Drivers and human beings ...AGH

This week’s episode of “Why Did I Leave My Bed?” is proudly sponsored by: AWFUL DRIVERS and THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

Let’s start with driving, because clearly everyone on the road has a death wish for me specifically.

I’m a new driver. My heart rate is already at a casual 180 bpm before I’ve even left the driveway. So when I get FLASHED because I didn’t launch myself onto a roundabout at 90mph, I take that personally. I’m sorry I didn’t throw my little Fiat 500 into the path of a Tesco lorry just so you didn’t have to wait an extra three seconds, Kevin. Honestly, just let a girl live.

Also, can we talk about the universal rule of traffic lights? Everyone drives like a tortoise doing its best… until the light turns green. Green, in theory, means go. In reality, it apparently means:

• stare at your phone

• question all your life choices

• forget which pedal is which

I’m sat there like, “We begged for this green light. We prayed for it. Why are we not MOVING?”

And then there are trucks. I HATE trucks. I am a tiny Fiat 500 girly. Being stuck between two lorries on the motorway is my Roman Empire. I think about it all the time. The way my soul leaves my body when I’m in the middle lane, a truck on either side of me, and the wind hits just right so my car starts doing a subtle shimmy? Horrifying.

Also: why do truck drivers indicate and then just GO? No build-up, no slow move, just: blinker on, life over. I swear they’re like, “If I can’t see you, you’re not my problem.” Sir, I am literally right here, in my tiny red clown car, clinging to the steering wheel like it’s a life raft.

As if that wasn’t enough for my nervous system, I had a child – maybe NINE years old – stick her middle finger up at me today. Not a half-hearted one either. Full commitment. Elbow up, hand out, pure confidence. I don’t know what I did, but apparently existing in her general vicinity was offensive enough.

Do you know how humbling it is to be disrespected by someone who probably still can’t reach the top shelf in Tesco? I’m out here getting road-raged by Year 4.

Anyway, moving from drivers to people in general (because why stop at one rage topic?).

At uni, I genuinely feel like I am the only person who arrived without a pre-installed friendship group. Everyone else clearly got the “Freshers Pack” that came with:

• 6 best friends from home

• 2 bonus school friends

• 1 emotionally confusing situationship

• 3 group chats and a matching profile picture

And then there’s me. Solo. Walking into lectures like an unlocked character.

If I dare sit next to anyone, the glares I get are insane. I’m not asking to share your drink, your password, or your first-born child. I’m just trying to sit on a publicly available chair in a publicly available room that we both pay nine grand a year to be in.

And I genuinely thought rudeness was supposed to stop after high school. Like, I was promised character development. Growth. Maturity. Instead, it’s the same behaviour but with iced lattes and student debt.

People on my course will happily sit there, full volume, slagging everyone around them off:

• what they’re wearing

• how they talk

• who they’re sitting with

• how they breathe (apparently that’s offensive now too)

And here’s the worst part: a tiny feral part of me wants to be in on the gossip. I want the tea. I want the PowerPoint presentation. But because I’m NOT included, I’m mad on principle. If you’re going to be rude and dramatic, at least slide me the script so I can follow along.

Instead, I stand there feeling like I have some kind of social disease. People will genuinely look THROUGH me. Like I’m an inconvenient lamp. 

The way some people move in packs around campus, you’d think we were in a wildlife documentary:

Here we see the common University Girl, travelling in her natural herd of five to seven. Watch as they surround the vending machine, blocking any lone stranger from getting a packet of crisps without signing a social contract.

Meanwhile, it’s me:

lone creature, clutching my bag and my dignity, pretending to text someone so I don’t look like I’ve been placed there by a teacher.

I sit in lectures like:

• Do I look approachable?

• Do I look weird?

• Do I look like I’m about to cry?

• Trick question: it’s all three.

And then to top it all off, we circle back to drivers on the way home, where someone’s nan in a Nissan Micra will go 12mph in a 40, but the second the speed camera zone appears she miraculously speeds up. For what reason. For WHO.

Anyway, that’s this week’s rant: a thrilling crossover episode featuring:

• awful drivers

• terrifying trucks

• nine-year-old road demons

• friendship-group culture

• and the ongoing social horror story that is university.

If you also:

• scream internally on roundabouts

• accelerate like a grandma then overthink it

• feel like everyone at uni got the social manual except you

• have been personally victimised by a lorry

…then welcome. Pull up a chair, park your tiny car, and sit next to me (I promise I won’t glare). You’re my people now.