LGA
I was over in New York Last week, staying with my sister Sophie and her family. On the Thursday, whilst her and her American husband were out at work, I agreed to look after their two kids (my neice and nephew) Brad and Mary-Jo (could they have given them any more bloody American sounding names?). Anyway I took them out down to the river where they did what 2 and 4 years olds do - fed the ducks, fell in the dirt, ate the dirt, needed the toilet when there was none near etc - generally had a good time. Towards the middle of the afternoon, they were busy chasing the ducks on the green. They were totally rubbish at it, so I though I would join in and show them how it should be done. I got us all to form a circle (well actually a triangle) around a big flock of geese and then we charged in together. Those birds crapped themselves, and all flew up in the air at once in a huge mass. Mary-Jo looked delighted, she tried to tell me something, but I couldn't make it out because just at that moment a dirty great noisy aeroplane flew overhead. Sometimes we forget the joys of harmless fun, playing with kids in the park...
(Mystery_Machine, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 12:49, 12 replies)

In which Chickenlady doesn't fit in
In the spirit of entertainment and work avoidance I've revived my Convent Tales….

I was educated entirely by nuns and my senior school was an all-girls boarding. I was there for seven years and during that time I and my fellow inmates did a great deal to fit in…..


Physically
This was the 80s - big hair was fashionable to everyone needed to have either a huge perm, blonde streaks or, if you were very rebellious, spikey hair just like Limahl from Kajagoogoo. It would have been sensible for me to have gone with the huge perm look as my hair is naturally very curly but no, I wanted to look like a bog brush. Each morning I'd get up at around 6.30am just so I could wash and carefully blow dry my hair to try to make it go straight - this was in a time before straighteners, kids! Of course if it rained I was back to looking like a poodle.

However, at least I wasn't the one sporting GREEN highlights…. One girl in my class had naturally white blonde hair, well, at least it was until she took up swimming every day (in Daddy's pool, natch) instead of showering. It took about two weeks before her hair gained the green sheen and then soon she began to apply St.Tropez fake tan like she was auditioning for Wham!

Okay, so there I am, the one in the class with wild curly hair attempting to look like Siouxie Sioux which I did, just not that version…instead I looked remarkably similar to this version which is NSFW due to boobage.

Now, enough of all that stuff about hair and onto the real Fitting In ….

Two incidents come to mind in particular, both deeply embarrassing to me and highly amusing to onlookers - both unsurprisingly occurred on the sports fields.

#1 Aged 15 running around the hockey pitch.

I was a fast developer, in fact at 11 I was 5'4", took a size 10 (UK) and wore size 5 shoes. I continued to be what can only be described as 'sturdy' - remember the Sturdy Girl meme? Could have been me.
At 15 I'd grown another three inches or so and my breasts seemed to expand each week.

That was my problem.

While being a fast developer, I wasn't a fast runner.

Sports bras were unheard of…

So there I am in my fetching aertex shirt, grey mini skirt and lovely matching grey knickers (they were compulsory uniform to be worn under the mini skirt and OVER your own sexy pack-of-three, share-them -with-granny white M&S knickers and to retain our modesty while doing sport - only the goody-goodies and geeks wore them) slogging around the pitch on a grey November morning.

I'm getting hot and sweaty, hair sticking to the back of my neck, blow dried spikes collapsed and I resemble an overheated poodle.

Then the unthinkable happens….

My wayward breasts make a bid for freedom, well, one of them does.

I'm running with one large globe juggling around on its own under my shirt and all eyes, all the local boys from the scumbag comp are looking, all the boys from the next door all boys Catholic school are watching too (they weren't actually, but in my head EVERYONE saw me and my escaping booby).

I continue to run but I also attempt to stuff the overflowing excess back into its lacy hammock.

Not a good idea.

The other one comes free too.

And that was how I ended up with the nickname of Chesty Morgan (google it okay, I've done it for you - criticism accepted and I now stand corrected....Chesty Morgan - but this is NSFW ) for a long while.



#2 Aged 18 - in fact my 18th birthday

I was a house captain and therefore everyone in the school knew me as I was part of the prefect elite - this allowed me to walk across the Chapel lawn, wear a badge and bully first years.

Somehow my entire house found out that it was my 18th birthday - I suspect me telling them repeatedly for a month beforehand in the hope of receiving presents had something to do with it.


