Belonging Begins at the Door
I genuinely thought I’d be writing something lovely tonight.
The event was about belonging. I thought it might quieten the narrative in my bipolar brain for a couple of hours. I thought I’d leave feeling lighter than when I’d arrived.
Instead, I left through the back door.
On a day where I’d felt utterly unremarkable, quietly fading into nothingness, this felt like exactly the tonic I needed. I wanted to learn more about the community I now call home, hear people’s stories, understand what goes on around here and, if I was lucky, find out how I might become part of it.
If there’s one thing I believe, it’s that everybody has a story worth telling. That’s why I drag myself to these things, even when every fibre of my being would rather stay at home.
I spend a lot of time going to events on my own.
Not because I enjoy it. Mostly because if I waited for someone to come with me, I’d never go anywhere.
The strange thing about community events is that they’re brilliant at bringing communities together.
They’re not always very good at welcoming people who don’t already belong to one.
Nobody was rude.
Nobody told me to leave.
Nobody ignored me on purpose.
Everyone was simply talking to the people they already knew, catching up, laughing and picking conversations back up as though they’d only been paused yesterday. That’s completely normal.
The problem is that if you’re the person who walks through the door alone, it can feel like you’ve accidentally wandered into someone else’s family reunion.
I found myself doing what I always seem to do. Looking around the room, pretending to be interested in whatever was nearest while waiting for a conversation that never really presented itself.
Of course, the bipolar brain insisted it was all my fault. Apparently I should have walked into the room already clutching a glass of something, yarping and noping my way through exquisitely artistic conversations about absolutely nothing until somebody took the slightest bit of interest.
Whether any of that was true almost doesn’t matter. That’s the conversation I was having with myself.
Then the technical difficulties began.
For the first time all evening, I felt relieved.
They gave me an excuse.
I slipped quietly out through the back door.
The thing that upset me most wasn’t missing out on networking.
It was missing the stories.
There were photographs hanging on the walls that clearly meant something to someone. There were conversations I would have loved to hear. There were people whose experiences might have changed how I see the place I live.
I left before I heard any of them.
Walking home, I couldn’t help wondering whether we’ve got community events slightly backwards.
We spend months organising speakers, exhibitions, venues and refreshments. We think about what people will hear once they’re in the room.
We spend almost no time thinking about the first five minutes after someone walks through the door on their own.
Loneliness isn’t exactly a secret. We tell people to get out more, join clubs, attend events and find their community.
But nobody ever talks about what happens when they arrive.
Belonging isn’t something you discuss from a stage.
It’s something you practise at the door.
Looking For Stability In A Broken Job Market
And so the job rejections begin. I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve applied for jobs I’m more than capable of doing, spending hours at my laptop trying desperately to concentrate long enough to complete applications that are often far too convoluted and unnecessarily complex, only to get nowhere.
I have my moments, but I’m highly unlikely to stick my finger in a plug socket, and I know how to talk to customers, so why exactly am I suddenly unemployable?
That’s before I’ve even mentioned bipolar disorder and needing time each week for therapy. Most of my working life has been spent in hospitality, starting with an apprenticeship and followed by jobs picked up here and there while I travelled around being, frankly, quite mentally ill for large parts of my adult life.
But when I know what I’m doing and I’m left to get on with it, I prove more than worth my weight. I’m not afraid to get stuck in, I’ll do the awkward hours, and I’ll stay behind to get the job done at the end of a long night.
That’s the part I don’t understand. The country constantly complains that people don’t want to work, yet I’m willing, available, and actively trying, and nobody seems interested.
Obviously, I’m avoiding the freelance event agencies and the roles that immediately feel like scams. A gentle nod there to the company that has not stopped contacting me all week despite sending an entirely AI-generated job description and asking applicants to complete a one-way video interview.
I do have at least some standards for myself, which, even heavily reduced to the point of near extinction at this moment, might well be the problem.
Perhaps I should just apply for anything and everything going, but I do want consistency and stability. Is that really too much to ask for?
Even before finishing this piece, another rejection has just rolled in. This time for a lounge assistant role at a very well-known London venue.
Again, I’m more than capable of doing the job. I enjoy working with the public, talking to people, and being somewhere busy, so it felt like the sort of role that would’ve suited me well, but clearly not.
I’ve even had my CV looked over by UEL’s Career Zone and, aside from a few minor notes, they agreed it was decent, so at this point I’m genuinely unsure what the issue is.
Well, hard hat back on. I trundle once more into battle against unrealistic experience expectations, unclear job descriptions, strange job titles, even stranger requirements, and potentially somebody somewhere simply clicking reject for the giggles.
Although, I do quite like blaming AI for ruining the application process. It somehow softens the blow.
Here goes. Wish me luck.
Not Every Emergency Needs an Audience
This evening along the river in the Docklands, several fire engines and police vehicles attended what appeared to be the search for a missing person. I happened to be outside enjoying one of my final cigarettes when, within moments, hordes of people began emerging from nearby buildings, phones in hand, trying to work out what was going on.
The moment sirens sound and blue lights begin flashing, people appear from everywhere. Windows open. Crowds gather. Cameras emerge almost instinctively.
In fact, sirens and flashing lights are constantly being redesigned to attract attention as quickly and effectively as possible. That is their purpose. But if you are not involved in the emergency and you are not on the road needing to react to it, should we really be attending the scene as well?
What could we possibly add to the situation beyond another pair of eyes?
UK-based CCTV research in places including Lancaster found that in over 90% of incidents, bystanders were ready and willing to assist. That is reassuring. The rest of it, however, is harder to stomach.
A BBC Yorkshire report revealed that emergency services are now actively imploring people not to film and document emergency scenes.
Researchers including John Drury, Stephen Reicher, and Clifford Stott have all challenged the idea that crowds simply gather to rubberneck. Their work instead suggests that people are often drawn towards emergency scenes by a mixture of curiosity, uncertainty, social influence, and the instinct to understand what is happening around them.
Unfortunately, the age of social media has added another motivation entirely: visibility.
There is now something deeply uncomfortable about the speed at which emergencies become content. Before anybody knows whether someone is safe, before families are informed, before emergency workers have even secured a scene, phones are already recording.
All of this is to say that if you are not in danger, and you are not somebody genuinely capable of improving the situation, step back.
Not every emergency needs an audience.
Colin Cushion 