Saturday, May 31, 2008

I wish that I was black, gay, or from a war-torn country

In recent days I have written at length about my irresistibility to girls. I mean, to be honest that topic has been done to death and really I don't think anybody's going to want to argue any more either way about it. But for some reason, as time scrapes on, its becoming increasingly obvious that being charming and good looking (with great hair and dreamy eyes) is starting to wear a little bit thin. Yeah yeah I know that a lot of people would KILL to be like me and I'm well aware of the gnomic "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"; I am in no way ungrateful for the lavish gifts that God has already bestowed upon me. However, at the same time I am equally aware of the phrase "Never rest on your laurels" and, to be honest it's becoming painfully clear to me that in order to continue to function at the same high level of general desirability in this new and exciting world that we live in, I'm going to need some sort of gimmick. Just a little personality quirk or USP that'll really make me stand out of the crowd of handsome, intelligent and wittily stubbled men that form my peers.

At first I considered acquiring a serious drug addiction like my friend Skaghead Steph. After all, if I'm hooked on heroin I can be excused for doing all sorts of crazy and kooky behaviour. I could wee myself in the bar then throw up on the barman and then get permanently banned from Filth and all people would say is "He's skating so close to the edge, it's ripping him apart in an explosive downward cycle of orgiastic excess". And they'd look at my shit poetry and would be all like 'That is DEEP, you can see the pain ingrained in every word'. However I was put off from this plan mostly because of the terrible state that my friend Skaghead Steph is in right now; I mean her poetry was never great but its now positively awful. And I dunno, she smells pretty bad (all of the veins in her arm went septic and so she had to shoot up directly into her vagina which is now even more fetid and pitlike than it was when she was just Penis Safari Steph). Plus the last I heard, she gave up on getting a proper education and instead went to FILM SCHOOL... I'm not sure if I'm hardcore enough to tear apart my life quite so completely.

So anyway that gimmick got throw into the bin, as did "Purposefully becoming disabled" (I suspect that I would quickly tire of walking past attractive girls, falling over and not being able to get up, then screaming 'DAMN THIS DISABILITY WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME GOD' at the sky and punching the wall so hard that my fist breaks), "Reading Poetry for Fun While Writing On A Typewriter in Starbucks" (poetry is Not Fun and neither are typewriters) "Emo" (that Black Parade shit scared me) "Scientology" (apparently we don't actually get given ray-guns in order to incinerate the Fair Game which basically soured the whole deal for me) and "Tofu".

Basically after some serious thought I settled on one of three possible conversions. Pretty soon ladies and gentlemen I will Officially switch into one of the following three lifestyles: BLACK, GAY, or FROM A WAR TORN COUNTRY.

A few thoughts on each, followed by some pro/cons:

GAY
Pretty standard to be honest. There are a couple of gay people at my college and I reckon it's probably the easiest lifestyle to take up (probably because its the only one that doesn't involve some form of extensive surgery and/or needing to retcon my entire life). I don't think my parents would mind. In fact my mum asked me if I was gay when I was younger, mostly because I'd turned fourteen and had yet to show any interest in women whatsoever. I WAS A LATE BLOOMER OK MUM???!?!??!? Mostly though it seems that the gays at Oxford can do no wrong as everybody treats them like Cute Novelties. Like every time we see one of the gays pulling, all of the girls coo and say 'THAT'S SO CUTE' like they're ducklings or something. I could do with some of that action. Every time I've kissed anybody at Oxford I end up getting shouted at. NOT FAIR.
Here are some other thoughts that I can't be bothered to adapt into prose:

Pros
  • Hats. As a lame white person I've never been able to wear a hat without feeling inadequate. However, once I'm gay I'll be able to flounce about wearing berets and little bellboy hats and sombreros and people will be like "oh my god you look so gay- but wait a second you are gay! That's an intentional look! Your sense of fashion is so unique and awesome!'. I could also finally get away with showing up at bops with the nipples cut out of my tshirts.
  • Ditto with tights, short shorts, scarves and leather jackets.
  • I'd have an excuse for avoiding vaginas. I just don't trust the way they move ok?
  • I reckon it'd really help with getting girls. They'd be all like 'Oh, Tom's no bother' and would be happy to get changed in front of me ask me to bra-fitting sessions and stuff, and then I'd be like "YOU CHANGED ME letshavesex" and they'd basically be forced to have sex with me for the bragging rights
  • Simon Amstell would want to be my friend.
  • I'd be allowed to cry in public and everybody would just think I was expressing my emotions and would go 'Aww' instead of taking me aside and asking me to leave the nightclub.