So there I am (again) on the sports field but this time I'm not in PE kit, instead I'm in normal school uniform….shirt, tie, knee length skirt and….stockings with suspenders.

Yes. This was school uniform. Compulsory uniform. We were supposed to look like elegant young ladies but instead we either looked like refugees from some war torn state or hookers - St. Trinian's (both the modern and the original versions) were amazingly spot on).

It was lunch time and half the pupils from the all boys Catholic school next door where hanging around as a netball match was due to start soon - room searches were common so in the absence of 'reading material' the older boys would come to spectate at the netball in the hope that someone would 'forget' their grey knickers - someone always did, usually one of the racy South African girls who wore only flimsy bikini bottom like scanties - none of the boys could walk straight on their return to school.

The girls from my house see me standing around, clip board in hand - I was trying to find someone to run the 1500m for sports day - my running days were over.

Suddenly hundreds of hands are on me.

I'm lifted into the air.

I'm on my back.

I'm flying up.

I'm caught.

I'm flying up.

I'm caught.

I'm flying up.

My skirt goes flying up.

My stockings, suspenders and my knickers are all on display.

This repeats for 19 'bumps'.

During bump number 16 there was a rip.

And my second occasion of not fitting in occurred.

This time it was my arse.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 12:23, 18 replies)

I'm an individual...
Just like everybody else.
(aroe_m0rre, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 12:21, 4 replies)

ex hatred
In order to fit in with friends, I pretended not to like my Ex after we split and to be glad I'd had such a lucky escape. I hid the fact that I'd loved her greatly and that losing her hurt in ways I hadn't thought possible.

My friends, whilst trying to help, did the usual "ahh, there's plenty more fish in the sea" and all the rest of that crap. Yet even after...what, five or six years, I still think back on the time with her and think I was lucky as hell to be with her. Part of me will always find her attractive and part of me will always have some love just for her.

I've moved on, as you do, found a lovely girl and got married. I'm happy and we're expecting our first kid, but I still wish that I'd been strong enough to reject the "help" from my friends and just admit that I loved my ex and that losing her was something I regret.

I just hope she can find happiness. You know who you are, if you're out there.

Enough maudlin crap from me - let's get back to the crap puns, thinly veiled bigotry and knob gags that we know and love...

/edit I think that what I was trying to express is the fact that, when a break-up happens, we fellas are expected to go "ha, I'm glad to be rid of that bitch, let's get pissed and go out on the pull!" - a myth that is perpetuated by our friends saying thigns like "I alwasy said she was a cow, you can do much better", even if they always got along with the girl in question. We all get caught up playing these parts, when actually we want to curl up and cry and our friends just don't know how to comfort us without veering into "poof" territory. Sometimes it's harder being a bloke than girls might think...
(Chad, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 12:13, 8 replies)

I post lies on the internet
In my online persona's world, no bully has ever gone unbested, no woman unconquered, no alcohol unquaffed! I am razor sharp in my wittiness, cutting in my put-downs, mere mortals quake in my presence, fearful that my masterful gaze might fall upon them and they become victim to my superior intelect. I am lord of all I survey, unparalleled in my virility and sporting prowess. I am a god walking amongst apes. And I have a large penis.

In reality, I'm a proper sad-sack - just like the rest of you lot.
(ScousersPet, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 11:58, 5 replies)

Sex! Puns! Slipperiness! Boasting!
I use a lot of KY Jelly and push harder.

Obviously this is because I have a large knob. Not because I go for other blokes. Just thought I'd make it clear.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Tue 20 Jan 2009, 11:49, 1 reply)

Shit Pop
I once reluctantly bought a Westlife albulm as a rather fetching girl i was after absolutely loved them.

I did manage to get into her panties and bang the fudge out of her for 4 years. But i now own 6 Westlife albums and have over 50 of their songs on my ipod and the the amount is only getting higher.

Ps: I Lay My Love On You is a Tuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnneeeeeeee
(NuffMuff fucks shrubbery, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 11:06, 7 replies)

SHAFT ! ! !

A few years back I had the misfortune to go to the Roskilde music festival in Denmark.

