Visibility Is Overrated

For some (known) reason, I hardly ever get approached by people when I’m out. The combination of my furrowed brow, unintentional frown and ‘hate you’ eyes generally seems to scare people off. I try not to do this but any deliberate effort to change my natural look results in unimaginable awkwardness.

Recently however, this seems to have changed. Now, I’m not bragging, not in the slightest. As the guys who have been coming up to me have been total, ‘wank while watching holocaust footage’ freaks. Monstrous would be an apt word. Guys that look as if they stumbled out of the Hell-mouth in Buffy. So, instead of this being a brag, it’s the opposite. I’ve clearly been batting above my weight in recent years and am being told by some ethereal dating force that I need to re-think what league I truly belong in.

This has all resulted in variously squirmy incidents where I’ve genuinely prayed for some sort of nuclear attack to serendipitously interrupt the horror. There was the guy who decided to tell me about his recent trip to a strip club and his surprise at how wide a vagina actually opens, then there was the guy who genuinely thought I was interested in his job as a flight attendant oh and then the guy who talked at me about how he worked for Cheryl Cole in a job to do with Cheryl Cole and how he met Cheryl Cole, oh and did he mention he worked for CHERYL FUCKING COLE.

My face, clearly unable to fully display my increasing repulsion, has soldiered through these occasions until the one moment I have now learnt to dread. The question which means I have to start lying my ass off, something that I not only suck at, but I also hate doing.

'Do you have a boyfriend?'

This has led me to create a new invisible other half who always, for some reason, is never anywhere to be seen when I'm out. I should have the guts to tell the truth and just say 'I don't but I'd still rather swallow a kettle than go home with you', but I always admire the confidence of people who have the balls to approach someone so I can't bring myself to be that honest and also that much of a douche.

Now, having pretended that I'm all coupled up, one would assume the attacker would then back off, tail between legs. But, no.

The first time I tried it was with the 'wide vagina' guy. A man who looked like a cross between a small-town lesbian and a lizard. After informing him of my fake relationship status, he then told me that he'd like to take both me and my boyfriend out for a drink just to 'be friends'. I then had to squirm out of giving him my number as I don't give it out to people I've just met (this rule is cancelled out when ugliness isn't directly involved) and also, when pushed, I said that my 'boyfriend' wouldn't approve.

The next time, the flight attendant then asked where this mystical being was and I chuckled knowingly and said he was at home. Why I chuckled I don't know. It suggested that he was perhaps bed-ridden or agoraphobic or something.

Then the other week, after making the statement, the recipient told me he didn't believe me. Whether this was down to my appalling lying skills or the fact that he didn't believe anyone would choose to be in a relationship with me was unclear. I kept insisting and he finally seemed to accept it, only to then ask 'But what if you didn't have a boyfriend, what would you think of me then?'

I panicked and unleashed a whole bucket-load of utter bullshit...

'Well you see, erm, the thing is that I just, I just love my boyfriend so much that I, erm, I just can't really see past him right now'

Despite the circumstances, I would have gladly accepted a knife in the chest for such a smug and sentimental retort. Instead, he just asked for a hug. I'm still trying to wash the residue off now.

So from all this, we can gather that my invisible boyfriend is a bit jealous, likes staying at home or is possibly restricted to just staying at home and is totally loved by me. It's not much to go on and next time, if someone asks, I might throw a wild card in there and casually, unnecessarily add in the fact that he loves going potholing or is cousins with Yvette Fielding or something.

I did consider how he could help me out in other situations. At work, my office is pretty much 95% coupled but unlike in, say Picture Perfect, pretending I am with someone wouldn't really do much for my career.

Then there's my family. One of the few, few good things about being a gay, other than the odd bout of sympathy, is that my extended family don't ever ask me about my love life. When it comes to Christmas or other occasions where people usually get asked if they are 'dating someone', I manage to escape probe-free. I think they'd rather see me as an asexual gay who is destined to live with cats named after actresses from the 1940s.

Although, I'm going home in a few weeks for my annual festive family thing and being the only single, I'm usually reserved the worst, most uncomfortable night's sleep. I'll probably be placed in the downstairs toilet with a bag of onions for a pillow. This year, I might tell them that my faux-beau is joining me and when he doesn't actually appear on the Saturday, I can tell them that I had totally forgot that he was agoraphobic so wouldn't be able to make it. By that time I would have already secured an actual, human bed.

As much as I deplore having to lie, this one is kind of a 'good will' lie. I don't think there's ever a need to be cruel to someone dumb enough to start a conversation with me in a bar, no matter how unimaginable their face might be. I even managed my way through the whole wide vagina conversation without a curse word. I think, until I actually man up and actually approach someone myself, I shouldn't judge those that do.

Now, I have to go, I'm going potholing with Yvette Fielding's cousin. (Did it work? Did the specific details help?).

Big Head, Small Brain

It's been a constant fear of mine for many years now that I'm actually a total idiot.

It has even been confirmed to me by others on quite a few occasions. Whether it's been dressed up as retard, tool, doofus, spazz or just plan idiot, I'm no stranger to the feeling of intellectual inferiority.

It sometimes feels like I missed out on a class where a whole heap of important things were explained to everyone. The ins and outs of various wars, political conflicts, geographical locations, medical terminology, you name it and they all know more about it than me.

