Situation difficile part deux

Now, as a fully fledged member of the lavender persuasion, I am known for being over the top, high maintenance, unreasonable, highly strung and have the tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, I do consider these to be among my best qualities. But for once in my life, I don’t think I am over reacting, and feel like I am being harassed, so my question is, what constitutes as harassment?

A while back I posted about a difficult situation I had found myself in at the workplace with a fellow lavender, JT. I have had many emails from my lovely readers asking what happened when I had to contact him to set up a meeting with my boss (who we’ll call Kitty) after spurning his advances a year before. Well, as I predicted, he used it as a reason to initiate contact, and it is making me feel more uncomfortable than when I hoof myself into my ten year old 28 inch waist Levis jeans, being that my waist is now 32, and I refuse to accept that I, like my waist size, am no longer in my late twenties.

Here is how the email conversation went:

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 10:09
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

Hi JT,

Tamsin has asked me to set up a meeting with yourself and Kitty before the 7th July. She is actually off this week and will be back on Monday. Do you have any time free in the diary between 11:30- and 1:30 on Monday?

Warm regards,

Tequila

I thought, keep it purely professional. Afterall, I do not know the man at all, he simply works for the same place I do, and unfortunately due to a restructure, he would now be reporting directly to my boss, meaning I’d have to develop a working relationship with him. Not an easy feat when he has already successfully tried it on and left me squirming, and not in the way that’s good.

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:42
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

Hi ya... Yes I have booked out the entire morning to see her, so fit me in anytime.

Thanks.

JT
P.s. Happy Birthday for whenever it was! LOL.. Saw the balloons on your desk!...

My birthday was actually in March but I still had a helium filled balloon in the corner by my desk. It had become part of the furniture really, and I didn’t even realise it was still there. This had turned out to be my undoing, as it was a perfect way for cunning old JT to strike up a conversation. However, I had to reply and confirm the meeting, and didn’t want to be totally rude by ignoring his comment altogether:

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:50
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

Hi,

Excellent- shall we say 11:30? I'll send a proposal. I use both Outlook and MM, so I'll do one of each.

Thanks- My birthday was months ago.

Warm regards,

Tequila

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:51
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

LOL.. Oops sorry I was late! LOL... will have to buy you a bevvy one day!

Jesus Christ on a bike, what is with this guy and LOL?! And sorry he was late? For what- he doesn’t even know me and here he is apologising for not knowing it was my birthday. I have to say, I admired his perseverance in the face of such adversity and I celebrated his pluck, as he obviously thought- if at first you don’t succeed try to pin down the gay again. But no.

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:57
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

I should probably take it down, I quite often have people wishing me a happy birthday.

I decided short, sharp and sweet. Not being rude, but giving nothing away by using closed sentences, and pretending not to have noticed him asking me out for a drink. If we have to work together, I don’t want to get a reputation as someone who is up his own arse. In my position there is the risk of that and a lot of people already think I am self important and consider myself a cut above the rest but nothing could be further from the truth. I suppose it is bound to come with the territory, being an assistant to a Director. Anyway, I hoped that would be the end of it.

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:59
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

You should get as much out of it as possible a nice cute guy like you (hope you dont mind me saying that!).... I would milk it as much as possible! LOL....Im looking forward to the big 40 in 8 months I think your cute!.. Anyway!..... if you fancy a bevvy at anytime, let me know! I still feel very young!!

Ladies, Gentleman, undecided and pre ops, I didn’t know how to respond to that one, so I just ignored it and prayed to high lavender that would be the last I heard of him. It was starting to get scary.

A few minutes later I get an email to tell me that JT has sent a friend request via facebook. He has also sent me a message, quoting things he has read on my profile which I’m sure he thought would appear witty but was more "I'm not just gonna be ignored" Immediately I blocked him. Not long after I got the following:

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 13:51
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi

Hi ya.... only me again!... if you fancy a bevvy sometime let me know - here is my mobile (pers) 07930 ******.
Would be nice to get to know other people outside my dept! around my own age too.

So, not only had he now asked me out for a drink twice in one day, and stalked me via facebook, but to top it all off he was trying to say I was the same age as him? He’s pushing 40! That was the final straw, and I thought to myself -you may be a lot older than me, and in a far more hierarchical position here, but I, dear boy am going to remain professional despite being at the hands of such harassment and tell you in no uncertain terms that I am not interested. Before I had the chance to send an email back this came:

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:21
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi

Hi there.. you OK? hope did not offend you earlier?

JT

What that showed was that he knew he had been wholly inappropriate in his emails, and maybe he was starting to worry that as I assist the Director who heads up many areas of the organisation, including Human Resources, he may have tried it on with the wrong person. I sent him an email, not saying what I wanted to, which was ‘When I decide to engage in a bit of necrophilia, I’ll be sure to give you a call, but for now, fuck off you angry inch and stop breathing down my neck like some human hairdryer or I will see to it that you are torn, limb by limb apart and worn as a charm bracelet.’ I opted for:

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:26
To: JT
Subject: RE: Hi

Hi JT,

Thanks for the offer, please don't be offended, but I tend to keep work and my private life separate and don't socialise outside of work. If you are going to be working with this Directorate a lot more, I would prefer to keep a professional relationship.

This is something I have always done and is not specific to this organisation; it's just not my thing.

T

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:28
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi

OK, no worried Tequila - I understand.

J

In his haste and to possibly stop me from filing a sexual harassment compliant, he had sent a rushed and misspelt (worried instead of worries- the imbecile) message showing that he realised, at least I thought, that he had overstepped the mark.

When he came for the meeting I had scheduled, he arrived 15 minutes early, obviously hoping that he’d get to hang around and undress me with his eyes until Kitty was ready to see him. Thankfully, I knew exactly what this trickster was all about, and had left a half hour gap between her last meeting and the one with JT incase he pulled a stunt like that. He arrived and I simply ushered him in, then went to the toilet and had a panic attack, as I felt so unnerved. I also timed it that I would be out at lunch when the meeting had finished.

Other than an email he sent asking if I was going to Soho Pride, which I ignored, I knew better than to open up the lines of communication, and a few times when I have bumped into him in the canteen, I heard nothing from him. Until Monday of this week. I had to set up a meeting with him, his team, and Kitty, as they are officially joining our directorate, and as Kitty will be their boss from the beginning of the New Year, she wanted to get an introduction out of the way. The fear of emailing him was ever present, but knowing that it was a group email, I thought I’d be safe. Yeah, as safe as a female teenager going round to Fred & Rose West’s for a roast dinner.

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 20 November 2008 13:44
To: TS
Cc: JT; LP; JC
Subject: RE: Kitty to meet with Health & Safety

Dear all,

I've put an introduction meeting in the diary for you to meet with Kitty on the 2nd December at 4pm, in her office.

Any questions please let me know.

Warm regards,

Tequila

He couldn’t find anything to possibly come back to on that I thought, could he?

From: JT
Sent: 24 November 2008 14:41
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Kitty to meet with Health & Safety

Cant recall if I have asked you this Thomas, many apologies if I have - but fancy a drink sometime?

Again, sorry if I have already asked - my brain is a bit "fried" of late!

J

I’m starting to wonder if this guy literally has rhinoceros skin. He will just not take no for an answer. Part of me thinks I should just go for this f*cking drink and be so supremely rude, which to be brutally honest, I wouldn’t find that hard, in the hope that he rues the day he ever started to try to get into The Mockings, stockings. Should I just give him the sexual equivalent of winning the lottery and let him have his wicked way?

I simply curse the day I was born with this face that could launch a thousand ships, these impossible piercing blue eyes, my razor sharp cheekbones, my cantaloupe tush and my lashes that defy the laws of gravity.

Don't You Want Me Baby?

So, the week before last, my dear Big Sis flew in from Califor-ni-gay, for the first time since she done broke my heart and left these shores for good over two years ago. To say I was looking forward to seeing her is an understatement. I have known Big Sis, since I was the very ripe and tender age of 16, when, in a bid to be able to feed and clothe myself, I got a job in a restaurant by embellishing I was in fact 18. Mercifully, the place itself, an American Bar & Diner in the city, was about as law abiding, upright and reputable as Osama Bin Laden, so they didn’t bother to check out my references or my age, and before I knew it, I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true…..

Now, the only other job I’d had, believe it or not, was working on a flower stall at the side of the motorway on Saturday & Sunday which I started doing at 14, (my father was a raging and abusive alcoholic, and well, someone had to go out and earn a wage to buy his booze for him as he was in no fit state to do it) so I was incredibly nervous about starting, as I had no experience of work really and I had a total lack of confidence. I was living in a homeless hostel (having been thrown onto the streets at 15) and felt completely inadequate, useless and a waste of perfectly good oxygen. I didn’t have the best start in life, and by that point I just assumed that nobody liked, or would ever like me, I had no self worth or respect and essentially considered myself a third rate citizen.