I say misfortune because my idea of a fun time isn't sitting in my own shit and vomit for four days surrounded by crusty new age peeps with an eversion to personal hygiene. (I mean, some of the women had larger packages than me, what with the years and years of pubic growth they had going on down in their nether regions).

But, Danes are pretty cool people - they like beer and shagging, so it wasn't that bad in retrospect - just as long as you don't mind pulling pubes out of your teeth for a month afterwards.

In a downtime and having consumed far too much of the local tipple, Tuborg, my merry troop found a disco type tent where there wasn't any fucking music, just a load of sweaty teenagers gyrating to buggery. I had to check my ears - for a moment I thought I had gone deaf and almost pissed myself with fear.

Then I noticed the headphones.

Every fucker in the tent was wearing headphones...

Turns out its one of those quiet disco things, where they give you a set of cans as you go in and you can pump the music up as loud as you want. Everyones listening to the same stuff so you can all have a bit of a dance, only your not pissing off the stoners scattered about outside discussing who was better, George or Bungle, or fuck knows what.

There was a phase a few years back when a room full of sweaty teenage girls was the sort of place I'd kill my own mother to get into.

So, we sauntered inside, picked up some headphones, and started getting into it.

Slipknot was playing, apparently. Fine by me. I say apparently because my cans were fucked. I tried fiddling with them for a bit but realised this was gonna make me look like a twat and limit my chances of getting some fine Danish lurving...

So I thought: Fuck it. And I started throwing some shapes and generally following what everyone else was doing.

If they were jumping up and down alot, I'd do likewise.

If they slowed it down a bit, so would I.

It was great fun. It really was.

I started drawing the attention of a young Danish lady (my dance style is pretty fucking spectacular, if I do say so myself - they say people dance like they shag, so in my case its very fast, with lots of enthusiasm, and usually while smoking). And I think the Danish lady was rather taken with me.

We start dancing.

I'm doing everything I can to impress her: Throwing my arms and legs about and head banging, as if to say: Hey, if I've got this much energy on the dancefloor just think how much I'd have back at your tent.

It was at round this time I took a sneaky look toward her crotch - no bulging pubic mound! Ree-sult!!! This girl was a) into me, and b) had a well maintained bush. Though to be honest with you the fact she had a pulse was probably enough for me - I HAD drunk an awful lot of beer and the goggles were well and truly strapped to my face.

And all the time I couldn't hear a fucking thing.

This went on for a while and I completely lost myself in the 'music'. It may have been the effect of the beer, but I reckon I looked like one cool mother fucker out there.

I was so into the moment and this girl that I closed my eyes and let the rythm of the imaginary music take me. I was pumping away to the made-up beat and showing this girl that I was the alpha male of the establishment.

...or so I thought.

I'm not too sure how long I was dancing away like this, grunting like a gorilla and generally being a big drunken sweaty man...

Anyway, when I opened my eyes again the only person left in the tent was the poor fucker playing the records.

Everyone else had fucked off.

He told me that he'd stopped playing the music five minutes ago and was wondering how long I'd keep it up.

Even my so called mates had fucked off, the bastards.

I remember slurring something to the fella like: 'Well, mate. In Britain we just keep going until we want to stop, not when the music does.'

And I stumbled drunkenly away, thinking I was some cool white Shaft character.

Looking back I realise I just looked like a shaft.

What a fucking idiot I am.
( SpankyHanky, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 10:11, 8 replies)

More what they did...
As with most guys at school, I used to get a few dead arms, clips round the ear etc. from the 'cool' kids. (Who are now all druggy dropouts! HA!)

This was nothing major and I used to let it slide. Until the guy who hangs around with the cool kids but doesn't really fit in decided to try it.

I grabbed him and threw him over a desk. He never bothered me again and I got a reputation as someone not to piss off!

His social standing plummeted and he could be found a year later regularly taped to a pole in the corridor from head to toe at lunchtime. If a teacher came near a 100 guys would stand around him and try to look non-chalant.

---

Another guy, at the time my best mate who I now realise was a twat, hit me over the head with a 600 page maths book. Fair enough. I hit him back with mine... he actually cried. wtf?!

A month later he left the school. He didn't tell me, his best mate, we found out through a mutual friend at the school he was moving to.

Me and most of the guys who hung around with him got called into the Head of Years office. Apparently he left the school because he was being bullied. Despite being the biggest guy among us who gave out many more dead arms.

