In the run-up to Christmas this year, I had a big work deadline causing me stress. This was all I could think about until after it had passed. Afterwards I looked around and tried to organise myself a pre-Christmas night out. Unfortunately, everybody I tried had been booked weeks ago and I was forced to continue my run of staying in.
To make matters slightly worse, I asked my husband to recommend a funny book to cheer me up and he suggested Yes Man by Danny Wallace.
The gist of the thing is that Danny has also got into a rut of not going out which he decides to break by saying "yes" to things he would normally say no to. But he has friends who ring him up and ask him. He doesn't have to play phone tag with people for days just to remind them he exists. His friends just ring up and all he has to do is say yes. The lucky c*nt.
Anyway, before long Danny is allegedly affirming his way to the good life, saying yes at work to a TV presenting job in which he tries to wind up a Buddhist monk by poking him.
But it isn't all plain sailing. There is the time he agrees to come along with his ex and her new boyfriend on a date, donating money to any charity which asks him, spending a lot of money on travel because an advert happened to be phrased as a question and meeting up for polite conversation with a stockbroker obsessed with Sarah Brightman.
There is also the ever-so-neat plot about the girl he loves who has returned to Australia. Will Danny's resolution to say yes to everything make him brave enough to move out after her and give it a go? (Clue: of course it bloody will). Call me cynical, but things like this make me doubt that half the events described ever actually took place (think for a moment about how boring, episodic and unstructured an account of anyone's real life would be). So bearing in mind that we've agreed between us that Mr Wallace needn't be strictly truthful, that we'll allow him some license in order to better entertain us, why isn't the ****ing thing funnier?
I suppose the book worked for me in that I moved from feeling properly sorry for myself to just being a run-of-the-mill grumpy old git.
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