get an annual flu jab because of my asthma) and blood in general doesn't freak me out all that much.  But somehow, the idea of having it deliberately taken from me makes me literally shake with fear.

I also suffer with emetophobia - the fear of vomit.  If someone is ill around me, I will obsessively wash my hands until the skin peels, because I am so terrified of catching a bug and being sick.  I can't handle seeing anyone throw up (to the point that when I watched a YouTube video with my best friend recently, she had to pre-warn me that the guy was sick in it, in order to give me adequate time to look away in horror).  When suffering from a stomach bug, I have genuinely been known to pace around my bedroom, repeating: "I will not be sick, I will not be sick, I will not be sick..." like some gruesome mantra, until the very last minute, when I inevitably panic and am forced to quite literally face my phobia head-on (or rather, head down).  I work in childcare and it's an in-joke amongst my colleagues that if a kid is sick, I will rush out of the room on "urgent business."  The "urgent business" generally being "I MUST GET AWAY FROM THIS DESPICABLE HORROR BEFORE I EMPTY THE CONTENTS OF MY STOMACH IN RESPONSE."  It's a genuine problem.  The thought of someone being ill around me prompts a massive fight or flight response, in which my heart goes crazy, I get breathless and I shake.  I'm a terrible, terrible friend to be around if you're unwell and I'm sorry.

I am also scared of spiders to the point that I will leave a room if I see one, depending on its size (if it's little, it can stay, as long as I know where it is at all times).  And wasps... Don't get me started on those evil little bastards.  I got stung on my ear once and the whole thing swelled up to twice the size.  They're vile.  I need to be warned of their presence immediately, so that I can exit the situation as quickly as possible.

Thanks, Dan and Phil.  Especially Phil, because reasons. Such strong reasons.

WIN: I am SO much tougher than I ever realised.

I'm a survivor.  Insert Destiny's Child gif here, because I'm still too busy looking at the one above.

I got bullied to the point of feeling genuinely suicidal when I was only twelve years old.  I lived through being told I was ugly and unlovable on a daily basis.  Being spat at, tripped up, reduced to "it" rather than "Emma" or even "her."  But I never stopped believing that one day, life would get better.  And once I was older, I trained in being a "listener" and gave up my lunchtimes at Sixth Form to help run a counselling service for lower school kids who were being bullied and needed someone to open up to.

Then, years later, I fell in love with a man who abused me psychologically, emotionally and sexually.  I became a total and utter shell of who I was before.  I was so manipulated and confused that I believed I deserved everything he said and did.  But, somehow (and believe me when I say it was the hardest thing I ever did), I found the strength to walk away.  I sought help and rebuilt my life.  Then, when I was in a much better place, I used my experiences to become an anti-abuse advocate online and to write my debut adult novel, which aims to raise awareness of psychological abuse and the damage it can cause.

What I'm saying is: I lived through some awful things.  Things that led me to the lowest point in my whole life.  But it got better.  I fought to turn those horrific experiences into something positive, so I could try to help other people.  Turning a negative into a positive isn't easy and I'm proud that I've never stopped trying.  I might be a bit of an oversensitive twerp, but it turns out that you can't keep an oversensitive twerp down.

FAIL: I am SO clumsy.

Oh, this could so easily be me...

Literally in the time it took to upload that gif to my blog, I have attempted to pick up the drink that's on the table beside me, got the coaster stuck to the bottom of the glass, shook said glass and sprayed my face with the contents, whilst sending the coaster flying across the room.  

If someone is going to fall over, it's almost always going to be me.  If someone is going to knock something down, it will definitely be me.  I frequently break things and have no idea how I've done it and today at work, I trod in playdough and trailed it all down the brand new carpet in the corridor, before I even noticed something was amiss.

Somehow - and I really don't know how - I have never broken any bones.  Also, for reasons I will never fully understand, I'm quite good at ice skating (seriously, me on ice with blades attached to my feet should not be a situation that ends well).  But for the most part, my life is one incident of utter clumsiness after the next.  My legs are covered in bruises and I have no idea how I even got most of them.  

Seriously, if you need something broken, dropped or spilt, I am your woman.

WIN: I write books that people seem to like!

I went onto Amazon earlier, to get the link to my novel (pictured above), because I figured it would be handy to put it in this blog, seeing as I was talking about my experience of living through abuse, earlier.  When I searched for it on Amazon, it came up as having four 5* reviews.  Last time I looked, it only had two, so obviously I was very keen to read the new ones!  

Nothing - and I genuinely mean that - makes me feel as proud and thrilled as when someone compliments my writing.  I don't do it because I want to be rich and famous (although I wouldn't turn down a million pound movie deal, if anyone's reading this...).  I do it because I love it.  There is nothing in the world that I want to do more, in terms of career goals.  Writing, be it creating a blog post like this, crafting a fun and entertaining children's story or the process of actually writing a whole novel, is my greatest passion.  To think that anyone reckons I'm any good at it is incredibly humbling and completely exhilarating all at the same time.