Because of my many misgivings about myself I was convinced that I’d get there for my first shift, and the manager along everyone in the restaurant would look at me, burst out laughing and say ‘Do you really think we would give a peasant like you a chance- get out and don’t come back’ or they would make me humiliate myself in a number of ways by passing initiations like cleaning the toilet floor with my tongue or making me run around in my underwear. But then I thought to my little gay self ‘This isn’t like at school, where the teachers were nuns who would make you do those things…..’

I was so scared, that I actually paced outside in the manor of an escaped lunatic for about an hour before plucking up the courage to finally go in. Straight away, a divine red haired American lady with chunky shoes, a passion for fashion and a very friendly face introduced herself, and told me she would be showing me the ropes. This was Big Sis, and immediately I knew I had someone who would take this poor defenceless queerling under her wing, and I felt at ease. And take me under her wing she did. We quickly established a rapport and we had a lot of fun. She was the only person there who was nice to me, and the only one to give me a share of her tips (I was only a bus boy after all). The other waiters, chefs, and bar staff paid me very little attention, and if Big Sis wasn’t around, they would completely ignore me and I felt like even more of an outsider. But when it was us together on a shift, even though it is still the most physically demanding job I have ever done, it was great fun, and I always looked forward to working with her. Looking back, and now knowing her situation back then, I realise we were actually both outsiders; her a veritible nubile from America who'd married a English Business man, that plucked her from her home in California for a new life in England, who truth be told once he got her here she rarely saw and when she did had to adopt the role of doting wife in front of his clients, all the while terrified of one of his aggressive outbursts once the evening was over, and me, a penniless 16 year old boy who was gayer that a neon pink alligator, living in a Christian Homeless hostel, with holes in his shoes that weren’t meant to be there and holes in his jeans that were. We were destined to be friends.

It was a very peculiar set up, and I was so naive back in those days, I genuinely believed that prayer was the best form of contraceptive. Before long, my eyes were open to the absolute underbelly of London, and I realised that the restaurant was actually a front for drugs, money laundering and all sorts of criminal activity. I really needed the job to support me, at that time I had nobody, so when I was asked to go the Jewellers ‘up the road’ and collect a package, I asked no questions. When I was asked to take the restaurant owners dog for a walk while he did afterhours ‘business’ in the office, I simply got my poop a scoop and headed off to the green, and when I was told to go and clean up the blood stained toilet floor one morning, what could I do but comply? Even when one of the managers slapped me around the face for dropping a bottle of wine I just got on with it. It was a very unsavoury environment, but I would do it all over again, because it gave me Big Sis.

Our friendship has lasted over 15 years, through countless failed relationships, a divorce, two stints of her going back to the states, two rhinoplasties (on yours truly), dramatic weight gain, dramatic weight loss, bereavements, and more cocaine and wine than you can shake a stick at. Big Sis is a friend for every season, and even though she insists that this time, she is staying in America for good we have kept in contact, and I know that we will always be in each others lives. I couldn’t wait to see her, and catch up on old times, and also, to meet the new man in her life, Jimmy.

We met in Balans, both being 30 minutes late, and quickly ordered in some Cocktails. A Kir Royale for moi, Big Sis and Jimmy opting for Vodka Martinis. I raised a toast, and simply said ‘Welcome Homo’ told her she’d proved her point, asked when was she moving back, and generally refused to accept that she could live anywhere, but in London. Three cocktails in, and I had decided that Jimmy was so delicious that I was gaining weight just by sitting with him, and that my darling Big Sis looked happier than I have seen her in a very long time, which obviously made me ecstatic, even though it dawned on me that in light of her happiness and her delicious man, the likelihood of her moving back was slim.

We then went for some Tapas at a place I can’t remember (I’d had a few cocktails by that point on an empty stomach) but I do know that we devoured cold cuts of ham and some lovely prawns with lashings of Alioli while reminiscing about the good old days, my bad taste in music, how Big Sis used to berate me for liking Mariah Carey by insisting she had missed her calling as a pest control expert as she could just walk into a building, sing, and the roaches would leave of their own accord, to the time I virtually emptied the restaurant and patrons fled in terror when I broke the valve on a cylinder of Helium I was using to fill up balloons and it almost exploded, to the fact that I had not fallen off the Columbian Bandwagon in three years and how great I felt about it. There was I, perched above all on my self righteous high chair claiming that I ‘didn’t miss it at all’ and that I would ‘never touch the stuff again’.

‘Oh, well, we’ve got loads of gear at our place, we thought you’d……’ before she even finished the sentence I was screaming ‘Taxi’ like I was a doorman at The Dorchester and we were heading back to North London, stopping in at the local off licence for Champagne and other much needed essentials for a night of some Columbian.

After a three year hiatus, I gave in to temptation and fell off the bandwagon. The thing I always say is that I don’t actually enjoy cocaine; I just love the smell of it. In order to smell it, you’ve got to snort it. So I did, and we stayed up to the wee small hours, snorting, drinking, talking, and snorting some more. After we decided to turn it in and call it a night- I got a cab home, during which the cab driver made a pass at me and started fondling himself when we were at a set of traffic lights, after having asked me about my sexuality and what bars I went to. What is it about cab drivers? Are they all perverts? And more importantly, are they all unattractive perverts? It was very uncomfortable and owing to the fact that I’d just put half a rain forest up my nose, I was feeling just a bit anxious. All I wanted to do was get in and drink the bottle of vodka I had in the fridge and listen to music and have myself a little party. Which is exactly what I did when I got in. I passed out at about 9am. Thankfully I’d booked the day off. In hindsight, maybe I knew just how badly behaved me and Big Sis would be once we got together, hence the fact I’d booked the day’s leave.

I awoke at about 7pm that evening looking like Amy Winehouse and probably smelling like her too. I walked into my living room to find every single Prince CD I own strewn across the floor, his Sign O The Times DVD still in the player, a few empty bottles of booze were on the coffee table (I finished off everything I had in the fridge) and I knew that not only had Big Sis come Homo, but I had flung myself off the wagon like a lemming, and thrown caution to the wind. I can’t say I’ll be doing it again in a hurry, but I do know that in my coked up state, I may or may not have stopped pestering Big Sis about coming back Homo, and agreed to give up my job, sell my flat, ditch everyone and move to Laguna Beach.

Whilst I would love nothing more, I just don’t know if London is ready to see the back of me yet. And more importantly, I’m just not sure that America would get me. Or let me in. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

The US of Gay

Ladies and Labradors,

Since my last blog we have witnessed the historic events of the first black President being elected into The White House, something that I was fully behind. After The US of Gay voting in Bush for a second term, I did have my doubts, but when the final counts came through and I heard the news that Obama had made it, I felt, for the first time from a political point of view, as if justice had finally been served. I think it was a moment for human nature to be proud. Now in America, little black boys and black girls can grow up with the knowledge, more so than ever before that they can do something with their lives. That they can have a voice, and that they can be leaders. Of course, this is not an end to the racism over there, or anywhere for that matter, but let’s hope it is a start. Obama being elected affects us all, and I truly believe he will bring great change to America, and to the world. There were many reasons why he had my support, but the main thing for me was his pledge to pull the Troops out of Iraq. So after work, me and some friends went for a couple of mini bars and raised a glass to Obama.

However, it is funny how such elation could turn to disappointment when hearing that California had passed Proposition 8. So while America was busy patting each other on the back, self congratulating and generally heralding the dawn of a Brave New World by declaring itself the greatest democracy on earth, the literal same country deduces that those of the lavender persuasion do not merit the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts. Now don’t get me wrong, I have never been for gay marriage- I mean, what happens if it goes wrong- who gets the Madonna collection? How on earth could that be split in court- it is, my dearest of readers, an image too utterly barbaric to picture, let alone live through- but still, it’s a little bit offensive, non? Why should Britney Spears be allowed to get tanked up, marry a bloke she once made out with in the back of an RV one day and get an annullment the next, if I can’t? Surely there should be some equality here?

I am of course being a tad extreme labelling the whole of America as Homophobic twits, and know that it has more to do with, what else but religious extremists, in this case the Mormons donating millions to the ‘cause.’ But I feel I have the right to express my disappointment that people still, in this gay and age, view me, and my lifestyle as unacceptable and that as a fellow human being I am not entitled to be able to share vows with another man purely because I am a pole smoker. A big fat flamer. A friend of Dorothy. A fudge packer. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely the money poured into this campaign might have been better spent, and I’m just throwing this out here, being pumped into homeless problems or to victims of hurricane Katrina for instance, or troops wounded in the Iraq conflicts, or people affected by 9/11?

Now I am all for Barack Obama, and the first Black president, but one has to wonder if me, and my sisters, will ever see one of our rabble in the White House. Or as I like to think of it, The Lavender House. It seems that as Mo’s, we still have a long way to go before we are really accepted in society, and things like this do make you wonder if we are merely being tolerated?

