This Blog is Filth II

A few months ago, after vaingloriously deciding to follow traffic to this blog a little more closely, I wrote an entry telling of thefrightening and sordid things I learned about what people search for on the internet, and expressed my dismay (or, if you will, secret glee) at the search terms that land people on my blog. Well, this entry is going to do exactly the same thing. Not because I’ve totally run out of fresh ideas (ahem), but because these internet searches have got infinitely worse. Don’t believe me? Read on.

All men are obsessed with ladyboys.

Shortly after I arrived home from a trip to Thailand, I wrote an entry about an unfortunate evening in which I was molested by ladyboys and my desire to continue living, and ability to achieve an erection, was extinguished forever. Naturally this entry became far and away my blog’s most read, and still receives over 150 views every week. This, I have gleaned, is because men are colossal perverts. There are simple searches for ‘ladyboys,’ which I choose to delude myself are simply people innocently investigating the phenomena in order to best prepare themselves for an encounter, like carrying pepper spray or a 12-gauge shotgun. I choose to believe that several searches for ‘Me and my ladyboys’ are from fans of an obscure 90s sit-com I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing. And then there’s the search for ‘advice ass-stretching for my ladyboy.’ Sir, my advice to you is not to stretch your ladyboy’s ass. She’ll only want to return the favour.

Gay men turn to the internet for guidance

I’m no expert on homosexuality, but if watching Eastenders has taught me anything, it’s that coming out as gay can be difficult. Several search terms have revealed to me that, just as when I have an embarrassing rash/boil/seething wound I wish to keep private, closeted gay men turn to the internet for guidance. Some of these are ambiguous, such as a search for ‘Emotionally stunted virgin.’ As an emotionally stunted virgin for many years myself, I understand that it occasionally crosses your mind that you might be a virgin because you’re, in fact, trying to hump the wrong gender of person. I truly hope that my entryabout the time a male classmate molested me in primary school is helpful to the person who searched ‘Boy in class felt up my leg.’ As for the man (for I have no doubt it was a man) who searched ‘Are there showers in Wormwood Scrubs?’, I implore you to research other ways of engaging in sexual congress with men. Your idea is going to result in some serious tissue damage.

People are... I just don’t know anymore

I enjoy my humour close to the bone. I am very rarely one to take offense. But I also consider myself, by and large, a decent human being. So even I, increasingly frequently, feel the urge to break down into tears at some of the searches that land on my blog. At the tamest end is ‘George Lucas Paedophile.’ Now, it’s my belief that George Lucas is little more than an animated sheep’s stomach stuffed with dismembered kittens adept at raping well-loved film franchises, but the accusations should end there. Sliding down the scale there are men who seem bizarrely proud of their simple fetishes, such as those searching ‘wife never wear panties’ (your wife is almost certainly cheating on you) or ‘she play with my urethra.’ Then there are the searches for which I can’t even bring myself to joke about, such as ‘pubescent girl like to show off breasts’ or ‘Small act of naked girl fingering.’ Truly, truly this blog must be filth if these searches are bringing people here.

And as for the person who searched ‘masterbating circlle of men hamster [sic],’ I think you should look up the soggy biscuit game. It’s kinder to animals, and you’re less likely to end up with an infected bite in an unfortunate place.

One Year on Antidepressants

This is the first time I’ve made this admission in a public arena: I have depression. This is unlikely to come as a great surprise to anyone who has followed the belligerent narcissism of this blog and my various self-pitying social media updates. It’s this that has made me realise that not talking about it is, well... dumb. I’ve been on antidepressants for around a year now, and this is a brief account of my experiences.

It's going to be a laugh riot

It’s actually my belief that I’ve had depression for a great many years. My fierce self-loathing began in adolescence, shortly followed by bouts of unexplained lugubriousness. I noticed my once extroverted personality slowly but surely turning in on itself. But for a number of reasons I refused to admit it. In part this was arrogance – I’ve grown up with people who have suffered tremendously from depression, and I wanted to believe that I was stronger than them. I also didn’t want to burden my mother. The last thing she needed was another child with depression.

My tactic for a number of years was to rationalise the problem by blaming it on being overweight, being single, being prone to locking myself out of the house at inopportune times. These (increasingly less rational) excuses were gradually whittled away. I lost weight, yet still baulked at my own reflection. I felt just as hopeless during my brief relationships as when I was alone. I even managed to remember my keys on a day-to-day basis. The depression didn’t disappear. Finally I had to admit to myself that there was no answer. It was an illness.

