Medium priority

In my opinion, I lack assertiveness. I'm always reminded of this when I log into my LoveFilm account. The basic idea is that you create a list of films that you'd like to rent and from that list they select titles to send you. You can control the order of dispatch to an extent by selecting whether the titles on your list are low, medium or high priority with medium being the default.

I first joined when they were called ScreenSelect and have been a member, on and off, for several years. Through all that time I never used the prioritising system. Every time I'd log on there would be a message reminding me that all my titles are medium priority but I never did anything about it. The reason? I felt guilty about doing so. My logic was this: when a new title is released, a lot of people want to see it at once. LoveFilm only have a certain amount of copies. So, if I mark it as high priority, and they actually take notice of my request and send it to me, that means someone else in the country is missing out. And it's all my fault. Unable to live with this, I just decide that I'll wait my turn and when they send it to me as a medium priority title that obviously means that all the people who wanted to see it in a hurry have done so. It's nuts, especially since in most other areas of life I'm extremely selfish, but I can't shake it.

But last week I did something reckless. I was looking at my list, which included Black Swan because I never got round to seeing it at the cinema, and I thought to myself I'd really like to see that. So can you guess what I did? That's right: I looked over both shoulders and clicked on the little radio button marked 'High Priority'. It's no guarantee of course; there would surely still be many people in front of me in the virtual queue. People who'd camped out for days, weeing in bottles and eating Ryvita from sandwich bags.

I logged into my account half an hour ago. In the top right hand corner they list the titles they have sent out. My subscription permits two discs at a time. The first disc they have posted me today is Fever Pitch, starring Colin Firth, released in 1997. That's fine; the rush for that one has probably died down. The second disc they've posted me is Black Swan. Shit! I feel like a kid who was just lobbing stones at the seagulls for a laugh and didn't really mean to hit one. Now there's blood and feathers everywhere. I'm grateful, don't get me wrong, and looking forward to watching it but I feel bad for the couple in Doncaster, or wherever, who have missed out because of my bloody-minded insistence that I must see it before the other titles on my list. Sandra and Paul - for those are probably their names - I'm very, very sorry.

If anyone works for LoveFilm and can reassure me that they have more than half a dozen copies of each disc, I'd be grateful. Otherwise I'll just end up renting Short Circuit and The Goonies to assuage my guilt.

Graham Nunn is 34 and single.