They even called in the miniscule, skinny 4ft kid aswell. This guy could barely pull the foil lid of his yoghurt and regular took beatings from 'best mate'. He was still pulled in and accused of bullying.
(Ginger_Whinger got in the newsletter!! =D, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 9:58, 2 replies)

This one time in Sommerset
I've always gone my own way, been my own person and never really bothered to fit in. Life's more fun if you're different and (hopefully) interesting but, looking back, there is 1 thing I did to fit in.

It began when I was 15 with a train journey my 14 year old sister and I took to Sommerset visiting a girl called Allice that we'd known since we were toddlers. Her farther was away for the weekend adn we were planinng on getting drunk of cheap cider (as you do at the age) but my evening was going to be better than that. Alice's friend Lucy was there she took a bit of a shine to me.
So there I was, sitting in a girl's bedroom with 2 of her friends having my 1st ciggerette offered to me. Naturaly, being a young teenage boy surrounded by teenage females it wasn;t my head that replied yes. The rest of the evening was spent in a nicotine induced haze and it ended up with with me popping my cherry with Lucy. A memorable experience, pity not in a good way.

I still smoke to this day but then again I still have sex too so I think it was worth it.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 9:42, 4 replies)

I was....
tall, skinny, wore glasses, was good at maths and science and what else... Oh yeah, Ginger.

There was no point trying really.

:-(
(Ginger_Whinger got in the newsletter!! =D, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 9:37, 4 replies)

Church
In my middle school (8 years old to 11) I used be friends with this girl but we went our seperate ways after the 11+ exam, me going to some loser school while she went to some prestigious girls school.

Fast forward 5 years on when I got a job at the local super market, she got a job there shortly after I did as well, but unfortunately our shifts only overlapped by 1 hour, so I never got to properly catch up with her. And my god, people change so much 5 years on and I never saw ber as attractive until then.

So one day she tells me she goes to this church on Sunday (Christian) and asked me to go too. Me thinking it's an excellent opportunity to see her regularly, accepted the offer without thinking twice.

So I went to this church (it was nice, people were lovely and I helped out around a lot, and also it was very laid back and took place in a rented hall, rather than a proper church) every Sunday without fail, hoping I'll see her.

Over maybe 12 months or so, I saw her maybe twice? I eventually gave up and looked less forward to going each Sunday (my fucking sleep, damnit) but soon they tried to convert me into a Christian. I manage to get out of the question/offer a few times.

I ran away soon after and left them hanging with a "I'll think about it...". By then I went to uni and never saw much of this girl again, however I did chat to her parents regularly and every now and then I do bump into her parents (around town) but not her. She's always "somewhere else".

I never went back.

That's the last time I'll do something to fit in.
(robo-kai, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 9:23, Reply)

This is worse.
Much worse than bullying.
No one made me do it.
I thought it looked cool and wanted to join in.
I bought and wore a shell suit.
*Hangs head in shame*

(expensive designer shame though).
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Tue 20 Jan 2009, 8:14, Reply)

Sort of on accents
I've never felt any attachment to my home city, perhaps partly because I never picked up the accent when I was younger. I've had people call me 'posh' for having no accent, but mostly people don't believe me when I tell them I'm born and bred Sunderland, going back generations. How can someone feel like part of the city when other people from it tell you that you can't be from there? I hate it here, mostly want to go to university just to get the hell away from here, and would like to firebomb it from a safe distance.

However.

In the last couple of years, I've started travelling around the country more, just to get out, and making friends (mostly in Leeds, as it happens, but that's by the by). Most of the time, they can't work out where I'm from either, so it's not just here. But once I've told them, if they call me a Geordie...oh, there will be blood. No. NO. I am a Mackem, and don't you fuckin' forget it.

