Stripey Prom Clown

You know how Facebook has a way of momentarily turning your life upside down with nothing but just an old picture of you during prom? Well, my life was momentarily turned upside down last week when an ex secondary school mate uploaded an old photo of me during prom some eight years ago. He tagged 24 other people and the incriminating photo was uploaded with the caption: "Look what I found!"

There are some things in this world that are better off lost and perished. Like Nicki Minaj, Crocs, the entire Kardashian clan and that damned prom photo. This is not some past regression that made me unable to accept my past. With every mistake, comes a lesson. That much I accept. But I can't accept the getup that I was in during prom. I just...can't.

Each and every one of us have gone through the painful and scarring years of adolescence but not everyone looked like a clown during prom. I was like the male version of carrie with the same emotional state, only with worst clothes. I was fat and much better off splashed with pigs blood like Carrie. I may be utterly exaggerating but that was prom to me. I wore this hideous striped shirt and almost matching striped pants (the horror!) and I looked like a discounted set of curtains in Carrefour. Oh but that is not all. I wore white shoes that Barry Manilow would set fire on and a belt with a blingy (go on, judge me) buckle.

Talking about it now is enough to send shivers down my spine and that is possibly the ONLY "What the hell were you thinking?!" moment that I have in my life. For years after that horrific episode, I would be seen buying men's fashion magazine from GQ to Men's Folio and it has somewhat become a reading material for me. I read everything that is required for a man to look good and socially accepted. I vouched from that day onwards that I would never, ever be caught on camera or seen in public for that matter wearing anything that would arouse the feeling of shame and disgust if I ever look back at it in the future.

And as if life couldn't get anymore unfair, the conversation that I had with Steve, Star and Melanie yesterday afternoon made me feel worse that I was last week looking at that damn prom photo. We were having a conversation about prom and how awful we looked back then but apparently I am alone in the "What the hell were you thinking?!" category. Star showed us a photo of her during prom back when she was in the States and she looked...the same.

"You looked the same. Better make up now of course, but you looked the same. You've had the same tits since you were 16," Steven said, staring at the picture.

"Girls enter puberty much earlier than boys. It's normal," Star shrugged.

"Yeah, but the other girls didn't have tits like yours," I added.

"That's because no boys touched their breasts," Melanie joked.

"Shut up Mel, you didn't even go to prom," Star snapped.

"That is because I wanted to wear a gown for prom. And I can't bear to go to prom and NOT win the prom queen title," Melanie said.

"Oh dear god, don't remind me," Steve exhaled loudly, rubbing his temples.

"What did you wore for your prom Stevieboy?" I asked.

Steve took out his phone and logged in on Facebook, scrolled for a couple of minutes and handed to me his phone. I looked at the screen and my jaws dropped. he looked like Keanu Reeves twenty five years ago, hair coiffed perfectly and he had a sash over his suit that read: "Prom King".

"You were Prom King," I said matter-of-factly. My heart stopped beating.

"And he wore a Gucci suit. And all the girls were all over him but he only had eyes for the guest DJ and I know this for a fact because we were from the same school and he told me everything. And he was caught in the school toilet later in the evening french kissing the much, much older DJ," Melanie shared.

I wanted to cry. Not because I wasn't prom king or because I wore a Gucci suit but because of the choices that I have made for my own prom. Choices that I couldn't change now. All I have now is a horror of a memory and a company of a girl who looks as fantastic as she was when she was sixteen, a Gucci wearing Prom King and a transsexual who skipped prom altogether because she stood by her beliefs.

Fuck me.