On the 98 the other day I noticed a young guy. Dressed in obligatory grey combats and a tight black vest, he was sporting a highly coiffed barnet of black hair which had obviously been pain-stakingly styled with an abundance of jet-powered gel. I did the maths and estimated that this must have taken him a good 28 minutes to perfect. He’d been eyeing up a pretty petite blonde and winking at her, and when the time came for him to leave, he started walking towards the stairs, all the while flicking his mate’s head, ruffling his hair, possible in a vain bid to look ‘cool’ while ‘impressing’ the blonde. She didn’t look particularly impressed. As he disappeared down the stairs he decided to take one last ditch attempt to impress the blonde so he reversed up two stairs, pop his head up, smiled in a Dean Gaffney, ‘Hey Baby’ kind of way and waved at her. She looked bemused, he looked pleased with himself and promptly proceeded to trip down the last few stairs.

Most people would have been mortified by this, but I believe he walked off with a spring in his step regardless.

You see, some people think they’re the mutt’s nuts.

Whether they’re born with untold amounts of confidence or are taught to believe it is a mystery to me. Confidence is a funny thing. Too much and you become arrogant, too little and you suffer from low self-esteem.

I can empathise totally with the latter. Like most of the people I know I have a little bit of confidence which I tend to use sparingly. From time to time I can walk around with a slight swagger and a smug look on my face, but this is very rare and only happens when I really know my shit inside and out. It happens when I’m fully prepared for a presentation or I’m in a meeting where I am the known expert on the subject matter. It does not tend to happen in my general every day social life. So to make up for my shortcomings, in new or uncomfortable social situations, I over-compensate. I talk a mile a minute (without even stopping for breath) and my volume function ceases to work and remains on 120 decibels. I don’t like myself when I’m like this, but I am totally unable to stop myself.

Sometimes I just think it would be far better if those people who think they’re the dog’s bollocks could relinquish a smidge of their confidence and share it with those who have none. We could have an arrogance amnesty. A re-distribution of confidence the world over. Then again, it would be a boring world if there were no arrogant twats to laugh at.

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