Rant over- next time, I will go back to light heartedness, and will regale all with my tale of falling off the Columbian wagon with my Big Sis when she visited me in London recently.

Soho is a No-go

It seems every time I sit down to update my blog I am apologising for yet another long absence. These moratoriums are usually because I don’t have the time. I tend to update my blog during my lunch break at work and as lunch breaks can be rare around here, I have a legitimate excuse for not updating with the frequency with which I would like. And furthermore, I have the attention span of a fruit fly whereby I forget I even have a blog, with literally one’s of five’s of loyal readers, to update.

I update the blog at work as I refuse to go online at home. I feel there is something quite sacred about being the only Lady of The Lavender left on Planet Dearth who isn’t. It makes me feel kind of unique. Truth be told it was also far too confusing for me trying to install Broadband so I threw a hissy fit, cancelled my BT line and am now without connection. That was two years ago, and you know what- I’m still Without Connection At Home. If anything I want to prove that one can exist without 24 hour internet connection.

My friends question my sanity and in a bid to get me on-line, one of them even set up a profile a year back on mysinglefriend.com in the hope that it would have me sashaying into the nearest BT Broadband outlet and promising the blood of my first born to get me on line. It had the opposite effect and after three days, I pulled the plug.

They say things like ‘How can you possibly cope without a Gaydar profile?’ Um, quite fucking effectively actually. No Gaydar for this one. Not Moi. Uh-huh. Been there once about four or so years ago, and won’t do it again. I actually consider Gaydar the devils backyard and anyone logging on is headed straight to hell in a handbag. In my case it was once bitten- turn celibate.

Then there is the ‘But honey, what about the porn you’re missing?’ What the Blanket Michael Jackson are they talking about ‘missing’? It’s as if no self respecting Mo can exist without having a profile on a website that even by logging on you risk getting the clap, or having 24 hour access to online porn where guys are so allegedly ‘perfect’ that you end up feeling completely inadequate and believe that unless you can pull off things like ‘you like that big cock don’t ya’ & 'Yeah take it boy' in a Southern Drawl (and lets be honest here, in a Southern Squeal a lot of the time) you will have more chance of securing a million dollar record deal even though your throat has been cut and you are actually headless then you do of swinging on another Mo’s appendage.

Anyhoo, so I haven’t updated for quite a while I know, but to be honest, there isn’t a huge amount going on. I have been slowly but surely withdrawing from going out over the last year, for many reasons, firstly money (I recently forked out a huge amount on, let’s just say a ‘procedure’ and also, I now have a mortgage to pay), boredom with the gay scene (I have been going out in Soho for nigh on 14 years, and its getting tedious) and finally, Soho is also a walking graveyard of those failed relationships, and the thought of bumping into scary men from my past is all too much, a sentiment which was cemented a while back when I was approached in one night not once, not twice, but thrice by a man that I cut out of my life three years ago.

I don’t take the decision to cut someone out lightly, and you must push me to the edge to be a candidate for this most severe course of action, but when I do decide to, the decision is final and that person will be erased from my life, and any connections to them are severed. They no longer exist- it's simple. I had cut him out as I was going through a lot of personal changes, re-evaluating who I did and didn't want in my life having been recently uncerimoniously attacked and abused by some people I considered to be friends which has hurt and shocked me to my core. It was all very messy and traumatic and something I still can't write about as to this day I still can't quite beleive it actually happened.

Anyway, I digress. Prior to this (nasty) surprise encounter, I had been forced to change number years before after growing tired of his vile voicemails after I had politely suggested we had gone as far together as we could and thought it best if we no longer had any contact. Big mistake. Big. Huge. So he resorted to trying to contact me by email. All these attempts were ignored, and even when I moved, he went to my old address to get a forwarding address and one evening he appeared, bold as brass outside my window calling my name.

There were sooooooo many factors in him being cut out of my life* so I was astounded he had the temerity to even approach me that night particularly after how awfully he had treated me when I'd suggested we should go our seperate ways. Each time he approached I said firmly ‘I have nothing to say to you’ and whilst at first he was saying ‘Please, can I talk to you’in a nice tone it wasn’t long before he showed his true colours. I can’t remember word for word what was said but I think it was something along the lines of me being called bitter and twisted, a leech, a nasty little cunt, you know, real positive stuff, and how I think that everything was about me (um, it kind of is) and he generally yelled fuck at me on the street like I was a common dog for a few minutes. Nice. I can't believe my hesitence at speaking to him.

As he stormed off my friend and I looked at each other aghast, and decided to call it a night, as even though this was the first contact we’d had in years, he managed to put a dampener on the evening. Any doubts I had about whether I’d made a mistake were answered. No, I hadn’t. The funniest thing was that he had no idea who I was with, for all he knew, I was on a date, or with my new boyfriend so he just seemed intent on hurting me or potentially scaring the man I was with off by making me out to be some sort of sadistic bitter and twisted queen. But they do say that sociopaths pursue endless vendettas against those they perceive to have wronged them, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I learnt that in therapy- aren’t I clever? Let me tell you those were some intense sessions - the quack had me screaming at the plant in the corner, things like ‘WHY?!’ ‘how could you have done that to me’ and 'stop fucking with my mind’. It seemed insane at first, but soon I was doing it to any bush or piece of foliage I passed. For a while, Kew Gardens was off my list of places to go. Six months of yelling at a yukka plant to find out I inherently pick the wrong men and friends who will cause mass destruction because all I’ve ever known is drama. Fab. Yeah, cheers, great, thanks a lot.

So, when you factor in the cost, the boredom, and the potential of bumping into crazed ex’s who are unpredictable and seem to have it in for you, it’s easy to understand why spending my life in town is somewhat less appealing. Some might think that is letting him win, but I say, you can only win if you’re playing a game, and I most definitely am not. I think a respite from the gay scene will do me wonders, and I look forward to returning to it soon, with gusto, for some much needed debauched fun, and fingers crossed, an STI. Who knows? Tequila still goes out and is still very much the social butterfly, and there are always going to be stories to tell, but for now Soho is dead to me.**


*Just off the top of my head, some of the deciding factors about his removal:

Sociopathic behaviour, pathological liar, sex addict (even though this threatened to destroy the relationship he kept on regardless and turned it on me saying it was my fault ), infantile behaviour, at times it was like dealing with a 13year old rather than a 35 year old, constantly forcing me into situations that I was uncomfortable with, extreme jealously over a friendship and regularly trying to come between it, hostile voicemails, one in particular saying he couldn’t wait for my mother to die so he could come and dance on her grave, accusing me of murdering the love of my life, who very sadly committed suicide when I was 21 (the most devastating thing to have happened to me, which he saw perfectly fit to use to hurt me. It did, irreversibly), abusive texts promising to destroy certain friendships for ever........you know, as I'm writing this, I think he might be my ideal man.......

One day, I did snap and I hit him in the face. I’m not a particularly strong person, and believe me am no fighter, but still he had me arrested and thrown in the slammer for the night. If I’m listing his shortcomings, it’s only fair I list mine. When I was released I had 36 missed calls from him. Where the hell did he think I was, in a piano bar singing show tunes with Liza?

** The book is open on just how long it will remain dead to me. One week anyone?

The man with no shame

Do I just date sociopaths? You know, those that lack a sense of personal responsibility and morality, have a total lack of remorse for their actions, are impulsive, manipulative, reckless, quarrelsome and consistent liars? The reason I ask is because I recently got an email from Goodie, a knob end I dated way back in my early twenties. It was in response to a request I had sent him, about a year ago. The request was:

From: "Tequila Mockingbird"
To: “goodie”Subject:
RE: Goodie has Tagged you! :)
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:11:32 +0000

Hi,

Please can you take my name off these things?

Regards,
Tequila

The ‘things’ I wanted to be taken off were the endless social networking sites and on line communities that he was signing up to which, because I was in his address book meant that I was bombarded with junk emails. Je déteste junk emails. All of these on line communities and IM services drive me insane and I just don’t get it. The whole thing is ridiculous, letting complete strangers have your phone number, email address and vital statistics? Letting your every last move be monitored by anyone and everyone, and those scary ex boyfriends that you really don’t want to know you are still alive, let alone getting on with your life without them thank you very much.*

However, more importantly, I didn’t want to accept his friend requests because this guy was an absolute cunt to me when we were together. The last contact we had was when I got home one day to find he had virtually emptied out my flat and set off into the sunset, after repeatedly cheating on me for nigh on eight months and sinking me literally thousands of pounds into debt. He was a pathological liar who really screwed my head up in a whole host of ways including manipulating me into thinking that his cheating was all in my head,regardless of the unquestionable evidence. He even went as far as to offer to go and see a shrink with me, you know, to sort out my 'trust' issues. Even when he gave me crabs, and insisted it was scabies, but still had me use the crabs lotion he had me thinking I was imagining it. He ran up HUGE phonebills ( which he left me to pay) on chat lines, that he was using to meet the men he was cheating on me with. We had not spoken since he'd done his midnight flit almost seven years ago and now he had the absolute unmitigated panooge to include me as a friend on the abundance of networking sites he was signing up for?? Clearly, not an ounce of shame.