The doctor prescribed 20mg of Citalopram daily. For a second opinion I turned to Dr. Wikipedia for potential adverse effects. Citalopram can cause, amongst a rather startlingly long list of ailments, sleeplessness (and, conversely, extreme drowsiness), vivid dreaming, weight changes, emotional flattening, and loss of sex drive. After a year I can grudgingly confirm that I’ve experienced, in one way or another, every single one of these.  

Sometimes all at once

When I settle into bed it takes around 2 hours to get to sleep. Once I’m away I experience vivid nightmares that commonly involve all my teeth falling out or shitting myself in a public place (once, all my teeth fell out, and then I shat on them). I’ve written previously about my sustained state of emotional apathy, and, for a man of my age, my sex drive is equivalent to that of a gelded fruit fly.

Amongst all this fun it was difficult to discern any positive effect. I saw the doctor only once every few months for five minute appointments. Depression is determined by a short questionnaire, asking about your sleep patterns, propensity to slam your head under the toilet seat just to feel alive, etc. You assign a number to each based on your feelings and experiences. Your total reveals if you’re depressed. It’s frankly unsettling to have your mental state evaluated by the equivalent of a women’s glossy magazine’s compatibility test. I wasn’t sure if I was depressed or if I should marry a Virgo.

So I quit.

With typical masculine medicinal flippancy, I waved off any warnings about withdrawal symptoms. What could possibly go wrong when going cold turkey from prescription strength mood-altering drugs?

Within two days I was suffering severe headaches. I brushed them blindly aside, until shortly thereafter I started getting what aficionados refer to as ‘head whooshes’ – a dizzying lurching sensation in the brain, as if someone is desperately using a shepherd’s crook to try and evict you from the world stage.

I knew I was in trouble when I dropped a fish finger sandwich on the floor. I stared at it as barbecue sauce oozed onto the carpet. And I burst into tears.

Processed fish is all I live for.

I never cry. I didn’t cry when any of my grandparents died, when my father got cancer, or when Bambi’s mother got shot. Yet here I was weeping for my half-eaten fish fingers. They weren’t even Birdseye. Soon I found myself crying at Olympics highlight reels, when my electric razor ran out of power before I’d finished trimming my pubic hair, or just when I was sat quietly at my desk. When the withdrawal finally cleared after two weeks, I felt more depressed than ever.

So, after numerous sheepish apologies to my doctor, I am back on Citalopram. And, increasingly, I’m less embarrassed about it. It isn’t my intention to be preachy about depression. I’m very fortunate that my condition falls firmly into the category of ‘mild.’ Yet I do believe that it’s important for people to talk about and try to understand depression, as I didn’t for so many years. So if ever you see me wandering the streets in a haze of insomnia, gazing glassy-eyed and unstirred by a hypothetical parade of attractive women, or weeping uncontrollably over a fallen sandwich, feel free to tap me on the shoulder and ask the crucial question: what the fuck is wrong with you?

Terrifying Cleaners

As much as they proved in some ways to be the worst years of my life, 4 years in a pet shop has made for some entertaining stories. Disappointing for some (and delightful for others) these stories rarely involve skipping through a meadow with bunnies or dressing chinchillas in comically undersized top hats.

I'm totally pandering for a wider audience here

Instead they entail drowned hamsters, wayward testicles, and that time I fingered a rabbit. Well, the time has come to focus on some human inhabitants of the pet shop, namely the cleaners. While I hardly expected never-say-die professionalism or to meet a wife, I was shocked by how the cleaners repeatedly revealed themselves as the dregs of humanity.

There was Stu, who sported the unfortunate facial combination of perpetually startled eyes underscored by drooping bags that folded over themselves like foreskins; imagine an aging Tom Hanks after a botched facelift.

Or just imagine Tom Hanks

Over the number of months he worked with us he developed an obsession with my assistant manager, an 18 year old girl. He’d frequently corner her against the dog food to tell her how pretty she was, how much he admired her, how she reminded him of his own daughter. When he was fired, he waited outside the shop for 4 hours to give her chocolates. She had to be accompanied to work every day until he disappeared, hopefully into prison.

