More reflections at 50
When I was young, I was fortunate enough that I went to the cinema quite often. There were always advertisements before the film as well as the trailers for films that hadn’t come out yet. At that time there were always long advertisements for cigarettes before films. They were shown even before films made for young audiences. Up to several minutes long, they were mini-features. They showed affluent, attractive young (white) adults at play in the capitals of the world: at the Rio Carnival, at the beach, at the horse races, at the tables of the casinos in Monte Carlo, on skis, on boats, and on aeroplanes. Men and women easily sharing each other’s company. The women were typically either wearing bikinis or dresses with plunging necklines. Whatever they wore, the men and women always smiled broadly. Everyone projected enormous self-confidence. Here is a typical example: https://youtu.be/gZ8NDmZiIIQ
I hated those advertisements. Even at 10 years of age, they intimidated me. Because I somehow knew that world would never be mine. It was not that I didn’t think I would ever go to Rio or Monte Carlo. Or that I thought I would not ride on a boat or fly on the Concorde. Not at all. I thought that when I grew up I would have a fair shot at doing any of those things at least once if I wanted and if I worked hard enough to pay for it. It was the easy contact with the women that intimidated me. And the unspoken implication of sex. I could not see that I would ever be in a group of people running through ocean waves with a beaming young woman in a bikini holding my hand. Or recline on a speedboat with that girl beside me. Before my life had even really started it seemed clear to me that this level of easy sexuality was not in my future. But I wanted it very badly. I did not care about the rest. I was wise enough, however, that I never entertained even for a moment the thought that taking up smoking would change my chances of attaining it. I have never smoked a cigarette.
There was a beautiful girl in my school class that I was very much in love with. I was not the only one. She was the head cheerleader, after all. A friend of mine and I spoke of her only once and he said to me “Let’s face it. She’s not for us.” I said nothing. But I knew exactly what he meant. And I knew that he was right. We were each 11 years old. We were bright. We were consistently toward the top of our classes, we won school prizes, we held offices of status in the school. Teachers thought quite highly of us. But neither of us were in the running to expect to receive anything from that girl beyond the pleasant politeness she bestowed on everyone. And we knew it. It is amazing to me now that we had so much clarity then about who we were and where we stood in the social pecking order. That school was actually a very easygoing place and we were really not made to feel very unworthy. But still, we knew.
Things got worse for me after that because I would soon go to an all boys school. That was a much, much harsher environment. There my low status would be demonstrated to me repeatedly and I would be shown to my place. And it would be made clear that I would be kept in it by force if that were required.
Not having a sister, there were no girls in my home or my immediate environment. And that meant I would hardly speak to a girl for the next 5 years. I recall speaking to one in a shopping mall once. She approached me because she had seen me buy a record by a band she liked (it was the 7” single of “New Moon on Monday” by Duran Duran and it was not a wise purchase on my part). I spoke to her for perhaps a minute. She was very plain. But it was an event that was sufficiently unusual that I remember it more than 35 years later.
I also recall when I was perhaps 14, rushing along a school path I’d walked a thousand times to get to a mandatory sporting event on a Saturday afternoon in my school uniform and seeing a young woman, perhaps 17, sitting on the grass along the way. It is likely that she had a brother at the school and she had been made to come by their parents. She had long brown hair, she wore a sleeveless top, yellow shorts, and dark sunglasses. She was massaging sunscreen into a pair of almost impossibly long, smooth legs and bare feet. She meant nothing provocative by it, I am sure. Those were the only legs she had, the sun was brutal, and she needed to protect them. And she may have been entirely unaware of what she represented to someone like me. Or she may have been very aware. I cannot know. But really, I could not have been more surprised or disoriented if I’d encountered a wild tiger there. She seemed to me to epitomise a sophisticated sexual presence that was quite a million miles from anything I was comfortable with. I bore no ill will to her but the surprise, the incongruity of her presence, and the amount of bare skin on display were simply overwhelming to me and frankly, rather painful. I looked at her for no more than a few agonising seconds before giving her a very, very wide berth and I did not look back. Then I did the very best I could to pretend I had not seen her at all and to put my discomfort out of my mind. You may judge for yourself how well I succeeded at this. I am sure I was utterly miserable for the rest of the weekend and that my parents were quite mystified as to the reason.
This is pretty much all that I remember about my interaction with girls during that period.
When I got to college, there were girls everywhere quite literally by the thousand. I cannot say that this helped me very much. I did not want for nice girls who would be my friend, share their class notes, or be pleasant to me. More than that, however, seemed entirely beyond my grasp. Of course, I was clueless. If I think back to what I wore and my father’s black briefcase that I carried, I shudder. But I knew no better. Later, I would discover clothes and spend a small fortune on Italian denim and shirts with expensive labels. I would take a part-time job to pay for them. I was easily the most expensively dressed person I knew. As far as I can tell and based on the objective evidence, it made absolutely no discernible difference to the way women behaved to me.
The amazing thing to me is how little different I feel today to the way I felt at any of the moments I have set out above. I think I thought that if I became successful and acquired some status, I would have more success with women. So I worked hard at my studies and I chose a high status career. I have as an impressive a CV as almost anyone and more so than most. I don’t have a Nobel prize, of course, but my professional CV does not want for very much else. It turns out, I think, that what women really want is not just success and financial solvency but self-confidence too. And, I think you will have seen, that has never been my strong suit.