His email said, and this is the actual text:

Mr!! im shocked !!! you dont know who i am do u ??? well you should seein as we spent nearly 2 years together natalie’s been telling me all about you glad your ok and doin better then me lol ive jus split up wid mine so livin in lpool now you will have to come visit its a rite good laugh nice to hear from ya even tho it was to say bugger off sent ya a pic as well love and kisses goodie **

I shall translate for those who speak English. This boil on the butt of humanity thought I had asked to be taken off his list, because I had forgotten who he was, and he was shocked. In his warped mind, the eight months we had spent together had now become two years, and he’d heard from someone we both knew that I was doing well. He had split up with his boyfriend, (I’m hazarding a guess there was infidelity on Goodies part) and he wanted me to go visit him in Liverpool. And he had sent me a picture. His email had outraged me, but when I clicked on the attachment, I nearly fell off my chair.

It was him, in his underwear. I presume to show me what I had been missing these seven years. Well, dear readers, all it did, was make me want to put hooks in my cheeks and fly myself off Canary Wharf. I have no idea what I ever saw in him. I used to think of him as sexy and incredibly handsome with a nice body. He was none of the things I thought he was. What the hell was I thinking? Love is not only blind; it’s for crazy people I tell you. You see that crazy bag lady on the street having an argument with herself and you’re seeing me. You hear that neighbour screaming at the voices in his head to all get along, and you’re hearing me. You watch Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and you’re watching me.

The thing which really annoyed me about the whole thing, was that he was only contacting me now because he’d split up with another one of his victims, whose vulnerable heart he no doubt would have preyed and trampled on. No mention of all the shit he put me through, no apology for the lies, the infidelities and the money he owed me. Nada. This email seemed like we were long lost pals.

I cannot believe the sheer effrontery of it all. You just could not make this stuff up. What the hell did he expect me to do? Email him back and say how happy I was to hear from him and the picture had got me all aquiver? Well I did email back. I said:

Goodie,
I do know who you are. Please stop sending me these things.
T

He’ll respond to that in a year undoubtedly. Please God don’t let the email have a picture attached.


*I have a facebook account, I admit, but my account is set to private, and ONLY my friends & family and some colleagues are on my account.

**Now before my darling Big Sis flies over from the US to kill me for the bad spelling and complete lack of grammar, I would like to point out, that I have simply copied and pasted the email in question. Big sis my love, In a Word document, it was one WHOLE big red squiggly line. xx

When a stranger emails

A friend of mine, Telstar emailed recently saying ‘we have a new best friend’ which had me intrigued and chomping at the bit to find out more. However, my eagerness soon turned to dread. Turns out he had been in communication with a chap that reads his blog religiously and they had been emailing each other for a few weeks. This guy, Just Justin, seemed to think that Telstar and I were the kind of Mo’s that you really want to be associated with and had made the very brave move of asking if we would meet him for a drink. Telstar obviously has mentioned some of our exploits via his emails, and he seemed keen on meeting, then raping and murdering us:

“I would actually really like to meet you and Tequila. You talk about him with such affection; it would be lovely to meet you both. Tell you what, I’m returning to London tomorrow. I'll leave you my mobile number so just text/call me when you want to meet (or whenever you wish!). Maybe you could send me a text so I could have yours? Or am I being too forward? (I am a complete stranger after all!)

I look forward to meeting you and Tequila in due course.”

Now, immediately I thought what a dreadful idea this would be. I have been contacted by many young lovelies asking to go out for a drink via my blog, but unlike Telstar, I’m not desperate, and also, do not have a death wish. I once met someone via a rather awful social networking site years ago, who on first impressions seemed like a normal kind of guy. Time showed that the face he had initially showed and the hand that he had dealt me could not have been further from who, or what he was. To this day he remains one of the most unhinged, manipulative, vengeful and self serving people I have ever met. And last year I met Madonna. So to say that I am loathe meeting strangers in an understatement. If it’s done via the internet, I’m sorry, but something aint right. As far as I was concerned, Just Justin was a little bit odd, and there was no way I was going to take part in any of this. As I always say, if your genitals are on the outside, you’re hiding something on the inside.

However, my good friend Telstar is single, and horny as hell, and he obviously wanted to meet up with this guy in the hope of getting some tail. Trouble being, he can be shy at times, and would only go if I would. I was caught between a rock and a gay place, so I racked my rack, and decided that in the true spirit of sisterhood, I had a responsibility for my flailing queerling of a friend, and agreed to go. It was time to Gay it Forward.

I roped Charles into coming along, incase Telstar & Just Justin hit it off, and left me high and dry looking like the local loon in the corner. We all met at about 5pm at The Y for a much needed debrief and some Dutch courage. We had arranged to meet with Just Justin at 7pm so had two hours to prepare ourselves.

Now, Telstar, poor sweet simple fool that he is, had not got a description of this guy, so we had no idea what we were on the lookout for. Honestly, didn’t even get a hair colour or ask what he would be wearing. I mean, that’s gay 101. This meant that Just Justin could be anybody. We would literally be looking for a needle in a gaystack.

By the time 7pm was approaching, we were on our 4th drink, feeling no pain and starting to get quite excited about meeting this chap. Even I had jumped on board the Just Justin Express. Every time a hot guy walked in the bar, we all silently prayed that this was our man. If a mutant guy walked into the bar, we’d all face the floor say nothing to each other and pray that if this were our man, he would spot that we are far too decent for him to associate with, and scuttle off out of our lives forever.

By 7:30, the bar was packed, but Just Justin was nowhere to be seen. It was starting to look like Telstar had been stood up. And by proxy, so had I. This did not bode well. ‘Do you think he came, took one look at you and then left’ I asked Telstar. ‘Well, now I do’ he screeched. Charles began laughing hysterically and saying ‘Tragic much? you two have been stood up by a guy you don’t even know’. I said ‘What’s to say it isn’t you he didn’t like the look of, sister’ which brought that one crashing back down to earth with a well needed thud.

As I was well on the way to drunkville, I kept shouting ‘JUSTIN!’ which had people looking at me like I was on a day trip from Bedlam. We then proceeded to tear Just Justin apart for having stood us up, and our tongues were acid sharp. ‘The blokes a cunt. A cardboard cut out cunt. If he turns up now, I’ll turf my drink in his face’ I proclaimed with Charles offering ‘I can’t believe we’ve been stood up, there’s nothing wrong with us. Probably an ugly bastard with pores you can see from space’ and Telstar crying ‘But we’re decent. Why didn’t show. He’d be lucky to have mates like us, the cunt. Someone’s got some hang up phonecalls coming their way’. And so on and so forth. We then proceeded to do what we always do, makes fun of everyone in the bar, just out of earshot and stand there cackling like the Bitches of Eastwick.

By 8pm, I was demanding that Telstar hand me over his phone so I could send a text to Just Justin telling him what I thought of him. I was like a homo with a bone, but he refused. Even tried to get the phone out of his pocket but to no avail. It was all getting quite dramatic, with even Charles screaming foul play. All this over a man we had never even met. By this point Just Justin had been truly vilified and used as fodder.

We went for some Sushi, to line the stomach for even more boozing, and a text came through to Telstar. ‘You were the guy in the plaid shirt, right? You didn’t see me,I was there from just after 7’. ‘We have to go back and meet him I said he’s come to meet us and we owe him at least one drink’. Which they both vetoed saying we owed him nothing, So I started kicking off and getting incensed saying that we would go to hell for being so awful, and that it would be really bad taste to ignore him now he’d made contact and how sorry I felt for him. ‘Text him back NOW’ I yelled.

‘Where were you, why didn’t you come up to us?’ said Telstar’s text. I was starting to throw a BF (Bitch fit) because I thought we should go back, but those two would just not cooperate. I guess I felt bad that we’d all been slagging him off for not showing and he actually had, but might have been too shy to come up to three queens who were pissed and hurling abuse. Not exactly the most approachable look eh? But at least I was trying to do the good thing and rectify the situation.

However, when Just Justin replied with ‘I was the guy standing behind you all night,sorry, I was too shy, next time?’ my morality kind of went out the window. The guy that was stood behind us was a dwarf with a sty, and homo just won’t play that. A cretin, a monster, a veritable gremlin. And one, that had been giving me the glad eye for about an hour at that. But what was even worse, was the fact that he had stood behind us and heard what hateful things we had been saying. I mean, based on how he looked, he deserved it, to be sure, but still, we all found it a bit creepy that he knew who we were, and didn’t just come and say hi, but chose instead, to stand behind us and eavesdrop on our entire conversation. It was all very ‘The call is coming from inside the house’ if you ask me. It felt like he had the upper hand, and none of us were impressed.

