MS SELF OBSESSED
'I've always gone to the Glastonbury festival, ever since I was four years old.'
Quite a quote and it's a quote that sticks in my mind. I can still hear Ambers voice saying it. I remember the exact date, Wednesday 22nd of February nineteen ninety eight. I was at college and failing at my art and design course. I can remember Amber telling us about her dad being a jazz musician. I can remember the moment when I fell head over heels for her.
Ever since secondary school, I had fallen in love with girls who didn't love me. They were always out of my league. It was a horrible cycle. I would fall for the girl, pine for her for a year and then move on. They'd be another girl and the nightmare would start all over again. My heart was always aching and my head is packed full of sad, bitter memories from my teenage years and early twenties.
Sexuality and relationships left me feeling small and stupid. I felt ugly. But the world hadn't become ugly yet. I still saw beauty. It was when I turned thirty that I saw the world what it was -A fucking dump ruled by shit throwing monkeys with sour faces.
Amber was typical of the girls I always became infatuated with. She was middle class and very English. She was also very full of herself. All the girls I fell for at school or at work were quite big headed. I always found a bit of smug, over confidence in women quite attractive. I have no idea why. It’s something I will probably never understand.
Watching Amber unpack her pen and art stuff was a real treat back then. I would gaze at her mousey hair and brown eyes and feel like I had electricity flowing through my veins. I would find it hard to concentrate on my studies, daydreaming about a girl who was a few feet away at another table.
Like most self-obsessed girls, she had the male friend. There’s always the guy who desperately wants to sleep with her, but acts like he's her friend. He follows her round like a loyal dog. He tells people 'we're best mates,' and 'I'm only interested in her as a friend.' Its utter bollocks and everybody can see it. The fact he tries to repel all potential boyfriends says it all. These type of girls always have these twats hanging around them. Amber had Zack. I fucking hated this cunt. He was a rap Deejay from Finchley and a snide fucker to boot! He dressed in Baggy clothes and Nike Air trainers. I didn't like him. He didn’t like me. Me and Amber would talk sometimes. The more we talked, the more we clicked. I sensed she liked me. At some point Zack would butt in and try to make me look like a dick. I couldn't understand why Amber hung around this ugly midget. Just the look of him made me sick.
Amber would call me sometimes and we would talk for ages on the phone. It seemed like time would just fly by. What felt like five minutes was actually an hour. It was incredible. She told me about her life, her father taking his children to music festivals, her mother’s job in the city, her hopes of becoming an artist or lawyer. She was sophisticated, cultured and beautiful. At that point in my life I thought she was perfect.
The closer we got, the nastier Zack became. I believe to this day he tried his best to sabotage our relationship and he succeeded. Zack was late for class one morning and the tutor had moved the seating arrangements for an exercise we were about to do. I was moved next to Amber. I was in Zack’s seat. He wasn't happy when he finally arrived.
'Get out of my fucking seat Jason! That’s where I sit!' he boomed across the class, violently throwing his record bag on the desk.
Before I could protest, the tutor David interrupted.
'Zack we're moving everybody around for our group project. Please take a seat.'
Zack did it begrudgingly and shot me daggers. A lovely girl called Tracey patted a seat. I think she fancied him and he knew it. She was no Mona Lisa and Zack’s pride was hurt. He sat down and snarled. I felt humiliated. He had made me look bad in front of everyone. He had made me look bad in front of Amber.
As we all worked, I thought of responses to put him in his place. I would never get to say them. At every opportunity that day, Zack would come across and talk to Amber. He would then move back to his table and look depressed. I hated him and he hated me, all this bullshit over a girl. But at that time in my life, I was too young to recognise a cunt when I see one.
I was racked with raw emotion. I wanted Amber and I thought she wanted me. I was wrong, very wrong.
Over the next few weeks, Amber grew a lot more distant and uninterested. I would catch Zack making fun out of me from the corner of my eye. I pretended I didn't see it. I made out that I hadn't seen Amber laughing as he whispered in her ear.
In class one day, I was humiliated further. The tutor was asking the class about world travel. As we went around the room, everybody divulged where they had been. I had only ever been to Spain as a kid. Some of the estate kids hadn’t been anywhere. I told of my one plane trip and waited for the next guy to speak. He was interrupted. By Zack.
‘Ahhh, you’ve never been out of Europe!’ he said, banging his fist on the desk.
I felt the humiliation rise inside me. I gritted my teeth and looked down at the desk. I saw Amber smirking as Zack insulted me. For the rest of the day, I was in in my own world. I walked home feeling like I had been stabbed in the chest. Why did I never stick up for myself?
An old friend from school called me up from out of the blue. Me and Nick shot the shit for a while and then he hit me with a strange proposition:
'You ever been raving before?'
'Nah mate. Why?'
'I'm going to this house rave on Saturday. You should come down. I reckon you'd like it.'
I had just taken a job washing plates in a cafe in Kentish Town on Saturdays. Once we closed