On a recent tube journey to Camden Town, I was delighted when a member of the security personnel came over and asked if he could check my ticket. "This is just a precaution - we need to do these checks just in case, sorry," he explained. You're probably thinking "What a lovely surprise." But while it was lovely (any excuse for human contact) it wasn't a surprise. At least not for me.
Throughout my adult life, I've regularly been stopped when entering buildings or been asked to remove my hat when sat at a restaurant table by people I don't know. Once, a well-dressed employee at a train station gave me a train ticket when I was standing the other side of his information booth, while there was another occasion when a charming young girl squeezed my arse as I walked past her in a night club. She'd mistook me for her boyfriend, I later learned as he threatened to physically hurt me.
Another time, as I walking through Lincoln's very own farmer's market, I was tapped in the shoulder and told my shoe laces were undone. I was then offered some cheese for half price because it was late and they were closing. Even bar tenders frequently hand my debt card back when I try to settle my bill, claiming it's been rejected. Cheeky.
And whenever I've asked what I've done to deserve such treatment, the donors of these gifts have always said the same thing; sorry mate, what did you say?
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| Ash's looks leave him isolated in society. |
But I know the truth, I can see it in their eyes. While I'm no Piers Brosnan, I'm tall, lanky, wear the glasses of a serial killer, have an oddly ginger tint to my excessive facial hair, and, so I'm often told, a weird looking man. I know how lucky I am. But there are downsides to looking like an 80s hipster with a penchant for murder - the main one being that other women refuse to have sex with me for no reason other than my bizarre looks.
If you're a woman reading this, I'd hazard that you've already formed your own opinions about me - and they won't be very flattering. For while many doors have been opened (literally, people just want to get out of my way) as a result of my looks, just as many have been metaphorically (and again, literally) slammed in my face - and usually by the person walking through the door in front of me.
I'm not smug (no reason to be) and I'm no (good) flirt, yet over the years I've been dropped by countless friends who felt threatened, because of the whole serial killer look thing, if I was merely in the presence of their other halves, children or pets. If their partners dared actually stay in the room on their own with me, a sudden chill would descend on the room and the offended party would threaten to call the police.
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| Ash has new glasses now, but the effects seem not to have changed. |
And it's not just terrified strangers who have frozen me out of their lives and told me to "Stay the hell away." Insecure bosses have also barred me from getting a job because they don't want to scare their clients off. And most poignantly of all, not one girl has ever asked me to be her bridesmaid. I'm told this is because I am a man, and because I had followed that girl home and watched her from the bushes, and that she wasn't getting married. Whatever. You'd think humankind would applaud each other for daring to look a little bit menacing with our appearance. I don't really work at mine, which is part of the problem. I drink and don't work out as much as I should, especially when I don't feel like it, and very rarely succumb to chocolate because I am diabetic and it would be bad for me. Unfortunately people find nothing more annoying than someone else looking like they might strike with a knife at any moment. Take last week, out walking to the shops to buy some biscuits a complete stranger passed me by. I didn't wave because I didn't know them, and they looked at me like I was some sort of freak. Yet this is someone I have never harassed, I've never stalked and whose pets I have never chopped up and put in a pan. I approached a person working inside the shop and enquired if I'd made a faux pas. They told me it was 75p for the biscuits and asked if I had a points card. It seems the only crime I had committed was the fact that, well, no... I don't have a points card.
And, according to that shop worker, a points card would be really beneficial to me because I can earn points for shopping there which will eventually mean I get a discount off my purchases "were the right circumstances in place." Yet I'm not a regular shopper in that particular store, and haven't been ever. It's too far away, really. But this wasn't the first time someone had offered me a points card, or for that matter looked weirdly at me in the streets. In my early 20s, where I still am now, when I first started working at a local design agency, one colleague spiked my cup of tea with lots of sugar. He claimed it was an innocent mistake, but I could see a sinister glint in his eyes and coincidentally a month or so later I was told that my placement was being cut short because they were being taken to court and it was expensive, so they couldn't pay me anymore. Hmm. I didn't ask that man to make me tea again, nor did I work there after my placement ended. Because, well, I didn't have a job there anymore.
One contract I accepted at an art gallery was blighted by a jealous member of the general public who kept replying to my Facebook updates by saying that they would "not be attending this particular event because they were on holiday, but would love to come to the next one. Was there a mailing list?" Rather than argue, I found the mailing list and added them to it. But my boss pulled me to one side and informed me that they were cancelling the mailing list service and putting everything on their social media platforms instead, and also could I please do something about my face as it was deterring visitors from coming inside. It's clear when working in a public environnement it's best not to look like a member of the Manson family, but when working in private it's a different matter. I have written before how I have a beard and once said on Facebook that I would 'use it as a handwarmer because it was cold.' I'm sure many people have done the same.
A few months later I handed in my notice. They offered me the chance to work more hours for more money and said they'd really appreciated all the work I'd done, but I'd been given the chance to go to London and work for a fancy ad agency down there, so I politely declined and brought them some chocolates as a sign of my gratitude. I also began to grow my beard back. Screw you, public perception!
I find that younger girls are the most hostile to creepy looking men - perhaps because they are scared of what might happen. Because I am fairly easy, my social circle is full of lots of mistakes. They take great pride in telling me that they regret ever meeting me and that if I try to contact them again they will be calling 999.
But even these ploys don't always work. Take last summer and a BBQ I attended with some people I didn't really know all that well. At one point the host, who was burning some chicken at the time, decided that he wanted a pint of beer and offered his mates one too. He didn't offer me one, because he didn't have a clue who I was and was a little unsure as to why I was even there in the first place. Turned out I'd gone to the wrong BBQ and left soon after to find the right address. Oops.