Public speaking is a terrible thing for most people, myself included. All the staring eyes, expressive and sharp, become mirrors, doubling and squaring, exponentially increasing all that anxious self awareness inherent in the center of attention. I'd always regarded it as one of the most undesirable parts of being an adult; to openly bear the brunt of other peoples' judgement. That was, until last night.
Last night, I was the lone male in a room full of women, all of them strangers, where I was forced so far out of my comfort zone that I would have welcomed an impromptu, nationally televised speech before Congress instead of my fate. I knew things were getting weird when we were told to mimic animal noises and parrot them back each other. Just for fun, see how silly you sound while trying to imitate the sound of a woman meowing, yelping, cooing or wooing. Multiply that with soul-crushing emasculation and drown it in a sea of wet femininity. Surely things couldn't be worse than this, I thought naively.
Soon we were made to stand in a circle, partnered up, with half of the women facing out and the other half facing in. We were taught to recite a Hindu chant. It was perhaps 30 seconds in length. We were to sing the chant to our partner, while staring straight into their eyes, with a hand held over their heart. Yes, tits were sort of a problem. So I stood there, twitching with discomfort, enduring the longest 30 seconds of my life. Then the circle rotated. I was forced to suffer this fate a dozen times over. I felt like the protagonist of a forgotten Greek myth. There was no end to my torment in sight. Without having ever experienced this phenomenon, it is impossible for you to understand the profound discomfort of it all. First, there is the knotted mess of gender dynamics, burrowing long claws into my back like a deranged koala, whispering warnings and screaming impropriety. Then there was the sheer number of times I had to perform the ritual. The end seemed impossibly far away. There was the feeling of the vibration on each woman's chest as she sang, the extreme awkwardness of being placed in such an intimate setting with a stranger, and the debilitating vulnerability of singing to someone. All of this, though, failed in comparison to the eye contact. My eyes moved like a misbehaved dog's, darting and averting, guilty and downcast, quickly glancing back to see if my master was still watching. I could feel the content of each person's soul. It was to rummage through the junk drawer of another's heart. One woman whispered that she felt bad for me, because I was the only guy there. I felt bad for me, too. The intensity of it all was almost breathtaking and I begged for it to end. Finally, it did.
It couldn't get worse than that, right! Nothing I could think of could be worse than that. It turns out I hadn't yet been divorced of my naiveté. It got worse.
The instructor told us we were each to sing, a cappella, for one minute, while everyone else in the room sat, stared, and "beared witness." Holy shit. Panic whipped through my nerves like static and I felt my heart start to race. I need to run, I thought. Fear filled my sails. Just get up, pick up your hoody, put on your shoes, run down the stairs, grab the door handle, pull it open and don't look back. Those were too many steps. It was that moment where I'd realized the cruel intention behind removing our shoes. I was trapped. Ok, stay clam. When it's your turn, just tell them you aren't comfortable. Perfect.
The first woman volunteers to start. After her minute's up she calls on the blonde beside me. After five seconds of pained silence, anxious breathing and a few umms, she declared she couldn't. Yes! Yess! I fucking rejoiced!! I wasn't the only one. The teacher wouldn't let her off that easy though and told her she'd come back to her at the end. It was over for me, folks. I contemplated faking a stroke, or an asthma attack, even an orgasm to get me out of there. There was no savior in sight. It was hopeless. This was the closest I'd come to a living nightmare. All of my bad shroom trips combined weren't as bad as this. After a torturous ten minutes it was my turn. I eeked out a shitty version of the intro to Take a Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed, forgot the words, and then butchered one of my favorite Iron and Wine songs. After everyone was done we held hands, our heads hung low, heavy with shamed liberation, and sang one last song.
Until next week.
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