I'm 25 now so I feel like I should have amassed a relatively strong knowledge of the world around me but I'm still desperately lacking. I'm losing the few shreds of information left of my university degree and instead my mind harvests anecdotes about the production of The Thing or the names of Jordan's kids. It's depressing.

This descent into total idiocy was highlighted earlier this year on a first date. It had been relatively successful for the most part; a walk in the park, a drink at a pub, a meal at an Italian etc. After we finished eating, we headed back to his place to watch TV (no, really) and encountered his housemate. A number of jokes had been made throughout about the 8-year age gap between the two of us. This made him 32 by the way, not 16. I was therefore, determined to show that maturity didn't have to be measured purely by age.

We had been chatting about the Italian restaurant and the fact that it was owned by a local businessman, who also owned a few other eateries. While talking to his housemate, she made a comment about Berlusconi. I responded by saying 'Is that the guy who owns those restaurants?', to which she replied 'No, he's the Prime Minister of Italy'. Also worth noting that she worked for the Foreign Office - great. We made it to a second date but it all sort of fizzled out rather quickly...

Now, of course I know that he is who he is but my stupid, date-ruining brain clearly doesn't have the speed or agility to work it out in time. I often wonder why I'm so poorly trained. What the fuck was I doing at school, other than getting hit in the head with footballs and re-arranging my locker to look busy at lunchtimes? Maybe I should go back or maybe I should have never left, like Screech or that paedophile who got arrested for pretending he was 16.

I'm sick of being caught in conversations where I spend the duration panicking about how I'm going to respond. As well as being borderline retarded, I'm also terribly traveled. When people start vocally masturbating about how 'like totally amazing' Thailand is, I have to pray that no one asks for my opinion. All I can offer is how I generally prefer green thai curry to red.

Is everyone else really that much smarter and more developed than I am? Or is everyone else living on the edge as well, hoping that they won't be found out? I have this terrible knack of assuming others are infinitely more well-rounded and adjusted than I am but what if I'm not the only one who thinks like that?

I think the solution might be for me to spend more time around dumb people. People dumber than me. People who refer to words with three syllables as 'long'. People who watch Most Haunted, without irony. People who would make me feel better about myself.

I could impress them with my historical knowledge (that I learnt from movies), tell them about the time I went to a museum or brag about the tens of books I own. Maybe I'm not the stupid one, everyone else is just too fucking smart for their own good.

To quote my favourite dead person ever Richard Yates...

"I like being "born yesterday," because it gives me a pretty good chance of being alive tomorrow, when everybody else is dead"

Aggressive-Passive

Most people in my life would probably not describe me as a particularly placid person. There are some days when it seems as if I'm raging against an imaginary machine. For example, last night I told the television to fuck off when it suddenly got too loud.

But there are times when I find myself a surprisingly weak-willed individual. This usually occurs in situations where I'm feeling rather uncomfortable. I know I've previously criticised people who blog about their haircut and I'm not going to start posting pictures of it or describing it in great detail but yesterday I went to get a haircut. It's a ritual that I absolutely abhor. Like making small talk in lifts or feigning any form of emotion over baby photos.

Any confidence I had before I enter the hairdresser's evaporates immediately once I step inside. I don't really have a great history with the place. There was that time I almost put my gum in the coat-stand, thinking it was a bin or the time, as a misguided 13-year-old, I brought in a picture of Ethan Hawke and asked my regular hairdresser to 'do that'. Her smirk still stings to this day.

All of this unease translates into me feeling rather paralysed by the time I've reached the chair. I usually begin with a weak 'It's just getting a bit long' while I play with my hair to illustrate this complicated point. I then follow whatever advice I'm given, no matter what my personal thoughts are. I simply don't know what to say or do so hope for the best.

The result is that I normally resemble a member of a late 90s boyband, and not in an attractive, boyish way but more like the 5th guy in the band, who no girl fancies. So, a thinner Joey Fatone then pretty much.

It also doesn't help that I go for the cheapest option out there. I end up in a place called Dare or Slash or Ego or something equally aggressive but non-specific as I just don't see the point in spending over £10 on something that is gonna grow back, almost instantaneously in my case.

It gets worse each time as I spend the duration looking down at the increasingly silver hairs that are coming from my head. It reminds me not only that I'm getting old but also that by this age I should have developed a more adult way of dealing with a fairly innocuous procedure. I frowned so much yesterday that my Eastern European 'stylist' kept asking me if I was okay, to an embarrassing extent.

With this new haircut, I decided to further my humiliation for the week by going to another place which turns me into a creature more passive than a Fritzl child...the gym.

I bored you months ago after I had just joined with a certain amount of vague hope that I would actually commit to a new life of activity and protein shakes. Predictably, not a lot has really come from it. I forget, until I get there, how teeth-pullingly dull the whole place is. Repeated bursts of that evil Cascada bitch drowning my surprisingly small ears in drivel also doesn't help.

Well anyway, I finally booked in my first, free training session and attended this morning. I nodded along to most of what was said as luckily this was just a consultation which meant the whole reliving high school P.E. nightmare is being reserved for next week. I've been informed that I need to eat 6 meals a day (not a problem) and consider taking up Yoga (a problem).

It's only Tuesday and I've already approached two potentially toxic events with relative ease. I may look like the ugliest member of A1 right now but I'm taking baby steps on the way to becoming a fully-formed, non-phobic regular person. Score.