So even though I don't feel, and have never felt, part of the city, I will fiercely defend my supposed identity to outsiders. Strange, really.
(and now for someone completely different, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 7:09, 7 replies)

roll up, roll up
When I was 18 I left my hometown of Glasgow to study art in Dundee – about an hour and a half away on the Stagecoach. The day I left it was a late summer and a crisp sunny morning. My mum was tearful but proud, her baby leaving the nest as it were. I had a summer job selling photocopiers that I had just quit – I had a nice sideline in selling paintings of nostalgic Glasgow tenement scenes to some of the other reps. I coerced one of the younger ones into taking me and my gear in his company car up to Dundee. There was a carnival atmosphere as we struggled to shove my rubbish Amstrad hi-fi with smoked glass door and teak effect laminate cabinet into the car. My mate Mark I had grown up with came along for the ride too. Spirits were high the sun was shining. Road trip! Just outside Perth I spotted a line of traffic cones on a slip road to the motorway – now officially being a student I felt it only fitting I nab one. I asked the poor bloke driving to slow down so I could grab one – on reflection, a foolhardy plan. We (I) nearly caused a major collision with a car thundering along at motorway speed. We were lucky just to loose a wing mirror.

When we got there I was flung into halls of residence with 8 other blokes who were suddenly my ‘flatmates’. I liked the sound of this, a couple of hours earlier I had been in my childhood bedroom with my naff eighties black red and grey zig zag wallpaper, now I was a man – or so I thought. Some of the guys had already been at other colleges or lived away from home – they seemed very worldly to me. I smoked back then. Marlboro reds, mainly because I thought the pack looked cool, I had smoked them since I was around 15 when everyone else smoked Benson & Hedges but I wanted to be different. Ironically it would seem I had influenced most of my friends at school to convert - I didn’t notice till we went for coffee with the young cool foxy student teacher – I was sure she had a thing for me which of course preoccupied my fantasies. She was cool/irresponsible enough to invite all of us round to listen to The Doors and smoke hash at her flat. Everyone produced a pack of Reds much to the amusement of the young cool foxy student teacher

“what’s with the Marlboro?” she mocked.

Some awkward glances then someone piped up “oh Spimf smokes them so we all ended up smoking them”. I was convinced at this point the young cool foxy student teacher would resolve to instigate a torrid illicit affair due to my maverick attitude and brooding sex appeal.

But I digress; my new found flatmates all smoked roll ups. They mocked my conformist capitalist smokes. I suddenly felt acutely un-cool and very far from home. As we all sat around the kitchen table getting acquainted, a trip to the SPAR store was suggested to get ‘supplies’. They all bought rolling tobacco and bottles of Newcastle Brown. Up till then I drank bottled Budweiser, as did all my mates back home did. So we arrived back at the halls and unpacked our wares – ales and bitters I had never heard of and packs of Golden Virginia. I had watched carefully what they bought I went with the Newcastle Brown but as ever I tried to be a little different - I had bought a pouch of Condor! We sat around the kitchen table chatting and each pre-rolling a little supply of smokes. Some even had little tins to put them in – I made do with an empty Marlboro pack, which quite possibly missed the point. I could at least roll competently as I had been smoking joints for years. Someone spotted my Condor and a few sniggers went round the table.

“So erm, you always smoke them Spimf?”

“Oh yeah – all the time”

“So you know its pipe tobacco then” (more sniggers around the table)

“Oh erm yeah – I like a longer slow burn sort of smoke, better flavour you know”

I tried to appear insouciant as panic gripped my entrails. I wondered why the tobacco seemed to have lumps of tree bark in it.

After a suitable break I slipped off to my room ripped apart the 10 or more roll ups then packed the crap back into the pouch – carefully resealed it then RAN down to the SPAR store – breathlessly I explained my ‘granddad’ had ‘gone mad’ when I bought the wrong thing. The girl on the counter swapped them disinterestedly while chewing gum.

I then RAN back again hoping to Christ I had got away with it. It took me a couple of weeks to realise I didn’t need to smoke their nasty little damp roll ups to be me. I smoked Marlboro for the rest of my smoking career.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 6:57, 11 replies)

I tried to fit in
with the Reject Alliance
by not joining it.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 5:28, 2 replies)

I'm from Canada
So all this back-and-forth about accents is mystifying me.

Listen.

You all have accents.

I quote the brilliant duo Lonely Island when I say
"Last week, I saw a film/as I recall it was a horror film".

If that those lines rhyme for you, something is up.

I love accents, and I think that trying to decipher thickly accented English is actually really fun, and I definitely am not saying that I pronounce everything phonetically, but seriously? Norfolk? Suffolk? Midfolk? I'm sorry but to me, it is like a nation of people with blue moustaches arguing about whether their moustache is azure or indigo.

