Where do I start? I could bore the arseholes off you with stories of teenage crushes, unrequited love with some spotty girl I wouldn’t look twice at now, and all the other endless horrors of growing up and puberty that we must all suffer. But I shall plead my case for being horrendously ugly with one fine example, and then we shall get on with the story. At the age of about 17, when most other males of that age that I knew were copping off with vast amounts of hormonally supercharged sex bombs, I was, as ever, plodding along in the slow lane of life, wondering where the hell I was going to get a girlfriend from. Then, like a shaft of light dawning on the darkest of nights, a brilliant plan presented itself to me. I would get a female pen pal! How about that for a winner? I duly advertised in some teenage magazine, that I was “Male, 17, into Big Country, Howard Jones, Marillion and all things groovy. Would like to correspond with girls 16+” or some such nonsense. Well, despite it’s less than Earth shattering excitement or originality, that little advert garnered me something like 23 replies from all over the UK. They ranged from sweet little girls who had responded simply because I was a male, and had absolutely no other interest in common with me, to one obviously sex obsessed teenage girl in Manchester who sent me a pair of her extremely skimpy panties and had poured enough cheap perfume over the pages she had written to me to strip paint off a wall from about 10 yards. To be honest, she just frightened me.
However, the two best responses I got were both from young ladies in Nottinghamshire. One was a fairly sweet lady called Caroline, but who insisted on being called Caz, and was a big fan of Big Country, whereas the other was from a girl in Newark called Angie who was cute as a button (she’d sent me a photo) and an even BIGGER Big Country fan. That was it for me! Angie was the winner! We swapped about two letters a week, full of the usual teenage nonsense, discussing which Big Country album we liked best, how many times we had seen the band “live” and Angie frequently telling me about just how gorgeous Stuart Adamson was. The letters got longer and longer, and we obviously were yearning for each other. Angie made it abundantly clear that she wanted to meet up – and soon. However, there was one sticking point; Angie was a little miffed that I hadn’t sent her a picture of me yet. I had made some brilliant excuses of course – my camera is broken; I don’t have any fingers so I can’t press the shutter; what is a camera anyway? Etc. All good stalling tactics, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle and simply delaying the inevitable. I gave in and started hunting high and low through my parent’s piles of photos, trying to find one of me that didn’t look too much like a cross between a strategically shaved Orangutan and a water bed. I finally found one of me looking quite sharp, in a suit, at a recent wedding reception for a cousin of mine in Bournemouth. It was really quite flattering and didn’t look too much like me. That should do the trick! I duly wrote a long impassioned letter to Angie, told her that this was exactly what I looked like and how I couldn’t wait for us to meet up. The letter was posted with great ceremony and my heart began to sing and dance as only young foolish heart can in those first few moments when you know that true love has been born.
I never heard from Angie again. No doubt when she opened that letter and my appalling mug fell out of the envelope, she must have screamed alarmingly as all her dreams of me sunk slowly down the drain and reality set in. It was a bitter pill to swallow and one of the first really big blows to my confidence. But there were plenty more to follow.
However, the two best responses I got were both from young ladies in Nottinghamshire. One was a fairly sweet lady called Caroline, but who insisted on being called Caz, and was a big fan of Big Country, whereas the other was from a girl in Newark called Angie who was cute as a button (she’d sent me a photo) and an even BIGGER Big Country fan. That was it for me! Angie was the winner! We swapped about two letters a week, full of the usual teenage nonsense, discussing which Big Country album we liked best, how many times we had seen the band “live” and Angie frequently telling me about just how gorgeous Stuart Adamson was. The letters got longer and longer, and we obviously were yearning for each other. Angie made it abundantly clear that she wanted to meet up – and soon. However, there was one sticking point; Angie was a little miffed that I hadn’t sent her a picture of me yet. I had made some brilliant excuses of course – my camera is broken; I don’t have any fingers so I can’t press the shutter; what is a camera anyway? Etc. All good stalling tactics, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle and simply delaying the inevitable. I gave in and started hunting high and low through my parent’s piles of photos, trying to find one of me that didn’t look too much like a cross between a strategically shaved Orangutan and a water bed. I finally found one of me looking quite sharp, in a suit, at a recent wedding reception for a cousin of mine in Bournemouth. It was really quite flattering and didn’t look too much like me. That should do the trick! I duly wrote a long impassioned letter to Angie, told her that this was exactly what I looked like and how I couldn’t wait for us to meet up. The letter was posted with great ceremony and my heart began to sing and dance as only young foolish heart can in those first few moments when you know that true love has been born.
I never heard from Angie again. No doubt when she opened that letter and my appalling mug fell out of the envelope, she must have screamed alarmingly as all her dreams of me sunk slowly down the drain and reality set in. It was a bitter pill to swallow and one of the first really big blows to my confidence. But there were plenty more to follow.
