" But... MY GIRLFRIEND MADE ME!"
Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 4:12 pm
About a year ago, the girl I was going out with at the time taught a kind of summer school for children aged about 5-10. At the end of the week, there was a kind of variety show in a very small theatre. I was obliged to go and see these kids who my girlfriend had been crafting into a well-oiled theatrical machine. The theatre was uncomfortably small. I could see the whites of the kids' eyes staring into the audience as they faltered and stumbled over their lines, fell over during the dance sections and sang hideously out of tune during the musical numbers.
In its own way, it was kind of cute. It was nice to get a glimpse at my girlfriend's interests which were so wildly different to my own. The show itself wasn't the bad thing. The bad thing was that I, a young man, was clearly too young to be the parent of any of these young starlets. I, who at that time looked a bit like a hobo, sat at the back, probably with a strange look on my face. The rest of the crowd, the parents, as they filed in to the small, cramped venue, looked at me oddly.
I realised early on that everyone sitting around me thought, for those two hours and presumably many more, that I was a paedophile, come to watch their children not out of duty or pride, but for perverted sexual gratification.
In its own way, it was kind of cute. It was nice to get a glimpse at my girlfriend's interests which were so wildly different to my own. The show itself wasn't the bad thing. The bad thing was that I, a young man, was clearly too young to be the parent of any of these young starlets. I, who at that time looked a bit like a hobo, sat at the back, probably with a strange look on my face. The rest of the crowd, the parents, as they filed in to the small, cramped venue, looked at me oddly.
I realised early on that everyone sitting around me thought, for those two hours and presumably many more, that I was a paedophile, come to watch their children not out of duty or pride, but for perverted sexual gratification.