You all have blue moustaches!


Ahem. Sorry, yeah, had to say that. Stuff that I did to fit in.. let'se see, smoked a tampon once.

Actually, hold on, twice.
(Poogle, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 22:45, 12 replies)

Paypal
Well, got a PayPal account to fit in as all my mates have them. Mistake. It's worse than Amazon one-click. House is getting full of drunkenly purchased things.
(Mucky has squinted at the screen with one eye shut since, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 22:16, 3 replies)

Ooooooh kayyyy.....
One of the most embarrassing things that has ever befallen yours truly took place, ooooh, what, about seven years ago now. Thankful for the anonimity QOTW provides (mostly), I'll elaborate on a reply I made earlier.

First, some boring back story.

Seven years ago, life was sweet. I was newly married, had a little job I liked working (mostly) with people I liked, and lived in a smashing little house with the then Mrs. Bag. It was the weekend before christmas, and my workmates and a few of my friends and I went to our local pub. Now, in those days most of the people who are now barred from the place were still allowed in there, and after a happy hour that lasted the whole night, my best mate and myself left the pub a bit tipsy and became involved in a slight scuffle with twelve of the local neds. We got our heads panned in, in other words. I escaped, but was later transported, concussed, to hospital to get staples in my split head and my swollen shut eye attended to, where I found my mate in a hospital bed with a head the size of, well, two heads.

A week later, new year's eve rolls round, and as the Mrs. was working nightshift and we were a bit nervy about going out and about after what happened, me and my mate decided to bring in the new year in his room in his parents house. I arrived with a bottle of vodka, but he said he wasn't drinking.

"If we'd not been as drunk last week, we'd have walked away from them and none of this would have happened" he said, and I had to admit he was right. He then produced a rolled up hanky, from which he pulled a small cube of hash. Not being a smoker, he had decided to crumble it into after eights and eat it. Now, I liked a drink and still do, but I'd never really tried anything else, but I thought ach, what harm can it do? So we set about the task of eating what he told me was £20 worth of hash.

Half an hour goes by. Nothing. We eat a bit more. Nothing. A bit more. And then the funniest thing on earth happened. I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but for a good ten minutes we rolled around the floor laughing our heads off. As I looked through tear sodden eyes at my mate, I could see a look of concern on his face. And then he said it. "I think we've ate too much!"

The next hour or so is just a hazy memory. I couldn't get my bearings and I was really freaked out. The room seemed to be expanding and retracting around me and I couldn't focus on anything, so I decided to try and puke the foul stuff up. Making the epic journey to the bathroom, a trip of around 10 feet, was like some kind of mountain trek, but I made it, barrelled through the door, shoved my fingers down my bone dry throat and began retching away like a cat bringing up furballs.

Nothing was coming up, but I kept trying. As I stood there with what felt like my whole arm down my throat, I suddenly had a weird sensation of being watched. I turned my reddened face towards the bath and was greeted with the only clear memory I have of that night. There, lufa in hand, sat my mates dad, merrily scrubbing away at his armpits. I tried to apologise, but he just said in the cheeriest voice you've ever heard "Don't be silly, son, if it needs to come up just you get it up!" and continued scrubbing away at himself. I didn't argue. I couldn't! My brain had melted into some kind of molten sludge, so I just swallowed my arm again and stood there dry boaking for a further five minutes before giving up, whimpering "I want my mum" (Oh God the shame!) and getting driven home by my mates mum.

I remember the car wouldn't start. I was CONVINCED this was an omen of my impending death. I spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch in my parents house and every time I closed my eyes, I'd see screenshots from the old Dan Dare game on the spectrum for some reason. The doctor was called out, and was slightly confused when I swore blind I hadn't taken anything but hash. It was three days before I felt normal again. Three days!

Up until about two years ago, I believed we had eaten the whole £20 worth. Not so however, my mate straightened me out on that one. He had sold the remainder back to the person he bought it from, and says between us we ate less than he's seen some people put in a single joint.

Why it affected me so strangely I don't know, but I tried grass a few years later and it did the same thing, although a healthy dose of alcohol stopped the worst of it a few hours after I'd smoked it. I guess I'm just not wired up for those kind of things.

When I think back to that night I absolutely crumple up with shame. The house was full of people I know, but I can't remember who was there and who wasn't.

