How to win friends and influence people....

We have had friends staying with us this week,  from that there London-village. They were intrigued. How come, they asked, after only a short six months of living out in the middle of nowheres-ville, the locals are treating us like one of their own? How come the farmers wave hello each morning, the chef comes out of the pub kitchen for a chat and we have already been approved as a foster-family for next season's orphaned lambs? (Oh yes, it's true! Not only can lesbian and gay couples foster actual children, we can also foster orphaned lambs! How cool is that?)

How come a lesbian couple plus Badger-ish friend are so warmly accepted?  Is it Stray's minor celebrity status (she used to be on the tele-box y'know) or the fact that they get free counselling over a pint from me? Neither of these, of course. Our secret weapon is Badger.

 

Badger, for those of you who don't keep up, has Tourette syndrome.  

TS is a neurological disorder which gives rise to motor and verbal tics which can feel impossible to control, as Badger described in her Post of the Week winning post here. Perhaps as a result of this - or possibly it is entirely unrelated - Badger has the remarkable knack of just being herself with whomever she comes into contact with. 

Most of us will invest a significant amount of energy in monitoring or controlling our impulses and behaviours in order to make ourselves as acceptable as possible to others. Inevitably we end up projecting out our internal critic and responding to others accordingly. It all gets terribly messy and before we know it we are engaging with an imagined process rather than a genuine relationship.  Badger's world doesn't permit for this.

 

Although the received wisdom is that people with TS swear uncontrollably, the vast majority have physical and/or verbal tics which aren't remotely offensive. Badger, for sure, doesn't have the get-down-and-dirty rap version.

Badger has the Jane Austen remix.

Life with Badger is punctuated mostly with  Goodness Gracious Me!!'s, Lordy Lordy!!'s and Sweet Baby Jesus!!'s, all delivered in the deepest Surrey accent.  She is the secret love-child of Anne of Green Gables and Mr Darcy.

Which is how come Badger is our secret weapon. She delights people. She utterly disarms them until it is impossible not to warm to her. Badger is always just Badger, and I suspect others find this strangely liberating. 

Every home should have one.