At 8.45 p.m. I was back in the toilets again feeling pure terror. In front of me was a narrow window which I thought I might be able to squeeze out of if I dislocated both my shoulders. This seemed a more attractive proposition than the alternative: leaving the loo and stepping out on stage to deliver my maiden stand-up comedy performance.
In theory, a few months ago, it sounded like a great idea. Everybody is anxious at the moment. I’m anxious, you’re anxious, everyone born after 1990 is anxious, or so the newspapers tell us. I stay up at night haunted by a sense of strange foreboding. I once went to a party and found four people crying in the bathroom. Counsellors, therapists and psychologists are making a killing out of my inconsolable generation, but no one knows what to do about it. I read once that there’s nothing like facing up to your fears in order to conquer them, and that’s why I ended up in this predicament.
Imagine all the things that might make you nervous in an average day: work appraisals, presentations, meeting new people.
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