Why are you so upset with James? my friend Serena asked. It will probably seem really silly to you, and you probably won't understand why I was so upset about what happened.
Some old friends of mine arrived last Saturday (James and his wife Karen), and had invited me to go with them to visit some friends of theirs on Sunday afternoon. James said that I'd met these friends last year at the drinks they had had at their hotel, although I really couldn't remember them (James loves to collect interesting people, a bit like exotic cooking ingredients). They are a very nice couple, my age, Steve's in broadcasting, Maria's in publishing, three children, large house in Archway etc etc etc.
Karen's cousin the lawyer was going to be there, and his (very bubbly) wife.................basically a whole mob of successful, pretty well-off, middle-aged, middle-class people who I barely knew.
I didn't want to turn up and discover that James and Karen were late as usual (in fact as always), so picked them up from their hotel.
But the bottom line was that the whole thing was way out of my comfort zone. Nice people, but not people I would normally hang around with, and not people I had anything in common with. I don't want to talk about children and how difficult it was when little Jack wouldn't eat his organic Jerusalem artichokes, or about how impossible it was to find an architect who could redesign the guest bathroom. I just don't have those things, and for the most part will never have the sexual inclination or budget for them. So, I threw a few glasses of wine down me and smiled, and waited for 'the question' which I knew was coming.
'So, what do you do Andy?'
I'm not ashamed of who I am or what I do, I made my choices and that's fine. But I did feel really insecure and very, very self-conscious. They were all very nice people, I'm not saying that they were a pack of spiteful, snobbish, laughing hyenas who ridiculed me, quite the opposite in fact.
That role was filled by James, which is why I was so upset about it.
He decided that he would make his central theme for the afternoon, 'Andy's Reception Job'. To take the one thing about which I was very self-conscious, in a situation in which I was feeling extremely shy and isolated, and then just keep going on and on and on about.
What uniform do you have to wear? (ha ha ha)
What colour is it? (ha ha ha)
Is it a horrible polyester uniform? (ha ha ha)
So he sat there, laughing at me in front of all these people and going on, and on, and on about how ridiculous I must look, and how funny it was and laughing this humiliating uncontrollable laugh. I wasn't laughing, and I wasn't smiling, and I tried to ask him to stop and I thought he would. But for whatever reason he was on a roll. So in the end when I finally couldn't bear any more and thought I was going to burst into tears in front of all those people, I got up, told James that he was a arsehole, and said I was leaving. I actually wanted to run, but forced myself to smile and thank my hosts for a lovely afternoon.
Then finally he was all apologetic...................What did I say? What did I do? I'm sorry, please forgive me................but I just wanted to run away. It was like being back at school and James was Peter Raymond, the guy who used to pin me up against the wall with his gang and call me a queer and tear the pages out of my books, and throw my shoes over the school-fence, and stretch the neck of my jumper, and try to write poof on my face except that we used biros and it just used to scratch my skin.
If you've ever been bullied, you never forget that feeling of absolute terror when 'they' get you. When you realise that the complicated plan you'd made to try to avoid them has failed and that there's no escape. Sometimes if you were lucky, there would be a more attractive victim to hand. That's the thing with bullies, they're greedy and they will always go for the biggest, fattest, ripest victim they can find. But they never forget about you. You know they'll be back, waiting for you after school, marching behind you on your way home chanting 'queer! queer! queer!'.
It's horrible to know that those memories are always there, still just sitting there under the surface waiting for another Peter Raymond....................or in this case, a James Katzen.
I suppose it was the fact that this time it wasn't coming from the school bully, it was coming from someone who was supposed to be a friend. All I could think was 'Why did you invite me? Surely it can't have been ridicule in front of all these people?
I'm not trying to make it more that it was, but I can't even explain how upset and betrayed I felt.
I got my jacket and left the house, and he did come after me trying to tell me he was sorry and that he valued my friendship and all that. But to be honest, I didn't want to hear it, I just wanted to get back home and shut the door. Because this time, unlike school...................I could!