So followed Derek, an octogenarian with such severe smoker’s cough that we could have paved roads with his lungs’ dark ejaculate. By and large he was harmless, and his corpulent wheezing became a part of our morning soundtrack. That was until he regaled us one morning with the news that his son once tugged his scrotum so doggedly that it stretched, and nearby equipment had become misshapen. He was still undergoing surgery.

This picture is not at all relevant

Lastly arrived Crack Whore and her boyfriend. She was so dubbed due to her emaciated frame, ghostly pallor, rotten teeth, and the fact that she blatantly did crack. This early judgement caused us to overlook her boyfriend. He seemed innocuous enough, with clothes befitting the job and a bald head polished to a cheerful gleam. We even shared jokes as he encouraged me to romantically pursue my female colleagues. It was all in wholesome fun, until he took me aside one morning and coached me more specifically in how to attract women.

“Stuff them full of cocaine,” he told me. “Get enough in them and they’ll do anything you want.”

It’s a strange feeling to be surrounded by rabbits and frightened for your life at six in the morning.

Later I came across himself and Crack Whore admiring the dwarf hamsters in their freshly cleaned cages.

“These the ones we had, in’t they love?”

Crack Whore nodded. “Yeah.”

“Four of the buggers!” he said, turning to me. “They bite, din’t they?’

I confirmed that, indeed, such concentrated balls of furry evil did indeed have a tendency to bite.

“The thing is, mate, I’ve got a bit of a temper,” he said, beginning to smile. “When one of ours bit me I chucked it off the balcony.”

He mimed the action, pitching hamsters over-arm.

“Then she started having a go at me so I threw the rest off, one-by-one! Din’t I, love?”

“Yeah,” nodded Crack Whore. “Tenth floor.”

 Let's just tell ourselves they all landed in this cute position and were ok.

Here were my options: I could run for the door before I became a cocaine-addled corpse hidden in the mop cupboard; I could tackle him to the ground and insert a gerbil into his anus; or I could stand bemusedly and stare.

“Yeah,” he grinned. “We’re thinking about getting guinea pigs next.”

Bus Hijack

‘Hang on, mate. Can you tell me where this bus is supposed to go?’

It’s not a request you expect to receive from your bus driver. I was late for my 7am shift, and had made the all-too-familiar half-dressed dash to catch the bus just as it pulled up. Being the last aboard, the driver had singled me out for his confession. I looked at him with some confusion.

‘The thing is, yeah,’ he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, ‘I don’t know where this bus goes.’

A number of possibilities raced through my head; the bus had been hijacked by a mad man who any second would order me to pull down my trousers and dance; there was a bomb on the bus which would explode if the urine content of the back seats dropped below 50%. I considered running for the doors just as they hissed closed behind me.

All I could say is, ‘But you’re the bus driver.’

‘They’ve called me in from Southampton. I’ve never been here before. Can you help me out?’

I looked to the other passengers, none of whom would meet my eye. ‘Um, alright.’

The driver waved away my fare and pulled off the curb. I stood beside the cockpit, navigator of the good bus Confusion, and pointed out the next turning. A frisson of pleasure ran its fingers along my spine. I was in control, at the helm of my very own city bus. I could go wherever I wanted; Europe, Route 66, Scunthorpe; the possibilities were endless.

I hear Scunthorpe is nice this time of year

Only, I was still late for work. And after a few more stops the bus was due to turn into a winding housing estate that always took twenty minutes to clear. I glanced back at the other passengers. I usually sat as far back as possible, following the time one of my testicles dropped through a hole in my work trousers and I didn’t notice until I had disembarked. Now I was at the front of the bus. My testicles were safely contained. I could do as I wished.

The bus approached the turning into the housing estate.

‘Where now?’

I checked my watch, puffed out my chest, and pointed straight down the main road. It took every ounce of my self-control to restrain a maniacal laugh as we glided past the crowded bus stop on the corner.

'Truly, this is our greatest victory.'

Now, with a defiant glare, I turned on the passengers, ready to put down an uprising, to seize any mutineers and hurl them bodily through the doors with the bus still moving. They saw the hardness in my eyes and stayed seated, undoubtedly cowed by my fierce authority.

I guided us the remaining distance into town, until the driver recognised the streets from having earlier collected the bus. We arrived at my stop twenty minutes sooner than usual.

