Sixteen things you maybe didn't know about Steph Bowe

1. I hate unfinished things, in particular bottles of shampoo. As a result, I use extraordinary amounts of shampoo.
2. I dislike owning things in general. I can't stand having bookshelves full of books, which makes me the weirdest writer/reader in the world.
3. I wish I could fit everything I own in one suitcase and live out of that.
4. I would love to travel but I'm afraid of the world. And I don't have anybody to travel with me.
5. I am in favour of soul-baring. I think the world would be better if everyone were just entirely honest about everything. I can handle whatever people honestly think of me.
6. I find growing up both wonderful and horrifying. I wish I could remain a small child forever and have people care for me and avoid responsibility and at the same time I find my existence and the fact that I'm capable of independent thought and that I'm becoming someone I maybe like a little bit who is a good person at least most of the time... it's quite lovely.
7. Whenever I meet someone who previously only knew me online, they always say that they didn't expect I'd be so shy! I didn't expect I'd be so shy either. I was a very outgoing child.
8. As I've gotten older and met more people I've realised that I am not the most awkward person on the face of the planet. I am far from the most awkward person on the face of the planet.
9. I like everyone I meet. I also suspect that everyone I meet is an axe-murdering psychopath (I saw this documentary the other night that said 5% of women and 2% of men are psychopaths and I thought, oh my god! I know lots of women! 5% of them are probably axe-murdering psychopaths!). But I worry like that.
10. No matter how hard I try, I am always myself (which is to say, I am fearful, a good listener, curious, thoughtful, worrying, polite). People keep giving me advice and usually it involves me acting like someone who is not myself, which means I fail dismally at taking advice.
11. I wish I was the sort of person who quotes dead authors and old bands and was wonderfully indie and quirky and all of that but I'm really not. All the authors I like are still alive and all the bands I listen to are still young and beautiful. Not to say old people aren't beautiful, I think everyone's beautiful. Maybe that should be my next point.
12. I think everybody is beautiful. Especially people who smile.
13. My scariest nightmares involve losing family members and people being angry at me. And that one where I tried to stop a cannibal from turning kids into soup and ended up being blamed for turning kids into soup myself.
14. I worry. A lot. About everything. Everyone around me is the exact opposite. Sometimes I just lie on the floor like a starfish and agonise over everything I have to do and everything that might go wrong. And then I write stuff based on the stuff that might go wrong. (I know. I have a beautiful mind. *gazes dreamily into distance*).
15. I give a lot of advice that I'm actually trying to give to myself. I'm onto me! I know what I'm doing, but I can't stop doing it.
16. I feel doubtful of myself all the time. So it baffles me whenever someone says that I come across as self-assured or self-possessed or self-confident or self-something else. I'm not sure whether I'm an exceptionally good actor (if I do say so myself) or whether people just see in me whatever they want to see in me. I know I see in other people whatever I want to see in other people. As in, you're all beautiful and lovely and unique.

If you are in favour of telling people odd things about yourself on your blog, which you should be, you delightfully odd you, please do a post and let me know about it. It can be sixteen things or twelve things or thirty-four things or however many years in your life. Do leave a link.