So, the bad news is that we all got exposed for being the acid tongued queens that we are for tearing Just Justin apart limp wrist, by limp wrist.

The good news is that none of us wanted to fuck him, so all in all, it was a pretty successful experiment.

Diamond Geezers are forever

Someone posed a question the other day- What is my single most embarrassing moment? Immediately a plethora of images flickered through my mind as I recalled times when I have prayed for the ground to open up and ingest me whole, or have longed for spontaneous combustion. Such gems as the time I went Speed Dating and hurled abuse at all attendees, or the time that I got up at Karaoke night refused to get off stage and kept asking the DJ to ‘hit me’ with another track, or the time I thought it would be fun to hack into my works phone system and change everyone’s outgoing voicemails while drunk, or when I came onto a dashingly handsome fellow at a work function blissfully unaware that not only was he straight, he was the General Managers husband. And how could I ever forget the time that I applied fake tan for a blind date, which next morning had come off on the guys Egyptian cotton sheets. That was awkward enough, but the fact that when he’d commented on my colour the night before I'd embellished and said I was in fact of Greek decent was slightly more reprehensible now that my ‘heritage’ had stained his linens.

I responded saying ‘It’s difficult to pick just one as my life has been one embarrassing moment and I could literally write a book about some of the more thwarting things that have happened to me’. What’s funny is that I say ‘happened to me’ when in fact most things are caused by me, so in fact, I am merely living in the hell of my own making. My sheer existence at times it seems, is to publicly humiliate myself, which makes me wonder if that is why I have previously dated sociopaths.

I decided that as I am a self deprecating kind of guy, I would start blogging about some of my less than fabulous moments. Let’s begin with the night I met hot British actor Danny Dyer.

I have been a fan for ten years, and fell head over heels in love when he adorned my screen in the film Human Traffic. Since then I have seen every film he has been in, the good, the bad and the very very ugly. Even when his films are dreadful, they are first-rate, because it has him in it to salivate over. Yes he may play the same character in every single film, but my life has always been lacking consistency, and that dear readers I get through Danny. He is the one true constant in my inconsistent life.

So, you can imagine my delight when last April my friend Charles invited me to a party called Diamond Geezers, which his PR agency was arranging. It was Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan's party ( they starred inThe Business together) that they were throwing ahead of their involvement in something called Gumball Rally, launching the next evening at the Trocadero which I also had tickets for.

I had promised myself that if I were ever to meet him I would be uber cool, incredibly unfazed and would win him over with my undeniable wit. I would praise him on his acting abilities, show what a fan I was by quoting obscure lines from lesser known films and ask if I would ever get the chance to see him at the theatre and possibly get into a heated debate about the film industry, he’d realise that I could stand my ground, which would result in me appearing even more alluring.

What essentially happened could not be further from the truth. Telstar and I rocked up at a jewellers on Bond Street where the party was being held- all very themed we deduced, holding a Diamond Geezers soiree in an actual shop that specialised in diamonds. It was very James Bond. Sadly, the diamante encrusted belt I was wearing was not forever. The night got off to a bad start when we hit the red carpet. Being the nobodies that we are, the paparazzi groaned, asked each other very audibly who ‘the queens’ on the carpet were, stopped taking pictures and then chatted amongst themselves until real Z-listers arrived.

‘Are you here to cover or to play?’ enquired the lady on the door. ‘Play’ we squealed in unison, whilst jumping up and down a little and clapping like seals. Surprisingly, after this display, we were still allowed in.

Two glasses of champagne in (we’d already necked a bottle of wine in approximately 10 minutes in a bar around the corner for medicinal purposes, naturellement) and we were starting to ignore the suspicious looks from the other guests. We were dressed like extras on Pimp My Ride, and everyone else had opted for their best designer attire. Not only did we not belong, but we looked like we didn’t belong and were sticking out like two sore gays.

All of a sudden the room became saturated in flash lights and the click of cameras. Danny was on his way in the door. In he walked with Tamer, down the stairs, and everyone followed him into what can only be described as a secret nightclub under the shop. There was a bar, a celebrity DJ, a dance floor, and Nintendo Wii consoles. This is not what you expect to find underneath a Jewellers on Bond Street. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, and I knew the first thing I wanted to take a bite out of.

Thankfully the bar was free so we ordered drinks and scuttled into a corner where we had a perfect view of our beloved. Sipping champagne and staring at Danny Dyer- what could be better? We continued to make full use of the free bar, hitting it with such frequency that the bar staff would simply lift two fingers and tilt their heads when we approached to enquire if we wanted yet more champagne, to which either one of us would simply nod and say ‘We’ll have another two’.


We persistently watched our man from afar while he played on the games console taking deep and sharp breaths every time he moved. He looked so delicious, I knew he had to be fattening. I’d never felt so star struck and love struck at the same time. After another nine glasses of champers, I was full of courage and ready to make my move. Telstar went to the toilet and I decided to pounce. When he came back, I was playing the Nintendo with Danny. To say I couldn’t concentrate is an understatement, my heart was pounding, my crotch was throbbing and I was feeling quite lightheaded. I crashed down to earth when Telstar hustled in between us and demanded to know what I was doing, and told my man not to talk to me.

I threw myself at him and said 'I love you, I’ve seen all your films, don’t talk to this one he’s a cunt’ and Telstar started saying ‘No Danny I’m the real fan, this one’s the cunt’. We then started fighting over Danny Dyer, in front of Danny Dyer, hurling quotes and insults at each other, which is not the best approach admittedly. Danny eventually said 'Listen boys, you’re mates, stop calling each other cunts’ which only made us vie for his attention even more. He subsequently gave us a hug, and said ‘you’re both cunts, I fuckin’ love you irons*’

Now I have been called a cunt by a man before, whilst in bed in fact, and I did not enjoy it one bit. He actually spat on me and then called me a cunt, which he thought was entirely customary, but I found truly disconcerting. However, being called it by Danny Dyer was a completely different and it was the most romantic thing I had ever heard. We started having a chat and he asked what our favourite films were, told us how much he loved his fans, had his picture taken with us and was the nicest, most humble man either of us has ever met. Instead of asking him all the things I always said I would, all I kept saying was ‘Seriously, I fucking love you. No, but you don’t understand Danny, I really love you’. I’m surprised that he didn’t give us both a wallop, or have us thrown out, but he acted like we were the only two in the room. To be fair, we WERE the only two homos in the room professing our undying love for a straight man. He must have been completely bemused when he realised that he didn’t know any queerlings and most definitely hadn’t invited any to his party yet here were Gay and Gayer doing the whole presenting of the butt ritual.

We spoke of his gay following and he asked if I had seen his Attitude Magazine front cover. ‘Seen it??! Danny I masturbate to it every day’ I screeched, which again, instead of taking offence, he laughed at. I then told him that my dream was to take a line of cocaine off of his cock, and enquired if it would be possible. ‘Uh, yeah, maybe later babe’ he said and then that was it, off he went. I don’t think he was particularly offended by what I had said, and to this day I still maintain that he left in pursuit of getting some of the old Columbian powder to make my dream a reality.

The rest of the night is pretty much a blur, I recall telling the DJ he was useless for not playing Prince, I threw myself at Tamer and told him I wanted to blow Danny and made a general fool of myself on the dancefloor. When Tamar addressed the room on a microphone to thank everyone for coming he said ‘I’m just gonna say a few words, but before I start I just wanna say I’ve got a couple of fucking Iron’s behind me and they’re in love with Danny Fucking Dyer and this one(pointing to me) wants to do a line of Charlie off his ol’ boy’ Now this was a room full of the underbelly of London’s gangster world, modern day Krays and people that you really wouldn’t want to be caught down a dark alley with, let alone in a secret room beneath a jewellers on Bond Street- I feared we were about to become next days front page news ‘Homo’s found beheaded and impaled on Blackfriars bridge’ but instead of trying to kill us, they all laughed and applauded, which neither of us were expecting. Realising that our 15 seconds of fame was nearly up, Telstar grabbed the microphone from Tamer and announced to the room ‘I am all about the Tamar Hassan’ to which there was another huge round of applause from our indulgent audience. We gave them a bow and let Tamer continue his speech, all the while interjecting and screaming ‘We love you’.

Danny, Tamer and most of their troupe left shortly after the speech, but Telstar, myself and the rest of the freeloaders continued to dance and drink the free bar. I fell over at some point and knocked myself unconscious on the dance floor. When I regained consciousness a few people were putting cold towels on my head and asking if I was ok. The first thing I said was 'What’s going on, where the fuck is Danny Dyer’ when to be perfectly honest I should have been thanking these people for looking after me. Next thing I know I was flying through the air. That is the very first time that I have actually been thrown out of anywhere and into the bins. I felt like Courtney Love. As Telstar was with me, he sadly befell the same fate, which did not amuse, because he was having a great time mixing with the Z list celebrities and was having a real bonding experience with Big Brovaz and Abs from 5ive.

