I found childhood quite uncomfortable. The itchy fabric of the school uniform, the bright overhead lights of the classroom, the being in a room with 30 boisterous young Welsh people – all of these things that were intolerable.
There was solace in going home to watch The Tube or to the arts centre that showed Scorsese films – portals into a different world. They gave me glimmers of hope that life could be good.
I was awkward at school, so I was picked on and, because I was picked on, I was always at the edges of the playground looking in, which in retrospect was good training to be a journalist.
I’m definitely a grudge bearer, which is an unappetising habit. I also get very irritable if I’m working and there’s too much noise. Writing books is hard, so I walk around in a state of bleakness a lot of the time.
All the public-facing stuff is what I have to do to enable me to do what I want to do, which is being on my own in a room making stories work. I’ve got no fiction talent, I can’t invent stuff. I have to go out and have adventures, so that I can then stay at home writing.
I’m alone at least 90% of the time. I only need to be sociable once every couple of weeks. I dread dinner parties and mostly won’t go to them. Being on a podcast is like my social life – it’s my version of going out clubbing.
All of my positive emotions are wrapped up in work. There’s a joy that comes over me that I don’t get from anything else. When I was making the podcast Things Fell Apart, I was back to editing the day after major surgery. Then I had a blood clot in my lungs and, as soon as I was out of hospital, I was working on my next book. It made me feel better than any medication.
I get called faux naïf all the time. But I honestly think I am just genuinely naive.
I’ve been married a long time and the reason is that we don’t pressure each other to do things. We give each other space. That’s the secret.
My producer once said: ‘Don’t wait for somebody to give you permission to work’. I like the fact people can now just do a You Tube show or a podcast if they want to. A world without gatekeepers is a good thing.
It’s getting harder to be optimistic, the fact everyone is becoming so rageful towards each other and so casually cruel. But the stories I do are about connection, bringing warring factions together. There are a lot of people out there who want to find ways to stop wars instead of starting them. They’re just not the ones screaming on social media.
I’m scared of not being able to work. That’s why I wrote You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, because being publicly shamed and prevented from working is the biggest horror I could think of – not so much the shaming part but the being prevented from working part.
I hope I’m remembered for telling humanist stories that shed light on how the world works, and make people feel a bit more sane in an insane world.
Jon Ronson’s Psychopath Night 2024 tour is from 22 October to 14 November 2024 across the UK and Ireland. Tickets from fane.co.uk/jon-ronson
