Ladies.

One thing which has always struck me, more than any other flaw in my own personality, is my complete inability to converse with the fairer sex.  I have always struggled to strike up a conversation of any worth, meaning, or interest with a lady - probably from the first moment dialogue could be formed from my tiny little awkward child mouth. Even in early youth, when such boundaries of social awkwardness and ineptness towards women have not yet been formed, an innate force within me always seemed to cut the cord in my brain along which normal conversation commutes; forcing my mind to take an alternative route, resulting in phrases such as “Couscous?”, “Craig David?” and “The Independent?” escaping my idiotic cavern of a mouth. It goes without saying that these, obscure, detailed, cultural references fell far from the mark when it came to impressing the ladies, especially when strewn into conversation out of context and out of turn.

I set it upon myself to try to decipher where this tangible nightmare could’ve derived. My first port of call, unsurprisingly so, was my appearance. Although not horrific, some might say I looked ‘different’. I mean, I’d like to say there’s nothing particularly striking about my face, or indeed my body, which repulses people to the extent of mass genocide. Certainly nothing so overly pronounced to an extent which could make a grown man vomit, from inside his plush estate Volvo upon watching me cross the road. However, there has always been something - a slight, almost unnoticeable niggle I’ve had with my own looks. It’s nothing really, in fact, not even worth writing about. The grown man in his Volvo would spot me and think nothing of it. However if the grown man in the Volvo were to pull over in his sleek company car, stop me and ask politely my age at any point through my teenage years, he would probably spontaneously combust with horror - completely spoiling his shimmering Scandinavian leather interior. I have always looked a little older than my years. 6ft tall by the age of twelve, untamed facial foliage by thirteen; I’ve never looked my age. At age eleven I wore a size twelve shoe; quashing the usual authoritarian quip, “Act your age, not your shoe size”. 

On paper, this scenario sounds fairly manageable to the average man. Most people look on the bright side, “Oh I bet you always got served underage!” forgetting that I am an inevitable cock in any situation in which I may need to act the least bit suave; cocking up my syntax, cocking up my presentation of cash, spilling coppers, apologising frantically, etcetera, etcetera.

In addition to this, my chances of getting served for alcoholic beverages at a woefully tender age decreased significantly if the decisive hand of fate so cruelly led me to a female cashier. Not only would I have the general inability to not be a twat battle against me in my plight for cheap lager, on top of this, my heightened superpowers in being unable to talk to women would prove their worth, in spectacularly embarrassing style. Apparently “Craig David?” isn’t a suitable response when asked to produce some identification.