‘I Would Be An Emotional Wreck’: Why I Can’t Watch Normal People Right Now

Hands up if you’ve made a killer banana bread and participated in the #pillowchallenge during lockdown? Neither one, frankly, has appealed to me - I’m an unfortunate baker and don’t have an iota of game when it comes to posing like Halle Berry. But I’d rather get busy in the kitchen, wearing a pillow, than watch the show that everyone’s talking about, posting about and writing about: Normal People. And my friend and my sister feel exactly the same way.

It’s not because we begrudge Sally Rooney’s success (she’s 29 and has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, big deal, am I right?) or think the adaptation is over-hyped. We all read, and loved, the book a few years ago. It’s that, for several reasons, it’s unbearable to watch it playing out in front of our eyes. I can just about admire @connellschain from a safe distance, but will I see it rippling around Paul Mescal’s neck on screen? No, thank you, I won’t.

For my friend, the trailer was an emotional suckerpunch. ‘It made me feel like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and reminded me of all the incredibly painful times that I'd wanted something to work with someone and it hadn't. The show is clearly beautifully made but I would be an emotional wreck if I sat through the whole thing. I'll watch it one day but it will have to be when I'm not still pining after someone I can't have,’ she says, while acknowledging that something about quarantine makes it even more unconscionable. ‘It's funny because I know I would be hooked if I started watching but I also know - particularly in this strange period of lockdown when you have far too much time to think about things - that all the ‘will they, won't they?’ between Marianne and Connell would completely break me.’

My twin sister, meanwhile, was left broken the first time round. ‘There was something so tender and fragile about those characters that made reading them utterly devastating. As soon as the trailer came out, I messaged an equally emotionally susceptible friend and we agreed we couldn't watch it. For me seeing them come (even more) alive on screen would be exquisite torture.’

And for me, it boils down to one word. Nostalgia. I read the book in 2018, exactly 10 years since I started university, and it dragged me right back to that painful place when you’re young, awkward, insecure and experiencing the throes of first love. I think we can all agree that university was the best of times (dancing, surviving on tortellini, enriching your mind with the occasional lecture, living a blissfully Instagram-free existence), but it was also the worst of times (being in halls with someone who broke your heart, realising the person you love doesn’t love you back, feeling like you’ve been punched when you see someone else on their Facebook feed). Living through it once was exhilarating, exhausting and enough.

So instead, I’m diving into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Ant Man and Thor. That’s right. The kind of emotional depth I’m comfortable with right now is a man running around with a magic hammer. Don’t judge.