    Cons
  • Kissing another boy? Ew gross NO THANK YOU.
  • I think that I'd have to go and watch the new Sex and the City Film. I can't imagine anything worse than watching those four vapid bitches flouncing around on screen having sex with things for two and a half hours. SERIOUSLY GUYS ITS TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG. IT'S AN HOUR AND A HALF LONGER THAN THE LION KING. I'd rather die.
  • It'd probably in some way affect my long-term career trajectory of being Pope.
  • Elton John would want to be my friend.
  • Probably AIDS or something.

    BLACK
    Being black is kind of the connoisseur's choice of personality gimmick in Oxford. Plus I have spotted a gap in the market; there are very few Properly African People in the college and as such my prediction is that I would automatically become the 'Black Opinion' in every single topic of debate. Like I can imagine two of my friends (or 'homies') having a discussion about which actor is better: Mike likes Robert De Niro, but Jim is a fan of Al Pacino. So then I roll up drinking my Cherry Daquiri and they're all like "So Tom, which actor is better?" and I'll just be like "Martin Lawrence you fools" and that'd be the end of that. This is a definite step up from the current situation in which my point of view is ignored in terms of people with more interesting gimmicks (short, female, foreign). Being black would definitely tip the balance of debate back in my favour and it'd mean that I'd be much more likely get my own way in restaurant choice, movie selection and nightclub categories (KFC, Big Momma's House and Anywhere That Plays Jive).

    Pros
  • Hats. As a lame white person I've never been able to wear a hat without feeling inadequate. But finally I'll be able to break out that fedora or perhaps a beanie or something and not only would nobody bat an eyelid, within a week everybody else would be wearing the same thing! awesome
  • I could grow an afro and store those retractable pencils in it
  • I'd automatically become good at hiding at night
  • I'd finally non-ironically be allowed to say things like 'sup' and 'bro' and 'hood'
  • Eminem would want to be my friend
  • I would gain fame and popularity by being automatically included somewhere in every single photograph in the College's yearly prospectus (hanging out with my good friends Asian Person in Wheelchair, Attractive Blonde Girl and Midget).

    Cons
  • I don't think I'd be allowed to listen to Morrissey, Simon & Garfunkel, ABBA, Andrew Loyd Webber, Damien Rice, My Chemical Romance, Sufjan Stevens, or Prussian Blue any more. And I'd have to swap my MacBook for some spinnaz or something.
  • I'd probably have to give up my membership to Stormfront.org (and we're only two weeks away from the big rally just outside Bicester aw maaaaaaan this sucks)
  • My penis is already pretty big, to be honest I'd be scared of tissue tearing if the rumours are true
  • A sense of vague disappointment if the rumours turn out to not be true
  • If I've understood my black culture right, I will definitely die third if a serial killer shows up and starts murdering people. The other option is that I'll come out of a disadvantaged neighbourhood and will work really hard at college but then will be tempted back into gang culture after my best friend (who will have a one-noun name like "Stringy" or "Clippers") gets murdered in a drive by over some drugs or something, and then it'll be up to my ballet-dancer girlfriend to save me from definitely Wasting My Life. Either that or I will become a mysterious and semi-magical old man and will end up doing a voiceover. As far as I can tell, these are the only three career options open to me.
  • Sterotypes

