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.