MY maw used to jokingly refer to me as That Wee Guy who Lives Up the Stair as I used to spend an unbelievable amount of time in my room as a wee guy.

I just liked my own space and my own company.

I could watch films and play games in my room, if I was in the living room I’d have to watch EastEnders or something else I deemed to be beneath me, so why would I leave my perfect wee sanctuary that I’d tailored to my own needs and wants?

It became a bit of a running joke and my maw would call me that whenever I’d emerge from my room if my granny was down for a visit or something.

“Who’s that?!” my granny would shout in faux outrage as I skulked into the living room, pale and skinny.

“It’s just that wee guy who lives up the stair,” my maw would say and they’d laugh.

I felt like I was in that episode of The Simpsons where Bart discovers Marge and Homer have been keeping his secret twin brother, Hugo, up in the loft as they thought he was evil.

Then they’d maybe make a joke about how it was time for nine-year-old me to get a job and start contributing to the household rather than freeloading up the stair, descending only to raid the cupboards for crisps and biscuits or to bring down dirty plates and cups.

A troublesome squatter.

A child-sized house spider that made a mess was essentially what I was.

It’s a moniker I’ve found has, somehow, stuck with me throughout my life.

After briefly shaking it off for a few years as I grew a bit more confident as I got older and a bit more sociable, I overheard a neighbour refer to me as the very thing my maw had called me all those years before.

I had moved into a top flat with my girlfriend a couple of years ago and, after several consecutive weekends of having our pals up, I heard the guy in the flat below talking about me to the woman who lived across from him as I came home from the shops.

“Some amount of noise that wee guy up the stair makes, by the way,” I heard him say.

I almost fainted and went tumbling down the close.

It had happened again. I was doomed to be the wee guy who lives up the stair forever.

We eventually moved out as the rent was extortionate and the flat itself seemed to be made of a new kind of building material which amplified every sound I made to the point I was scared to do so much as fart in my own home lest I receive an angry chap at the door from a neighbour.

I resolved to never live up the stair from anyone ever again, hoping that my fortunes would change if I did that.

Now that my girlfriend and I have moved in with her parents for a bit, it’s happened again – I am that wee guy who lives up the stair once more.

I just want to be a courteous guest for the time we’re here and don’t want to be an imposition on anyone.

But it’s got me thinking if this name will ever leave me. Am I doomed to be the wee guy who lives up the stair forever?

Is this something my children will call me?

What if I emerge from my upstairs office while my children have their pals over or something, my eyes strained as they adjust to the light, wild hair hanging down to my waist and looking dishevelled from still writing the same novel for the last 20 years.

“Who’s that?!” their pal will shriek in terror.

“Just the wee guy who lives up the stair,” my child will say with a sigh.

“Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”

I’ll make a Pot Noodle in the kitchen before scuttling away back up into the darkness.

Perhaps in a previous life I was some kind of hermit.

A lone figure, retreating into the wilderness in search of solitude and the wisdom that comes with it.

Over and over again, I’ve been the wee guy up the stair in various guises stretching back in time forever.

Perhaps there’s some profound revelation waiting to be uncovered through me being like this.

What that revelation is or possibly could be, I have no idea.

No wisdom has come to me as yet though, only deep-seated anxieties about the state of the world and feeling like an absolute freak sometimes.

I need to break this cursed affliction and become a better version of myself.

Maybe I need to become the wee guy doon the stair instead.