The Birth of a Toxic Man

You’ve taken good care of your body, you’ve undergone a rigorous skincare regime, you’ve been using designer toiletries for over a month, you’ve put on your finest outfit, you’ve styled your hair to the best of your abilities, you’ve bought a pack of gum- extra minty- and you’ve arrived fashionably late. You’ve done everything in your power to prepare yourself, but there are still so many things that are beyond your control, there are still so many things that could go wrong.

You could spill a drink down your front, or onto someone else, or onto the expensive new Turkish rug in the living room. You could say something stupid, you could make a fool of yourself, or someone else could make a fool out of you. In every moment, there is a danger of someone bringing up the disaster that you had at the last party, how you got with Iz, just for her to tell everyone what a bad kisser you are, just for her to tell everyone that she’d hurried to wash out her mouth the instant she’d arrived back home. In every moment, there is a danger of someone bringing up how drunk you were the other week, how embarrassing you were, how pathetic you were. In every moment, there is a danger of someone bringing up just how red your face has gone, how awkwardly you are standing, how you never have anything to say and that how, when you do say something, your voice is always too loud and your words too clumsy.

So much could go wrong, so you dawdle on your way to the door, sorting out your hair one last time, checking your collar isn’t twisted, hurriedly chewing a piece of gum, silently urging the others to get a move on, praying that nobody sees you, standing just outside the driveway, alone, idling away the seconds as everyone else laugh and jokes, together, further down the hill.

Headlights appear up the road, heading straight for you, so you press your body against the hedge, trying to disappear, praying that the car will keep on driving straight past, praying that it doesn’t turn into the driveway, praying that it’s not someone you know, praying that they haven’t noticed you. And then the others start mocking you, asking you what you’re doing, suggesting that you’re too pussy to go on in by yourself, as if they aren’t just as petrified as you are.

You hide your angry glare behind a weak smile and, secretly, you hope that none of them pull- that would show them, if they all crashed out and you, alone, were successful in pulling a worldie- but, deep down, you know that it’ll never work out like that, for they are all so charming and handsome and popular, whereas you, you are nothing more than an outcast, a reject, an undesirable loser, whereas you, you are nothing more than just you.

Cruelly, playfully, they try and force you to knock on the door. You laugh, nervously. You hesitate for as long as you can, but they are insistent.

‘Man up,’ they sneer, and you are left with no choice but to do it.

You attempt to sort out your hair, one last time, but your efforts are rushed and you only make things worse. A couple more laughs, a couple more jeers, you have delayed all you can. You knock, just once, your closed fist remaining, hovering over the door, but reluctant to add a second, let alone a third.

‘Do it properly you melt,’ the mocking voices croon from behind. ‘Pussy.’

You knock a second time. The door opens. The hostess smiles at you, her expression sceptical, condescending, or perhaps she is just nervous too? You freeze, your hands clasped firmly to your sides. You don’t really know her. Tom got you the invite. She might not even remember your name.

Your try to smile. She laughs. The others barge past you, greet her with a friendly embrace, tell her she looks nice, even Will manages to hug her, and he’s never even met her before. You are the last to enter. She holds open the door. You raise your hands, indecisively, move towards her, but she looks reluctant, so you back away and, with an awkward wave, you hurry on after the others, fixing your hair, one last time, as you go.

The kitchen is full of people: people from school, people from other parties, people that you’ve never even seen before. You spot a few girls that you would like to speak to, but what would you even say? What would you even talk about? You have no shared memories to reminisce over. You know next to nothing about them and they, surely, know even less about you. You are practically strangers. How do people ever talk to strangers? Where do they begin? It all just seems so implausible. Conversations require a foundation, they can’t just be built on nothing. How do people do it?

You can’t remember ever having conversed with anyone for the first time. Of course, you must have done it at some point, but that doesn’t change the fact that, right now, it feels impossible. And so you make your way over to the guys, or those of them that haven’t already dispersed themselves across the house anyway, and you chat awkwardly about whether or not it’s a good party. Of course, you all, immediately, conclude that it’s too early to tell, but, lacking anything else to say, you continue to debate the issue regardless.

