Slander me, baby
Your chance to tell me everything that's wrong with me
Really Good Tomatoes asks irreverent questions and offers hopeful answers. It’s a newsletter about culture, behaviour, food, art, relationships, pleasure, politics, work, environment, identity, and society. For people who refuse to be fobbed off with crap tomatoes.
One of the many amusing things about having a midlife crisis getting into standup comedy* is figuring out how people perceive me. It’s particularly ironic because I have spent a lot of the last decade in therapy trying to think less about how people perceive me. But I quit therapy a year ago and instead, I now find myself in a situation where people will say things like, “You definitely seem like the kind of person who would have an existential crisis in the Post Office,” and instead of being insulted, I go, “OK, amazing.”
Obviously this isn’t true. I have never had a meltdown in the Post Office and I can’t really see a situation in which I would because that’s highly antisocial behaviour. But I do think about things deeply, and I enjoy finding meaning in situations and interactions, even superficial ones. It’s feasible, then, that I would overthink a throwaway comment. And that I would be prickly about it.
So, while losing my shit over a mundane retail interaction isn’t actually something I would do, you can nevertheless imagine it. It’s not so out of character that it seems implausible. And that’s what I’m interested in.
Which is why I have developed this survey! I was recently advised to ask my family and friends to tell me what they think my core personality traits are— both good and bad—for the purposes of figuring out what makes me funny. But it turns out people aren’t super comfortable with the idea of listing your flaws out loud, to your face. In fact, my husband said that, “under no circumstances” will he be participating in this exercise. He even said he wouldn’t do it anonymously because he thinks I’d be able to guess it was him from his answers which, I think we can agree, is ominous. What intimate details is he going to dredge up for the purpose of deingrating my character? I can’t wait to find out.
I do appreciate not all of you Tomatoes-reading pals know me personally but a lot of you know me at least well enough to have formed an impression and it would be really fun to know what that impression is. As I said, the survey is completely anonymous and there is absolutely no way I will ever know who said what. I’ve also made it really simple in that it’s just a tickbox exercise. No creativity required from you at all.
I’ve asked you to tick three “positive” traits and three “negative” traits. Obviously distilling someone down to six adjectives is bonkers but don’t worry about it. It’s not Myers-Briggs. It’s just for fun and it’s just an overview. And I promise not to be insulted. In fact, I’m actively hoping for certain words and themes to crop up. I know what I think people think my faults are, and having that confirmed will make my job a lot easier. The challenge will be if you hit me with a curveball and I’m left thinking, who the hell said I was stingy?
Come on! When was the last time you had the chance to actually tell someone what’s bad about them.
Link here! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KBWFNFS
It will take less than five minutes and you’ll make me feel really seen and held in trust, understanding and, quite possibly, contempt. 🙏
And to be clear, this is a one-time offer. I will not be making a habit of inviting unfettered defamation into my life so grab it while it’s hot.
[*I mentioned this in the subscriber section of the newsletter a few weeks ago. I will probably write something more substantial about it at some point but I don’t have a story to tell yet because I’m only just getting started. But I am having a LOT of fun and I am learning to flex my creative muscles in new ways which is super exciting.]
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This 1974 recipe for chilli con carne with baked beans. I made it last week and wrote it up for the Mag Hags newsletter. Go have a look if you like vintage cooking or just want to witness me having an existential crisis over a saucepan.
I’d already scheduled this week’s RGT when I read this piece on “millennial hobby energy” in Culture Study but I felt SO SEEN by it that I had to reopen the newsletter so I could include it. The main thrust of it is that millennials especially (but probably a lot of Gen Z and Gen Zs as well) have, obver the course of growing up, come to understand all activities through the lens of “achievement”. Thus, when we find a hobby we enjoy we tend to go hell for leather. We make it our entire personality. We aren’t content to potter away at it, quietly, we need to be constantly improving, levelling up, setting new goals, taking on bigger challenges, getting really really, observably good at it.
But to be honest, it was this section that really struck me.
Part of what I love about sewing (my latest hobby/obsession since 2023) is actually how it forces it me to go slow. I can’t whip up a pair of trousers in a weekend, I don’t have that kind of time at my disposal. I have to take my time, do it bit by bit. And that feels like a total antidote to my pace of life more broadly. But I would be lying if I said I liked sewing for sewing’s sake. What I like is ideating, executing, and accomplishing. I do also love the process, I wouldn’t have chosen this medium if I didn’t. But really the part that gets under my skin is the creative project-ness of it. I like to come up with a project, plan out the project, and then complete the project.
As for being addicted to doing things on hard mode… I mean, wow. Yeah. Nailed it. That’s me. Obviously there’s a lot lot more I could say about this but I’ll save it for another day.
I’m taking a couple of weeks off over Easter so I’ll be back in your inboxes either end of April or beginning of May depending on my schedule and whether I have any burning issues I want to talk to you about.
In the meantime, I shall leave you with my seven-year-old’s latest prank which is to stick a piece of paper over my mouse sensor to make me think it’s not working, at which point I turn it over to investigate and, OH! HE GOT ME!
