On Meeting Charlie McDonnell and How Anxiety Ruined it for Me

It happened. The twitchy eyelid came back with a vengeance. All thanks to back-to-back nights of staying up late working on Machine Learning Practical coursework. But you'll notice this blog post isn't titled "Revenge of the Twitchy Eyelid" because there's something much more important to write about.

I. Met. Charlie. McDonnell! (AKA charlieissocoollike, YouTube personality and superstar! At least that's how my inner 12-year-old self viewed and still views him.)

"You've just had the almost imponderable joy of [meeting]
charlieissocoollike, which makes you, like, cool!"

He was in Edinburgh doing a book-signing for his new book, Fun Science. I only just found out it was happening--and, to be honest, that he'd even written a book--on Monday. But as soon as I saw the event on Facebook, I purchased my ticket. I spent the rest of the week reacquainting myself with all of Charlie's old videos and enjoying many of the new ones he's posted since--gosh--probably my senior year in high school. Here's one of my favourites:

Rewatching his videos confirmed in my mind that Charlie McDonnell is one of the coolest, funniest, and wisest young-people-around-my-age. So, after meeting Charlie, getting a signed copy of his book, and taking a picture with him... why do I feel like shit?

Sure, the whole process of meeting Charlie was very rushed. But that's the sort of thing one should expect when attending a book signing. So from where does my disappointment stem? Certainly not having to deal with the rest of his fans; they were all courteous, patient, and, overall, lovely people. And one of them was my friend who I hadn't seen since My First Week in Edinburgh, Part II. And though I struggled to come up with something to say as Charlie wrote in the front cover of my book, he absorbed my stuttered remarks with grace and charm.

This all seems great! Why am I being such a downer?

As I stated in Living in a Fantasy World, this blog isn't meant to be just the exciting, wonderful experiences that go along with traveling or living in an amazing city like Edinburgh (though I do hope I've managed to fit some of that in here, too); it's also my journal, with which I can delve into the less glamorous aspects of living abroad to show you that it's not all beautiful sunrises and taking pictures with celebrities. Living and studying abroad is also working yourself to the point of exhaustion and an incessantly twitching eyelid, or confronting parts of yourself that you'd rather not see or thought you'd left behind with your high school years. Therein may lie a cause of my current mood.

Like I said, before this week I don't think I'd watched a charlieissocoollike video since high school. Seeing and meeting Charlie today transported me (mostly unconsciously) back to those relatively unstable years of my life. The instability and dark times I experienced then are partially what drew me to charlieissocoollike. Charlie cheered me up. And, though he lived 4,000 miles away and only spoke to me through YouTube, Charlie felt like a real and genuine person--a true friend. And as far as I can tell, he's based his entire online presence on being genuine and true.

And that struck a chord with me. I saw/see myself in Charlie--the shy but enthusiastic, more than slightly awkward kid making random videos for YouTube, wanting people to like him and feeling good when it seems they do but at the same time feeling sad that he only ever did it so people would like him (which, really, is probably a big part of why anyone does anything) but still we blame ourselves for having this so very human quality and drown in anxious thoughts of what people think of me and why I'm not being the best me I can be. But, of course, we all know that the best thing we can do in this world is make other people happy by doing what makes us happy. So why am I not happy to have met this person I feel such a connection to?

The comparison of myself to Charlie went much too far when I got angry at myself for not wearing my glasses, or my pair of brownish-yellow trousers, or my dark long-sleeve shirt to the book-signing because of course that's what Charlie would wear and I should have known so we could be #twinning.

But I am not Charlie McDonnell. As much as I secretly hope to one day be a published author and have my own book-signings to attend, I am not Charlie McDonnell. Nor do I want to be. I am me. The trouble, though, is figuring out who me is and what me wants. You'd think somebody almost a full semester into their Master's in Informatics would have their life pretty well sorted, what with the variety of sorting algorithms at our disposal. But there is no sorting algorithm for life. So I'm here to say that I have no clue what I want to do with my life and that I think hardly anyone ever does.

