Reunion

It's just about my birthday and I'll cry if I want to. I'm my own man. Ain't no onion gonna tell me what to do!

It a fitting bout of nostalgia, we watched Grosse Point Blank. On VHS. In 4:3 aspect ratio. It provided a sense of vivid pseudo-time travel, akin to visiting a medieval fort, or drinking Tab Clear.

It's a great film, with lots of good dialogue and a not-that-annoying Minnie Driver. Two thumbs up. And some toes.

Although it is lots of fun, it makes me feel a bit sad, as it reminds me of my teenage years.

I by no means had a bad childhood. My family were extremely loving and supportive, and I never had anything traumatic happen to me. I really appreciate all the advantages I had (SNES, robot butler, sense of worth etc).

But my teenage years were quite lonely.

I think I suffered from going to a school where there didn't seem to be many people on my wavelength. Or any wavelength that is usually associated with humans. The culture and hobbies and attitudes of my peers tended to be things I was uninterested in, or incapable of understanding.

I think my sister escaped from it all by forming her own identity, and seeking out like-minded people.

I didn't do that. Partly because I was generally quite shy and awkward, and also because I assumed that if I found any fellow outsiders, they'd be like my sisters friends (which didn't appeal at the time!).

Of course, I probably couldn't have found similar people to me, as they would have similarly been staying in their bedrooms playing Resident Evil.

But I suppose that's the nerd's burden (or 'nurden'). You retreat into your interests in a search for companionship. And that's why they mean so much to you. They still mean a lot to me.

I found solace in video games and pro wrestling and comic books and sitcoms.

I was thinking that the things I felt a close connection to all seemed to be from the US. In my teenage years (around 15-17, anyway), I didn't seem to find any British culture that appealed to me. I don't know why that was.

Apart from Lee and Herring, I don't think there was any British comedy that seemed aimed at me. I watched Harry Enfield and Men Behaving Badly, but I was a bit outside their target demographic. It wasn't until Spaced and subsequent comedies from the same generation that I found what I was looking for in the UK.

Similarly with music, Ben Folds Five really felt like it was mine, moreso than the Britpop that all my cooler, stupider and less whiny friends were into.

The trouble with me being a geek was that I was (and still am) a bit too much of an optimist and a romantic to get through it all unscathed. A true geek is bitter and cynical, and carries him or herself through the loneliness of adolescence on a wave of self-righteous snobbery. And though I had a bit of that, I still wanted to fit in, and I still wanted to fall in love.

So I lived vicariously through those same films and TV shows. I wanted to be the hero in Grosse Point Blank, I started watching Dawson's Creek, I wanted to experience what I saw as the heartbreak and passion of an idyllic American high school life. Because I didn't have any of that drama in my life. I wanted to be a romantic hero, but never got written into the narrative of my own teenage struggles.

I started to fall in love with fictional girls. For some reason, I went through a period of falling for sarcastic, acid-tongued indie-chick characters. I loved Janeane Garofalo in The Larry Sanders Show, Minnie Drive's character Grosse Point Blank, the deadpan receptionist in Dr Katz. The latter was a cartoon character. That's an extra layer of inaccessibility that I didn't really need.

So, that's why watching the film made me sad. I don't really rue those days. I'm sure they made me into who I am now. But sometimes I feel sorry for my teenage self, because I know how much he yearned for an impossible romantic life, and wasn't destined to get it.

After all that build-up, when I finally got around to living life, I had to cram all my teenage experiences into the first few weeks of University. Which is probably why it was so chaotic and emotional, and why I was such a dick. Sorry.

I don't have any regrets, though. I like the geek mindset. I like having all those cultural artefacts that helped define me. And I've had a very happy adult life so far.

If I'd have been a popular and social teenager, I probably wouldn't be interested in The Fall, or Daniel Kitson. And I probably wouldn't be writing this blog.

Which would be a sad loss for all of us.

So, I've started this birthday with feelings of nostalgia for an old film, which is itself about nostalgia. A little bit self-indulgent, but it is my birthday after all.

Anyway, I like over-analysing things. If you take things apart and scrutinise them, it makes the whole seem that much more wondrous.

I'm 27, but I'm still romantic and optimistic and excited by the world. Which sounds like arrogance.

It is arrogance. But it's also a big compliment, and a big thank you, to my parents, which makes it a bit more palatable.

***

I'll do some more stupid jokes next time, eg:

What do you call a three-legged leopard?

Justine, the spotty tripod.