If you'd asked me this time five years ago what my biggest dream was, I'd tell you that it was to have a book published.  Now, I've had three traditionally published and two self published and I think that's something to be pretty damn proud of.

FAIL: I am utterly and completely hopeless when it comes to approaching someone I am romantically interested in.

I have actually written about my personal Five Stages of Having a Crush, before.  Suffice to say, if I like someone, I am more likely to stick pins in my own eyes than face having to tell them, such is my massive fear of rejection (issues, so many issues).  

I can vividly recall one night in September last year, being out for the evening and being graced with the presence of my then real-life crush.  At one point in the proceedings, his friends all went off to the loo/the bar/to discuss the weird short girl eyeing up their mate and my friend disappeared to get a drink.  He was all by himself.  I was standing mere feet away.  So, I wandered over, uttered an entirely awkward line of conversation, he smiled, I panicked and then I pretty much ran away.  I mean, I made the excuse of going to get a drink, but the fact is, I had a drink in my hand.  I was just terrified.  I'm talking "someone has a syringe in their hand and they're tapping my arm to find a vein" kind of terrified.  What if he knew I liked him?  What if he threw up at the mere thought?!  That would be traumatic on two levels.

The trouble is, I'm not sixteen.  I'm thirty bloody three and entirely capable of holding a conversation with almost anyone.  I'm generally fairly comfortable in myself and I reckon I'm a pretty decent human.  Yet, you put me in front of someone I like in THAT way and I turn into the most epic of epic fails you could possibly wish to meet.  Specialities include:

• Spilling my drink on myself.
• Going all giggly and shy.
• Becoming mute OR talking endless nonsense (there is no middle ground).
• Mumbling, because I'm not confident in the utter rubbish I am spouting.
• Turning a delightful shade of puce.

Bizarrely, if someone I like initiates the conversation, I'm generally fine (albeit hugely nervous), but if I have to initiate it?  Good lord, no.  Nine times out of ten, I will sit and think about initiating it, until the chance has passed.  At which point I will go home and cry over not having taken the opportunity because I am an idiot.

WIN: I am, despite all my flaws, happy in myself.

Awkward pose on the dance floor - wooooo!

One good thing about getting older is that you become more attuned to who you are and who you want to be.  You start to realise that you're actually okay with being you and if there are things you still don't like, you learn to either accept them or change them.

I may be an oversensitive, clumsy loser in love with a particularly weird set of phobias, but I'm me.  I'm the only me in the world and that's pretty cool.  All my strange little ways are just what make me unique and anyway, weirdness is good, right?  

For all my flaws, I know that I've got a kind heart, a sensitive soul and a creative brain.  So, I over-analyse stuff and I dance like my Nan, but who cares?!  I cook a bloody decent risotto, so that more than makes up for it.

It's the same for everyone - for all your flaws, there are positive personality traits.  Everyone has a list of negative qualities - it's impossible not to, because nobody can ever be perfect - but we've all got a list of positive attributes, too.  Our goal in life should just be to ensure that the good outweighs the bad and that we don't let ourselves dwell on the negatives for too long.

So, embrace everything that makes you who you are.  You're a big jumble of things, all mixed together to create a whole.  And that's just the way it should be.

Self Confidence & Me

Pictured: ME.

They say that self-confidence is one of the most attractive qualities a person can have.  And every time I hear that sentence, a small part of me wants to go and hide under my bed and weep over my unlovable personality quirk.  You see, I have some issues with self-confidence.

Oh, I can be confident in some areas.  I can do my day job and bring out the "jazz hands" with the children I teach and the parents I deal with on a daily basis.  I've done radio and print interviews, whilst publicising my ABC Animals series of children's books, during which - hopefully - no interviewer would ever have guessed that I have the slightest problem with self-esteem.  I know I'm good at certain things, like writing and other creative activities and I always feel confident when I do them.  I know I have fantastic friends and a close family who all think positive things about me, so I am genuinely confident when I'm around them.  Sometimes I really am the chatty, friendly, confident person that I appear to be.

But not always.

Sometimes I really do just want to hide under the bed.

I'll be honest with you and say that the absolute biggest area in which I suffer from a lack of confidence is my looks.  And therefore, by extension, with the opposite sex.

Between the ages of 11-14, I was told I was "hideous," "disgusting" and "unlovable" every day of my life by school bullies.  When I was between 14 and 15, I started a new school and on my very first day, a new school bully loudly shouted: "Eurgh, that is our new girl?!  Look at it!  Gross!"  

I was used to forming crushes on the few boys that didn't pick on me, only to be told that the crush wasn't remotely reciprocated, once the object of my affections found out (usually because someone else told them).

I was 18 before I had my first boyfriend.  When that relationship ended 10 months later, I got used to going out with friends and being the one that nobody chatted up.  I was the bag-carrier.  The one that blokes would dare their friends to talk to "for a laugh" (no word of a lie, I had that happen to me more times than I care to reminisce about).