Halle Berry Saved My Life

So, I actually got some paid work writing for The Guardian. For shizz.

My first piece went live today (and the commenters are already calling me a racist).

You can take a look HERE

The Worst Film We May Never See

Every once in a while, you happen upon the development of a film which begs one major, unshakeable question: why?

Why did anyone ever come up with this idea? Why did anyone then green-light this? Why did any self-respecting actor decide to say yes? Not since I read of Ron Howard's proposed Caché remake have I had such a profoundly unsettled feeling.

Then came Frankie and Alice.

Any lover of bad cinema as art will already know the name. As will any surviving Halle Berry completists, if in any sick, depraved part of the world they actually still exist. That's right, one-time Oscar winner turned Razzie mainstay Halle Berry is top-lining this one. She seems to be on some sort of self-destructive mission to wreck whatever career she used to have by starring in films like Catwoman or 'sexy' cyber-thriller Perfect Stranger. It's a shame, as even in her lowest moments, if you squint, you can still see some of the raw talent that lit up Monster's Ball.

Whether or not that will be visible in Frankie and Alice is questionable. Firstly, here is the official synopsis to whet your appetite:

A drama centered on a young woman with multiple personality disorder who struggles to remain her true self and not give in to her racist alter-personality.

You read that correctly. Halle Berry is playing a woman with multiple personalities, one of which is a racist. Doesn't this sound like some sort of Dave Chappelle sketch? Or at least the plotline of a raucous comedy, rather than a serious psychological drama.

What shocking events are to take place? Will we see Halle burning crosses on her parents’ lawn? Or having heated arguments with her reflection? The possibilities for unintentional comedy gold are endless. The entire exercise simply boggles the mind. Does Halle actually want the Academy to take her Oscar back? Who is this film being made for?

On paper the combination of Halle Berry and 'racist split personality' makes it sound like a tailor-made wet dream for those of us who proudly own Showgirls on DVD and have a stack of favourite lines, ready to recite ('What are these, watermelons? This is a stage, babe, it's not a patch').

With The Room mania currently seeping through the UK and Best Worst Movie gaining critical acclaim on the festival circuit, bad cinema is finally getting the unintentional respect it has long deserved. Because to create a truly bad film, a filmmaker must genuinely believe that he or she is creating a truly great film.

The signs look good for this one. A friend had seen a promo at Cannes and described Halle's performance as 'earnest'. A 'boob-slip' on set was all over the tabloids at the end of last year. It arrives from the writer of Save the Last Dance, a film where blunt racial stereotypes reigned supreme. Worryingly though, it is yet to possess a distributor either here or in the US.

For all of those people who re-watched Lindsay Lohan's performance as a one-armed, one-legged stripper in I Know Who Killed Me, consider yourself implored to write to your local council and get something done about this. You see, in years to come, Bad Movie Clubs will need new fodder to be mercilessly ripped apart. We can’t keep talking about brown rice and vegetables forever…

Why Do I Have a Blog Again?

I've been getting extremely lazy with this damn blog. My problem is that I take it a bit too seriously. I think that every post I write should be of some substance. Okay so I realise that I have previously written about my iPod and how much I hate everything about Renee Zellweger, but there was at least some vague point to it all.

One of the reasons I hate blogs is because they're so incredibly self-important. I need a haircut, I'm going to get a haircut, I had a haircut, what do you think of my haircut? NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR HAIRCUT etc.

So I've tried to wait until I've had something semi-interesting to talk about before I splurged all over this thing. But, this has meant that I never update as I'm constantly waiting for this rush of inspiration which may never happen.

I have so many half-written posts here that will probably never be complete. Like parts of my life that I never fully saw all the way through. Fuck, I was gonna be a criminologist for a while. Seriously. I even applied for a criminology degree. I've also been saying for the past 6 months or so that I'm gonna do some sort of 'looking after kids' in a non-Ian Huntley way sort of thing. But I'm still to get past the application form.

The point of all this rambling is that I really need to write more on this blog. Not that anyone will actually give a shit, but I should. Just to write more often. I don't write enough anymore.

Anyway, this is turning into one of those self-indulgent 'me, me, me' rants. I'm turning into the very reason why I hate Twitter. I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed. If anyone needs me, I'll be that guy with the bug eyes, waiting for inspiration, while drooling on the firmest pillow.

Get a Room (Preferably In a Burning Building)

Last night, on the bus home from town, I happened to sit behind a couple who were in love. How did I know this? Well, they were so in love that they wanted to let me and anyone with clear vision know about it. This meant that the journey was poisoned by an aggressively affectionate chain of events that caused almost unbearable levels of bile to travel into my mouth.

The guy, who for these purposes we will call 'Cunt', had his arm around his girlfriend, who for these purposes we will call 'Tumour', and was kissing her again and again and again and again and again, while moving his grubby little hand all over her. Tumour was faux-resisting but Cunt was persistent.

For most of it, my ears were protected from the chaos but out of some sort of misplaced curiosity, I decided to press pause for a brief moment. I quickly regretted my decision when I heard the ear-smashing crime of 'baby voices' being sickeningly used. I'm not sure if my ears will ever forgive me.

It was so horrendously over-emphasised that I was close to saying something. But, what exactly would I have said and what grounds would I have to make them stop?

I've always had 'strong feelings' on public displays of affection, aka PDAs. I don't have any problem with the concept, more the variously devious ways in which it can be abused. There's nothing worse than being on the tube next to a couple decorating their faces with saliva. I guess love is blind. And obnoxious.