So my question to myself is: was I prescient when I was 10? Or did my response then dictate my inevitable future path? And would things have been different if I had never seen one of those awful cigarette advertisements? Or if I had taken up smoking?
I hated those advertisements. Even at 10 years of age, they intimidated me. Because I somehow knew that world would never be mine. It was not that I didn’t think I would ever go to Rio or Monte Carlo. Or that I thought I would not ride on a boat or fly on the Concorde. Not at all. I thought that when I grew up I would have a fair shot at doing any of those things at least once if I wanted and if I worked hard enough to pay for it. It was the easy contact with the women that intimidated me. And the unspoken implication of sex. I could not see that I would ever be in a group of people running through ocean waves with a beaming young woman in a bikini holding my hand. Or recline on a speedboat with that girl beside me. Before my life had even really started it seemed clear to me that this level of easy sexuality was not in my future. But I wanted it very badly. I did not care about the rest. I was wise enough, however, that I never entertained even for a moment the thought that taking up smoking would change my chances of attaining it. I have never smoked a cigarette.
There was a beautiful girl in my school class that I was very much in love with. I was not the only one. She was the head cheerleader, after all. A friend of mine and I spoke of her only once and he said to me “Let’s face it. She’s not for us.” I said nothing. But I knew exactly what he meant. And I knew that he was right. We were each 11 years old. We were bright. We were consistently toward the top of our classes, we won school prizes, we held offices of status in the school. Teachers thought quite highly of us. But neither of us were in the running to expect to receive anything from that girl beyond the pleasant politeness she bestowed on everyone. And we knew it. It is amazing to me now that we had so much clarity then about who we were and where we stood in the social pecking order. That school was actually a very easygoing place and we were really not made to feel very unworthy. But still, we knew.
Things got worse for me after that because I would soon go to an all boys school. That was a much, much harsher environment. There my low status would be demonstrated to me repeatedly and I would be shown to my place. And it would be made clear that I would be kept in it by force if that were required.
Not having a sister, there were no girls in my home or my immediate environment. And that meant I would hardly speak to a girl for the next 5 years. I recall speaking to one in a shopping mall once. She approached me because she had seen me buy a record by a band she liked (it was the 7” single of “New Moon on Monday” by Duran Duran and it was not a wise purchase on my part). I spoke to her for perhaps a minute. She was very plain. But it was an event that was sufficiently unusual that I remember it more than 35 years later.
I also recall when I was perhaps 14, rushing along a school path I’d walked a thousand times to get to a mandatory sporting event on a Saturday afternoon in my school uniform and seeing a young woman, perhaps 17, sitting on the grass along the way. It is likely that she had a brother at the school and she had been made to come by their parents. She had long brown hair, she wore a sleeveless top, yellow shorts, and dark sunglasses. She was massaging sunscreen into a pair of almost impossibly long, smooth legs and bare feet. She meant nothing provocative by it, I am sure. Those were the only legs she had, the sun was brutal, and she needed to protect them. And she may have been entirely unaware of what she represented to someone like me. Or she may have been very aware. I cannot know. But really, I could not have been more surprised or disoriented if I’d encountered a wild tiger there. She seemed to me to epitomise a sophisticated sexual presence that was quite a million miles from anything I was comfortable with. I bore no ill will to her but the surprise, the incongruity of her presence, and the amount of bare skin on display were simply overwhelming to me and frankly, rather painful. I looked at her for no more than a few agonising seconds before giving her a very, very wide berth and I did not look back. Then I did the very best I could to pretend I had not seen her at all and to put my discomfort out of my mind. You may judge for yourself how well I succeeded at this. I am sure I was utterly miserable for the rest of the weekend and that my parents were quite mystified as to the reason.
This is pretty much all that I remember about my interaction with girls during that period.
When I got to college, there were girls everywhere quite literally by the thousand. I cannot say that this helped me very much. I did not want for nice girls who would be my friend, share their class notes, or be pleasant to me. More than that, however, seemed entirely beyond my grasp. Of course, I was clueless. If I think back to what I wore and my father’s black briefcase that I carried, I shudder. But I knew no better. Later, I would discover clothes and spend a small fortune on Italian denim and shirts with expensive labels. I would take a part-time job to pay for them. I was easily the most expensively dressed person I knew. As far as I can tell and based on the objective evidence, it made absolutely no discernible difference to the way women behaved to me.
The amazing thing to me is how little different I feel today to the way I felt at any of the moments I have set out above. I think I thought that if I became successful and acquired some status, I would have more success with women. So I worked hard at my studies and I chose a high status career. I have as an impressive a CV as almost anyone and more so than most. I don’t have a Nobel prize, of course, but my professional CV does not want for very much else. It turns out, I think, that what women really want is not just success and financial solvency but self-confidence too. And, I think you will have seen, that has never been my strong suit.
So my question to myself is: was I prescient when I was 10? Or did my response then dictate my inevitable future path? And would things have been different if I had never seen one of those awful cigarette advertisements? Or if I had taken up smoking?
3 years ago