Shakespeare wuz ere

I was in the pub on Saturday nursing a dreadful hangover. In the 6 hours I was there I had two solitary pints; hair of the dog my friends, it doesn’t always work.

The pub is the best place to go to discuss all the burning issues with your mates. Football, music, current affairs, girls etc. so naturally I brought up Ed Sheeran’s appearance on Home and Away last Friday evening. Well, it was a burning issue to me and loads of other people, alright?

I was asked by my good pal Bakes if I actually watched the show in question, to which I told him yes, obviously. Every weeknight at 6pm, channel 5, immediately after Neighbours. If you’re lucky enough to have a day off you can even treat yourself to watching it in the early afternoon for a change of pace, where for some reason they break tradition by putting it on before Neighbours instead of after it. I’m not 100% sure why this is, but I reckon it’s something to do with water flushing the other way in Australia.

“That just sums you up. The little things like that” he told me.

I’ve been thinking about that line ever since. And by ever since, I don’t really mean ever since, I mean I thought about it for ten minutes last night, had a minor existential crisis and thought I’d write a blog about it. Does it really sum me up? What do people think of me? What do all of these little things say about me? How am I perceived by the world?

Nowadays, social media is the ideal place to cast judgement on people. I thought I’d take a look at my social media activity and imagine I was a stranger to get some clue on what a real stranger might think of me. I know, I am a genius. I’ve had a week off work this week, so this was the ideal opportunity to see what the real me is all about.

Twitter will tell you that on Monday I “watched, and genuinely enjoyed” a programme on BBC4 about the changing of the seasons. Facebook will tell you that on Tuesday I went to Tudor World in Stratford Upon Avon and dressed up as an executioner with my girlfriend, where I wrote “Shakespeare wuz ere 2k15” with a quill. You may also note that my Facebook profile is a picture of me in a Dec mask and my whatsapp profile picture is a screenshot from the film “Grease” (“Rockin’, rollin’ and whatnot”, classic gag). I've also revealed via this blog that i'm an avid Home and Away watcher. And that’s it for the week; living life to its fullest.

Two immediate questions sprung to mind; how has this lad got a girlfriend, and how long before she dumps him?

These things all say something about me and I’m not entirely sure they are positive. It was interesting to look from the outside though and wonder what categories I fit into, what I would think of myself through the eyes of someone else. Anyone who says they don’t care what other people think about them is either a liar or a total sociopath, but maybe the extent we worry about it varies from person to person.

How do you think you are perceived? How do you want people to look at you? It might be my next burning issue to discuss when we’re at the pub. Sure you’ll look forward to that one, Bakes.