I guess it's about a lack of awareness for what is and isn't acceptable in public. Some couples think that by putting on a live sex show for all to see, they're really showing how truly in love they are and how we should all be eternally jealous for not being as happy as them. You can almost feel one of them checking for an audience, midway through a wet kiss.

I've been in situations before with previous exes who have wanted to indulge in PDAs and my reaction has been varied. See, the thing with fags and PDAs is that they don't just do it because it's natural and they want to. Sometimes they do it to 'prove a point'; to show everyone just how comfortable they are with being gay. That's one type of PDA I will flat-out refuse to indulge in. I'm not determined to 'prove a point' when I'm with someone. I'm not Harvey Milk.

Or there's another type I'm not a fan of; the 'trophy wife' PDA. An ex was once being more affectionate than usual in public and I asked what was up. He told me that he 'wanted everyone to know I was with him', at which point I slid away and revelled in my own space.

To me, a PDA should be instinctive and unplanned, without any ulterior motive. The less it relates to the person you're being affectionate towards, the more pointless it becomes.

I'm sure I just sound like an awful Scrooge and it's true that some days I genuinely enjoy walking through couples who are holding hands but I just think that people should be allowed to travel and live in safety. Many people confuse graphic displays of affection as sure signs that they are really, really in love.

It's all about the little things. The ones that just happen, without thinking. It's not about the ass-grabbing, breast-caressing live porn films. Those simply display insecurity. A worry that without the constant, visible touching and kissing any signs of romance might die. At a recent friend's wedding, the least believable couple was also the most affectionate and inevitably the most alienated one also. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton anyone?

While it might not be acceptable for me to say to couples like Cunt and Tumour to keep their tongues in their mouths, I can at least rest in the knowledge that things probably aren't as rosey as they seem, or won't be down the line.

It's partly my fault for being such a people-watcher. I find the general public equally fascinating and disgusting. Maybe no one else noticed Cunt and Tumour or maybe some misguided tween looked over and went 'awwww', confusing graphic heavy petting with romance.

As it stands, until they develop earphones for the eyes, eyephones if you will, these situations will persist. Or maybe I should just mind my own fucking business and stop casually staring at the constant, fiery plane wreck that is other people.

Puppy Love Lockdown

When I was 6, I got married to a girl named Molly. The ceremony took place in the playground, next to the woods where, years later, kiss chase would become the more obvious way to spend the lunch-hour.

Sadly, it was never meant to be. Around the same time that my parents got a divorce, so did hers and Molly moved away to the big city and our marriage began to feel the strain. From then on, it consisted purely of fraught small talk at the odd birthday party and before we knew it, we had become just another statistic.

My next memorable relationship was with a girl named Alexis. Alexis was mute to everyone but me, which gave me a fantastic feeling of power and I flaunted it whenever possible. No-one knew Alexis like I did. I was the only one who really knew what her favourite colour was. But alas, it didn’t last. Dating a selective mute makes dinner parties a struggle.

I hadn’t thought about Molly or Alexis for a long time. The only reason they dropped back into my memory was because of something my little brother had said recently. He’s 10 and is turning into quite the womaniser. He had recently told me about ‘dumping’ his most recent girlfriend ‘because he felt like it’. All of this said with a casual shrug of the shoulders.

He had then gone to a birthday party recently and upon entering, grimaced and muttered to my father, ‘Oh God, my ex is here’. Now it’s an understandably tough situation when you arrive at a party and see that your ex is also in attendance but it’s not one that you typically expect to arise when you’re in your first decade. I can just imagine the tension that then pervaded throughout the party that day.

‘I saw you with a new girl by the climbing frame’ or ‘You still have my copy of A Bug’s Life and I NEED it back’ etc.

It frightens me that the word ex and the concept that comes with it is even in my brother's head. Maybe date-speak is more commonplace these days with kids. I can guarantee (divorcee jokes aside) that I was unaware of such complications at the age of 10. I was too busy wearing waistcoats and making my own radio shows.

I'm rather old-fashioned when it comes to what kids should and shouldn't be aware of. Being a kid for as long as possible is paramount in my mind. I'm not talking about being breastfed until 11 or wetting the bed at an age where you can wash your own sheets but just avoiding growing up too fast. Avoiding all the shit that inevitably pours down when you start caring about the way you look and what people think of you.

Although maybe all of this might be a good thing. Maybe I was too much of a kid for too long. My little brother is already more romantically experienced than I was at the age of 18. Maybe this means that when he does start dating proper actual women, he'll be a pro.

I, on the other hand, spent my middle and high school days in the wilderness. As puberty kicked in and I lost the ability to walk 5 metres without tripping over my own shoe, the brief flings of my younger years started to dry out.

In middle school, I spent most school discos awkwardly shuffling from side-to-side and then spending the duration of the 'slow dance' eating strawberry laces with the fat girls as I waited for my mum to pick me up.

Things went from bad to worse in high school. In the 5 years I was there, I got asked out just one time. I'd come from a different area so I carried a certain 'mystery' in the initial stages. This mystery led to me spending many a lunchtime huddled, alone, over a notepad in a classroom, willing the time to pass quicker.

