Biggest opportunity I've blown
Not Alan Partridge tells us: "I was once offered the chance to co-present a programme on national radio. Audience of millions, but blew up spectacularly, my entire contribution being the rustling of paper in the background. I was that bad, I have since burned my copy of the pilot show." Tell us about your big break, and how you messed it up.
( , Thu 3 Apr 2014, 14:22)
Not Alan Partridge tells us: "I was once offered the chance to co-present a programme on national radio. Audience of millions, but blew up spectacularly, my entire contribution being the rustling of paper in the background. I was that bad, I have since burned my copy of the pilot show." Tell us about your big break, and how you messed it up.
( , Thu 3 Apr 2014, 14:22)
This question is now closed.
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( , Thu 10 Apr 2014, 12:49, 8 replies)
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( , Thu 10 Apr 2014, 12:49, 8 replies)
jesus stopped me having teenage sex
The bastard.
OK so it wasn't actually Jesus's fault per se.
I was 18, horny as hell, and a full on bible basher(I'd like to say I grew out of it fairly quickly, but I was about 36 by the time I fully realised it was a big pile of wank).
I was at my girlfriend's house (we ran the college Christian Union together. How romantic right?) and we had the place to ourselves. We started kissing and hands started to wander. I then suddenly pulled away and announced that we shouldn't be doing this, that it was upsetting God and all that shite.
We got back in touch recently. We were chatting one night and she told me that if I hadn't done that I'd have been her first.
Fuck.
( , Thu 10 Apr 2014, 12:49, 3 replies)
The bastard.
OK so it wasn't actually Jesus's fault per se.
I was 18, horny as hell, and a full on bible basher(I'd like to say I grew out of it fairly quickly, but I was about 36 by the time I fully realised it was a big pile of wank).
I was at my girlfriend's house (we ran the college Christian Union together. How romantic right?) and we had the place to ourselves. We started kissing and hands started to wander. I then suddenly pulled away and announced that we shouldn't be doing this, that it was upsetting God and all that shite.
We got back in touch recently. We were chatting one night and she told me that if I hadn't done that I'd have been her first.
Fuck.
( , Thu 10 Apr 2014, 12:49, 3 replies)
Before I'd gone to the office, I had gone to the WH Smiths in the station. All those millions of casual words. And then I met them in their office. I was stunned they had an office. An office was tangible. More touchable than a secret dream. An office meant money. I was shitting it with fear, sweating in my suit. There were potted plants, and books, of course, and casualy dressed people demure with their success. I'd sweated on the train even though, as a mark of respect to the gravity of the situation, I'd stayed soberish the night before. On the train, I'd taken my shirt off and scoured my armpits with the rough toilet paper, hoping the feeling of being scoured was something to do with redemption. But I was still stained with sweat. Fear.
I sat in the office in my suit and the woman came in. She was wearing jeans and I got a flash of insight of how me in my suit must look to her. I got a flash of insight which I told my self to ignore. She smiled at me and it was alright. I went into her office clutching my manuscript. Thirty seven literary agents had rejected my novel with varying degrees of pefunctoryness and sarcasm. One said it was disgusting and I took this rejection almost like a proposal because at least it meant that someone, somewhere had read it. And here she was talking about promise. She was talking with her partner and I thought of all those happy successful people in the office and those millions of words in WHSMiths and I stood up and said 'I can't do this' and I walked out and that was the end of that. Failure is a relief.
( , Thu 10 Apr 2014, 11:14, 3 replies)
I have a nasty habit of accidentally passing up opportunities.
By that I mean I regularly look back on things and think "Oooohhhhhh... crap. That's what I should have done". It's best highlighted by how utterly atrocious I was at wooing the opposite sex at University.
- Cue wavy lines -
2003. I was in my first year of University - a beautiful little place in a town called Egham, and at the time held the accolade for supposedly hosting 75% female students. Having only had the odd kiss and fumble with girls at School, it was like a whole other world - Union nights in particular were an astonishing sight to behold. Manys tight dress, such flesh, wow, and all that.
And of course, there was "Jess". (Name changed, to protect... well, her dignity rather than anything else).
