I was reading my friend Helen’s Live Journal when I came across the following paragraphs:

We grabbed a beer and headed for the front bar. I accidentally caught the eye of someone sitting next to the door… As I walked past he ducked his head and gave this long, breathy snort, before bursting into laughter and going, ‘FAT chance.’

What I never understand about these situations is that your attacker doesn’t ever tell you anything you don’t already KNOW. Unattractive people are more than aware of their unattractiveness, always. We carry it with us daily, and the weight of it makes us grunt. Every time we look in the mirror – hello, horror. Every time we get caught unawares on camera – god forbid, put that red-herring-cross-Appaloosa face away. So yeah, we know about it. Why the need to verbally reinforce? Who is born with such cruelty in their genes?

I’ve never actually met Helen, but I can tell from my Facebook stalking that she is one of those beautifully quirky, colourful, witty, clever people you rarely come across. To imagine somebody pissing on her birthday cake over something so stupid as how she looks really hacks me off. And it breaks my heart a little too, because I know that no matter how brazen and confident you are, a dumb passing comment from some random douchebag can reduce the toughest of us to a self-loathing mess.

For me, it’s less about my face and more about the size of my arse. As an adult, I’ve weighed 70kg and I’ve weighed 45kg at different points in time (I’m 5’6″.) I wasn’t particularly well in either of those situations, but I’ve never gotten more (positive) attention in my life than when I resembled a broomstick. Hell, even at 60kg, I was rarely given a second glance. I was referred to as “the fat one.” Guys would approach my friends in bars and say, “Hey, gorgeous,” then turn to me and say, “Hey not-so-gorgeous.” And when I had the guts to wear a singlet that said “UGLY” one night, a girl pointed me out to her friends and shouted “Yeah, she is ugly!” All of these incidents were unprovoked, unless you count the shape of my body or the arrangement of my facial features as an invitation for rebuke. Apparently, I was so hideous on those occasions that complete strangers felt the need to comment. And not in private either – they commented right to my ugly face.

Despite all this, I think I’ve managed to come out the other side with a pretty healthy self esteem. I’m no supermodel, but I’m not bad looking either. As long as I stay below a size 10 (the upper limit of the “acceptable weight range” of most guys I date) I think I look reasonable. If I tell this to people though, there is guffawing and rolling of eyes. Girls are not supposed to think they’re pretty. We are supposed to be insecure to the point of obsession. Pout in front of the mirror and squeeze at the fat on our arms and bellies. Shove our fingers down our throats and lose sleep over the wrinkles around our eyes. When somebody compliments you on your appearance, deny it! Don’t say thank you or actually agree with them. Good god, the scandal.

Sometimes little pokes and prods have the desired effect. An overweight person might use their unflattering nicknames to fuel their fire at the gym. Another person wearing tights as pants might need to catch a few disapproving glances before they figure out what they’re doing wrong. But simply telling somebody they’re ugly isn’t exactly constructive. What reaction do these people expect? “Oh really? Shit, thanks for letting me know. I’ll get a new face asap.”

So are people randomly insulting girls in order to make sure we don’t get too sure of ourselves? Modesty is becoming in a woman, so make sure she damn well knows she’s not hot enough? Or is it the old “I make fun of the other kids to make myself feel better” syndrome? Cutting down everyone around you to make yourself taller?

Is consumerism to blame? Entire industries are built on our insecurities: weight loss products, cosmetics, plastic surgery, fake tanning, etc. Every day, the TV and magazines tell us that we’re ugly and overweight, so what’s wrong with telling each other the same thing? Have we been desensitised to our own cruelties?

Personally, I blame fairy tales. The good guys were always hot, and the bad guys were butt ugly. Snow White was a babe, while Rumpelstiltskin was a hideous dwarf. From the day we’re born, there’s a very strong reinforcement that people who look nice are usually nice, and people who look dodgy are usually dodgy. In some cases, this is true, but not always.

Maybe when we tell our kids not to discriminate against people who are black or homosexual or female, we should also tell them not to discriminate against those who have been dealt a dose of acne or a bad nose.

And maybe next time you see someone who you think could use some improvement, you should shut the fuck up.

I was returning to the office after purchasing my daily coke zero from the Asian grocer, and as I was waiting for the elevator,  I made eye contact with a group of six people entering the lobby from the street. The moment the lift doors opened, I got in and pressed “Level 2″. As I ascended to my floor, I pressed my ear to the doors and listened to the six people as they waited below in the lobby and bitched about me.

“What happened?”

“Didn’t she hold the lift?”

“Oh my god, what a bitch.”

The truth is, normally I would hold the lift. But sometimes, I feel like if I do one more good deed, the karmic balance of the earth will implode due to my profligate saintliness. I give blood. I donate to charities. I give my coffee change to homeless people. I pick up other people’s litter when I see it. I believe in freedom of speech and same sex marriage and doing unto others and random acts of kindness. But every so often, I just need to be a cunt.

