to clarify

I need to clarify a few things. Actually I’m drunk right now so maybe this isn’t going to be as clear as I’d like. Fuck it. Oh well.
I’m sure that many of you who listen to me are probably growing tired of my bleatings. And yes they are ramblings and often they say the same old tired shit. I’ve lost more than a few friends over the years through my self loathing and despair. Believe it or not this is absolutely nothing like I used to be. I was five hundred thousand times worse than this. So much worse.
Let me explain by laying out some of my history a little bit. I’ll try not to make it too dull. Maybe I’ll throw in a dinosaur here or there. Or perhaps some kind of monstrous Giraffe bent on infiltrating the worlds supply of salt.
Ah fuck it, here’s must the pathetic truth.
I don’t know exactly where and when it really began. But something my mum told me can perhaps shed some light on the matter. When I was young, mum used to take me to a playgroup of some sort. It was before pre primary and kindy and all of that. Apparently she had to take me out shortly after. Why? Because another child was tormenting me.

‘He’s such a happy baby.’ That’s what people used to say when they saw me. As soon as I woke up I seem to have become delighted by the prospect of life, the universe and everything available to my baby senses because I’d bust out a gigantic smile and absolutely glow with happiness. ‘Such a happy baby.’
So many years later I was pulled out of this playgroup. Because one of the other children was bullying me. Attacking me. Pushing me over. Knocking me down. Causing all kinds of a fuss.
I have absolutely no memory of this. At least I didn’t until Mum mentioned it to me. Maybe it’s just the power of suggestion here, but I think back to that time and while I don’t remember specific events as such I do remember going to a bunch of places. The problem is that my memory has blended a lot of them into one. But the thing that stands out to me now is how I felt. I tend to remember things in terms of how I felt at the time. And I remember feeling absolutely glum, terrified and confused.
I don’t know if I was always shy. I don’t know if that began at the playgroup after this went on. But I do know that I was shy by the time I was 6. I have a distinct memory of being down the shops with mum when she ran into a work friend. I was terrified of meeting her, so I hid behind her legs.
I still do that to this day. I run off if a friend runs into another friend. Once I was hanging out in the house of somebody I happened to be sleeping with at the time, and a friendly local stopped by to fix her curtains or something. I hid in the bedroom in absolute silence. Why? For gods sake why would an adult behave this way?
I pissed myself and I pissed the bed. Not then, silly. Not with the woman. But when I was younger. In year one in primary school I used to wet myself all the damn time. When I did it on my birthday, my teacher beat me up for it. She scolded me and actually said ‘For Christ’s sake, it’s your birthday!’
That stopped by the time I changed schools next year. But the bedwetting didn’t. And it hadn’t for my older brother and sister, too. They were 3 and 6 years older than me, so such things were far more serious to them. So if they had a friend visit gthe house, which stunk of piss- they’d blame it on me. Little Daniel in year 2.
But who was I to blame? I was the youngest and stuck with a reputation that never went away. And you know what’s really sad? I didn’t manage to stop doing it until I was 12. And that was after begging for literally three months to get some sort of medical assistance with the matter. To this day I can not believe my parents let this go on for so long. This caused me so much turmoil in primary school it isn’t funny.
But that’s just the start of things. I didn’t play sport. My dad wasn’t huge on it and my brother hated it. I didn’t go to any little league things or afterschool clubs. When I arrived in year 1, just about everybody had already been enlisted in these things. They already had skills that far exceeded my own.
I was a pale child. I had no social skills, too. I didn’t really play with other children. I didn’t learn any of the little tics and lies you need to pick up in order to survive. I was unbearably honest- and still am. Most of the time.
I can not tell you the agony I experienced in my primary school years. People looked on me with disgust. Every day I was tormented and picked on. If for some reason we did dancing or any kind of activity that involved touching somebody, girls would act as though I was diseased. To this day I see the look on their face. Imagine handing a girl a dead rat covered in maggots and dripping with juice from the bin of which you’d just recovered it. That’s the look I got. Every day. For years.
When I was in year 7, I ended up at a friends house. I say friend, but really he just let me hang around among others now and then. He got bored one day- and he and his older sister decided to just start pushing me around and tearing into me with insults.
When I went to leave, a forlorn and overly tired mother emerged from the house. She’d been there all along in that dusty house but this was the first I’d seen of her. The house was dirty and dusty. Her teenage daughter was out of control and her son wasn’t far behind.
‘I’m sorry for what they said to you, Daniel,’ she said with desperate eyes.
‘It’s OK,’ I replied. ‘I’m used to it.’ And I was. You have to understand that I had been learning this lesson every single day for seven god damn years. I knew it was true. I agreed with them. I started to feelvsorryfor anybody who had to put up with me. I feltvsorry for someone who had to touch me. I *still do.*
‘You shouldn’t be used to it,’ she said in horror. ‘You shouldn’t have to.’

High school. Suddenly I was pimply. I don’t mean acne the way your normal teen gets. My case was so severe I had to go on a dose of very severe drugs that really fucked me up. My entire face was LITTERED with pimples. They went down my neck and onto my shoulders, down my back and all over my chest. I had stopped pissing the bed and instead, I had transformed into a disgusting, sweaty, pimply mass of terror.
I left high school and became afraid to leave the house for about a year. During this time, after the acne had been taken care of, I became fat. I’ve been up and down ever since. By twenty I was very visibly becoming bald. I’m 26, turning 27 and my baldness has reached a stage most won’t see until their mid thirties or early forties.

But Daniel, what’s the point of telling us all of this? Ok, let me put it this way. I’ve been asked out once, in my life. I was 20 at the time. When this happened.. It was like being told the sky isn;t blue. Just sit back and actually try to imagine that. Imagine being told the sky isn’t blue, or the sun isn’t really there, it’s just the moon night and day. Impossible to believe isn’t it? But what if it WAS true. How would you feel? Having been taught all these years. Having KNOWN these things to be an absolute fact- a cornerstone to base other facts upon.
That’s what it felt like when this girl asked me out. I truly believed it was never going to happen.
And these are just the physical aspects. I haven’t even begun to list how socially retarded I am.
And now I’m tired and worn out. Perhaps I’ll elaborate furthur. But for now I’ll say- look I’m sorry to harp on. But when I walk down the street and I see people looking at me, I still see disgust. When I’m near somebody, I feel sorry for them. When somebody has to talk to me- I feel bad that they have to put up with me. So I try to end the conversation as quickly as possible- to be nice. And when somebody touches me… I feel sick. On their behalf. I genuinely feel bad for the other person when somebody touches me.
Some days I still can’t bear to go outside into the world and see those looks. The disgust and confusion people throw my way- and they are disgusted and confused. I do believe I am genuinely strange. I don’t adhere to any kind of.. Standards in terms of looks or behaviour. Or dress. I’ve always stood out. I’ve never been able to hide away in the corner and not cause a fuss. Jesus Christ, I’ve spent all my life trying to do just that.
So yes. I mope. And I’m sorry. But let me end this by making a few points clear:
1. I do not believe for a second that finding a romantic partner is necessary or a solution to ANYTHING. I learned that lesson from 15-22. Slow learner but I get there in the end.
2. I appreciate anybody who puts up with me when I enter in such mopey moods. But sometimes going outside is so utterly unbearable and makes me feel like absolute shit.
3.Again- this is not about appealing to women. That is just a side effect of the greater problem: That I am so unusual in ALL aspects it makes me impossible to relate to almost anyone.