Okay, I’ve waited long enough. This is getting beyond a joke. Where is it?

I have just turned 52. Where, oh where, is the no-f*cks-to-give era that people have now been promising me for over a decade? When do I get this surge of self-confidence that allows me to shuck off social convention and expectation and move through life unburdened by the petty anxieties and accrued insecurities that the younger years visit upon us? Anyone? Anyone?

I’ve done what I can. As outlined in my last column, I gave in to the lure of GLP-1s and inject myself on the regular with a magical drug that puts me back in a lightweight flesh bag and frees me of much of the self-loathing no amount of stern talking-to seemed to be able to shift (it turns out berating yourself for hating yourself doesn’t work – who knew?). But the downside of that is that it throws what remains into sharper relief.

When I was in the throes of adolescence, I was, like most of us, so acutely self-conscious I could barely walk down the street without suffering violent mental agonies. Dealing with school discos, first nightclubs, and parties was commensurately worse. But – again, like most of us – I took comfort in the thought that one day this would be over. The........

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