When I was a kid, my family lived on 5 acres of bushland out north-west of Sydney. We had neighbouring properties on either side, but they were invisible to us and separated by thick scrub. One day, my uncle, who was staying with us, was alone in our house and accidentally set off the burglar alarm. Within minutes, the neighbours from each side came running down the driveway, one with a cricket bat, the other with an axe. It was awkward for my uncle, but my parents marveled at the speedy and protective response from our neighbours.

Now we live in suburbia. Recently my mother was at home during the day, watching television, when our next door neighbour’s alarm started going off because they were, in fact, being robbed. Annoyed at the noise, my mother turned up the TV and continued watching. A few hours later, one of the neighbours came over to say that their house had been burgled, and were we all ok?

“You’re a bad person,” I told Mum that night over dinner, “You’re going straight to hell when you die, and they’ll put you in the Lazy & Selfish cell block.”

“Well I didn’t know they were actually being robbed,” she replied, “Besides, they have a dog.”

“He’s a pet, not a home security system.”

“Whatever,” she said, pouring herself a glass of wine, “If anybody asks, you tell them I was out shopping.”

• told me I was adopted.
• punched me repeatedly.
• headbutted me when he broke his arm and couldn’t punch me.
• used my skipping ropes to tie nooses and “hanged” my dolls from the curtain rod in my room, so that when I walked home from school and approached the house, I saw a mass suicide happening in my bedroom window.
  
• told me that I was retarded and had been inside a mental institution for my entire life. Mum and Dad were the “doctors”, my teachers and friends were “nurses” and “orderlies” or other people hired to amuse me and keep me company so I could live a “normal life.” I was so out of touch with reality that I had no idea.
  
• slapped me repeatedly.
  
• pooped in the bathtub because he knew it would uspet me. I got so scared that I jumped out and ran naked through the house, then slipped on the lino and smashed my head against a ceramic step, resulting in a wound requiring three stitches.
  
• pinched me repeatedly.
  
• held me down on the couch and farted in my face.
  
• cut all the hair off my dolls. Then cut off their arms and legs.
• told me that Taz, our first family dog who I only remembered vaguely, had to be put down because I cried whenever she came near me. In fact, the dog just barked too much and gave the neighbours the shits.
  
• sang this song constantly, often late at night, until I was driven to borderline insanity.
  
• kicked me repeatedly.
• called me a “fudge packer”, “back door stabber” and various other derogatory terms for homosexuals. I had no idea what they meant until late highschool.
  
• forced various things into my mouth, including cat food, dirt, and batteries.
  
• told Mum that I broke the neighbour’s windscreen, after he had thrown a brick at their car.
  
• gave me a noogie every time I walked past.
  
• told me that my high hairline/large forehead was actually premature baldness.
  
• told me that Stripe, the stray cat we found who was very violent and frequently attacked my bare legs, was nowhere to be seen. I would emerge from the bathroom, where I had been hiding, to find Stripe waiting outside the door, claws ready.
  
• gave me a wet willy every time I walked past.
• told me that Santa Claus was not real on Christmas morning, 1989. I was three years old.
  

What did your brothers and sisters do to torture you? Or what did you do to them, you sick bastard?

• put my cat underneath an upside-down washing basket and placed phone books on top.

• climbed over the backyard fence and squirted tomato sauce on the neighbour’s washing.

• head-butted another kid on my first day of Play Group and told him to “shut the hell up” when he started crying.

• stole money from my dad’s bottom drawer nearly every day to buy Zooper Doopers and carob buds from the canteen.

• put fairy wings on my younger cousin and told her she was a fly, then sprayed her with Mortein.

• wrote my mum hate-mail.

• lured a friend who was terrified of dogs into the back paddock and then let the dogs out of their enclosure and listened to her scream.

• lured same friend into the shed and told her I was going to bludgeon her to death with a hammer, then admitted I was just kidding after she started crying.

• picked pieces of cat poo out of the kitty litter tray and put them in the neighbour’s letter box.

• asked my mum what a condom was in front of her bible study group, then asked “DOES THAT MEAN YOU CAN HAVE SEX AND YOU WON’T GET PREGNANT?”

• cheated on the 1997 Maths Olympiad and accepted a trophy at an all-student assembly and had my picture in the paper for it.

• stuck a highlighter up my brother’s cat’s bum to “check his temperature.”

• cut pictures of diseased penises out of my dad’s medical journals and pasted them in my kindergarten homework book while learning about the letter P.

This is a true story. It happened to a friend of mine.

It began in Athens. It was the last night of our 6 week European adventure. The next morning, we would have to make the long journey home and go back to work, uni, and other mundane bullshit. It was a bittersweet occasion. I wanted to celebrate, but instead I went to bed early, my liver threatening to implode after a month-long binge on tequila and gyros. My travel-buddies still wanted to party, so I joined them for a pre-drink at the hotel bar before they went out and then I retired to my room, where I promptly passed out.

