Me? Mad!! May! Day Three: Makin’ Friends!

I remember Me Made June of 2011, and Karen’s awesome decision to have her photograph taken with a stranger every day. For that entire June, I would wait expectantly for her blog posts to pop up in my bloglovin’ feed, and would always laugh and be in awe at her ballsiness. ‘She’s so amazing’ I’d think, ‘I could never do anything like that… that’s so cool.’ Then, about midway through the month she had her photograph taken with some guys in wetsuits, either just about to have a surf session, or having just finished one, and it made me think of me and my friends after surfing (although it looked a lot sunnier than it normally is in Wales!!) and so I showed Mr Cuckoo, who thought that her Me Made June was the best thing ever. For the rest of the month he would ask me what her photograph for that day had been. (You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?)

So, when I ventured the idea of ‘Me? Mad!! May!’, I didn’t even get a chance to ask Mr Cuckoo for suggestions before he piped up with ‘You should do what that other girl did!’ (sorry Karen, he only knows you as ‘that blogger that took those photos’) ‘You HATE talking to strangers! It’ll be really good for you!’ Worse still, even my (notoriously gregarious!) MUM agreed: ‘Oh yes Alexandra, that will be scary for you, what a good idea!’ Ugh. It was a good idea. I hated it. But I dutifully wrote it on my little list of ideas, and moved swiftly on.

Until I’d sent in my MMM2 application yesterday, and suddenly felt like I could tackle anything! After swaggering around the house for a little while like some sort of puffed-up cockerel, chatting to Mr Cuckoo about how I felt brilliant for having submitted my application, I confidently came out with ‘and I’m going to have my photo taken with a stranger tomorrow!’ ‘Oh really??‘ was Mr Cuckoo’s surprised (and maybe slightly disbelieving) response. Whatever fool… I’ll show you!

So, today was spent meeting up with lots of friends and their kids in a nearby pub garden for a few drinks and some lunch, making the most of the sunshine. Okay, I thought… I’ll find a likely looking person on the walk down to the pub… it’ll be easy…. right? So, we walked down the nearby street of shops, but, er… no one looked that friendly. Then we walked through the park… but everyone looked busy. Then we got to the pub and I was too busy playing with kids, eating sandwiches and chatting away with a glass of wine to worry too much about ‘this photo’ that I briefly mentioned to my friends, and then forgot all about.

When we all decided it was time to go, I suddenly decided that today wasn’t the best time to do The Photo, and that I would just do ‘one of the other scary things’… so I just picked up my stuff, and was heading back up towards the pub itself when I spotted an awesome looking gent in a beret and cool, loudly patterned shirt. ‘Fuck it!’ Before I knew it, I was over there, trying to explain what the hell I wanted. Although he initially made a joking attempt to run in the opposite direction, he actually became pretty interested in my little spiel ‘so there’s this thing called Me Made May, yadda yadda yadda, but I decided to make it scary so I’m doing Me? Mad!! May! yadda yadda yadda, [deep breath] will you have a photo taken with me?’

Before we knew it, we were chatting like old friends. His name was Hugh. He thought what I was doing was awesome. He thought it was great that he was going to be ‘on the internet’ (thank goodness, otherwise that could be awkward!) and he thought it was cool that I have ‘found people who liked to do the same thing’ online (I think he thought that it was pretty weird that I was making my own clothes, although the girl that took the photo seemed quite impressed that I had made my t-shirt).  ‘Can I put my arm around you? Is that cool?’ he asked in a very gentlemanly fashion. He also shook my hand at least three times. Very friendly and such a gent!

Meet Hugh! Gotta love a man in a beret! MMM 3 – Black and white birdy Renfrew (just about seen)

It turns out that we are both veterans of the pub’s Tuesday night quiz, and Hugh had actually met his now wife at that same quiz. Although he offered to introduce me to all his friends (how nice! I think he may have thought that I was all alone at the pub, since all my friends and Mr Cuckoo seemed not to have noticed that I’d stopped and had gone on ahead) I felt that just meeting Hugh and Photo-Taking Lady were about all I could possibly handle… plus, I had a bad need for the toilet… wine, ya know?

I thanked Hugh and Photo-Taking Lady and then, quite honestly, I scarpered. 

I honestly couldn’t believe that I had actually managed to wander up to a stranger and ask them to be in a photograph with me. I do not do shit like that… ever.

I’m once again on a massive high – feeling pretty invincible right about now. 

BUT. When, on our way home, Mr Cuckoo suggested that I now do all of my Me Made photographs with strangers, I had to put my foot down. ‘Oh hell no.’ Karen, if you ever read this – you are an absolute hero. Once, I could just about muster the courage for – but a month?

No. I am just not that brave.