It did also cause some romance. I was approached by a questionable girl from my class who told me that her friend wanted to go out with me. A friend who I later discovered to have the nickname 'Thirsty Cunt' - no kidding. I panicked and said I was too busy with my homework. Even at the age of 13 I was putting my career first; an admirable trait, even if TC didn't quite see it the same way at the time...

All of this meant that when dating finally did begin, I was hopelessly inexperienced. All of the mistakes and heartaches you're supposed to go through as a teenager, I encountered much later. I don't regret it though. It allowed me to spend my high school years relatively untroubled by the problems which plagued many of my classmates. I wasn't worried about anyone calling or not calling or whether I was really shit at kissing, I just pleaded ignorance.

It also meant that I avoided the fake girlfriendery which many homos go through. I didn't break anyone's heart or cause some girl to forever think she turned a man gay. Sure, I made out with enough and, in one head-smashingly embarrassing moment, turned down a bizarre bathroom threesome with two American girls, but I never made it all the way.

From my brother's nonchalant attitude towards 'dating' and the opposite sex, I'm pretty positive that when it really starts to matter, he'll possess all of the cool dating know-how that I didn't learn until much later. He'll be spending his high school years making a list of all the girls he's dated, rather than making a list of all the films he owns.

Anyway, maybe I'm just bitter because I was a 6-year-old divorcee...

Anatomy of a Trailer: Couples Retreat

1. If I have to watch another movie where Vince Vaughn confuses loud rambling for being funny, I'm going to drown every single person named Vince in the entire world just to prove a point. Four Christmasses wounded me. Deep.

2. How fat is Jon Favreau? Wasn't there a time when he was a legitimate love interest? Now he looks like if he laid on top of Kristin Davis he would literally crush her ribs.

3. Any film where someone winks and a sound effect occurs, I know that we can never be friends.

4. Films such as this highlight how sexist Hollywood is. Would the female equivalent of Faizon Love (aka Monique) or Jon Favreau (aka Roseanne Barr) ever be cast in this film?

5. Jason Bateman needs to develop better script reading skills fast. Oh no hang on, his next project sounds like a winner. He's starring in a film where Jennifer Aniston impregnates herself with a turkey baster. Great, sorted.

6. I like Malin Akerman but she is seriously pushing the limits of our friendship. If she doesn't end the film by setting fire to every other character then I'm deleting her from my Facebook.

7. Vince Vaughn gets into a dangerous situation with some sharks and survives. Stupid fucking sharks.

8. I always assumed that Kristin Davis spent her non-Sex and the City months asleep or cryogenically frozen but this film proves me totally wrong.

9. There is something so asexual about Kristin Bell. Sure, she's cute but can you even imagine her having a vagina?

10. Oh look, a sleazy, foreign yoga instructor named Fabio who makes overtly sexual gestures towards the women AND men! Who the fuck finds this kind of shit funny? I want names. I want names and addresses now.

Look, Watch! I'm Mourning!

This week saw the death of Michael Jackson and with it, one of the ugliest forms of participation sports began to rear its malformed head: public grieving.

It's always struck me as a bizarre practice. When a celebrity dies, one with a mass appeal, ordinary, seemingly sane members of the population turn into irrational fools. Crying on the news, lighting candles in their windows, posting over-emotional Facebook status updates and generally making me seriously consider emigrating and never coming back.

I just fail to understand how you could feel such grief for someone you have never met. I'm pretty sure a lot of these MJ mourners have poured out more emotion over his death than they have for real-life family members or friends who've died.

In my lifetime, I first remember this form of mass hysteria when I was 13 and Diana died. Admittedly it was a tragic event but the ensuing "Great British" reaction was one of the most embarrassing periods of recent national history.

From the radio stations not playing anything but classical music to the public weeping to the constant, mind-crushing news coverage it was a sad time for all the wrong reasons. Around the same time, Mother Theresa also lost her life but received about one hundredth of the attention. But then she didn't dance with John Travolta at the White House...

It's at times like then and now that I feel incredibly alienated from people as a whole. It's not that I'm denying the tragedy of death at all but I just don't feel linked enough to someone I have only ever encountered via the television to feel much emotion.

Along with Madame Tussauds and autographs, it's a side of celebrity culture that I have always failed to understand. I think it's another example of people desperately trying to cling to something they're not really a part of. By grieving for Michael Jackson and by telling EVERYONE about it via Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, messages in bottles, you're implying that you're part of this special community. Membership to this community puts you one step closer to the celebrity you're idolising, whether they be dead or alive.

If it was real grief of course, it wouldn't be so disgustingly public. It's this very reason why I despise RIP Facebook groups for classmates/colleagues/family members who have died. If I died and someone created a Facebook page to commemorate me, I would haunt them severely. Like proper Poltergeist haunting, none of that Truly Madly Deeply shit.

Another reason for this sort of insanity is linked to mortality in general. When Jade, Peasant Princess, died a few months back, people were scared by how young she was when she died. They projected their fears of their own death onto her and this whipped itself up into a frenzy of black-topped OK! covers and yet more public weeping.

This whole, horrible form of group grief will only worsen with time. The closer people get to their idols, by following their Twitter feed and pretending they have some sort of interaction with them, the more they can fool themselves into thinking they're allowed to wear black for a week when they die. I'm not denying that a lot of these people do feel genuine sadness when someone like Michael Jackson dies. I'm just worried by the frightening lack of perspective this might suggest.