 ‘Thanks for that, mate. You’re a real help.’

‘Please.’ I waved away his praise.’ I’m no hero.’

Relieved of duty, I ran from the stop before anyone could exact revenge on my person for having made them miss their stop.

I arrived at work almost exactly on time. The doors were locked. After twenty minutes wait my manager trudged into sight.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘My car wouldn’t start and the bloody bus didn’t show up.’

Body Odour in Beijing

The Great Wall of China is pretty big. This understatement is brought to you by the pervading, and entirely erroneous assertion that it is visible from space (I’ve been to space and checked). Despite this cosmic invisibility, some sections of the wall remain large enough that they require the ascent of a great many stairs to reach the top. Here, in a needless illustration of the point, is a badly taken photograph of said stairs.

We chose to forego the option of a cable car under the rapidly dispelled delusion that climbing the stairs would be fun. This was despite the 3 hours it had taken us to reach the Great Wall, during which time we had suffered the most amiable kidnap ever seen in China, and the small matter that it was pouring rain. This necessitated the purchase of overpriced rain macs that made it look as if we had smuggled ourselves to the wall inside distended condoms.

There were a lot of stairs. So many in fact that I had no choice but to stop mid-way and have the most venerable bladder expulsion of my young life.

There's a long history of urine on this wall

The problem with wearing a sheet of cling film, beside the sartorial faux pas, is that it becomes very hot within after climbing several hundred steps. Condensation from the sweat quickly built up inside. By the time I had reached the top of the wall, my clothes were wetter than they would have been from the rain.

Empirical evidence has made a strong case that I am a man. Much of this evidence is based on the aroma of badly cooked meat soaked in stale vinegar that trails from my armpits after a mere few minutes of perspiration. I considered this, by and large, normal. Until I learned that around 90% of Chinese people, thanks to a biological quirk, do not smell when they sweat. The unlucky 10% risk becoming social outcasts if the abnormality is not corrected with surgery. Consequently, we stinky foreigners are seen as just that; unconscionably pungent.

Needless to say, by the time we had descended the wall and returned to Beijing both of my armpits were firing on all cylinders. Even my friends found it troubling to stand too close. So imagine the disgust on the face of the young Chinese lady who found herself cornered in her seat, my arms lifted to grip the handrail.

When smell-o-vision is invented this picture will make you vomit

We watched the various stages of disgust play across her features. Firstly came a mere furrowing of the brow, indignation at being blocked in by these bedraggled foreign types. It was obvious when she caught her first whiff; her nose wrinkled and her mouth turned down. Accusing eyes came up to meet mine. I offered a friendly smile met only with steely derision.

After a stop or two she began shifting in her seat, casting about for some means of escape. Finally, she shoved past me and made a hurried exit, probably several stops from her intended destination.

I like to think that one day there will be a knock upon my door, and there she will stand in belated thrall to my masculine musk. To increase the likelihood, I’ve decided to never wash again.

The End of Modern Dating

I have deleted my online dating profile. That noise you just heard, like a chorus of deflating airbeds, was the collective sigh of relief from thousands of single women across the city.

I’m in two minds about this decision. It’s a relief to be free of the posturing, the calculating, the humiliation of online dating. Yet I’m also aware that it made my life more interesting, and that now this blog will be comprised only of uninspired masturbation jokes and all the other unremarkable travails of my existence. If you want to stop reading from now on, I commend your sagacity.

To mark the end of the Modern Dating saga (a saga about as dramatic and meaningful as the Twilight movies), I feel it deserves some kind of summative conclusion. More importantly, I deserve one last opportunity to moan about it. Here’s a round-up of my experiences.

This is how excited people are about my stories

-       The first girl I went out with after a week or so of talking online offered me MDMA while we queued outside a busy bar. When I refused, she simply shrugged and took my dose on top of her own.

-       One date ended early after I accidentally took her to a gay night and she later caught me hugging a pair of friendly lesbians, which, I believe, is something of a faux pas on a first date. You can read about it here.

-       I discovered that it’s fairly standard on a free dating site for women to receive unsolicited pictures of penis’ and for men, at least in my own case, to receive unsolicited pictures of penis’. The only difference is that mine came from cross-dressers.

-       I went out on several dates with the last girl I met on the site. In fact, I rather liked her. Until a small misunderstanding led to her accusing me of faking mental illness to avoid seeing her. Such an accusation was reason enough to avoid seeing her.