I had a big crush on a guy called Rob for years during my early twenties, but funnily enough, when I finally plucked up the courage to ask him out (and I genuinely don't know where that came from, because I've never found it since), he said no.

I got into an abusive relationship when I was 27.  The man I loved (because yes, despite it being an abusive relationship, at the time I did love him enormously) would tell me I was fat, short and unworthy of commitment.  

So it probably shouldn't be a shock to anyone that my confidence in my looks has never been massively high.

Oh, I have confidence in me (and yes, I realise I sound worryingly like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music by saying that), just not the package that me comes in.

Unless I wear a mask of James Bourne's head.  Then I'm SEXY. 

Sure, sometimes I do look at myself and think I'm not that bad.  I've even been known to think I look bloody great.  I reckon I usually dress quite well and I'm pretty good at doing my make up nicely.  That's the thing with me; I like who I am on the inside, so I want to think nicely of the outside, too.  And sometimes I genuinely do.

But making the leap from me thinking I look quite nice to hoping that someone else thinks I look quite nice is close to impossible.  A little voice in my head will tell me "don't be stupid.  They wouldn't be interested in you!"

On Saturday night, I was away with a friend and we were having a few drinks in a big entertainment venue.  Now, for the last couple of months, I've had a bit of a "real-life crush" (i.e. not a celebrity) on someone who works at the place we were holidaying at.  He was there, with his friends, looking ridiculously gorgeous.  At one point, he smiled over and I smiled back.  And then I did nothing.  Because why, oh why would someone ridiculously gorgeous be interested in me?   Maybe he wasn't even smiling!  Maybe he had wind!

I did actually manage to hold a conversation with him less than 48 hours later, but mainly because he initiated it, otherwise I would have been stuck in "I WANT TO TALK TO YOU BUT I FEAR YOU WILL BE REPELLED BY MY FACE" mode.  Ironically, once he had said hello and started chatting, I was absolutely fine and dandy.  I asked my friend afterwards whether I came across as nervous or under-confident in any way and she was adamant that I didn't.  Although no, I didn't so much as hint that I had a crush on him, or ask him if he fancied getting to know each other better, or even whether he was single.  Because my brain did the "he would be sick if he knew you liked him" thing.  And I'm scared of vomit.

Emetophobia.  It's a real phobia.  And I have it.

Photo courtesy of beatyourfears.com

So, what's the point in writing this blog?  Well, mainly to show people who also have low confidence in their looks that they aren't alone.  And that talking about it honestly is the best thing to do.  After all, when you keep things in, they bubble up until they become bigger issues than they need to be.  It's vital to be open, otherwise people don't understand the way you might react to things.  For example, some of my friends genuinely can't understand why I won't just go over and initiate conversation with someone I like the look of and it's really important for me to stress that I just can't fathom why that person would be interested and that if they were to reject me, I would only see it as confirmation of what I already think about my dodgy face.

Yes, I can see the stupidity of what I just said - I'm essentially letting the fear of rejection stop me from getting the possible good result I want.  I'm not a total idiot; I can see that that's ridiculous.  And as the friend I was with this weekend pointed out on Sunday night (when I didn't see said crush out with his mates again), I always feel horrendous when I realise I missed what may have been my only opportunity to take action.  But - and this is a really important "but" - knowing that doesn't necessarily help me in that moment when I'm crazily paralysed with fear.  It doesn't give me the confidence in my looks that I need - and lack - in that critical moment.  The fact is that I can do my make up nicely, get my hair to behave for a change and put on a dress that flatters my figure and I can feel like I look good, but if I lose that confidence even for a split second, then I'm not going to be able to wander over and say hi to that guy, no matter how much people plead with me to.  Because I just don't believe that there's any point; I don't think my interest could possibly be mutual.

The other reason I'm writing this is because it's really important to me that nobody thinks I'm fishing for compliments when I put myself down.  If a person who really suffers from a lack of confidence in his or her looks says "ugh, I look a state," they're doing it because they believe it, not because they're trying to push someone into gushing "oh no you don't; you're gorgeous!"  Because someone like me will always find a way to believe that you're only saying it to be nice, rather than because it's true.

It's a slightly bizarre but true fact that I accept compliments on my looks better from strangers than I do from people who know me, because strangers have no reason to lie to make you feel better (unless they're just saying it to get you into bed and that's a whole other issue...).

In the end, it's really important to finish this blog post by saying that if you do feel as though you have very little confidence in your looks and it's affecting your ability to do simple things like say hi to someone attractive (unless they do it first - thank you, crush :-P), then you do need to build that confidence, somehow.  Wear something you feel fantastic in.  Treat yourself to a new hairdo.  And remember that even if your physical attributes don't fill you with esteem, then there will always be something about yourself that you do like.  For example, I think I'm quite funny.  And I'm a sensitive, kind and thoughtful friend.  And I'm fun to hang out with.  See?  Confidence.  I do have it!  

And you know what?  I probably look okay sometimes.  In a dark light.  If you squint.

Hmm, confidence.  Yeah, it's a work in progress...