Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
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Hamish Ansley
from Room 101 (or things that can fuck off)
Part I
Gender Stereotypes
I grew up in a household comprised largely of females, and where the only other male present
wasn’t exactly someone I aspired to be like. And while it wasn’t all evenings spent listening to
show tunes and braiding each other’s hair, it probably goes some way to explaining my okayness with conversations about menstruation, and the fact that I think most men are oversexed,
insensitive Neanderthals. But, apparently, because I possess the kind of genitalia that I do, I’m
not supposed to think that way. I’m supposed to conform to the ideas that society has formulated
about what a man is. And those ideas tend not to include the ability to write coherently or
expressively. Nor do they include having an expansive vocabulary, or an appreciation of
literature. Nope, I’m supposed to be a beer-guzzling, rugby mad tit-fancier. Actually, while I
intended that to be disparaging, I love beer, don’t mind rugby, and have a perfectly healthy
interest in female protuberances. Perhaps I’m manlier than I thought. But, certainly, the idea that
a man could not possibly, or even want to, be a writer is complete loose stool-water. I think I’m
right in saying that the majority of writers throughout history have been male. Of course, the
oppression of women for ages has a lot to answer for there. There would, no doubt, have been
more female writers if they weren’t simply kept chained in the cellar for acts of sexual
abasement and getting stains out of shirts. Still, men wrote literature (even the nanciest of all
nancies, poetry) and it was generally okay and acceptable for them to do so. They weren’t
accused of being frilly-knicker-wearing sissies. Well, except Oscar Wilde, of course. And Byron
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was rather fond of expensive silk handkerchiefs. Anyway, Wilde’s preference of bed-fellow or
Byron’s ardour for posh nose-rags (or my preference for doing the vacuuming over mowing the
lawn, for that matter), doesn’t make either of them less of a man. Just as the ability to do lots of
press ups or survive in the wilderness doesn’t make one more of a man. Or even likeable. Let’s
face it; Bear Gryls is an annoying twat.
Part II
‘Cockfighting’
In recent history (i.e., within the last year) I embarked on my first flatting experience. I figured I
was growing a bit old to still be swinging from the apron strings, as ‘twere, and hoped that I
might miraculously be cured of the chronic social ineptitude which kept me living at home for so
long, by forcing myself to share a house with a bunch of relative strangers and their
idiosyncrasies (by which, of course, I mean propensity for using my shit without first asking
permission, using all the lavatory paper and neglecting to buy more, sexual jollity at obscene
hours, untidiness, general absence of personal hygiene, and many other charming and endearing
quirks). So far, I feel more socially retarded than ever. But it has been an… interesting
experience. And by ‘interesting’ I mean it has provided fuel for a (hopefully) comedic rant that I
am desperately penning in order to meet a decent word limit for this journal – a fact I am selfreflexively making light of in an effort to further pad out the piece and to try to explain why it is
probably terrible without resorting to putting a little self-conscious note at the end which makes
me feel so utterly pretentious as it seems to suggest that I think my work is so unfathomably
complex and more difficult to penetrate than even the most aloof woman wearing a chastity belt
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made of barbed wire and steel recycled from decommissioned aircraft carriers and therefore
requires explanatory notes.
Anyway… back to the main narrative, if there ever was one in the first place. I live with two of
the fairer sex and a male who is not-totally-fabulous-but-more-than-a-little-bit-queeny. An ideal
group for me (I thought), as (and not to generalise too much about the latter) I am much more
comfortable (perhaps surprisingly given the aforementioned gaping black hole in my social
skills) in feminine company. This is largely due to my upbringing. I grew up in a household
comprised largely of females and, consequently, bask in the magnificent radiance and reclinable,
leather-upholstered-comfort of conversations about menstruation and all of the other things that
women talk about which seem ceaselessly to revolve around their gynaecological functions. I’m
being facetious. Obviously (I hope). Women talk about myriad things and that’s precisely my
point. The openness and depth of women’s (now there’s a sentence teetering precariously on the
edge of smut given its proximity to one mentioning gynaecology…or maybe I just have an
excessively debauched mind) conversation is something I very much relish. I’m not particularly
masculinely minded – another happy (and this, for once in my miniscule, pus-filled life, is not
sarcasm) consequence of my upbringing. I don’t really consider myself a man, except in the
sense that I possess the requisite genitalia.
Subsequently, I find male conversation rather unsatisfying. When men stop masturbating for
long enough to talk to other men (or, indeed, to women – usually after an extended period of
open-mouthed ogling), the conversation invariably involves a succession of monosyllables and
grunting. Not unlike the masturbation, really. It’s also a scientifically proven fact that, if male
conversation lasts longer than nought-point-two-five seconds, it will inevitably and rapidly
descend to the verbal equivalent of comparing reproductive appendages. This, I have termed
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‘cockfighting,’ for obvious punning reasons. In the minds of men, there must always be an alphamale – even in conversation.
Except, it’s not really conversation at all. There is no mutually beneficial imparting of wisdom or
sharing of interesting information. And being good at conversation, knowing lots of words and
what order to put them in to create wit or irony or a bitter scathing dry sarcastic insult of the
clearly vapid, pubescent-stubble-faced arse-pimple stood opposite does not win one the
‘cockfight.’ No, words are intelligent, and therefore un-masculine. How we (and by ‘we,’ I
mean, ‘they.’ I refuse to accept any responsibility) evolved as a gender is beyond me. Men don’t
listen to each other. Not properly. They only listen to the statistics. If one man claims to be able
to lift lots of heavy things or chug vast quantities of hard liquor (and these are the things that
men like to claim), the man next to him will probably boast that he can manage double. While
riding a horse. In a rodeo. On LSD. Over red hot coals. While wearing an eye patch. And having
sex with… whatever her name is… that exoskeletal one from the Fast and Furious movies
(which I refuse to refer to as ‘films,’ and the titles of which I, likewise, refuse to italicise out of
respect to decent cinema, and because they are such undeserving piles of utter steaming turgid
dross) whom they all salivate over but whom I think possesses all the beauty of two of the
coarsest, blackest, strayest pubic hairs sellotaped (with that cheap nasty stuff that doesn’t stick
very well) to the end of a broom handle. Men, you’re giving (y)our gender a bad name. Just stop
being such dicks.