    WAR TORN COUNTRY
    I'm specifically thinking a shithole in Easten Europe here, like Kosovo or Sarajevo or somewhere like that. I'm imagining that all of my family got killed by militia or something but I'm so obviously intelligent that I get hired to be the General's lead biographer but I mess that up and somehow escape to be transported to Oxford in the back of a container truck with a load of chickens with only a battered suitcase and a small wallet filled with grainy overexposed family photographs which I have to get out, mutter a prayer over, then kiss before going to bed every night. I suspect that my torso (heavily muscled after months of stone-breaking and log-moving at the labour camp) is covered in shrapnel burns, whip-scars and home-made tattoos, and I'll have a mind that's both disturbed but also desensitized by the whole hellish experience.
    Basically I think that this sort of upbringing would really allow me to really smoulder sexily. I'd also probably be able to pull off stubble (and possibly even a small moustache) in a way that doesn't make me look like a tit. I'd definitely not give away my whole history at once but instead would constantly affect a thousand yard stare that turns all of my fellow male-students into mere boys in the presence of my vast life experience, and transforms the girls into hunks of putty to be moulded by my pliable but callused hands. I'd then just occasionally drop hints of things that went down (perhaps when drunk, which I would do only through the liberal use of vodka which would be bought for me by other people). Like I'd just mutter 'This music, the banging, the sceaming, it reminds me of the guns at the bank of the Drina...' and then I'd stare into space a bit before jerking back into existence. Man that'd rule so hard I would literally the most Interesting person at the college.

    Pros
  • Hats. As a lame white person I've never been able to wear a hat without feeling inadequate. However I think that, as a war-ravaged refugee I'd be pretty much allowed to wear whatever I wanted on my head (flat cap, paperboy hat, one of those big shapeless things that the mouse wore in 'An American Tale', helmet) and nobody would say anything. They'd just be Happy I Was Still Alive.
  • It's basically a carte blanche to just be a total dick. I could punch annoying people and then say 'I'm sorry but the way that you laughed reminded me of the lead Inquisitor back in the camp, sorry my friend'. I could throw chairs at bouncers and everyone'd be "Post traumatic stress". I could run naked through the quad screaming anti-semitic sentiments and the general consensus would be 'Cultural differences'.
  • The Oxstu/Cherwell would send authors to to write articles on my life and I could chase them away with a broom.
  • I know I've already mentioned the thousand yard stare but seriously, I think I'd just use it in every possible situation. Don't know the answer in a lecture? Thousand yard stare. Haven't done the essay? Thousand yard stare. Girl says 'I really like you, what do you think about me?' Thousand yard stare, motherfucker.
  • I could automatically win any British Foreign Policy/War debate by leaping wide eyed onto the table and screaming I WAS THERE YOU FUCKERS until they admit that indeed, the Faulkands was probably not a good idea.
  • I could automatically win in the 'gallows humour' stakes. Like somebody would make a joke and I'd laugh uproariously and say "That reminds me of the time a guard burnt me with red hot wires and then snipped off one of my nipples... I guess you'd have to be there lol" and everybody would laugh really nervously.

    Cons
  • It'd be an effort sorting out guarantor forms if I wanted to rent an appartment in my second year. My friend Signy's parents are rich and live in a well established country and the Estate Agents still made a huge fuss about it. I can't imagine what they'd say if both of my parents lay in a mass grave in the Vučitrn woods and my passport was for a state that no longer technically existed.
  • Constant flashbacks would probably get annoying.
  • The Daily Mail would Not Be Impressed With Me and would probably write a front page article about how I was coming to their country and taking their PPE placements

    * * *

    Hmm. Well we can see from above that the Gimmick Market is one that is both saturated, and filled with both positives or negatives. It's really hard to decide. Do I become Gay? Or Black? Or From A War Torn country? Oh god I don't know. And the more I think about this issue, the more it dawns upon me that maybe - just maybe - I don't need a gimmick. Just maybe people look up to and like me for Who I Am, and not just because I do something crazy like always wear a silly tie or speak with a really deep voice or have sex with men. Maybe, just maybe, there's one option left to me...

    Just Being Myself

    ...

    no

    i'll start a band
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