Jess was stunning. Tall, slim, funny, a remarkably sexy american accent (okay, I'm odd like that) - she even seemed genuinely interested in our geeky nights of staying in playing Street Fighter or watching Anime. It's fair to say I was utterly smitten. However, my former shy and retiring self believed staunchly that she was totally and utterly out of my league. Looking back now, if I had a chance to tell my younger self one thing, it would be a rabid scream of "MY GOD SHE WANTS YOU, YOU GOON"...
The first "Blown Opportunity" was after a particularly drunken night out, we ended up back at my room, with a few friends. As everyone else seemed to retire to their own beds and halls of residence, it ended up with just me and Jess. As soon as I had closed the door from my best friend leaving, I saw jess removing her hoodie, clambering on to my bed, patting next to her, with beckoning eyes, asking "So, looks like we're all alone now... but I'm not tired. What should we do?". I swear it's not just my rose-tinted memory - she actually gave a proper full-on hollywood style wink. Thinking "Don't overevaluate it - she's definitely not in to you", I said "I know!" and put on a DVD.
A DVD of Fight Club. Sodding Fight Club. And then sat on the bed next to her, half lusting over her, half wondering why she suddenly seemed so quiet and upset.
Fast forward another couple of weeks - it was the regular "Sexual Health Week", culminating in an event in the Union where they practically threw buckets of prophylactics over the ebbing crowd. My friends and I were there of course - and that meant Jess was there too. The whole night I had been "dancing" with her (for that, read "standing around like a roman column in an earthquake, while she gyrated slowly in front"), trying not to feel guilty for sneaking peeks at her overly revealing top. Come leaving time, she turned to me and while holding a fistful of the free condoms littering the event, said, and I quote verbatim - "Wanna help me put these to good use?". "You're reading into this" said my inner-self, the cretin that it is. "She clearly has other stuff in mind - don't be creepy towards her". So, trying to act all cool, I responded with the idea "Yeah! Let's wrap everything in [best friend]'s room in them! Best prank ever!". At this point, she suddenly became inexplicably tired and wandered home.
The worst though was still to come. A few weeks after that, we were yet again out in the union - this time for a pub quiz, and were all really quite tipsy. What should have tipped me off was when she explained "Hey - let me crash at yours - I can't walk all the way home", even though her place was considerably closer than my halls of residence. So, off we trudged, along the way holding hands. "No, she's just doing it because she's a good friend" told my moron inner-self, yet again. Once we got back, we chatted for a bit, and decided it was time for bed. "Do you need anything to wear?" I asked. She replied - I kid you not - "No, that's okay, I don't wear anything in bed", and proceeded to disrobe. Catching a glimpse at what she was doing, I turned my back to give her some dignity, and turned back as I heard her getting into my single bed.
"Oh, there's not much room in here..." she purred. Of course, my ludicrously shy brain took over at this point yet again. "Oh, that's okay, I can sleep on the floor - you have the bed, you're the guest!" (All the while with my much frustrated other inner self screaming "FOR GODS SAKE! PROCREATION! INTIMACY! COITUS! WHY U NO?!", but being drowned out by my self-annihilative qualities. "Oh, no, it's fine - I insist, I won't have you sleeping on the floor!" she said, pulling the covers up to indicate I should just sodding well get in.
Did I get in? Nope.
For some reason, my inner mind told me "Ahh, this is clearly a test, to see if I respect her. If I do the gentlemanly thing here, she'll clearly want me to be her boyfriend!". So, I pulled two wheely desk chairs together, facing one another, draped a blanket over them, and used them as the worst bed conceivable. I stayed awake that entire night, not for the thoughts swimming through my mind, but for the sheer terror of falling to the floor, lest I fail to keep the chairs together.
TL;DR - A girl I was totally smitten with literally got into my bed totally naked, invited me in, and I was so shy I slept on two Staples-brand office chairs.
Apologies for length? I never got the chance to, unfortunately.
( , Wed 9 Apr 2014, 20:43, 15 replies)
By that I mean I regularly look back on things and think "Oooohhhhhh... crap. That's what I should have done". It's best highlighted by how utterly atrocious I was at wooing the opposite sex at University.
- Cue wavy lines -
2003. I was in my first year of University - a beautiful little place in a town called Egham, and at the time held the accolade for supposedly hosting 75% female students. Having only had the odd kiss and fumble with girls at School, it was like a whole other world - Union nights in particular were an astonishing sight to behold. Manys tight dress, such flesh, wow, and all that.
