Bernard O’Shea: Skiing, bathrobes, oat milk: Things my culchie soul abhors

The following are things I still feel either not good enough at, too self-conscious about, or slightly embarrassed doing...

'I don’t have the confidence to wear the white robes around the fancy hotel or even to the pool.' Picture: iStock

Skiing

This has actually caused rows in our house. My wife (who, like me, has never gone skiing) wants to try it. The problem is she is terrified of heights. She once nearly broke off our engagement because I drove through the Conor Pass in west Kerry.

I’ve tried to explain to her even the kiddie slopes are fairly high up, as are the mountain ranges where the snow falls. However, I don’t want to go because I feel like I’m falling, figuratively and physically, into the jaws of the upper-middle-class elite. 

People whose families have been going for generations. People who probably own skis and can genuinely say things like: "The snow is perfect today", and who know what charcuterie is.

Wearing robes

I have stayed in fancy hotels before — the ones where there is a spa menu alongside the food one. I don’t have the confidence to wear the white robes around the hotel or even to the pool.

It’s not a body shame thing (although I’m normally the only person with a flabby, pale, overweight bod); it’s more a ‘Who do you think you are wearing a robe?’ inner monologue.

This even goes for the outdoor dry robes. I see people wearing them after sea swims. They have the confidence to swim in the sea because it makes them feel good. They swim in the sea because they can afford to own a house nearby and walk home.

I’d swim in the sea if I owed money, not if I was loaded. But it’s the concept of carrying yourself confidently in a single garment. Jesus, sure, what would happen if you were struck by a bus walking down the corridor to the spa treatment room?

I default to walking down to the pool in slippers and my jeans. Of course, my swimming togs on under the Wranglers.

Drinking oat milk

This should be a no-brainer for me as I’m lactose-intolerant. There is just something inside my culchie soul that cannot say ‘oat milk latte’, so for the last 30 years I’ve just had black coffee.

I’ve tasted oat milk at night in the house on my own under the stairs, where no one can see me, and I thought it was alright.

But what if the ‘cop-on police’ caught me ordering it out loud in public? My embarrassment dial would be off the charts.

I’ve contemplated doing the social media trend where big, burly men ask the barista for a black coffee but hand them a note that reads: "Chia latte oat milk iced cinnamon caramel swirl." I don’t have the confidence yet.

Ordering wine

I like to think I know something about wine. After all, I used to watch Saturday Kitchen every weekend up until we had kids. I sometimes think I have a good ‘nose’. I’ve seen at least three YouTube videos on wine production, and I know Bordeaux and Champagne wines come from those regions. (With global temperatures rising, some day there might be a Chardonnay called ‘Offaly’).

But when the waiter asks: "Would you like to order some wine?" I have never deviated from: "Ah, a bottle of the house wine is grand," or "Whatever you think yourself."

As for that bit where they pour a little bit of it into a glass and ask you to taste it! I might as well be tasting the used oil from a 1992 Toyota Starlet. But that’s not the point; I think I could bluff it.

But as an overly self-conscious culchie, that’s what separates us from our knowing socialite kin.

Receiving a compliment

"You look well." My immediate response is to go into fine detail and explain why I actually don’t.

God forbid someone tells me they really enjoyed my show. I’ll go into a deep dive of how I could’ve been better.

Some day, I plan to take a ‘How to take a compliment’ class, but until then I’ll be self-deprecating to the point of digging my own grave.

Looking at myself in a mirror in public

This goes to the heart of it! I can glance. God, I can glance. I’ll glance in every shop window to see if my hairspray has covered the bald spots. I’ll pretend to be staring into the back of a bus, hoping I’ll see if there is an errant snot protruding from my nose. But looking in a mirror in a public place with others in plain sight? Not a chance.

I’ve tried to look in a bathroom mirror, only for another person to walk in, and the dive I do to make it look like I wasn’t admiring myself would be akin to something you’d see in Cirque du Soleil.

Maybe that’s the problem. It’s not that I don’t want to ski, drink oat milk, order a decent bottle of wine, or wear a robe. I’d probably enjoy all of them. I just don’t want anyone seeing me enjoying them and thinking: ‘Who does he think he is?’