Confessions of a Compulsive Overeater | ‘Discovering sex alerted me to my addictive nature’

‘Je Suis Fatty Gay’ is an anonymous contributor who, every month in Attitude, takes us on a very personal journey that began in the closet – and the fridge. You can read his last column online here – this is the sixth instalment…

The day after my first sexual experience, I woke up, hung over. I was 18, on the scene, and had done the thing I was most scared of: actually had sex – well, at least given a blow job. While my best friend Tommy had settled into a relationship complete with hearts and flowers, and the other guys from our gay youth group fooled around with each other, I had been single and alone. I was short and fat – 18 stone to be exact. I wouldn’t have wanted to have sex with me. But now, finally, someone had. Okay, so it happened in a dark corner of a club with someone old enough to be my grandfather whom, if I’d been sober, I wouldn’t have gone near, but for those few minutes before he came and went, he wanted me. He made me feel normal. He hadn’t rejected me like everyone else had. It was something to be proud of. An achievement. Why then, did I feel so awful?

Our gang started clubbing at G-A-Y in London, watching Sonia, Sinitta and a gaggle of D-List divas trot out their back catalogue on stage. We got pissed on Red Stripe, arguing over who had better vocals – Kylie or Dannii. As much as I loved being there with my friends, when it came to pulling, I was a rank outsider. Every Saturday night I’d watch them flirt with different guys who seemed to paw all over them. I’d resentfully stand back, watching as they danced, bumped and ground their slender bodies into each other, until they drunkenly snogged. There was one guy there each week who I had a huge crush on. I nicknamed him ‘Robbie Eyes’ because of his smoldering likeness to Robbie Williams.  I longed to talk to him. In my fantasy world, he was the hero who rescued me. But in reality, he never looked my way. I was limited to dark corners and old men, if I was lucky.

I became so anxious about going out, most nights, I was already paralytic by the time we were in the queue, where I’d perform to an audience, just like I had done when I was a kid. Except, being pissed, I could be rude and abusive too. I could express my deep-rooted anger, and who better to project it on to, than the gay men who I perceived were better than me.  One night my rowdy behaviour got me barred from the club for six months. It was the first of many establishments I got thrown out of. My friends suggested that maybe I should cut down the booze a bit. I didn’t think I needed to.

As I hit my 20’s, I found cruiser bars with dark rooms as well as corners. They became my new home. Here, on piss and spunk-splattered floors, I waited in the dark, ready to pounce on anyone more desperate than I was.

I never told my friends about this secret life. I didn’t want them to judge me. Yet, I judged – sometimes openly, the men who were there with me. They were dirty and depraved. They were desperate, ugly, old and lonely. I wasn’t like them, or so I told myself. I was better. This belief seemed to ward off the worthless feelings I held for myself around boys like ‘Robbie Eyes’. For every bottle of beer I downed, and every man I had an encounter with, I became more detached from the idea that I would ever find love.

Sometimes I’d stay at home, eating and running up bills having phone sex on chat lines. I pretending to be a six-foot stud, with a washboard stomach, packing nine inches. Sometimes I’d have relationships over the phone. One lasted six months. In a moment of madness, I gave him my address for him to send me a gift. I don’t know who was more shocked when he turned up at my home to surprise me in person. Needles to say, he dumped me on the spot.

I couldn’t stop calling the chat lines despite it costing hundreds of pounds. It was the first time I noticed my addictive nature. But that’s as far as I got. I didn’t see a problem with the rest. Yet, that awful feeling I had inside was still there, festering and growing. I tried to keep up the façade that I was doing OK, but my anger surfaced more when I was drunk. I attacked anyone I saw as a threat, in fits of dramatic rage. I didn’t know what the problem was, except that it made me hateful. I felt like a fraud. Sometimes, I felt there was no point being alive. I came to know it as shame, and it was fuelling all of my destructive behaviours. But I wasn’t done just yet. I was about to meet a man who would turn my already chaotic world, completely upside down…

Share your own story with us as jesuisfattygay@attitude.co.uk.

You can read the latest instalment of ‘Je Suis Fatty Gay’ in the current issue of Attitude – available in shops now, to order in print from newsstand.co.uk and digitally from attitudedigital.co.uk.

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