What makes you any different from everybody else?

Some years ago when I was 16 and a bit I got my first proper job (I don't count my brief stint delivering parish magazines which was the hardest earned £2.50 an hour I remember receiving to date) working in the fruit and veg department (strangely enough known as 'produce') at a well-known supermarket chain.

This was a job for the more hardy employees - you had to carry around big boxes full of carrots, potatoes and such like and subsequently there were generally very few girls on the section. I would like to point out that at that stage of my life I was doing roughly 8 hours gymnastics a week and was fairly svelte compared to today - indeed on my first day, the young man I was working with on whom I developed a cripplingly embarassing and rather obvious unrequited crush, was too worried to give me any of the heavier loads because I was so "fragile and delicate". I kid you not.

Anyway, on the section was a man who I guess must have been 60ish but wore his years not so well - Uncle Ray we called him. Largely because he strenuously objected to Grandad Ray for obvious reasons. He liked to take the newbies - particularly the young girls - under his wing and espouse various pieces of life advice. He used to be the back door manager (clean your mind! that just meant he was in charge of what went on off the shop floor) but had decided he wanted less responsibility in his more advanced years. He wasn't wizened, exactly, but definitely grizzled. If that's a verb.

At 16, I had a fairly high opinion of myself (while being simultaneously inwardly crippled with self-loathing and self-doubt, obviously) and at the very least I was convinced that I was quite different from other girls my age.

This opinion came up one day. Uncle Ray turned around and asked me why? What set me aside from everyone else?

I opened mouth to spout off with my usual verbal diarrhoea then I was stumped. This was a harder question than I had first thought. I truly believed that I was different - not necessarily special - but the differentness seemed clear because of the simple evidence that other people my age, for the most part, didn't seem to like me very much and tended to be pretty mean to me. My friends would, I hope, back-up my assertion that I wasn't like any 16 year old.

But how? and why?

The first thing I could come up with was that I was quite religious - I believed in God and thought he was pretty cool, even though I didn't actually go to church. As soon as I said this, I realised this wasn't such a great answer.

So I stumbled for another - I was clever, got mostly As with the odd (generally disputed) B thrown into the mix and was going to go to university and ace my course.

Valid, but I wasn't a wunderkind - a little precocious but I was generally second in the class, not first and yes, I got 11 GCSEs but they weren't straight As. So I soon realised this didn't set me out all that much. Although it did explain the bullying etc somewhat.

The conversation ended fairly abruptly after that. I'm not sure if Uncle Ray,in his wisdom, was trying to teach me a little humility or something similar, or just to take me down a peg or two, but it left me thinking.

I still think of myself as not quite like everyone else (I do generally score relatively highly on those how abnormal are you style quizzes), but if I look at my life more objectively as I hope 8 years has given me the judgment to do, I still ask, what does set me apart? I'm a journalist on a local newspaper. I love writing but generally don't wake up every morning with a spring in my step thinking 'yay, I get to go to work today'. I live in sin with my long-term boyfriend who I will probably get married to when he plucks up the courage to ask me and buys the right ring;-) I get a bit pissed off with noisy kids particularly when they smack you on the arse when riding past you on their bike (yes that really happened to me last night). I get slightly excited when I buy new stuff for my kitchen or house and have started salivating over these really gorgeous floral quilts. I go out to the pub every now and again and binge drink slightly (ahem). I'm even on a committee (for my local gymnastics club where I coach, it's not the WI or anything). I did go to Glastonbury last year mind you and went travelling to Israel for a couple of weeks and am going to Thailand with my boyfriend this year.

So does any of that sound different or exciting? Or do I sound middle of the road, just like anyone else? What can I boast that sets me apart from the pack? And why do I so badly need to be elevated in some way?

Tricky. Maybe this is just part of growing up - realising that I'm probably never going to be the editor of the Grauniad or the youngest woman on the moon or an Olympic gymnast. Or maybe everyone is a bit unique and it's almost impossible to explain why and only the people who know you best could put it into worlds. So I won't give up my quest to be different just yet. Even if all it means is I'm going to make some frankly inadvisible fashion choices;-)

PS am having my two-weekly weigh-in tomorrow - if it's good news I will share the weight loss, but not the weight (I am too ashamed for that just yet).