Maybe I'm just a heartless bastard? I was labelled 'Tin Man' by an ex before. But personally I think real, genuine grief should be private and should also have some sort of basis in reality. To play me out here are some sample 'Tweets' on MJ's death:

RIP Michael Jackson never cried for someone as much as I have for you.

Why is it Pres. Obama is not making a statement over the death of Michael Jackson?

Dedicated my last two evenings to remembering michael jackson

cant sleep still thinkin bout mj.....

he reached across space and time, across genres and cultures, upward, outwards, beyond...a star on earth, now a star in heaven...RIP MJ x

MJ I MISS U MORE TODAY,THAN YESTERDAY....

Oh and just to point out these were all from the last 4 minutes...

Being Picked First at Sports

With the major highlights of my sporting life being the 'darts/dance' confusion and the time I won the silver medal for fast-walking at the age of 12, my expectations remain low for any future opportunities of redemption.

But this weekend, I set in motion a chain of events that will probably lead to me becoming one of the major British hopes at the 2012 Olympics. How did I do this? Well, I joined the gym.

I've joined the gym before and had brief bouts of obsession with it. Extremely brief. It's always been sort of intimidating to me. There are so many torturous ways to humiliate myself within a gym. Falling over on the treadmill, dropping a medicine ball in one's face, using a machine so poorly that a member of staff has to come over and 'teach' you how to use it...I've done it all.

But anyone who knows me will know of my severe phobia of obesity. I seriously come out in hives by the very sight of Beth Ditto. So even though I am still lanky, I'm keen to combat my diet of beer and biscuits by working out.

I think it's an age thing. I'm worried that everything will start turning to shit after I turn 25 next month. With 6 weeks or so until that dreaded day, I knew that I needed to start doing something. So, I headed along to my local gym yesterday wearing my new £5 sweat-pants and ready for whatever soul-crushing embarrassment might face me this time.

On the walk there I couldn't decide whether I wanted to say 'I'd like to join' or 'I'd like to sign up' so of course my stupid, stupid mouth gave some sort of bizarre mix of the two as I reached the reception. I was greeted by a look of bewilderment and my new start had reached its first hurdle.

I was seated and told I could get three personal trainer sessions for £35 with my membership. If I attended all three, they would give me the money back. I was convinced that they would make the first session so wrist-slittingly cruel that I would be a fool to attend any more. But I needed to stop viewing the gym as an extension of high school. Did any of it really matter anymore? Wasn't I over this?

I signed up and started right away on the treadmill. I had the horrible misfortune of seeing my reflection the entire time which allowed me to fearfully dissect every possible aspect of my running style. Ben, your left leg is careering wildly to the side. Ben, your arms are moving like those of a puppet. Ben, your face is a sweaty mess.

One of my main problems with the gym is that I find it all so incredibly dull. There doesn't seem to be much point to it at times. I generally hate gym culture. People bragging about how many bench presses they've done (that's a thing, right?) or flexing in the mirror while emitting a loud growl. Dull.

After my 'session' I had of course forgotten to bring another t-shirt or a towel so I had to leave, looking grotesquely perspired. Plus the sheer trauma my legs had been through meant that I had to walk down the stairs, looking like I had been raped. I went to book in my first personal trainer session even though my brain was telling me this would only lead to wrong things.

A typically buff and blandly attractive personal trainer tried to book me in but was unable to work the computer. He called off for help and a small, ginger, bespectacled, out of shape guy came. He then told me that instead, he would be my trainer.

This was perfect. I was totally fine with this. My feelings of inadequacy would be wildly improved with this one.

I do have this fear still that I will go in next weekend and make such an utter twat of myself in this one hour session that every time I go in after, there will be chuckling heard from reception. Then my 'trainer' will say 'Oh yeah that's the weird one who couldn't lift a pencil' and I will never return again.

But fuck it. I'm gonna try this time. I'm even considering joining the softball team at work just to really show everyone (myself) that I can do it. The only thing that is preventing me from taking part is my crippling inability to play a game without turning into the most competitive person in the world.

This is going to be the new me. The sporty, active guy who growls in front of mirrors. Fuck, it's 12:30 and I was supposed to go to the gym this morning...

Matthew McConaughey and His Stupid Smug Face

While watching the trailer for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, an inane new romantic comedy spin on A Christmas Carol, I was struck for the umpteenth time by how much I wanted to punch Matthew McConaughey in his stupid smug face.

It's an urge which has existed within me for quite some time now. Having moved on from his attempts to be like an actor and stuff, McConaughey decided to regurgitate the same tired, tanned persona in a series of films aimed towards women who drink Lambrini and actually listen to Ronan Keating without throwing up.

These films usually start with McConaughey playing an attractive, successful, attractive, slick, attractive Lothario who women not only adore but would gladly throw themselves under trains just to catch him in the buff. He is then confronted by a vivacious, but not very attractive, woman who changes him etc.

For McConaughey, acting seems to be a public form of masturbation where he reaffirms to audiences that yes he is attractive and yes women do want him. When confronted with a new script, his agent must insist that at least 5 people in every scene comment on how hard his stomach is or how well-developed his calf muscles are. To those of us who are immune to his questionable charms, it's all incredibly tiresome.

This formula seems to be alive and well in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a film aggressively plastered over bus-sides in London. This means a simple walk to Tesco can become clouded by a gruesome daydream where I giddily extract every single one of McConaughey's teeth before drowning him.