Some old friends of mine arrived last Saturday (James and his wife Karen), and had invited me to go with them to visit some friends of theirs on Sunday afternoon. James said that I'd met these friends last year at the drinks they had had at their hotel, although I really couldn't remember them (James loves to collect interesting people, a bit like exotic cooking ingredients). They are a very nice couple, my age, Steve's in broadcasting, Maria's in publishing, three children, large house in Archway etc etc etc.
Karen's cousin the lawyer was going to be there, and his (very bubbly) wife.................basically a whole mob of successful, pretty well-off, middle-aged, middle-class people who I barely knew.
I didn't want to turn up and discover that James and Karen were late as usual (in fact as always), so picked them up from their hotel.
But the bottom line was that the whole thing was way out of my comfort zone. Nice people, but not people I would normally hang around with, and not people I had anything in common with. I don't want to talk about children and how difficult it was when little Jack wouldn't eat his organic Jerusalem artichokes, or about how impossible it was to find an architect who could redesign the guest bathroom. I just don't have those things, and for the most part will never have the sexual inclination or budget for them. So, I threw a few glasses of wine down me and smiled, and waited for 'the question' which I knew was coming.
'So, what do you do Andy?'
I'm not ashamed of who I am or what I do, I made my choices and that's fine. But I did feel really insecure and very, very self-conscious. They were all very nice people, I'm not saying that they were a pack of spiteful, snobbish, laughing hyenas who ridiculed me, quite the opposite in fact.
That role was filled by James, which is why I was so upset about it.
He decided that he would make his central theme for the afternoon, 'Andy's Reception Job'. To take the one thing about which I was very self-conscious, in a situation in which I was feeling extremely shy and isolated, and then just keep going on and on and on about.
What uniform do you have to wear? (ha ha ha)
What colour is it? (ha ha ha)
Is it a horrible polyester uniform? (ha ha ha)
So he sat there, laughing at me in front of all these people and going on, and on, and on about how ridiculous I must look, and how funny it was and laughing this humiliating uncontrollable laugh. I wasn't laughing, and I wasn't smiling, and I tried to ask him to stop and I thought he would. But for whatever reason he was on a roll. So in the end when I finally couldn't bear any more and thought I was going to burst into tears in front of all those people, I got up, told James that he was a arsehole, and said I was leaving. I actually wanted to run, but forced myself to smile and thank my hosts for a lovely afternoon.
Then finally he was all apologetic...................What did I say? What did I do? I'm sorry, please forgive me................but I just wanted to run away. It was like being back at school and James was Peter Raymond, the guy who used to pin me up against the wall with his gang and call me a queer and tear the pages out of my books, and throw my shoes over the school-fence, and stretch the neck of my jumper, and try to write poof on my face except that we used biros and it just used to scratch my skin.
If you've ever been bullied, you never forget that feeling of absolute terror when 'they' get you. When you realise that the complicated plan you'd made to try to avoid them has failed and that there's no escape. Sometimes if you were lucky, there would be a more attractive victim to hand. That's the thing with bullies, they're greedy and they will always go for the biggest, fattest, ripest victim they can find. But they never forget about you. You know they'll be back, waiting for you after school, marching behind you on your way home chanting 'queer! queer! queer!'.
It's horrible to know that those memories are always there, still just sitting there under the surface waiting for another Peter Raymond....................or in this case, a James Katzen.
I suppose it was the fact that this time it wasn't coming from the school bully, it was coming from someone who was supposed to be a friend. All I could think was 'Why did you invite me? Surely it can't have been ridicule in front of all these people?
I'm not trying to make it more that it was, but I can't even explain how upset and betrayed I felt.
I got my jacket and left the house, and he did come after me trying to tell me he was sorry and that he valued my friendship and all that. But to be honest, I didn't want to hear it, I just wanted to get back home and shut the door. Because this time, unlike school...................I could!