"I want my mum."

I was twenty four years old. Oh God I'm going to lie down under my bed for a while.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 20:46, 16 replies)

Made this post
^
| Just tall enough to
| almost touch the one above.
|
| And long enough
| to just reach the one below
v
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 20:41, 2 replies)

It's taken a while, but hey...
I was born a long time ago, in a place a long way away.

I was one of only three funny-coloured people in an ugly dormitory town near London. I went to school and didn't fit in. I went to a different school, and failed to fit in so well that I had to go to yet another school. Somewhere along the way, I remember being asked by some ginger kid if I'd rather stay 'that colour' or if I wanted to be normal. Oh, I knew the answer, you bet I did... but I said I'd rather stay funny-coloured instead. Wrongo - more lovely lovely social ostracism.

Then I went on to a polytechnic, and hung around with fellow geeks, and that was good.

Next, I got a job as a consultant, and spent far too many years wandering about the country, from pillar to post. I was never anywhere long enough to find a place, and I'd disappear before anything could start to feel familiar.

I married someone, and managed to not fit in at home any more. That ended, and I was once again alone.

Time passed, as it usually does. Adventures happened, but each time I seemed to move on or be pushed out before I could finally relax.

But then, one special and magical night, for the first time, I shared a kiss with Pink Goddess. As she wrapped her arms around me, and I held her, I suddenly realised that this place, in her arms, this at last was the place I was meant to be.

We fit, like two jigsaw pieces in a box full of bits from a different puzzle. At last, I fit.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 20:09, 4 replies)

In the office public toilets
For a laugh, if I is using the toilet in one of the cubicles and someone else comes in to use one of the other toilets I listen to see if they make any noises. I don't know if women's toilets are subject to the same humour as us "macho" men, but it is awesomely funny when you hear someone else plopping in a lav. Now it's not the plopping act itself which is funny, oh no. That's quite disgusting actually. It's the grunting which accompanies it.
"Urrrgggghhh!"
So I invented a little game. I finish up as quietly as pos and wait in the cubicle (with toilet ready to flush). At the first sound of someone's grunt, I deliberately outdo them with a louder grunt, just to make them fit in.
For example, "Mnnnppph" is beatable with "Urrrrmmmppphh!"
It's amazing how many men try to outdo your follow-up grunt with a louder one. God we're a load of fucktards.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 19:59, 2 replies)

Being shy
That's what I used to be.

Not necessarily to fit in, but to avoid standing out. To escape notice completely. Things were just easier that way. Every group of people needs the shy one, right?

I'd not talk about what I was interested in (books, games, etc) to most people I knew because they weren't interested or just didn't understand the concept. I know some people who are proud of the fact they've not read a whole novel since High School English. Weirdos.

I had a strange neurosis about talking about my music taste thanks to my first serious boyfriend. Apparently anything he didn't like was "rubbish." Yeah, right. First thing I did after the breakup was buy a few new CD's and play them at high volume. I'm still reticent about my music taste, but I'm getting there.

I left University in May last year. From then, right up until October, it was just a round of craziness. I met a load of new people, hung out with them, and simply found out more of who I was. I'm not part of that crowd anymore, but given half the chance I'd do it all again. It was insane amounts of fun.

Nowadays I challenge people to find a music track I won't listen to at least once all the way through. Anything is fair game, and I mean anything. I'll go to the club nights and have a blast talking to practically anyone, and dancing to anything that catches my ear or am dragged up to.

This is my life, it's not perfect, but it's mine. And I love it.
(Meya, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 19:46, 1 reply)

Sigue Sigue Sputnik
She was beautiful.

She worked in the boutique next door to my parents shop. Her name was Astrid but she liked to be called Kris and I desperatlely wanted to introduce her to the business end of my little fella.

Only trouble was - she was a mad fan of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. For those lucky enough not to remember the Sputniks, they were a god-aweful late 80's band doing a kind of early rock/electronica cross-over, in very silly costumes. Really, really bad.

So I bought 2 tickets to see them at the Astoria in London.

I eventually plucked up the courage to phone her up and ask if she would like to go with me. She politely declined. Bollocks.

She was aparently already going with her sister. Fair enough. Maybe if I still went, I might bump into her. She would be so impressed that I too was a proper fan that she would no doubt beg me to invaginate her there and then!