The following night we had VIP tickets to the Gumball launch which Danny and Tamer would be at again. You would think, that based on my performance at the previous party that I wouldn’t have the temerity to turn up. But my motto has always been there’s nothing like regret to remind you that you’re alive, so I reasoned I had better get down there and behave even more regretfully.

Now, meeting Danny Dyer the night before was brilliant. Being recognised by him as I sauntered into the VIP section was priceless. As we walked in Tamer said ‘Have a look, it’s the irons again’ Danny bowled over, gave me a big hug and said ‘How’s it goin babes? I died a little bit and then told him all about my behaviour after he had left the party, which he found HIGHlarious. The whole time I was relaying the story to him, he was stroking my chest, which was the most erotic yet unnerving thing that I have experienced. We chatted for a while and then he asked ‘You still wanna do that line of Charlie off me cock?’ grabbed his crotch turned, walked away and said ‘get in there my son’ It was the most perfect moment of my life.

So, what I would say to anybody, when meeting a celebrity is to just be yourself. Turns out they not only appreciate it, but you’ll be remembered for it too. I’ve now met Danny a number of times and we have a bit of banter, and I always ask him if I can blow him. He declines my offer, but one day I know he is just going to unleash the monster and let me feed.

I do die of mortification when I call to mind just how disgraceful I was the first time we met, but then he knows me by name now, and that quite frankly, is worth the inner shame.

* Cockney Rhyming Slang- Iron Hoofs = Poofs

Situation difficile

You’d think being somebodies object d’art would make one feel uber fabulous, confident and vicariously sexual but in truth, it makes me feel unnerved, irritated and hounded, especially in the way that JT has tried to, for want of a better expression, get into my Jock Straps.

It started a while back when I came into the office one morning, to an email saying ‘Hi Tequilla, really great to meet you yesterday. You look familiar, have I seen you out somewhere?’ from someone called JT. Now while this in itself is inoffensive it did slightly unease me because I had no idea who JT was and certainly had no recollection of meeting him. I began perturbing that all the doctor’s warnings were legitimate; one day the years of drugs and alcohol worship really would result in memory loss and brain damage.

‘Do you know who this JT is?’ I asked the team and a little bit of research later I learned JT worked in our other building as the Head of Facilities and was at a Focus Group the previous day, which, yours truly was also at. In these kinds of situations, I keep myself to myself and pray that nobody will talk to me. As I mentioned previously I work in an organisation where it’s all very much about office-speak and management talk which is spoken in abundance at the best of times, but a Focus Group? Fuck. Me .Hard. It just drones on and on, so I zone out, daydreaming about working in a place where they all speak The Queens English only to zone back and hear the likes of ‘Not letting the grass grow too long on this one’ ‘what are the elephants in the room’ and ‘getting all of our ducks in a row’.

Thinking back on the previous day, I vaguely recalled getting myself a coffee and asking a guy if he would mind passing the milk. That was it. That was him. I’d asked someone to pass me a drop of milk for my coffee, and suddenly we ‘met’. And according to JT, ‘it was great’. If that is the case, then I’m better about meeting people than I think I am. Who knew it was so unproblematic?

Armed with this knowledge and still no clearer I emailed back saying ‘Hi, it’s possible you have seen me out, I am a permanent fixture in most pubs and bars in Central London’. I didn’t want to be rude by not emailing back, but didn’t want to say ‘great to meet you too’ so didn’t.

Literally a few seconds later he emailed back ‘so, which bars do you drink in matey’ and I realised, he was trying to figure out if I was of the lavender persuasion. If I was less of a moth to a flame and more of a moth to a flamer. In short, was I a pole smoker? Now, I’ve never considered myself to be the most mannish of guys, but I didn’t speak to anyone or move in that Focus Group, which is the only way I am able to conceal my Lavenderness. He was trying to work me out, which piqued me if I’m honest. Does he have any idea how much work has gone into being this gay?

‘The ones that serve alcohol’ I fired back. I was being very short and sharp hoping that he’d take the hint but no, within milliseconds he’s saying ‘LOL like a drink do we? Seriously, I think I’ve seen you out and about what’s your local?’

Was he freaking kidding me with this? The espèce de merde. He knew how totally inappropriate this was becoming, he could after all have been barking up the wrong tree, which is why he was so hesitant in asking me if I drank in a specific Homo Haunt.

‘ I don’t have a regular, I have been in most of the bars in the West End, including Soho wine bar, the Toucan, Café Boheme, The Wellington, The Marquis and The Yard.’ All the bars apart from The Yard are heterosexual places, and I have been in them all many times, so if he was trying to find out if I received swollen goods and took deliveries around the back based on where I drink, well, then he was barking up the wrong lavander bush quite frankly.

Again, quick as a cat he emailed back, ‘Ah, The Yard? That’s not the kind of place I’d expect a bear cub like you to hang out. LOL Listen, I think you’re cute, and it’d be nice to get to know each other a bit more, when are we going for a bevy? Maybe we could do it at the weekend and make a day of it LOL, go for lunch, then out on the razz LOL’

Ladies and Dobermans, I don’t mind telling you I almost fell off my chair when that came through. I don’t know what I was more offended by, the fact that he had LOL’d me three times in one email, which really is a pet hate of mine, had called me a bear cub, or had assumed that it was appropriate to hit on someone you worked with via work email? It was by far, one of the most unsavoury things that had ever popped in my box.

I felt a little bit of sick come up and decided to nip this in the bud. I replied ‘Considering the only words we have ever said to each other are ‘can you pass the milk’ I’m not sure we’d have much to talk about, so think I’ll give it a miss’

‘Calm down, I didn’t ask to marry you I just want to get to know other people in the charity. I’ve worked here for years and don’t really know anyone’

Yes, well, if this is how you behave then I’m not really surprised I thought to myself. And how you have the unmitigated crust to now make this about work is beyond me. You have called me cute, a bear cub, asked me to go on the razz, said how nice it was to meet me, badgered me into telling you I’m gay in a roundabout way and not ONCE have you asked what I do here. And the fact that you snapped about not asking to marry me, because I declined your offer in a humorous way, trying to make this less embarrassing for you than it already is suggests to me that I’ve been fucked over by you being a colleague, let alone someone who I’d go and socialise with. Jesus tonight.

So I ignored it, and the email he sent me the following day asking what I got up to the night before. What is he, a rejection junkie?

I never heard or thought about him again. I had completely forgotten about the episode when my boss told me that due to a restructuring, Facilities would fall under her umbrella. I knew it was coming, I could sense it, in the same way that animals know when an earthquake is about to hit and they begin acting oddly, make strange noises and start pacing. I was doing all of this.

‘So I need to you to get some time in the diary with someone called JT. Do you know him at all?’

***sweat pouring down forehead in manner of Iguaza Falls***

‘No, but I’m sure I’ll find him on the Intranet. I’ll get that set up for you, leave it with me.’

Do I know him? Lady are you serious, I am the object of his erection. I can’t believe this. I KNOW that as soon as I contact him even though it is for business related purposes he is going to be like a preying mantis all over again. There is no way that I can call him, and based on our previous contact, it’s probably a good idea to have electronic evidence, you know, for when the trial of my having been raped and murdered comes to court, so I’ll stick with the email.

Shall I just move jobs?

Confessions On A Answerphone

First off thanks for all of your emails and the comments on my blog. Sometimes it kinda makes me feel bad for not blogging so often. But only for a little while. No seriously, I do appreciate them and I will get back to you all.

So, as is the norm, Tequilla finds himself in a little bit of a pickle. This time though, I really don’t know what to do.

My friend Jake hosted his annual ‘Madonna Night’ this weekend. Even though I may not be on board with her latest offering, she is still the mother of us all, and therefore I headed West to Ealing with disco ball and mirrored cross strapped to my back for my entrance. You should have seen the looks of surprise when I rose from the ground singing Live to Tell.

There was much drinking and frivolity with Madonna concerts being screened back to back, me repeatedly requesting Gambler and trying to teach everyone how to Vogue. Some people had really gone to town and had come dressed as Madonna throughout her career, every where you looked there were cowboy hats, wedding dresses and conical bras. It could not have been any gayer if Barbra Streisand was there draped over a piano singing the Way We Were.

Some of the Old Columbian powder was being passed around freely, but having given all that malarkey up about three years ago now, I stuck to my white wine spritzers. Seeing people off their heads had me positively cringing when thinking back to the amount of absolute drivel I must have come out with. Why do people on coke just not shut the fuck up, and give themselves a chance to breathe? And I’m saying this as someone who used to indulge VERY heavily. I’d come home and if everyone had gone to bed I’d talk to my reflection in the toaster for hours, just to have someone to talk to.