Time passes slowly and you are horribly aware of the fact that you are completely failing to mix with anyone outside of your close circle of friends. You know that, if you go on like this, then, come the end of the night, your more successful mates will mock you, unrelentingly, for failing to even put yourself out there, for being frightened of a few girls, for being a shy, hopeless, reject, so you tear yourself away from the group, saying that you need a piss, and you make your way outside, into the garden.

Seb is making out with some girl against a tree trunk. His clothes are second-rate, his body is podgy, his hair is a mess and his face is quite ugly, but even he is having more success than you. Silently, you seethe. You want to steal the girl away from him, to show her that there are far better things on offer, but you know really that you’d never have the confidence to do such a thing, you know really that, even if she were alone, crying out for someone to talk to, you still wouldn’t have the confidence to approach her, you still wouldn’t have a clue what to say, you still wouldn’t have the first idea where to begin.

On the patio, a group of 10 laugh and joke about god knows what. Some guys, some girls, a few familiar faces, a couple of close mates, just about enough to justify your involvement. You fix your hair, one last time, and, timidly, you approach, taking care not to disturb anyone, trying to insinuate your way into the circle without being noticed. Hovering on the shoulders of two of your mates, you carefully attempt to slide between them, but they are too tight and too rigid, they refuse to budge.

People are looking at you, witnessing your rejection, judging you for your social ineptitude. You tap on your mates’ backs, politely requesting that they let you in and, finally, they yield, but the gap they leave, even then, is too small and you are left with no choice but to squirm all the way into the centre of the circle. Conspicuously far forward, silent and red in the face, you do your best to ignore the accusatory glares being shot at you from every direction, but it is no good, you cannot escape the feeling that you are unwelcome. The conversation careens onwards, despite your intrusion, but never is there any room left for you to add words of your own. Uncomfortable and unwanted, it is only a matter of time before you admit defeat and, with another envious glance towards Seb, still going at it against the tree trunk, you make your way back into the kitchen.

Almost all of your mates have now dispersed themselves throughout the house, now only Charlie remains, standing awkwardly next to the kitchen table, trying to look like his solitude is out of choice, rather than due to inability to make friends. You are thankful for his lonesomeness, for it means that you are not alone in being alone, but you only talk to him very briefly, as to linger with Charlie too long would be to admit defeat, would be to hold up your hands and proclaim, for all to hear, that you really are the loser that they all took you for.

You excuse yourself, once again saying that you need the toilet, but, although you are still lying, this time, the loo really is where you are going. You might not need to use it, but you may as well still go, for at least it is something to do, something that will use up the time until something better comes along, somewhere you can sort your hair out and fix up your shirt and just, in general, pull yourself together, somewhere to hide, so that, for a few brief moments, no one will be able to see how socially inept you are.

So you join the queue for the toilet and, whilst you are waiting, you trying to summon up the courage to talk to the girl in front of you. You’ve met her before, at another party, but you’ve never really spoken to her. The only thing that you know about her is that she got with Harry, a few weeks back, so you decide to tease her about this, hoping that she’ll take it as banter, hoping that it’ll lead to a great conversation, and then who knows what else…? But she frowns and turns defensive and all that comes from it is an awkward silence, followed by feeling of mild relief, as the toilet door opens and she, finally, passes from view.

She exits a short while later and you avoid her eyes as she passes. The door locked behind you, you give yourself a silent pep talk and try to feel hopeful about the night to come, but, no matter how laboriously you try to straighten yourself out, there is no denying the fact that your hair looks wrong and your shirt covers up all of your best assets.

You wander from room to room, and from inside to outside, pausing to converse here and there, but never for long and never very successfully. You drink a few beers. You smoke a cigarette or two. At regrettably brief interludes, you take refuge with Charlie, by the kitchen table, but when you do, your mind is always elsewhere, occupied with dreams of better things.