Don't get me wrong, I do very much enjoy my coursework and most certainly wouldn't have made it this far in Computer Science/Informatics if didn't. But I can't help but wonder if maybe there's something I would enjoy doing more (like writing!) or if I enjoy my studies for the wrong reasons. I enjoy being busy because being busy leaves little time to be anxious or worry about what people think of me. And as a Master's student at the University of Edinburgh, I am very VERY busy.

But the worry still creeps into my life. As an example, a few weeks ago on a Friday, I didn't have much of a lunch between lectures. So by 6pm I was pretty hungry. I checked my phone for restaurants I hadn't been to before and picked out a fairly trendy, well-reviewed Indian restaurant. I left my flat, walked to this restaurant, and as I stood outside looking at the menu on the door, I was overcome by an irrational, mind-crushing anxiety.  My thought process went something like this: "It's so busy. I would be that person eating alone. Oh, god I have no friends. Neal, you're being silly. Just go in and ask what the wait time is. And you've eaten alone at plenty of restaurants before now. But I wouldn't want to take a table just to myself when they're so busy. Maybe I'll just go try somewhere else." And so I did--go try somewhere else--three times, before I finally gave up. After walking around for nearly half an hour, I ended up going back to my flat, without having eaten anything, to work on coursework until 10pm, at which point I was REALLY hungry. Eventually I worked up the courage to run round the corner for a chicken shawarma wrap. So that's me.

For this next bit I'll rely on another Charlie video:

Like Charlie, I suffer from anxiety and at times in my life have suffered from depression. I haven't been officially diagnosed but it's been a part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. And I cope with it by keeping myself so busy I forget it's there, which itself probably isn't a very healthy coping mechanism but it works for me. And on the occasion my anxiety does rear its ugly head, I find writing to be therapeutic. Hence, this blog post.

So, back to why I am not happy to have met Charlie: I am happy to have met Charlie! Ecstatic, even! It was a very great pleasure and an amazing opportunity I do not take for granted. But when I met Charlie in real life--in the screwed-up, paradoxical way that only anxiety can manage--the realness of the connection I felt with Charlie when I watched his videos was ruined. However much of his authentic self he puts in his videos, they are still just videos presented to me via YouTube. And when that medium barrier was broken yesterday, it broke something inside me too. When I stood next to Charlie as we had our picture taken, I glanced away from camera to look at the queue of people still waiting for the same opportunity. In that moment, I think my idea that I could be or was actually friends with this famous YouTuber became a disillusioned one.

But this isn't Charlie's or YouTube's fault; it's anxiety's. Anxiety is the reason I've had to write a 1,797-word blog post (much of it written at 3am) just to regain some sense of normality and allow myself to process the fact that I met one of my childhood idols yesterday. And in doing so, I've realized that the Charlie I met yesterday is still the same Charlie in his charlieissocoollike videos. It's just that, because his YouTube self is the first version of him I felt a connection to, meeting Charlie in-person felt more distant. And because I've been conditioned to treat meeting a celebrity as the pinnacle of showing your fan-dom, the distance I felt yesterday shattered the relationship I thought I had with YouTube Charlie. But, of course, two minutes of awkwardly standing there while someone signs a piece of paper and takes a picture with you is not a true representation of that person. So instead I just think of how helpful Charlie's videos were during my formative years in high school and how I will always appreciate that and everything Charlie does for science education, entertainment, and just being an exemplary human being.

So in true charlieissocoollike-style, here's my attempt at a concluding nugget of wisdom and positive note to end on: Don't compare yourself to other people, but especially celebrities; you are flawed and perfect enough just the way you are. And don't worry if you don't have life completely figured out just yet. That's something that just takes time, trying different things, and several mistakes. But eventually, I think, everyone is able to find what is most fulfilling for them, what makes them the best version of them, and what makes people happy (themselves included!). Things like anxiety and depression can get in the way of that so it's important to state those things for what they are--an illness that can be treated. And if you suffer from anxiety and/or depression, you are not alone and I hope this blog post is helpful to you.

Whether you know me personally or not and whether my anxiety is new, old, or even relevant information to you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and hope that you have a wonderful day!

Stay informed. -NLD