It’s funny, the things you remember. The things you remember when everything else surrounding is a dull haze. Standing out in the middle: a conversation with someone who I used to know at primary school, but saw less often now I was at secondary.
I can’t even remember how old I was. I got into Red Dwarf in 1994 when I was 13, so it must have been after then. A couple of years later? We’d talked about the show before, anyway. And then once, during a normal conversation, he suddenly informed me that he didn’t like Red Dwarf any more. He’d grown out of it, you see. The show was for kids.
I was confused. I mean, the show definitely wasn’t made for kids. Even forgetting its teenage audience, the show was clearly made for adults. But he was adamant. He’d grown out of the show, and – by heavy implication – I was a baby for still liking it. Oh well.
Looking back, that was the moment when I realised that some people won’t be honest with you about this stuff. That some people will worry more about how they look, than about what they like.
This guy’s contempt for a show he used to enjoy was just teenage posturing.
* * *
A few years later, I was standing in a bowling alley, attempting to be an American teenager. I was in a group. A… mixed group.
Somehow, the conversation got onto the Spice Girls. My best friend slagged off “Mama”. I was confused.
“But I thought you said you liked that one!”
Awkward silence. My friend was livid. But I fancy that even the girls thought I hadn’t really played ball with society’s expectations.
I never was very good at that pesky teenage posturing.