Don't Mention The Lesbians

I was recently rummaging around the cupboard in my room when underneath the mangled corpse of a hooker I found a blood stained copy of Morvern Callar by Alan Warner. I will start by saying it's a book that bored me to tears but I have kept a hold of it, in fact I have kept every book that I was forced to read at Uni. Why? For the precious happy memories of Uni life that they illicit in me. One of those memories I am about to share right now except it's not exactly a happy one.

Cue Lost flashback whooshing sound effect:

There was a girl, (there's always a girl), in my first year Scottish literature class that I took a bit of a fancy to. She will remain nameless for her sake. She was different to a lot of the girls that I knew, she was the very definition of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, if you're not familiar with this term then think of the type of character Zooey Deschanel plays in every film, that was her. Not that she looked like Zooey Deschanel, I mean she was pretty but not Hollywood pretty.

I had tried to strike up a conversation with her many times but had always been thwarted by my crippling lack of confidence. Then one day in a stroke of luck she arrived late to tutorial and the only available seat was next to me, the lucky girl! Once she struggled vainly and in quite a bit of panic to find any other seat she admitted defeat and cautiously sat next to me. My first thought was 'She wants me' for reasons that made no sense even to me. After she got the jacket off and her book, writing pad and pen out I decided to make a move, any move really, so I said the first thing that came into my head and that was "funky pen". I have never used the word 'funky' again. Thankfully she appreciated the comment as it was indeed a funky pen. It was a sparkly pink colour with feathers branching out the top...OK, really it was a fucking ghastly pen but she was weird and aloof so she got away it.

Now that she had given me a hint of smile I felt much more confident and was ready to start spouting nonsense when mercifully the tutorial started. Now, I was very quiet in tutorials in first year, only talking when I was asked a direct question (by second year however you couldn't shut me up, I was like a solo Jedward). In this occasion however I thought maybe I can impress the girl by saying something insightful about the book, about that bitch Morven Callar. Forty-five minutes in I still hadn't said anything and was getting desperate so when the topic of the sexual subtext between Morvern and her female pal came up I jumped right in. What I said is a blur, I think the words 'lesbian orgy' came up but the rest is a mystery. Whatever I said must have been terribly outrageous because the tutor sat open mouthed for a second before calling it a day. Suddenly realising what had happened I at least thought it can't get any worse...it did!

The girl hastily put her things away and threw her jacket on before turning to me and saying 'I wish I hadn't sat next to you'. Then she left. Epic fail.

Some good did come out of this though as the incident was so horribly etched in my mind that I decided to write a terrible sitcom pilot called 'Rosco' (how vain!) in which the incident was written out pretty much exactly as it happened. It's the only funny thing in the script. In fact it's probably the funniest thing I've ever written.

I still like lesbians.