A Brother's Social Agony

It is a rare day that I do not consult Wikipedia for something. Today, in order to try and explain my recent social behaviour I needed to investigate phobias. Luckily for me Wikipedia has a list of phobias covering everything from Coulrophobia — fear of clowns, to Lorelai Gilmore's Arachnophobiaphobia — the fear of people who are afraid of spiders. Unluckily for me, however, there doesn't seem to be a scientific term (yet) for either a 'fear of socialising at night time', or a 'fear of witnessing heterosexual activity'. The latter has always been a major issue for me, in fact the actual problem does have a name and it is Androphobia - fear of males, it's just that the fear manifests itself when confronted by the sight males attempting to engage in the mating process with females. Unfortunately this is pretty much the standard activity for a large percentage of people on any given Friday or Saturday night, hence my fear of social gatherings.

And so on Friday one of my favourite bands, Camera Obscura, came to town. Although I had purchased a ticket, for several days prior to the show I considered not attending. Even when I turned up to the venue I still felt that I would be far too uncomfortable to hang around for any longer than it would take to scalp my ticket. As it turns out I did stay for the show but in order to do so I had to separate myself from my friends and blinker my focus directly at the stage.


The band's performance was quite good, hardly life affirming, but they're not really that sort of band that induces you to rip your shirt off and attempt to invade the stage. That said, although I was unable to view the rest of the crowd's reaction, I personally had a pleasant time mouthing all the words and bopping along to such personal favourites as Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken, If Looks Could Kill, Suspended From Class and Teenager. I was buoyed by the band performing the gorgeous I Love My Jean, and amused by Traceyanne morphing Let's Get Out Of This Country into Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al. However, I was a little disappointed with them not playing Eighties Fan from their much overlooked debut album Biggest Bluest Hi Fi.




I had perked up considerably by the end of the show, however still felt it imperative to depart immediately following some brief post-performance chatter. After a gig is when the heterosexuals really start to make their moves, and so I thought the sooner I was out of there and safely tucked up in bed the better.
I have a ticket to see Love Is All on Wednesday, but am very fearful of attending. I think the Love Is All crowd will be a lot more hipster orientated, and if Vice Magazine has taught us anything it's that hipsters love heterosexual activity and aren't afraid to shove it in people's faces. I'm expecting an uncomfortable evening.