Will Glasgow ever get rid of its riddy?

Lately I seem to be getting The Fear a little more often than usual. It could be the drinking (too much) or the sunlight (too little) or watching the streets of Glasgow slowly transforming into tarmac-black rivers that come wet and gurgling out of the gutters. These are bad times really. The neighbour's cat has stopped leaving the house for fear of being blown into oncoming traffic, and I feel the same, only venturing out for the thirty second jog to the pub. I go to the pub to escape The Fear. When I return home, The Fear is sitting smoking on my doorstep, ashing into the hydrangeas. 

The Fear only seems to affect me in Glasgow. There’s no other city so thoroughly afflicted by shame and social anxiety (or perhaps nation, at least according to Carol Craig’s 2004 work ‘The Scots' Crisis of Confidence’). 

You may think this is a sweeping statement, but I’ve worked in self-deprecating Birmingham, self-pitying Liverpool and self-fellating Manchester and in none of these places are people afraid to be seen purchasing loo roll in case someone asks them if they’re away home for a shite now, aye? But in Glasgow this is just another day at the Big Tesco. We give each other The Fear because we’re consumed by it ourselves.

And the fact is that, however much I’d like to be, I’m not the first to say it. The concept of ‘Scottish Cringe’ — an alleged sense of cultural inferiority in regards to England, leading to feelings of resentment and embarrassment, (and, according to ex-First Minister Jack McConnell, opposition towards free-market capitalism) — has been well documented and needn’t be elaborated upon here. But among the younger generations of Glaswegians (namely the 20-somethings such as myself), Scottish Cringe has evolved, been replaced even, by a Glasgow-specific strain of the affliction. This is Riddy Culture: the “fear of being judged for doing anything outlandish, expressive, unorthodox or outwith social norms” (thank you, Urban Dictionary).