Isolated and destroyed

As you and I know, an important anniversary has just passed. Six months ago, Sean Mc Tiernan went to a nude beach for the first time and only. That’s right friend, next Miller time, raise a glass and celebrate this special day.

I hate the way I look, I have crippling social anxiety and crisp in the sun like one of those roast chickens you see in Supervalu. I know right, why exactly hadn’t I been to a nude beach before? Sounds like top of the bucket list right? Well it wasn’t, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost of course is my physical appearance. Me having more body disgust than Jeff Golblum in The Fly means I’m not exactly rolling my shirt up and showing people the Situation at the best of times. The prospect of naked me in front of people with eyes and the ability to judge does not inspire any happiness. And disregarding me, what about the other people on the beach? Naked Sean is pretty panic inspiring. They’d probably call The Ghostbusters. “Stay Puft is back, we need you to cross the fucking streams!”

The other thing is the abject horror I feel when considering what I’ve been told is one of the main reasons to visit nude beaches. This is, of course, to scope out the naked ladies. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not coming out against naked ladies. In fact I have so much respect for naked ladies, I’m not going to employ the obvious pun the last sentence sets up. But as much as naked ladies are totally in line with my thinking (high fives for you nude women!) me being around them in public just sounds like the worst thing ever. For instance strip clubs seem to me to be a sort of hell. Both sides are humiliated and awkwardness is everywhere. Now I’m not saying nude beaches are like strip clubs, they smell equally bad but in different ways and beer is far more expensive in strip clubs, but you pick up what I’m laying down brother. Publicly leering at naked women when they get to see you and go “oh look, that dude is leering heavy” is horrific. (But if it’s in private obviously: wagons ho!)

So both of the pitched advantages of nude beaches (leerage and hot-body-flaunting) are the worst things I can think of. Why did I end up there at 2pm on a Sunday? Maybe I wanted to challenge myself, go outside my socially anxious shell and have an adventure. It wasn’t though, it was drugs and alcohol. So I took of my shirt and ventured in. That’s right, only half nude. If you think 17 years of attempted Catholicism wasn’t going to keep my lower half clothed then you’re mistaken. I was also wearing sunglasses so my toes wouldn’t see me staring at them, all embarrassed.

Once I stumbled onto the beach, I realized my mistake. I had fallen victim, as I’m sure many have, to the narcissism of imagined nudity. Cause I am a man and because the internet is a thing that happens, I have a certain ideas of nakedness. It involves unrealistically appendaged men and women who look like cartoon characters staring sadly into the camera. What it doesn’t involve is men and women over 50 who are obese, high, leathery from the sun, adverse to showering, in possession of bongos and sporting inexplicable dreadlocks. But guess which category 95% of people on this nudist beach in Vancouver, Canada fell into? Well, you’re a better man than I Gunga Din because I was bloody shocked.

The last thing a person wants to see when they’re not in full control of themselves is massive middle aged women doing the booty clap as they run up the sand to join a drum circle. Actually that’s the second last thing. The very last thing is creepy old dudes who look like they consist solely of sweat, hair dye and High Society magazine having conversations in the buff, hands on their hips, gyrating like Ravishing Rick Rude. Yet that is exactly what I saw. I sat on a log, mournfully sipped my beer and sadly tried to convince myself the slapping sounds I heard were rounds of applause.
Not all anniversaries are happy ones, but they deserve to be remembered.