The Time Traveller's Meme

It’s been a month or so since I attempted a meme, so I thought I’d have a bash at the Time Traveller meme from Sunday Stealing .

This is a short meme but quite an interesting one.

Here goes:

1. Depending on your age, go back 10, 15, 20, or even more years.

2. Tell us how many years back you have traveled and why.

3. Pretend you have met yourself during that era, and tell us where you are.

4. You only have one "date" with this former self.

5. Answer these questions.

Okay, as we start, what year is it and how old are you?

I have travelled back in time to October 1981 and I am just about to start university. I am just about to turn 19.

1. Would your younger self (YYS, from here) recognize you when you first meet?

Actually, my appearance might freak MYS out. Before you ask, this is not because he thinks he is an Adonis and I am clearly not. He would be freaked out because he would think that I am his dad (who incidentally died about a month earlier at the tender age of 44). I recently saw a photo of my dad when a year before he died and the resemblance was uncanny, even down to the sideburns. His hair was a little wavier than mine and more controllable but apart from that facially the image of my father is almost like looking in a mirror. MYS would probably stare at me and, because he was shy, he would stutter uncontrollably.

2. Would YYS be surprised to discover what you are doing job wise?

At that age I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do. I was very good at maths but realised that maths wasn’t exactly going to be a career. I chose Computational and Statistical Science as a degree in the hope that the booming computer industry would prove interesting and keep me in a job for life. So far it has, and while I still work in IT, the nature of my work demands more than just that knowledge. I imagine therefore that MYS would not be surprised that I spend my day bollocking computers, but he would be surprised at the application I work with, the travelling that I have done and the involvement I have had in other fields.

3. What piece of fashion advice would you give YYS?

Grow your hair long, buy a leather jacket and bow down to the Monsters of Rock. Do not become a New Romantic just to impress the girls; they won’t be impressed and your hair simply doesn’t lend itself to that style – you will look like a goon.

4. What do you think YYS is most going to want to know?

MYS would have been obsessed with sex and would want to know whether I was married or not.

5. How would you answer YYS's question?

That’s a tricky one really because, as regular readers might know, I married and then divorced. I would tell him that I was married but I wouldn’t want him to do anything differently, simply because, although it failed, the marriage did have positives that I simply cannot live without - for example: my boys.

6. What would probably be the best thing to tell YYS?

I would tell him about all of the wonderful places I have seen and how good life is. I would tell him to avoid tall buildings though.

7. What is something that you probably wouldn't tell YYS?

I wouldn’t tell him about all my failures with the opposite sex (though I might warn him about the woman who tore out my heart and fed it to her pet lion in 1984).

8. What do you think will most surprise YYS about you?

MYS would be amazed that I still look young for my age and that I am still as immature now as I was then . He would also be amazed that I am no longer the insecure shy fool I was then.

9. What do you think will least surprise YYS?

That I can still be an absolute dolt when I want to be.

10. At this point in your life, would YYS like to run into "you" from the future?

Yes I think I would – preferably a future me that was 100 years old.