The other day I potentially put myself in great danger simply to avoid making someone else feel uncomfortable.

That might sound downright stupid but I have already found one ally in the newsroom who admits she too is unable to stop herself doing things the polite way rather than the "right" way.

Minor offences include quietly moaning about your food to your dining partner then smiling sweetly and telling the waiter "yes, everything's perfect" ; or saying you love your new haircut then crying all the way home and buying a hat en-route.

It's not that we're dishonest, it's just that we enjoy confron-tation about as much as Pete Doherty enjoys a good wash.

However on this occasion my crime of courtesy was more serious.

A man came to the house claiming he had something to do with our milk delivery, and I let him in, despite being on my own and without asking for ID.

I even closed the door behind him, left him alone in the kitchen while I ran upstairs to fetch my purse, then wrote him a cheque addressed to a name I'd never heard of rather than a business name.

I'm surprised I didn't just hand him a key, show him where I hide my valuables and tell him to come back later when there would be no-one home.

Embarrassed

Afterwards I broke out in a cold sweat worrying whether he really had been from the dairy or was actually a robber sizing up whether we had anything worth nicking – or even worse, if he'd been a nutter who hoped to chop me up and eat my liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.

All this because I felt too embarrassed to make him wait on the doorstep.

I'm the kind of warm-hearted mug who holds a shop door open for an old biddy then ends up standing there for my entire lunch break while half of Leeds passes through without even noticing me, never mind thanking me.

Sometimes I even say sorry when someone stands on MY feet. What's wrong with me?

Obviously my parents must have gone wrong somewhere with etiquette education if I'd rather risk being fed to my own cats than be thought of as rude.

Mind you, it's quite a British thing – all that stiff upper lip stuff and being told as a child, "don't make a scene".

After reading a bit of psychobabble on the subject it seems I "take too much account of the other person's rights, at the expense of my rights to express ideas or influence events".

Crikey – I sound about as empowered as Mavis in Corrie.

But maybe it's a more deep-rooted character flaw – at least that would be more interesting than being nice but weak.

Analysing myself, I realise I often bite my tongue when a friend offends me or is just plain wrong about something.

I had thought this was because I didn't want to hurt her feelings but maybe it's more sinister and selfish.

Perhaps I can't bear to upset her because I'm scared it will make her like me less.

Several hours of online head-shrinking later I've discovered I "need to unlock the door of my prison of passivity" instead of hiding my true feelings just to avoid conflict.

My friend has just signed up for an "assertiveness at work" course, which sounds perfect for me.

I'm just not sure I dare ask for a place on it.


Not the gingerbread man he used to be


I ADMIT I have a sweet tooth – ok, a mouthful of sweet teeth.

And while like most women I'm on a constant diet, obviously I'm allowed the odd treat.

But rather than go the whole hog with a chocolate éclair or custard doughnut I prefer a good old-fashioned gingerbread man.

I might even go so far as to call myself a gingerbread man connoisseur – if that didn't sound so tragically uncool.

So I'm upset I no longer get as much man for my 35p these days in a particular very well-known bakery.

They've changed shape and are now so short and stumpy they make Jimmy Krankie look leggy.

At first I thought it was a one-off bad batch that had shrunk in the heat or something equally ridiculous.

But after consuming several more from various outlets – all in the name of research – it seems the shrunken men are here to stay.

Crazy

If it's some kind of crazy bid to be more politically correct they need to start making all shapes and sizes, and get a few gingerbread women thrown in too.

Or did some money-saving genius come up with the idea that by downsizing and dressing them with only two Smartie buttons instead of three they could save themselves a fortune?

Maybe they will argue that customers still get the same quantity of gingerbread for their money – it's just differently distributed for a more realistic reflection of modern man's more squat, tubby physique.

I hope someone out there can give me some answers.

Otherwise I might have to start making my own rival range with lengthier limbs.

I'd call them Leigh's long-legged Loiners.