The party was great and at about 1am people started leaving, most to go on clubbing. I had brought my over night kit to sleep in Jake’s spare room, and all I wanted to do was sit there, keep drinking wine and watch the Confession’s concert without any interruptions. So it was me, Jake, his friend Ruth and some howdy doody looking Mother Fella called Christopher, a pint sized Irish Mo with a zest for life and a yearning to dance, who had been entertaining everyone with the full routine to the Don’t Tell Me video, which had me spitting feathers in the corner for having not mastered it myself.

Jake seemed delighted that Christopher was staying on to watch the DVD and I could see that he was hoping that he might be getting some tail. He had been shamelessly flirting with Christopher all night, which was quite embarrassing, especially when his advances were continually spurned. He must have thought that by this point Christopher’s Beer Goggles were firmly in place and he was ready to make musk rat love.

So the DVD is popped in and I sit down, on the sofa. Christopher sits next to me and the concert begins. Christopher say’s he was at the show that we were watching, then abruptly the DVD stops.

‘If you two are just going to sit there and flirt with each other I’d prefer it if you left. You’ve been all over each other all night’ slurred Jake, in a not so nice tone.

‘What are you talking about, we’re sitting next to each other’ I cried

To which Jake screeched ‘I’ve seen you, whispering sweet nothings in each others ears all night, and practically having sex, you’ve both totally ruined my Madonna Night and made it incredibly uncomfortable for everyone, that’s why they’ve all left’

What the Freddie Prinze Junior what this bi-otch going on about? I had probably said two words to Christopher all night. This was all so strange.

He then jumped up from his seat and went over to the TV, turned it off, looked at me and howled ‘And you BROKE my speakers! I think you should just fucking get out now, go on, go back to Christophers’ and drool all over each other, I don’t want to see this in my fucking house’

Christopher and I looked at each other like foreigners who had turned up at customs without visas. What was happening? I’d been invited to stay, then all of a sudden I’m being accused of virtually having sex with someone in full view of everyone, breaking speakers, which I had been nowhere near, but HAD seen Jake fall onto earlier on, and was being turfed out onto the streets at 2am. In fucking EALING. I live in Surrey Quays. Miles away.

I was not in the mood for this so I just said ‘Jake, if you can’t handle your alcohol then don’t drink it. I am leaving now and I look forward to you waking up tomorrow and remembering all of this, how you invited me to stay and then threw me out of you flat for no reason, all because you are jealous that this dude isn’t interested in you. Don’t project your bullshit onto me. And as for your speakers, you fell onto them you ignoramus and broke them yourself. And furthermore you're kind of on a nine at the moment when you really ought to be on a two- toodles' and span on my heels and left.

I left with poor Christopher behind me asking ‘what the fuck was all that about?' I had no idea, but that boy had just won himself an Oscar nomination. All I knew was I needed to get home, then Christopher chirps up with ‘You can spend the night at mine’ and proceeded to hit on me.

‘Are you crazy? I’ve just been chased out of a flat in the middle of Ealing at 2 in the morning by a queen on the verge of a nervous breakdown and you’re trying to get me in the sack? I need to get home, not get Homo.’

So, I made my excuses and left, found a cab place and saw their eyes light up when I said Surrey Quays. £48 later, I got home and fell into bed.

When I woke on Sunday, I had 18 missed calls from Jake who had been frantically trying to get hold of me, but I just couldn’t be bothered with dealing with what would no doubt have been a drunken blabbering, snivelling mess, so had put my phone on silent in the cab.

I clicked to listen to my voicemail, and had a new message. I put my phone on loud speaker and listened to what was the funniest message I had ever heard. He was desperately crying apologising and saying ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’ve done, what did I do, please forgive me, you’re such a good friend’ and I could hear the snot falling from his nose and the tears from his eyes hitting the handset. But then something truly uncanny happened. The message continued after he had said goodbye. He hadn’t hung up. It was hard to make out at first as all I could hear was him crying and being comforted by Ruth. Then he said ‘What the fuck have I done? I’ve been in love with Tequila for over 4 years. I have never felt this way about anyone, and because of my fucking stupid jealousy, I’ve ruined any chances of ever being with him. And now I’ve sent him flying into Christopher’s arms. They’re fucking now, aren’t they? They are fucking, fucking each other and it’s my entire fault……….’

And on and on it went….I didn’t know where to look. He hasn’t a clue that he left that message, because he thought he’d hung up. I felt embarrassed, like I was eavesdropping, but I wasn’t. It was there on my answering machine. It was like a car crash, or the new Madonna video, you know you shouldn’t look, but you just can’t turn away. Hearing myself being referred to as someone’s soul mate was very odd, especially when I had NO idea how he felt for me.

I knew I had to contact him, because I was in no doubt that he’d be calling to apologise abundantly, but the thought of talking to him with my new found awareness had me sweating like a whore in church. I sent a text saying ‘No hard feelings don’t beat yourself up about it; we’ve all had mad moments when intoxicated. You did Madonna proud.’ He sent one apologising again, which I didn’t get back to. What could I say ‘Oh, don’t worry, I enjoyed you yelling fuck at me, and FYI, I now know you’re in love with me and no I did not end up fucking Christopher’.

We have planned to go away for the weekend next month, and I feel really uncomfortable about the whole thing. Do I tell him I know? What if when we go away he’s planning to make a move? Oh readers I am in a two and eight about this, and feel really nauseous. I just want to cut ties with him altogether. Can I do that?

You’d think hearing that someone is in love with you would be flattering, but in this case it feels anything but. I’m questioning our friendship and wondering if when I’ve had moments and been down and he’s comforted me if there was more in it. I think about us going to the gym together and him seeing me naked. I wonder if he fantasizes about me and it is making me want to tear off all my limbs and throw myself at a chilli plant. I mean, if I fancy someone, then I masturbate over them 20 times an hour. So if he’s in love with me, is he bashing the bishop over me?

This is not good. Will our friendship be able to survive? Aren’t they built on trust and having no secrets? He doesn’t know that I know, you know? But I can’t tell him, as it would humiliate him, and may make him far too embarrassed to ever talk to me. I will never feel the same around him again, and will be walking on eggshells wondering if he is about to pounce. We’re going to see George Michael in August which I have been so excited about but now I don’t even want to go. What if during I’m Your Man he decides to try and be my man? Fuck that fucking voicemail message.

Even my friendships are of unknown quantities. Who knew? If I was Jewish, I’d be oy-ing all over the place right now.

So, the question is, what would YOU do?

Tequilla- raised from the ashes

Ladies, Gentlemen and undecided,

It has been an age since I last put fingers to keyboard I know, and I would love to give an excuse like I have been volunteering in a third world country, without clean water or food, let alone a laptop connection, but in truth I just couldn’t be bothered. There, I’ve said it. However, following the urging of a blogging friend, I decided to raise Tequilla from the ashes and update all on The Mockingbird.

So much has happened since my last post that I don’t know where to begin. Firstly, I got myself a new job. I am now an assistant to the director of a high profile organisation. What that means is, I’m someone’s bitch and I effing love it. The Not for Profit world is indeed a funny one, and it’s taken me some time to embrace the utter twaddle of it all. You know, the political correctness, the lunacy and most of all the business jargon- a phenomenon that is totally unknown to me. All day long I hear talk of brown bag lunches, emergent environments, idea showers and big ticket items.

It’s completely unfathomable to me that this knob-end speak occurs in such a professional environment and sometimes I find myself staring at people with complete and absolute confusion.. Why would you replace ‘We screwed up here’ with ‘We wrongsided the demographic’ or ‘Let’s have a drink after work’ with ‘Shall we touch base offline’??? I have been here for almost two years (I had another role before applying for the one I now have), and still just cannot get to grips with what is referred to as ‘Management Speak’. Actually, I refuse to.

Other than that, I am totally on board with my new job, and have never been happier in work. My boss is great and I think she enjoys the fact that she has a gay assistant, and is seen throughout the organisation as someone who is really progressive and outside box thinking.

'Speak with my gay assistant about setting something up’
'You have a gay assistant? How unreservedly forward thinking’

I’m on more money than I have ever earned (although I am poorer than I have ever been- how does that work??) and I wake up every day looking forward to going to work, so really can’t complain.

I turned the big 30 in March of this year, so am now officially deceased in gays years. I now literally have the shelf life of a dairy product, and I’m staring to curdle. I am a dead homo fucking. Its odd turning 30, there really was a mind shift for me, and in the approach to it, a strange thing happened . I started thinking about the future. And not just the end of the week, but of years to come. I started thinking about the fact that I never have any money a week after payday and am under house arrest because I have been tearing the arse out of it for a week and spent all of my wages. So, last September I started to, wait for it, save money. In 3 months I put away £1500 and for the first time in my life I was able to hit the January sales. However, I wasn’t shopping for clothes, fragrances and skin care products. No, I was on the hunt for electricals. I bought myself a flat screen TV, a fridge and a washing machine. Finally, Tequilla had grown up. It was all about Cash ISA’s, pension plans, IBS and saving for a rainy day.

