Matt Haig

Sorry. Rant time. Just saw a viral post mocking Gen Z for missing work because of ‘anxiety’ when back in the day Millennials and Gen X would turn up to work after drinking three hours before. Won’t share it. But 50,000 likes. Wall to wall agreement in the comments. Haha Gen Z snowflakes. Haha. It riled me more than almost anything in weeks. Because I know both. Anxiety and hangovers. I had a hangover every day for years. During my Ibiza years I was still drunk when I went to work the next day and still had drugs in my system. I once went to work the day after I had ‘won’ a drinking contest with someone who ended in hospital so by the sad standards of the time I was hardcore. When I worked in dead end London jobs I had four pints followed by two Black Russians (vodka, Tia Maria, coke) every single night. The continual hangover was awful. But. It was nowhere near as bad as anxiety can be. When I fell into a state of pure capital A Anxiety I couldn’t leave the house let alone commute to work. Anxiety is a mind at war with itself so the loser is always you. A hangover is pain for which you know the cause. On an MRI it looks nothing like anxiety. Anxiety - the clinical work preventing kind - is far worse than the worst hangover. The internet needs to understand something called COGNITIVE HYPERALGESIA. A state where the mind amplifies pain and distress and discomfort when there is no known cause. What really fucks me off is that these posts enforce stigma and denial. Not because these fake tough guys truly believe that anxiety is nothing but because they are terrified of mental illness. Terrified of their own minds and of feeling. And glorify hangovers to stay glorifying their coping mechanism. A mechanism that, ironically, very often fails and drops you into a state of terror. There is nothing weaker than a tough guy. I have survived anxiety and hangovers and hangovers are literally nothing in comparison. Stop being a bootlicker to a broken world. Let the young and anxious have time off when they need it. They have the courage and wisdom to realise when they do. Happy Sunday.

Honoured to be on @ukesquire’s Better Men list 2026. But even more honoured they found the one picture of me wearing smart clothes.

🇹🇷 Turkish readers!!! 🇹🇷

The young need a community to live in and that takes the money you could get from the billions you governments are investing in winning an AI war which will doom them further by stealing their jobs and water down the line jeez

A happy blur of a week. Working and walking. Soundtracked by the new Fontaines album. And I know people worry that young men aren’t reading books anymore but if they are listening to Dopamine Chamber they are definitely reading because although someone says the lyrics aren’t as poetic as previously I would say they are better as they have shaken off the slight hint of sixth form poet to become cleaner and sharper and more prescient. It’s great to have a band with meaning as well as feeling. It’s music but also a book of the year.

Just looking at some trees and listening to music and loving this fragile non artificial existence like the cringey sentimental dickhead I am have a happy Saturday