And of course, there was "Jess". (Name changed, to protect... well, her dignity rather than anything else).
Jess was stunning. Tall, slim, funny, a remarkably sexy american accent (okay, I'm odd like that) - she even seemed genuinely interested in our geeky nights of staying in playing Street Fighter or watching Anime. It's fair to say I was utterly smitten. However, my former shy and retiring self believed staunchly that she was totally and utterly out of my league. Looking back now, if I had a chance to tell my younger self one thing, it would be a rabid scream of "MY GOD SHE WANTS YOU, YOU GOON"...
The first "Blown Opportunity" was after a particularly drunken night out, we ended up back at my room, with a few friends. As everyone else seemed to retire to their own beds and halls of residence, it ended up with just me and Jess. As soon as I had closed the door from my best friend leaving, I saw jess removing her hoodie, clambering on to my bed, patting next to her, with beckoning eyes, asking "So, looks like we're all alone now... but I'm not tired. What should we do?". I swear it's not just my rose-tinted memory - she actually gave a proper full-on hollywood style wink. Thinking "Don't overevaluate it - she's definitely not in to you", I said "I know!" and put on a DVD.
A DVD of Fight Club. Sodding Fight Club. And then sat on the bed next to her, half lusting over her, half wondering why she suddenly seemed so quiet and upset.
Fast forward another couple of weeks - it was the regular "Sexual Health Week", culminating in an event in the Union where they practically threw buckets of prophylactics over the ebbing crowd. My friends and I were there of course - and that meant Jess was there too. The whole night I had been "dancing" with her (for that, read "standing around like a roman column in an earthquake, while she gyrated slowly in front"), trying not to feel guilty for sneaking peeks at her overly revealing top. Come leaving time, she turned to me and while holding a fistful of the free condoms littering the event, said, and I quote verbatim - "Wanna help me put these to good use?". "You're reading into this" said my inner-self, the cretin that it is. "She clearly has other stuff in mind - don't be creepy towards her". So, trying to act all cool, I responded with the idea "Yeah! Let's wrap everything in [best friend]'s room in them! Best prank ever!". At this point, she suddenly became inexplicably tired and wandered home.
The worst though was still to come. A few weeks after that, we were yet again out in the union - this time for a pub quiz, and were all really quite tipsy. What should have tipped me off was when she explained "Hey - let me crash at yours - I can't walk all the way home", even though her place was considerably closer than my halls of residence. So, off we trudged, along the way holding hands. "No, she's just doing it because she's a good friend" told my moron inner-self, yet again. Once we got back, we chatted for a bit, and decided it was time for bed. "Do you need anything to wear?" I asked. She replied - I kid you not - "No, that's okay, I don't wear anything in bed", and proceeded to disrobe. Catching a glimpse at what she was doing, I turned my back to give her some dignity, and turned back as I heard her getting into my single bed.
"Oh, there's not much room in here..." she purred. Of course, my ludicrously shy brain took over at this point yet again. "Oh, that's okay, I can sleep on the floor - you have the bed, you're the guest!" (All the while with my much frustrated other inner self screaming "FOR GODS SAKE! PROCREATION! INTIMACY! COITUS! WHY U NO?!", but being drowned out by my self-annihilative qualities. "Oh, no, it's fine - I insist, I won't have you sleeping on the floor!" she said, pulling the covers up to indicate I should just sodding well get in.
Did I get in? Nope.
For some reason, my inner mind told me "Ahh, this is clearly a test, to see if I respect her. If I do the gentlemanly thing here, she'll clearly want me to be her boyfriend!". So, I pulled two wheely desk chairs together, facing one another, draped a blanket over them, and used them as the worst bed conceivable. I stayed awake that entire night, not for the thoughts swimming through my mind, but for the sheer terror of falling to the floor, lest I fail to keep the chairs together.
TL;DR - A girl I was totally smitten with literally got into my bed totally naked, invited me in, and I was so shy I slept on two Staples-brand office chairs.
Apologies for length? I never got the chance to, unfortunately.
( , Wed 9 Apr 2014, 20:43, 15 replies)
This question is now closed.