However, the thrill of saving quickly passed, and I am now back to my old ways, and am so poor at the moment I may have to nip down to the pawn shop this weekend with the Armani watch I got for my birthday, just to get enough cash to get me through to payday. Nobody can say that I do not give things a fair try. However, nobody could say that I stick to things either. I am like English weather, unpredictable, erratic and mostly disappointing.

Sadly I had to say goodbye to my cat Toby last week. He hasn’t died, he just drove me to the edge of my sanity. He was never happy, always whingeing to go out, when he was out he would howl to get in, even though the window was open for him, and I have never heard a cat make such a racket. My neighbour was always complaining because he was a nuisance, and it was getting really embarrassing. On top of that, was the fact that he kept using my entire flat as a littler box.

He ruined my floorboards, covers of my DVD box sets, my photography books and an entertainment unit (it eventually rust and buckled on account of how much he was urinating on it) so in despair I took him to the vet, who checks him for urinary problems. That test cost me £75. Nada. No problem with his urine. The cat is stressed they tell me. Why is he stressed, can’t he meet his deadlines at work? Does he have financial woes, and is the rise in utilities taking its toll on him? Anyhoo they advise me to buy this plug in thing called feliway, which is supposed to create a tranquil environment for stressed pussies. At £30 a pop for a months supply, I gave it three months. Didn’t work. This little furry thing was pushing me over the edge, and I thought to myself, if this were a man, I would have dumped him a long time ago.

The FINAL straw came last Tuesday when I woke up and there was no electricity. Now I don’t mess with electric, can just about switch on a plug, let alone change one, so called in an electrician, he fiddles with a few things, not me unfortunately cos this guy was Foxy with a capital ‘Fuck me now’. Anyway, asks me ‘Have you got a pet in here?’ and then proceeded to tell me that Toby had urinated into an extension cable, causing the electric to blow. Told me I was lucky that it hadn’t started an electrical fire and killed me. I think when it gets to the point where your pussy is endangering your life; it’s time for tough love. I resisted the urge of putting him, the ruined extension and a couple tins of Whiskers in a tied bag and floating it down the Thames and he is now residing with my Mum and her 3 other cats. If that doesn’t teach him a lesson, nothing will. It’s sad, but I just don’t know if my work will believe another ‘I can’t come in today, my cat tried to kill me again last night’.Only I could end up with the Anti-Cat.

So, turns out, even my relationships with animals are dysfunctional.

Tequilla Does Assertive

You know, I have signed up for some crazy things in my life from Speed Dating; becoming a Chat line operator; volunteering in a soup kitchen; taking part in a stopping smoking trial, to doing a charity run. These days I am all about trying different things and gaining new life experiences.

So when I saw an advert for a 5 day long Assertiveness course, I decided to sign up quicker than a bulimic could purge a peanut. I tried to kid myself that it would be really interesting and a great thing to do for growth and personal development. But I finally gave in to my nagging conscience and admitted I was going in the hope of finding some decent tail.

Now I am not a particularly confident person at all. Once I have had a drink I am Mr Confident, but we all know that there is a fine line between being confident, and being a cunt, and as I say, I am still yet to master the art of confidence………so signing up for this was a huge deal for me as I knew it would have to be done alcohol free.

After a sleepless night the day had arrived, and I did what I always do when I am anxious, terrified and about to crap myself- I go on auto pilot, and before I knew it I was taking a left off Tottenham Court Road en route to my certain humiliation, and death……

I walked in and there were two rows of chairs in the middle of the room. I spied the one I decided was at the back and sat down. A few followed suit but I gave them my best ‘talk to me and I’ll rip off your head and shit in your neck’ look, which seemed to work wonders.

To my horror one of the facilitators began rearranging the chairs to make a semi circle, which actually meant that I was sat at the front, as opposed to being at the back. We all know what that means. Yep, when it comes to the whole ‘introduce yourself to the group’ cuntistry, I’d be first up. The seat directly to my right was free so I spotted my salvation and made a jump floor it, but doing so I collided with a howdy–doody-looking mother-fella, sent his coffee flying across the room, and with it my last shred of dignity. Everyone looked at me while I looked at the floor and wondered why it wasn’t opening to absorb me. I had been in the room less than 2 minutes and I had already embarrassed myself, ruined someone’s outfit, broken crockery and made an enemy in ‘Philippe’.

Before I knew what was happening we had been split up in two groups and were told we had to come up with a ‘Group Agreement’. Once this had been completed we were all ‘bound’ and it would become a ‘Closed Group’. We had to come up with our own ‘terms & conditions’ or in other words, things we should and shouldn’t do, or things we expected our counterparts to do, or not do. The air was abuzz with words and phrases such as ‘Respect’ ‘ Boundaries’ ‘No judgement’ and ‘I have the right to sleep with who I want without having to justify it’….. However the main thing that everyone wanted to be clear on was how we would approach someone from the course if we met ‘outside the group’. I said “I wouldn’t have a problem if you come and say hello” to which this venomous queen started screaming at me ‘Well what if I am with someone? Will that put me in a difficult situation? What will they think? I don’t want anyone knowing about this, nobody knows I’m gay!!!!’ I said, “Hi there Angry, are you mad much? You really need to chill out here’ and reasoned that by the end of the course he would be assertive enough to say to the probing friend “it’s none of your business”. Now I thought this was a valid point, but the whole group then looked at me and then each other like they had just been caught in Bangkok with a couple of kilos of cocaine on them. To say it went down like a plate of sick is an understatement.

After we had compiled our ’ Group agreement’ it was time for the bit that I was dreading. The part where you have to introduce yourself to the room by giving your name and why you were there. I was first in line:

“Hello, my name is Tequila (adopting a slightly incredulous tone) and, um, I’m here because I’m not very assertive” .The whole room looked at me, some mouths open, staring in disbelief and a lengthy silence ensued. Russ, the facilitator, started gesturing for me to continue, but that was ALL I had to say. Why the fuck else would you be on an Assertiveness course? I then realised that everyone in the room was waiting for me to say something else. I can’t tell you how uncomfortable I felt with all those gay eyes on me. Judging me. Undressing me. Dressing me up again in different outfit.

I needed some damage control but by this point all my barriers had gone up so I simply said “Well I’m sorry but it’s why I’m here, what else do you want me to say?”

Russ, sensing a lynching was as quick as a cat. “Um, yep, great, thanks for that Tequila, OK moving on’ ………. Philippe, the guy who already hated me because of ‘coffee-gate’ piped up:

“Oh, hi guys, well, I am in a fantastic relationship, I have just had a big promotion and pay rise at work, my friends are fabulous, I have just got on the property ladder and life is perfect. I’m here because I thought it would be a fun and interesting thing to do”

I thought, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I had signed up for ‘My life is fabulous and you are all a bunch of losers’. I started to have serious doubts about the men that had signed up for this course and their lack of assertiveness. As we continued around the room everyone apart from my good self seemed confident, outgoing and assertive. It became clear that this was a group of people who were so in love with every aspect of their fantastic lives that they would use any opportunity to talk about it.

After introductions, Russ started talking about what the 5 day course would entail, what skills we could hope to learn and lots of other interesting information that he kept interjecting ‘Assertiveness-isms’ into such as:

Learning to have a ‘transaction’ with someone without feeling threatened

Disclosing information within the group

Taking the responsibility to ‘own’ what ever we were ‘disclosing’

Parking our issues

Understanding our ‘Bottom line’

What the Sarah Michelle Gellar had I let myself in for I thought? Transactions? Bottom lines? Parking my issues? Load of old bollocks much? Cuntistry much? Get me the hell out of here much?

This course was not for me, and I knew I had to leave. Lunch would be the perfect time to do a Houdini, so content with the fact that I would leave these cunts behind; I suddenly had a new found confidence. Knowing I was jumping ship made me feel well, superior, so I started talking to people, cracking jokes and generally being myself.

This backfired. This backfired BIG. Because when I was running for the door like a dog that hadn’t been out in a month, half of the guys followed me and asked where I was going for lunch. I couldn’t think of a lie quick enough to cover up the fact that I was out, way out, on my way home out, so instead I just said the park and by 2pm I was back at the course, apparently having a good time.

The second half was even more vomit inducing, with role plays involving us trying to take a jumper back for a refund and trying to get the second two weeks off in July but coming to a compromise with our boss and accepting the last week of July and the first week of August, as our ‘bottom line’. It was SO painful. None of this meant anything, it was ridiculous and I couldn’t believe these cunts were taking it so seriously.

Did I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and not go back in? Yes, I did. Did a cutie called Shaun ask for my number? Yes, he did. Did I go back for the other 4 days of the course? No, I did not.

And that my friends, is the true meaning of assertiveness.

UNSENT

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