I could go on like this for a long time (and I have, in earlier blog entries which I will shamelessly link to at the bottom of this post). The thing is, I have a tendency to play the victim, which isn’t fair to the majority of the people I met. Most of them were perfectly lovely, I was simply not up to scratch when it came to dating them. And, indeed, not up to scratch for dating at all.

Nor do I mean to denigrate the use of dating sites. Since deleting my profile I’ve spoken to three separate people who have found a relationship through online dating. All of them had very positive experiences, and I’m very happy for them. What their success makes quite clear to me is that I’m simply not cut out for dating. I don’t have the confidence, the ease of manner, the ability to develop chemistry. What I have is a taciturn manner, over-active self-awareness, and an unrivalled ability to sit in a darkened room and consume biscuits. These qualities are more likely to result in your corpse being removed by crane via the window than they are in marriage.

We all need something to aspire to

I don’t mean for this post to come across as defeatist or lugubrious. Rather it’s a declaration of pragmatism. And I have been assured from all corners that romance happens when you least expect it. If that is so, it hardly matters just how little I believe that this is true.

The lacklustre saga! Modern Dating, Modern Dating II, Modern Dating III, 

Imaginary Girlfriends

*All girls featured in this blog may be pubescent fantasies. 

There’s been the odd occasion on this blog where, employing tremendous subtlety, I’ve hinted that I’m a tad unsuccessful with women. While this remains a source of great shame to me, I’ve learned to deal with it in a variety of constructive ways; whine incessantly on this blog; lurk outside late-night Pilates classes with a zoom-lens camera; hang myself by the neck from a light fitting while I masturbate. All-in-all, I’ve developed into a secure and balanced adult.

My approach while growing up was a little different. Friends would tell of the girls they’d kissed, show off saucy text messages, laugh at the voluptuousness of my man breasts while predicting how long I’d remain a virgin (none of them were correct – I outlasted even their most outlandish guess). My solution to this was mature and rational: I invented girlfriends.

Phoebe (invented at age 10)

Phoebe and I took long walks in the park and ate romantic picnics, which was one way to justify the armloads of junk food I bought myself at weekends. We had a secret bush within which we would kiss and press together our pre-pubescent flesh. When asked where she lived, I’d suffer sudden and acute amnesia or become distracted by a bird. The relationship lasted until my friends went to a different secondary school. It was an amicable break-up.

Jenny (invented age 13)

Ah, Jenny. My first kiss, hastily invented upon the realisation that each of my friends had kissed a girl and I had not. The details of the kiss were vivid: a duration of over a minute, tongues convulsing like electrified slugs, ending only (I insisted) when I ran out of breath. My presumption was that snogging required commendable breath control, like walking through the perfume section of a department store while being force-fed a plate of veal. Jenny dumped me after the kiss. I must have been no good, I joked. Even in my imagination I doubted myself.

You can read about my real and equally unsuccessful first kiss here.

Rebecca (also invented age 13)

The existence of Rebecca (or her very inexistence) is indicative of an inferiority complex dating back many years. Rather than invent myself a new beau, I conjured a girl I couldn’t have. Even before the tortures of real-life unrequited lust, I felt the need to make myself suffer. There was invented drama, and a cast of supporting characters too. The mother, often away on business. Rebecca’s boyfriend, my own good mate, who had won over the girl I so desired. Such a love triangle would become all too familiar in later life.

*     *     *

I should make clear that I wasn’t quite insane enough to believe in the actual existence of these girls. I didn’t whisper sweet nothings alone in my darkened bedroom while making awkward, arrhythmic love to my favourite Beanie Baby. They existed only in the presence of my friends. The veracity of these spectres was rarely questioned; I spent my weekends alone at home. Perhaps it was entirely plausible that I in fact spent this time cavorting with a harem of adolescent concubines.

My romantic mythology lasted into university, until Valentine’s Day arrived and I was compelled to confess to my best friend who had been with me throughout every imaginary relationship. I took to MSN chat, the pre-Facebook refuge of emotionally stunted narcissists, and poured out my virginal truth. I cried. I expected him to hate me, berate me, perhaps laugh afresh at my breasts.

All he did was laugh and insist that it didn’t matter. And he was right. Once it’s past, everything we think we know is an invention.