I think the most attractive quality anyone can have is the ability to laugh at themselves.
After being single for around four months, I’m beginning to stop behaving like “a dog in heat”, as was lovingly described by a friend and really figure out what it is I’m looking for in terms of meeting new friends etc.
After developing a raging crush on someone based purely on their looks and a couple of tepid conversations, I was pleasantly surprised to find that when I spent more time in his company, I realised that he was a complete pretentious tool. I was cured; normal non-shallow service will resume shortly.
As someone who has little shame, I have no problem with making a tit of myself; in fact, I quite often enjoy it. Last Friday night, I didn’t go streaking in the park, skinny dipping in the dark and I certainly hope I didn’t have a ménage à trois, but I was very drunk. Obliterated. It was some kind of miracle that I was out on borrowed money that ran out very quickly - one more drink and things may not have ended quite as well as they did (which wasn’t very well at all - two words: Square Pizza). Note; when drinking on the Tube (which is illegal, kids), don’t try and turn it into a drinking game like I always do. Friday night’s edition saw me downing a bottle of Echo Falls white wine (the cheapest, finest white wine available for under £7) between Elephant and Castle and Picadilly Circus - “the Bakerloo line challenge”, as it was dubbed.
Suffice to say I remember little else from that evening, other than being pushed off a pole for not having mad pole dancing skills. Well, obviously.
I digress. My head started to clear up a little bit as I was walking to the bus stop and I was back, doing my drunk repartee, which probably wasn’t half as witty as I remember it to be. After an eventful bus boarding - I fell over, got my leg caught under the bus and proceeded to repeat that fact several times without making much attempt to move - I then proceeded to give the bus my stand up comedy routine. One of my jokes involved puke. I looked over at my friend who was bright purple with embarrassment; and it only spurred me on more.
After another Saturday spent hungover and watching The O.C, I giggled at my little performance on the 453 bus home. I can guess it wasn’t very clever, or even particularly funny; anyone laughing was obviously doing so at me rather than with me. I didn’t even care though - and it was liberating.
It was then that I realised that for all of my bad qualities, I’m really good at laughing at myself - I’m not scared to try something new or crazy or stupid for fear of looking silly. Not taking myself so seriously is a quality in myself that I’ve treasured over the years in many isolated instances, but I’ve never fully appreciated it as a personality trait.
I don’t think there’s anything that annoys me more than people who don’t make an effort to dress up for fancy dress parties lest they look unattractive. Or people that refuse to get up and sing at karaoke. People that wear make-up to do their grocery shopping or at the gym. People that are so hopelessly cool that couldn’t possibly admit to dancing around their house to Rihanna.
I wish I could think of a more eloquent term for ‘not taking yourself so seriously’, but that is about the size of it. It’s different from confidence; confidence is the belief that you’re capable, where as being able to laugh at yourself is the understanding that you might not be and being okay with that.
I’m uptight about quite a few things in life. I clean my flat with military precision. I sweep up around my cats litter trays first thing every morning. I pick my clothes out for uni the night before. When my computer desk top is cluttered I feel like my life is spinning out of control. I pay bills the day I get them. I get nervous when I haven’t done my laundry in more than four days. I’m trying to get out of the habit of washing up the dishes before I’ve eaten my dinner. I’m not one of those naturally laid back people.
But I guess what I’ve realised is that the ability to laugh at myself is one of the things I love most about me; and I need that quality in my friends and people I surround myself with. The people that make me happiest are the ones that are happy and confident in their own skin. The ones who understand that sometimes it’s not only appropriate but completely necessary to not give a single fuck. The ones who know that the point of karaoke isn’t to sound good: it’s to get pissed, be bad and own every second of it.
You know, FUN.