The next morning, there was a soft knock on my door.

“Can I come in?” a small voice asked.

“Sure,” I opened the door and my friend came tumbling in.

“Ohmygod,” she said, “That arsehole!“

“What??” I asked.

“So I took this guy back to my hotel room last night…”

“Yes?”

“And we were just, like, making out and stuff, but he was too drunk to…you know…”

“Fuck?”

“Yeah. So I just went to sleep. Then I woke up a few hours later because he was jerking off beside me.”

“Gross.”

“So I was ignoring this guy and just trying to get some sleep, when he suddenly grabbed me, flipped me over, and came all over my face.”

“Oh my god.” This was bad, even by my standards. “What did you do?”

“I told him to leave. Then I jumped out of bed and ran into the shower.”

“Was he gone when you came out again?”

“Yeah, and so was all the money I had on the bedside table.”

“So not only were you plied with alcohol and forced to go to sleep unsatisfied. You were then rudely awoken, white-zombied and robbed?”

“Why does this stuff always happen to me?”

A few years ago I was lonely, bored, depressed and rarely left my bedroom. After too many white wines one night, I created a profile for myself on RSVP and sat back to watch my inbox fill with eligible young bachelors. One guy in particular sparked my interest. Let’s call him Gavin, because that was his name, and still is his name, assuming he hasn’t died.

Gavin and I exchanged a few emails and chatted on MSN. He was smart and funny, and looked cute in his profile picture.

I asked Gavin if he wanted to meet up for coffee. (Like I said – I was extremely single at this point in my life.) He agreed, but said I’d have to meet him in Penrith because that’s where he lived and he didn’t drive.

Alarm bells began to ring softly in my head, but I ignored them. Unlike today when a single spelling mistake can disqualify somebody, back then I was a lot more tolerant. I liked to think that I would never judge a person based on where they lived.

And so I made the long drive out west, found the shopping centre Gavin had nominated, and located the coffee shop he wished to meet at. It was closed, so I sat outside on a bench and watched the local ageing men walk past. Suddenly one of them stopped in front of me and asked, “Annik?”

I considered denying my identity, but I’d already hesitated too long and confirmed it. Gavin bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr Burns from The Simpsons. He was completely bald, hunched over, and had rotting teeth. He smelled like cheap cologne and was wearing a block-colour charcoal track suit. He embodied every physical Penrith cliche.

“The coffee shop’s closed,” I stammered.

“That’s okay, we can just go for a walk,” he replied.

We strolled slowly to the side of the carpark as he babbled awkwardly about a holiday he once took, I can’t even remember where, because my brain was busy going “JESUS FUCK I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.”

As we approached the road, I turned to Gavin and said, “You know what? I have to go.”

Then I walked over to my car and drove home.

When I got there, I had a text on my phone from Gavin saying, “Sorry if that was disappointing.”

I didn’t write back. I blocked him on MSN and changed my email address. I removed my profile from RSVP and showered thoroughly. Then I burst into tears.

Never before had I felt so incredibly shallow. I’d enjoyed conversing with somebody and exchanging stories, then as soon as I knew what they really looked like, I wanted nothing to do with them. I was a bitch and I was going to hell.

Later that night, I related my online-dating experience to a friend’s mother.

“Am I totally horrible?” I asked her when I had finished.

“God, no,” she replied, “You can’t fuck an ugly person.”

When I was ten years old, my parents made me change schools mid-term. We’d moved a few suburbs away and the 30+ minutes of driving every morning and afternoon was giving mum the shits.

I’ve never been able to make new friends easily, and I was no better at it back then. In fact, the only friend I managed to recruit that year was a girl named Kim, who wore thick glasses and constantly had the faint aroma of shit about her.

“Kim wears nappies,” the other kids gossiped, “cause she poos her pants all the time.”

I didn’t find the smell too bad, so I hung out with Kim and invited her over to my house a few times. She was nice enough and she always gave me half of her roll-up.

When school finished for the year, Kim went away on holiday with her family. She sent me a postcard from Jenolan Caves that read:

Dear Annik,

I miss you. I’m glad you came to our school. Thank you for being my friend and for not making fun of me like the others do.

Love, Kim.

After the summer break, Kim and I were enrolled in different classes because I was smarter than her. In my new class, a group of four girls, who were reasonably pretty, started letting me sit with them at lunch and invited me to the movies and their birthday parties. I never really spoke to Kim again after that.

Me: Dad, there’s something gross on my neck. Can you take a look?

My brother: Is it your face?

Dad: It’s eczema.

Me: I’m going to my room.

Somewhere around my fifteenth year, I sat at the kitchen table one evening, doing my homework and eating a frozen piece of banana cake. My mother entered the room and looked from the cake to me.

“What?” I asked her.

“It’s not that you’re fat, darling,” she explained, “You’re just…flabby.”