Offensively un-fuckable
At 18, I popped my jazz shoes in a knotted handkerchief and set off to drama school in London, where the streets were paved with Elaine Paige, or so I’d been led to believe. The college I went to was then and is now, one of the most respected musical theatre schools in the country.
It was a Friday evening after a long week of relentlessly singing medleys from Les Mis while staring wistfully into middle distance. I’d stuck to my diet for a full fortnight and was ready to have a night off. Back then a weight loss regime for me meant almost total starvation and as a result, the shape of my body and face could alter quickly - in dance clobber the change was easily spotted. I can’t remember what I wore that night. I can’t remember whose party it was. But I remember the room, I remember what he said, I remember how it made me feel. I must have wandered round a few downstairs rooms saying hello before I drifted into the main living area. A popular lad with a gold chain and serial-killer-glasses took a deliberate pull on his cig then removed it, clenched between yellowing finger and thumb. He studied me, as if he were appraising a second hand Vauxhall. Nodding to himself he hollered across the room in a gravelly rasp,
“You’re not looking bad. Have you lost weight?”
Though I found him about as appetising as a slice of shit pie, I remember in that moment a physical sensation of warmth. Maybe I existed as a pretty girl to popular boys like them. He took another hard draw on his cig and continued,
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re still a fat hog beast from hell. I wouldn’t go near it with a barge pole. But you’ve definitely shifted some blubber”
Just for a moment there was silence in the room. Then laughter. I wonder how many laughed at the shock of his cruelty, or out of their own desire to fit in. I remember trying my hardest to tough it out that evening, but feeling ashamed to have considered, even fleetingly, that he, that anyone, might see me as a pretty girl. In that moment I felt at my most un-pretty, un-desirable, un-lovable.
What would I do now?
If I could go back to that room with what I know now, about myself, about what matters, what would I say? What would I do?
I think I would confront him with questions.
I would point out that his comments were clearly designed to hurt my feelings and ask why he felt it necessary to do so? Was he trying to assert dominance in his peer group? Did he feel threatened by me because I didn’t conform to his version of what female is? Was he going all out for a laugh and my feelings were simply collateral damage? Did he find me attractive but knew that he wasn’t supposed to as I didn’t fit the ‘approved’ list and wanted to make that clear to his tribe? Did he feel so lacking in his own self esteem that his only way to build it was reducing someone else’s to rubble? Was is something else? What was the real problem he has with me?
I’d also be honest about how his comments made me feel. I would tell him and his accomplices that the incident would stay with me for the rest of my life. That I would forget much but remember that. That every so often, when it fitted with the narrative I needed, I would build on that flush of humiliation to convince myself that I was ugly and therefore worthless.
Most importantly I'd tell him that I forgive him. Because whatever his problem was, it was not my problem.