And so it was that I drove all the way down to London and went to see one of the worst bands in history just to try to impress a girl. I went to the front and danced and jumped about like I really was a fan, hoping that she might see me or I might see her, but it was all to no avail. I even bought a SSS t-shirt (which was a hideous bright yellow) and wore it around the village for months afterwards proudly showing off to all what a proper Sputnik fan I was.

I never did get in her knickers, and I looked a proper cunt in that t-shirt.
(Lionel Tiger, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 19:44, 4 replies)

Bloody accents
As with some of the previous posters, I was an Army brat. Born in South Wales, but ended up living here, there and everywhere.

Growing up in South Wales, I naturally developed a Welsh accent. This didn't prove to be much of a problem at first.

However, when my family and I moved, I became the butt of many a joke. Not only was I the new kid (which brings lots of unprovoked and random beatings), but I also had this strange accent. So I was the Sheep Shagger, the Welshie, the Boyo. I couldn't walk in the corridor or play in the plaground without being bullied, and this was in Infant School!

I tried to sound less Welsh, by not saying a few of the stereotypical phrases that I had become used to, such as saying 'I do' after making a statement ("I love it, I do"), pronouncing 'here' as 'year' etc.

Somewhere along the way I lost the accent completely, to the extent that I no longer have any identifiable accent whatsoever. In fact, the lack of accent often leads people to call me 'posh', which I hate!

I later moved back to Wales, and found that I was once again the butt of jokes, because I was now a 'Posh English fucker' amongst other things. So, not only was I the new guy (after a while you get used to it) but I was also the odd one out; the only one at the school who sounded different from everyone else.

It got to the point where I tried to put the Welsh accent on to fit in. It didn't work too well, because the bastards thought I was taking the piss.

I now am in the situation where people cannot tell where I am from. There is no accent, no regional dialect, nothing. Except for the fact that every bastard thinks I'm posh!

I'm, not posh, I just pronounce the words properly....innit?
(Kezmo, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 18:30, 3 replies)

Forever - oops
We had an American supply teacher at our Roman Catholic primary school who introduced us to the works of Judy Blume, who I suppose would be described as a Tween *shudder* author nowadays. I really liked her books(I was 10, I had no taste in literature) so I saved up my pocket money and bought all the books and passed them around my classmates.

Eventually I saw there was one I hadn't got called Forever so I promptly bought and read it. OMG1111!eleventy11! it was about SEX! Actual sex and there was a penis called Ralph in it. Really. So I did what any self respecting person trying to look cool and in with the incrowd and loaned it to the handsomest and most popular boy in school. Who left it under his pillow, whose mum, a Doctor found it. Whose mum rang the school. Whose mum spoke to my parents at church about my corrupting influence.

I had a rather stern talking to from the Headpenguin about there being a time and a place for these things and that was after the holy sacriment of marriage.
Embarrassing and shameful. Damn you Judy Blume. And Ralph.
(Bezmina, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 17:44, Reply)

Pretending to like football at school
Hey kids! If you're a bit bookish and you decide to pretend that you REALLY like football, then make sure that your new football kit is not comprised of Aston Villa socks, a Man United top, and Liverpool shorts, or you will.get.beats.

Wish I'd known that one. I really do.
( rofl harris, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 16:53, Reply)

I managed to bugger myself up
without having to try to fit in. I reckon if I'd trid too hard I'd have got it embarrassingly wrong anyway... however, I'm thinking more about smokables here.

As a teenager my mates smoked shed-loads of ciggies, and were fond of weed. I outright refused. They were constantly trying to get me to start (what great friends!), but it would never happen. I even once had a cigarette put an inch away from my mouth with an ultimatum to smoke it, but I wouldn't.

Fast-forward four years, I was somehow a massive pot-head. Still didn't smoke cigarettes though.

Two more years and I can't be arsed with weed anymore, but I do smoke cigarettes. Most of my friends don't.

Bugger.
(HarryTheMole whatever's on my finger is going in your mouth, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 16:39, Reply)

Goat
I once had carnal relations with a goat at university to fit in with the goat appreciation society. Whilst I was making good, I noticed that there was a strong gamey taste to my hands. But that’s goat for you.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 16:31, 5 replies)