Recently, on holiday, I found myself haggling over the price of an umbrella. I negotiated for two seconds, paying what I might pay in the UK. But when a breeze so weak it wouldn’t ruffle even the Trumpiest of candyfloss hair snapped it into several sad pieces, I knew I’d been robbed.
I can’t haggle. The reason, I’ve concluded, is that haggling is a game of embarrassment chicken. The person in the negotiation least encumbered by embarrassment – who with a straight face can start too low and stay low, unmoved by fear of looking cheap or rude – is the winner. And I feel embarrassment acutely. I am gripped easily with the paralysing fear of looking stupid or offending.
At least once a day, I act out of embarrassment, whether it’s doing something I don’t want to (drinking a complimentary, nausea-inducing digestif to avoid disappointing the waiter) or not doing something I’d like to (asking if I can swap seats with someone on the tube; asking out the nice man in the library).
I don’t know where I learned such behaviour. My mum is a champion of the #nofilter school of thought: she gives few cares for what people think. She does not dwell on the tuts of others. “Feeling awkward is for middle-class people – don’t forget your roots,” she’d say, opening the car door outside Superdrug, demanding I go in and get a refund for an item reduced to 49p. When you’re broke, every penny counts, and I’ve come to learn that feelings of embarrassment keep us still, and in our place.
So no more. The adult I want to be won’t fear a furrowed brow; she will take the risk for the chance of something better. There’s a phrase “an embarrassment of riches”, but I’d prefer a richness of embarrassment, a casting it off, and the memorable life that’s sure to follow.