In the trailer we see him dump three women via a webcam while a new squeeze is already in his apartment. See women are clearly vacant fuckwits who choose sex with an orange, preening Ken doll over possessing any dignity or self-worth. Good job there's a vivacious woman around the corner to sort that womaniser out...

What he desperately needs is a film where he doesn't play the man about town and doesn't feel the need to take his shirt off at every available opportunity. He needs to play a horribly disfigured creep that lives under a bridge and eats his own feces in front of disgusted passers-by. He needs to shave his hair off and replace it with pipe cleaners. He needs to pile on the pounds and tattoo himself with nonsensical Looney Tunes characters.

It could still be a romantic comedy. He could fall in love with a shoe or a tree or a magazine. Maybe then, maybe after the grin had finally disappeared, I would stop feeling the need to punch his face. Or, even better, the finale of the movie could be me repeatedly thumping him for every rom-com flavoured atrocity he has ever committed (the very thought of Failure to Launch makes me worry that the violence may never ever end).

So Matthew McConaughey's agent I implore you to search scripts such as this out. Your target audience of Baileys-drinking women won't love him as much when he starts to age. But for those who like to see some grit and genuine ugliness, hobo him up and force-feed him some cakes. We'll stick around once the tan has faded.

Worst Date Topics 2

My Accusers

My criminal record is fairly beige. By that I mean that I don't have one, despite a brief and wholly unoriginal foray into stealing road signs when under the influence back at University.

I therefore generally expect the same from those around me. I don't tend to hang around in crack dens or forge meaningful penpal relationships with convicted killers so expect a uniformity of good behaviour from my friends. This rule also applies when enduring a first date with a newbie.

A while back, I went on a date with a seemingly normal, albeit slightly irritating, guy who didn't seem to show any signs of a criminal past. He didn't carry around the carcass of a recently slaughtered kitten and neither did he offer me heroin at any point in the evening.

It was a pretty uneventful date. He was a nice enough guy but had the habit of speaking as if he were scripting some piss-poor ITV documentary about the decaying state of modern society (e.g. 'We're living in an increasingly fast society so these days people want everything fast. Fast food, fast news and even fast relationships...yawn).

Oh and plus he wore an earring.

Anyway it wasn't awful enough for me to totally hate him plus I wasn't sober enough to not end the date with a brief, unsatisfactory kiss goodnight.

The day after, he invited me to go away with him and his friends to Brighton for the weekend. Now I'm not known for my slow pace when it comes to this sort of thing but even this was deemed as too fast in my books. Friends, weekend away, already? Really?

I politely declined and it wasn't until a month or so later that I agreed to go on a second date. It was a mistake. All of the things which had annoyed me before were amplified this time. The general, unnecessary comments on 'current affairs' ('I just think the media doesn't always show us the full picture at times') or the weird transatlantic accent that made him sound like Mark Ronson's even more obnoxious younger brother. It was all wrong.

The date ended luckily, as at one point I feared it never would, and a request for a third followed soon after. I sent a polite, if slightly wimpish, 'I don't think so' sort of text back. What I received in return was a bizarre 7-message long diatribe that I sadly deleted. I can therefore only remember portions.

It was fairly insane, which is the main thing you need to know. There were lots of badly worded Hallmark statements about how important love and trust was in this day and age and other hugely unwarranted remarks about disappointment and expectations (after 2 bad dates!).

But then things got really weird.

He started to say that he wasn't on his best lately so feared I hadn't seen the full picture. The reason for this was down to the crime he had been falsely accused of. He spoke of it in such an off-hand manner. As if he might have forgotten to wear his watch one day and blamed it on, oh you know, that crime he was falsely accused of.

He went on to say about how his life had been disrupted by the 'accusers' who had plagued him of late. My mind was obviously racing at the possibilities. He didn't go into any description of what the crime actually was which was infuriating.

Intending to ignore the sheer insanity of the text novel he had sent I couldn't resist the chance to find out more.

I believe I texted something back as plain and lazy as 'what crime?' but he sent back another diatribe, refusing to go into description.

What had I kissed? A paedophile? A rapist? A child murderer? A zoophile?

If there were a group of accusers it must mean he had done it more than once or done it to a group of people. All of these questions only served to frustrate me even more. How dare he dangle something as tantalising as this in front of me and then refuse to divulge the juicy bits?

Anyway, I'd not thought of him for a while until one day, while walking down Tottenham Court Road I heard my name called. He was standing behind me, eating a pizza slice. I only mention this fact as a clump of said slice was stuck to his teeth for the entire conversation, making it hard for me to concentrate on anything but that.

We shared a short, inane catch-up which was only cut short by me semi-pleading for him to let me go to whatever plans I had made. It happened once more, a while after. He was moonlighting at a bar and we bumped into each other outside. He suggested we go for a drink at another time and a part of me, the horribly curious part that once stuck a button up my nose as a child to see if it would fit, wanted desperately to say yes.

If we started dating for real I could finally broach the subject with relative ease. Christ, I could even ransack his flat for proof. But I declined the offer. I also physically restrained myself from shouting 'But what did you do??' as he walked away.

I'll never know what the crime was or even if he got away with it. If you're reading this possible criminal, please just leave a comment with some details. They allow some Internet access in prison these days right?