Why can’t I talk to her? You ask yourself. Why can’t I be more like him? How do they all do it? How do they mix so easily? So thoughtlessly? What do they say to one another?

With your friends you tend to talk about joint experiences from days gone by, past failures, past humiliations, past conquests; you tend to make references to the films you’ve all watched and the games you’ve all played; you tend to crack in-jokes and laugh at your communal sense of humour. But how can you do such things with strangers, when there is no joint history? When there are no shared tastes? When your senses of humour are disparate and alien to each other?

And even if you could, even if you could, would that really be what you’d want to talk about? Do those conversations even really mean a thing to you? Do they not just make you nervous? Anxious to please? Sure, they are briefly rewarding, when you succeed in making each other laugh, but are they not, most of the time, just bland, repetitive, banal?

You wander into the living room, where Ron has been dancing, ceaselessly, for hours, and you wonder whether he is having fun. At some points, he has been alone; at others he has had 1 or 2 girls dancing with him. He has kept on dancing regardless. As far as you can tell, he’s never even tried to pause and make conversation. Is he dancing because he does not know what he would say, were he to stop? Or is he simply dancing because that’s what he wants to do: to dance?

He looks good whilst he dances, like he knows what he’s doing. You want to dance with him, but you do not know how. You spy a girl, sitting by herself on the other side of the room, and you wonder if she, too, wants to dance. You wonder whether, she too, simply doesn’t know how. You want to talk to her. You feel an instinctive bond and you want to find out whether it’s reciprocated. You want to know if she, too, feels awkward, and clumsy and alone. You want to know if she, too, gets sad when she looks into a busy room, because she knows that there is not a single person in there that she will be able to summon up the courage to really talk to. But, you still do not have the first idea what to say, you still obsess over the lack of a shared past, you still cannot understand how strangers are ever able to make first contact, and so you still remain silent, and afraid.

Ron dances. The girl sits. Other than this, the room is empty. Becoming conscious of the fact that you have lingered, in the doorway, for far too long, you make your way into the room. You do not stop, however. You do not dance with Ron. You do not talk to the girl. You simply walk straight on through, and out the other side.

In the garden, you bump into Chris. He’s smiling. He’s just got laid and he is eager to show off about it. You are relieved to have someone to talk to, but envious of his success. You’ve never had sex. You’ve never even seen a vagina, not in the flesh at least. You’ve seen them online and you don’t really understand the appeal- they look odd and kind of off-putting- but, at the same time, you desperately want to lose your virginity. And you desperately want it to be with the fittest girl imaginable.

For then you would be able to say that you’ve had sex, and you would be able to tell everyone that it was with a worldie and, even if they didn’t believe you at first, the truth would have to come out eventually. And then people would stop thinking that you were a freak, and stop mocking you for being awkward, and they would start talking to you out of choice, and inviting you along to things, not just to make up the numbers, but because they really wanted you there, and they would look up to you and call you things like ‘legend’ and ‘top lad’, instead of ‘spaz’ and ‘sieve-brain’. And then you wouldn’t feel so alone, and you wouldn’t hate yourself so much and you would finally be happy.

Chris moves on, to tell more people about his conquest, and you are left alone, once more. You gaze around, at all the people cracking jokes, laughing, having fun. And you know that they can see that you are alone. And all that you can hope is that the jokes aren’t about you, that they’re not having fun at your expense, but deep down you know, that, even if they’re not mocking your right now, eventually they will be, because you are too strange, too misshapen, too downright odd, to not, eventually, be mocked. You want to disappear, to run away, but you cannot do that and so, sadly, you force a smile onto your face, fix your hair, one last time, and try to find someone to tell about Chris’ latest conquest. It’s not much, but you know that this tasty piece of gossip will, at least, buy you a second or two of someone’s attention, before, once again, you are left with nothing to say.