Part III
A boy, a girl, and a pizza
In a previous edition of these rants bearing the frankly plagiarised title of Room 101, I made
reference to my chronic and, it’s no exaggeration to say, catastrophic social ineptitude. It has
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become something of a fun, albeit self-indulgent, tradition for me to do so. Or perhaps, for those
of you reading, it’s a torture. Like family Christmas, it could so easily fall into either category.
Anyway, I cannot claim to be a social butterfly, or any of the similarly luridly coloured and
proverbially socially agile majestic winged creatures of that particular phylum. In reality, I am
the butterfly’s lowly, distant, and, given that its species outnumber those of butterflies by a factor
of ten, probably massively inbred cousin, the rather more monochromatic social moth. I live
much of my life in darkness about social things and how to deal with them so, consequently,
when the blinding bright lightbulb of a social occasion or conversation or potential friendship is
illuminated, I clumsily and repeatedly bang my head against it.
Fortunately, I am occasionally given a reprieve from being a complete social retard. It’s a rare
act but a powerful one. Indeed, if I were to take a lot of LSD or a similarly psychoactive
substance, it might give me cause to believe in a divine and sympathetic being who floats around
on a cloud consuming Mars bars all day and toying with the puny humans on… whatever the
supercharged, celestial equivalent of the Xbox is. Instead, I believe (or at least hope) that there
are people out there who possess enough goodness, or simply a healthy enough dose of their own
special intoxicating blend of weirdness, to look past my social failings and perhaps want to get to
know me better. Believe it or not, I have actually met some of these people. Bless their poor
unfortunate souls. Indeed, these people often have a not ungodlike ability to make me feel at ease
and to bring out my best bits. No, not my genitals. They bring out the best bits of my character, if
such bits do actually exist. Like a video technician compiling the highlights of the latest gripping
encounter between two opposing bunches of sweaty, bulbous, bum-grabbing men chasing a ball
around a paddock for no discernable purpose. Or like alcohol. But with much less heavyheadedness. Or embarrassment. Or raging self-disgust. Or waking up cling filmed to a lamp post
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wearing little more than a pair of pink stiletto heels (which, after the initial shock, actually
looked pretty cute).
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to meet one of those reassuring creatures recently, at my place
of work. This was a double blessing, as my place of work is a depressing sinkhole for
individuality. It’s a death ship, piloted largely by a pack of joyless cretins, whose idea of comedy
is the most appalling, primary school toilet humour imaginable. Arses. So, to meet one of those
rare people who enables me to feel less like a social fish out of water meant that the red mist
became a rather lovely cabernet sauvignon. The dreary working hours are made infinitely more
tolerable in the company of someone whose head my deadpan wit doesn’t slide straight over like
a dog struggling for traction on a hardwood floor. In fact we got along sufficiently well that our
acquaintance extended outside of work and, among other occasions where we ‘hung out,’ as I
believe young people say, she and I began a tradition of sharing a pizza and a yarn once a week
after one of our coinciding shifts aboard the HMS Imminent Suicide.
Yes, that’s right, she and I. She’s a girl. A female. Holder of two X chromosomes. A lady
person. A fact I find completely unremarkable but which, in the rest of the population, induces
cocked eyebrows and a deafening cacophony of jawbones slapping pavement. Why this should
be so is beyond me. The small circle of friends I have managed to accrue as a social science
experiment gone wrong consists entirely of the fairer sex. This is not a boast. It is merely
because men’s tendency to turn everything into the World Trouser-Snake Championship (by
which I mean an endeavour to determine who has the mightiest man-parts, rather than some kind
of late night adult channel nudist snooker competition in which the penis is used as a cue) makes
me want to cut off my own equipment and fling it from a tall building, or into the nearest fast
moving body of water. I simply find women less of a frustration to get along with. But,
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apparently, sharing a pizza with a member of the opposite sex is a noteworthy phenomenon.
Indeed, we became the subject of rumour at work. Tongues were wagging about… well, where
we might have been putting our tongues. I am, of course, referring to cataglottism, typically
known as ‘French kissing,’ and not the C word for that other kind of oral aerobics. Kindly
remove your mind from the gutter, will you? Having never, to my knowledge, been the hot topic
on the gossip mill, I have to confess that I was, for the briefest of moments, mildly chuffed at
being the talk of the sewing circle. That was until I realised it was much more conducive to
comedy ranting if I was annoyed about it. But it is truly irksome that a boy and a girl can’t have a
conversation, or be in the same room, or even within the same postal code, without it being
presumed that there’s something more than friendship going on between them. Unfathomable as
it seems, some men and women (i.e. this man and basically any woman) are capable of
occupying the same piece of real estate without their genitals suddenly and inevitably aligning
and rushing towards each other with flaming ardour. Sharing a meat-lovers’ pizza does not mean
that I hoped my meat would get some lovin’. It’s not some highly codified method of informing
the world that we’ve arranged the fleshy, salty-sweet areas of our respective anatomies in a
similarly harmonious, delicious, and orgasmic way. I mean call me old fashioned, but my idea of
a romantic bedroom soiree involves slightly less barbecue sauce.
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