Basic B*tch

A cautionary tale for leaving lockdown

This is an old story.

I couldn’t tell you at the time — you wouldn’t have understood then what isolation does to a person: how the fictional worlds you watch all day become more real than the world apparently outside your door.

But now you need to know. Consider this a cautionary tale

I had been watching period dramas for weeks, housebound and sick.

My first trip was to be the theatre: I could just roll into the wheelchair space at the back and slowly remember what people were like. The lights felt too bright and noise was unbearable. The first half of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra was wonderful. Bae went for ice-cream; I still hadn’t interacted with anyone.

And then I saw her.

This actress was my hero. Amid the peak glamour-model mid-noughties, her career had begun to soar: she was tall, boyish of hair, brave of nose and very, very funny. She played characters in comedies who were awkward, neurotic, self-conscious, who said and did the wrong thing. She also did theatre: Shakespeare. And men fancied her. This was an enormous revelation to me at 14. My nose was too big; I was flat-chested; taller than most boys my age. I had been absolutely certain that I would never be kissed unless I changed drastically. This actress’s success (and sex appeal) suggested, for the very first time, that I might be fine as I am.

In the theatre, she passed me in the flesh. I don’t know what dark force sent me lurching from my wheelchair, to accost her and rasp, “Uhhhhhhsscuse me, could I just... shake your hand?” Alarmed, she said yes, offered her hand and reader — I kissed it.

She was horrified. I was horrified. We regarded each other, horrified. “I said you could shake it,” she said as we parted, I whispered after her: “I know”.

I spent the second half of the play in a trance of regret and humiliation. Every time Cleopatra’s sycophants kissed up her arm, I died a bit. After weeks in Regency-era England, I wasn’t fit for society. I had assaulted my hero, a deranged Darcy. I guess what I’m saying is — be careful out there, guys.