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I will always stand with and up for those who are mocked and derided by society. However shy and timid people may think I am, this is the natural reflex of one likewise ridiculed by others. In that instant, I don’t feel cowed to speak my mind, coming to another’s defence. It has always been so, even during my unsettled youth.

Indeed, I remember sitting with friends when we were about seventeen, engaged in pointless conversation. All of a sudden, out of the blue, my best mate started mocking a girl sitting across the room from us, causing hilarity all around. As one perpetually mocked myself, this just grated with me, winding me up.

“Be quiet,” I told my mate, there and then, “How would you like it?” Of course that didn’t bring his jest to an end. Gawking at me, a huge grin appeared on his face instead. “You fancy her, don’t you?” he laughed, nudging me. Though I denied it, he was undetered. “I just don’t think making fun of someone’s appearance is very nice,” I told him, “That’s all.”

Regardless, that became the running joke for the rest of the day, as he went about telling everyone that I fancied the subject of his unrelenting malice. But in truth I hadn’t even contemplated that then. In fact, quite the opposite was true, because we didn’t see eye to eye at all. I defended her simply because for the entirety of my youth up to that point, I too had been derided because of my appearance.

Nothing changes, it seems, for I respond the same way to this day if those I am in the company of start insulting others. If I hear our children using bullying language, I will call them out. If I am amongst the apparently learned and wise, and they go off on a rant against particular types of people, I will be there challenging them. It doesn’t matter whether I like the victim or not; it’s immaterial.

I will always be there defending the nerds and misfits, or the one whose face does not fit, or those whom the nation’s press have decided to vilify, or those cast aside by community. I can’t help it: it’s an involuntary reaction triggered by my own experiences through life. Mock the despised at your peril.