So last week I wrote about pigeons, my fear of them, and the worst pigeon experience of my life. It was like therapy for me as I was able to relive the tale and get it out of my system. It allowed me to move on with my life.

This week I thought I’d do something similar and share something that I have issues with in the hope that I can overcome it and live a happier life. So here goes…

I can’t turn around in public and walk a different route if I realise I’ve walked the wrong direction. This is something I confided in Ethan a couple of months ago and is a genuine issue I face on a regular basis.

I have often walked an extremely long route just so that I can keep walking forwards and appear to be totally confident and in control of my chosen path to anyone who happens to be looking at me. I use Google Maps on my iPhone to help me get around London quite often, and whilst it is usually the cause of my route going wrong, it is also useful to plan an escape route from my disastrous direction.

I remember a couple of months ago I walked from Ethan’s flat and headed to central London. There is a large roundabout near his place, and I needed to take a certain road that was very long and headed straight towards central, whilst the road next to it was equally long, but ended up about two miles further east of my destination as it went off at a different angle. You can probably guess I took the second road, and I realised my mistake literally within ten metres – but there was no way I was going to turn around to rectify this. I was in this for the long haul and I was already on Google Maps to help me out. There was a connecting side road about 400m up the road, which then diagonally travelled to the correct road. Total addition to my journey was about a mile. It was definitely worth it though as I didn’t look like an idiot to those around me.

Another example is when I was on the tube (Jubilee Line headed East) I wanted to get off at London Bridge, but my mind decided to tell me to get off at Waterloo. I realised I was wrong before I even left the carriage, but as I’d already stood up and walked towards the door, I had to go through with my movement and exit the carriage. But it doesn’t end there. If I just stood on the platform and waited for the next train I would look silly, so I had to head for the exit. Luckily the Jubilee Line at Waterloo has two escalators at either end of the platform that both meet in the middle up the top, so I walked to the end, went up the escalator, then acted casual and just walked straight ahead and went down the opposite escalator to join the same platform at the other end to where I exited. The only thing playing on my mind was that a security guard may have witnessed this manoeuvre on the cameras and suspected something more sinister than my inability to publicly admit my mistake. But nobody came running at me with a taser so I boarded the next tube and was on my way after my 4 minute delay at Waterloo.

Does anyone else share this problem? And how do I sort it out? Someone must know psychology and be able to explain why I’m like this?

Tweet me @PobBoyBanned to reassure/diagnose/mock me please.

Love from Pob x

Tags: blog, boy band, boy banned, boyband, boybanned, central london, escalator, issue, jubilee line, london, london bridge, pigeons, Pob, problem, walking, waterloo

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Pob. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.