I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR MY FIRST CRUSH

I FIRST read Pride and Prejudice when I was 12. It was my mother’s favourite book and the heroine was called Elizabeth, so my expectations were pretty high. As it turned out, I immediately related to it. That might seem odd, given that the plot revolves around women getting married and I had yet to hit puberty. But what really struck a chord with me was Lizzy Bennet’s outsider status.

She was not quite rich enough to belong to the Bingley sisters’ snobbish coterie and not quite accomplished enough to be considered truly eligible.

When Darcy first lays eyes on her, he snubs her.

I related to this because, some years previously, my parents had moved to Northern Ireland.

At the age of four, I found myself transplanted from Surrey to Londonderry, where IRA bomb scares and a heavy army presence were daily realities. I spoke with a posh English accent and stood out from the beginning.

By the time I got to secondary school, I had become an observer: someone who always preferred watching to speaking.

Like me, Lizzy Bennet understood the importance of being accepted while railing against the need for it to be so. Like me, she observed from the sidelines, noting the smallest nuances of behaviour.

And also like me, Lizzy Bennet was ignored by all the most handsome boys at the party.

I vividly remember finding out that Jim Shannon, the most handsome boy in my year on whom I had an embarrassingly unrequited crush, had said that he would fancy me if only I weren’t English.

It didn’t help that I was also a massive geek: I had grown up in the middle of the countryside reading Noel Streatfeild books and labouring under the misapprehension that corduroy trousers were cool. I didn’t know the rules.

My adolescence was spent trying to fit in and always falling short.

When, eventually, I got my first serious boyfriend at the age of 19, I was so grateful I tried to be endlessly perfect. I spent the rest of my 20s in a series of monogamous relationships, always attempting to be the girlfriend I imagined my other half wanted so that I wouldn’t be alone and feel snubbed again.

Mr Darcy ultimately saw the error of his ways. It took me longer to see the error of mine: that instead of discovering who I was, my desire to belong meant that I was constantly moulding myself around what I thought others wanted from me.

These days, I’m still an observer — all writers are — but I’m happy with that. As Lizzy Bennet knew only too well, sometimes it’s more interesting watching the party than pretending you’re having fun while in it.

ParaDiSe city by elizabeth Day is out now, £16.99 published by Bloomsbury.