Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)

We all feel it. We all have on a daily basis feel pressure. Some people get affected by it more than others, and this leads to stress, worry and anxiety. But I'm not going to bore you with a long drawn out post on handling pressure in the 21st Century. Regular readers know that's not my style. 

Instead, I'm going to focus on the most heinous type of pressure, what we call 'Peer Pressure'. This quite horrible term affects us all from a very early age. I can speak from experience to say that I've suffered from my fair share of peer pressure. Whether it was bowing to pressure and lighting up the death ciggie for the first time, or being dragged along to some event or social thing that I really didn't want to go to. But as I've got older I've realised that all this peer pressure is really quite pointless, and mindless. 

I've never understood the peer pressure when you start working at a company to join in with the 'drink at pub till pissed' culture, and if you don't immediately become a part of the group, then you're seen as the dull one, or the person with no social skills. I think people do it mostly  without thinking about it. I remember when i was at school there was always a group of us that had the homework discussion, which went something like this:

"You doing your homework for Miss Clarke tomorrow?"

"Nah, going to play football after school instead, you?"

"Nope, I'm going to be playing Sensible Soccer with Mark later."

"Me neither, it's pointless anyway. Doesn't mean anything.

So of course I didn't worry about my homework, and played Sensible Soccer till my fingers were sore. And then you can guess what happened, the following morning I'm the only feckin idjeet who hasn't done his bloody homework, because my so called mates clearly had no intention of not conforming to peer pressure and like little swots did their homework. So I was the one that ended up having to rush to the library and do it during my break time. 

I'm sure we've all got similar stories, although many will be a lot less tame than that one. All through life, we spend far too much time bowing to pressure and doing things that in our right mind we never ever would do. I'm pretty sure without peer pressure I wouldn't have drunk a whole bottle of Jack Daniels and laid on the floor screaming 'I want more alcohol'. I definitely wouldn't ever have gone to a few of the seedier clubs around Camden and I guarantee that I wouldn't have gotton that blow job of that she-male prostitute in Amsterdam either*.

At first Sally thought the 'White Vest Gang' were the best thing since sliced bread. But getting her to sit on an uncomfortable park bench was one step too far. 

One thing that now bothers me about peer pressure, apart from that it's still invasive in your life no matter how old you are. (I can imagine being 80 and arguing with my friends about my reluctance of going to Holographic 4D Bingo in Hyper-Deluxe Interactive Digital)

But why is there no 'good' peer pressure? By this I mean if you have 10 people sitting down in a restaurant and everyone has eaten their main courses and the dessert menu comes round, chances are there will be general exclamations of 'Oh, are you having dessert? If you are then I am.' 'I'm going to have the chocolate fudge cake, but only if you have the cheesecake'. And what happens? You end up ordering something you don't really want, but because everyone else is, you go along with it. 

If you have friends over and you pick an apple out of the fruit bowl, you don't go round insisting that your guests have an apple, but why do we do this with chocolate or biscuits or tea or bad food in general? I can't ever remember being forced to eat fruit salad because everyone in the group was having a bowl. I may have had a chunk of chocolate cake, and then as a cursory afterthought added a few bits of fruit to make me feel healthier. 

Getting serious for a second, I do think this is fundamentally why so many people have such an issue about food and drink. It's because we feel obliged to eat or drink what other people are having. I remember there's been a few times when I've got out for drinks after work and not wanted to drink, so ordered a lemonade and told people it was vodka and lemonade. 

I can't think of many examples where in a group of people we're forced to eat or drink something that is actually good for us. It's generally the crap stuff that we end up feeling forced into eating and drinking. By changing my diet and eating healthily it's added an extra dimension to the peer pressure, as I'm now being watched even more closely. 

It's probably one of the harder aspects when you change your diet, but as I'm an old war horse who's been around the block a few times (cough!),  I feel comfortable not bowing to peer pressure any more. 

So next time Mrs Doyle asks if you want a cup of tea and says 'Go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on, go on,  go on.' 

Do you really want one? 

* Just to reassure the more gullible readers, that was a joke. I'm pretty sure she wasn't a she-male, it was too dark to tell**. 

** Another joke. Honest.