Anatomy of a Trailer: All About Steve

1. Sandra Bullock plays a crossword puzzle constructor. Officially the least believable job in movies since Sarah Jessica Parker played a 'woman who gets men to move out of their parents homes' in Failure to Launch.

2. Appears to promote a terrible lesson. If you go on a date with someone and they don't like you, follow them across the country and pester them until they change their mind, possibly out of exhaustion.

3. Sandra Bullock is like totally quirky. This translates into snorting when she laughs and carrying an umbrella around like all the time. In real life, eccentrics don't look like her. They look like Rose West.

4. Oh haha All About Steve, haha it sounds like haha All About Eve haha. Hilarious. Totally and utterly nonsensical but still hilarious.

5. Bradley Cooper romanticises her insanity by saying 'she sees things that other people don't' - fuck, I wish this movie had been set in a period where women like that were burnt at the stake.

6. When a movie tells you it's coming out in March and it's already April and it hasn't come out, well something is ermmm, wrong...

7. 'From the producer of Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice' - wow, so the same person helped fund all of these movies. That must mean they have so much in common.

8. Poor Thomas Haden Church. He's like that sad old dog that's given up on life and just placidly lets you do whatever you want to him. He clearly knows better but has lost the will to fight anymore. I bet in-between takes, all he did was weep.

9. It's set with the backdrop of a hurricane because like Sandra B is like a total crazy force of nature and ermm hang on a minute...

10. Struggling to end your trailer? Why not get Sandra Bullock to fall into a mine? Oh and don't forget to leave out the following scene where her limp, bloodied and broken body is stretchered out, screaming for help.

Going Up To People In Bars

Having reached the middling age of 24, I've managed to feign a slight air of confidence in certain social situations. Even if this has resulted in just talking louder and making deliberately obnoxious statements for effect, it's still a far cry from my younger years.

Because in reality, I'm painfully awkward. My greasy curtained hair and spotty face which both plagued my youth were indicative of my social stature.

This is most apparent in the 'bar' situation. Surrounded by strangers and influenced by alcohol, I'm a barrel of nerves and mixed up words. With my friends I'm comfortable but when it comes to breaking down the wall to let others in, I falter.

You know those people who just befriend randoms? You'll ask them how they met their new friend and they'll say 'oh we just met one night out!' and they'll even go out by themselves, ending up with a whole new group of mates. I'm not one of those people.

The only time I'll willingly talk to a stranger in a bar is if they're sitting on my jacket. Maybe. This means that meeting new people, including potential future break-ups, is a challenge for me.

How do you start a conversation with a stranger? Anything I ever think of would make me seem like a possible serial killer. In my life, I have only ever employed one chat-up line. It was back in 2005. In New York. To a girl.

It ranks as one of the most depressingly awful lines ever to have left my mouth. A fellow nominee is me, at the age of 9, asking my Mum if she had still rented Housesitter mere minutes after she told us our Grandmother had died. That one gives me shivers still to this day.

So imagine if an incredibly drunk faux-straight guy came up to you in a New York bar, saying the following:

'Have you ever kissed a British guy? Do you wanna?'

What would you do? Other than projectile vomit in his stupid, cocky face? If you're a drunk college girl you'll annoyingly giggle and then kiss him which only serves to encourage his pathetic over-reliance on his accent overseas.

Quite what took over me that night, other than extreme amounts of alcohol, is unknown. My one moment in the spotlight is a fine reminder of why me, words and any form of spontaneous seduction are all uncomfortable bedfellows.

In recent weeks, a friend and I have tried to overcome our lack of natural confidence in bar situations by trying to go 'on the pull' (cue gagging sounds). It was more of an attempt to talk to people when out, other than the bar staff, and be more open to the idea of meeting someone new.

We met with mixed results to say the least. I found that while I was still unable to approach people of course, the ones who actually came and approached me proved that I wasn't really missing out on a great deal.

There was the 'jacket guy' whose entire shtick revolved around my jacket. Is that jacket made of leather? (It was paper-thin nylon) Can you wear that jacket inside-out? (No, you couldn't) My answers replicated the exasperation his bizarre line of questioning created within me.

Then there was the 'coke guy' who seemed unable to talk about anything other than cocaine. Do you have any coke? Do you know where I can get some coke? Do you wanna share some coke? I assured him that he was asking the wrong person. But on a separate note, why do people always approach me for drugs? I'm always the worst person to ask. I might have a spare paracetamol but that's it.

Anyway, all of this proved two things to me. The first was that I'm no more boring than any of these enigmatic 'other people' I romanticise from afar. The second was that while I'm not making much of an effort to get to know them, maybe I'm not missing out on too much.

These days, do people really meet in bars anymore? Excluding people who go out, looking to wake up to someone the day after. I don't think I know anyone who met their significant other at a bar anyway. It's tiring. I'd rather go out and drink and go home early and eat leftovers, than talk about how many siblings I have and what I'd really like to be doing with my life.

It reminds me of the 30 Rock episode where Liz and Jenna go to a club. A guy attempts to make a move on Liz but she's totally unaware.

'I think that guy wanted to buy you a drink'

'But I already have a drink. Do you think he'd buy me some mozzarella sticks instead?'

People always say that you find love when you'll least expect it, which I've always found to be a face-smashingly vague comment. If it's true then I shouldn't worry too much about talking to guys in bars, a predictable place if ever there were one. I should spend more time talking to guys doing their recycling or cleaning dog shit off the street. No one'll see it coming then.