At five years old my most treasured possession was a large, solid, and very plastic dumper truck. I loved this thing so much that I would take it to bed with me, and I became so attached to it that my mother had to remove it each night once I had drifted off; I squeezed it so tightly that it left tyre tracks on my face and the neighbours were beginning to ask questions.
Fast forward a few more years and whilst I had successfully negotiated the average little girl’s rite-of-passage by owning an impressive Barbie collection, rather than enacting dream weddings and suchlike my Barbie was much more likely to be found haphazardly flinging herself from one end of my bedroom to the other on a flimsy zip-wire made from parcel twine and a coat-hanger. She was unlikely to be wearing her ubiquitous pink princess gowns; instead she frequently sported Action Man’s ill-fitting combat fatigues, which were kindly donated by a male friend who seemingly preferred his Action Men without them at all, (which is a whole different story altogether.)
Barbie was quite problematic for pre-teen me; my aspirations all involved some kind of heavy machinery or vehicle and whilst I could respect the level of education and dedication exhibited by the likes of Vet Barbie or Schoolteacher Barbie, I always found her career choices a little pedestrian. Where was Intercontinental Truck Driver Barbie when I needed her? Steering forty tonnes on the open road, and all with perfect lipstick. Now that’s my kind of role model.
I started as I meant to go on, and while my interests transferred from trucks and helicopters to guitars and amplifiers (predominantly as they were much easier to store in the my bedroom) I still felt as though I didn’t really 'fit'. I spent my days wearing a self-imposed uniform of cherry red Doc Martens, turned-up drainpipes and boxy suit jackets, which did little to hide a 34E chest which I had suddenly woken up to one morning.
This, combined with being endowed with a voice deeper than a black hole and intoned with all the dulcet vibrations of the Thames Estuary (anyone who has ever actually visited Berkshire will be able to tell you that the majority of us don’t sound like the Queen) naturally led to a degree of confusion; during a stint working at a local venue I was frequently greeted by people looking for “that lovely Lewis fellow” they’d spoken to on the telephone. They were generally stunned to find themselves shaking hands with a 16-year-old girl with long bleached bum length blonde hair.
Secretly, I always loved glamorous things, however I always felt incongruous, as though I was over-compensating for my conventionally masculine manner and interests. I had dresses, and I wore them; I spoke to men in an affected high voice, hoping that I would 'pass.' Ultimately I resigned myself to the fact that this was not only pointless, but frankly silly, and I reverted to a numb state of both-and-neither which persisted until I was about twenty. Matters became worse when I began seriously contemplating the concept of boyfriends; I could talk to men a little too well, to the extent that they would tell me about the girls they liked, and who were always inevitably diminutive and scared of spiders.
Imagine my terror, then, when I found that I was to be thrown well and truly into the deep end. Following a night of poor judgement at a rowdy student party I realised that I had applied for the reality dating show Take Me Out, and in a fit of madness I attended the audition. Faced with a bevy of beautiful ladies, for whom this whole being feminine thing was totally effortless, I thought I would be totally out of my depth. Instead, I met some of the most incredible, fascinating and stimulating women I have ever been stuck in a Holiday Inn with. Rather than feeling awkward or uncomfortable in glitzy outfits, I finally felt as if my skin fit. The lovely makeup introduced me to the wonders of false eyelashes (and body makeup to hide my high-contrast T-shirt tan) and the stylists welcomed my taste for vintage-style outfits rather than forcing me into the nearest sequinned bin-bag.
It was only in this incredibly surreal and totally alien environment that I finally found myself becoming comfortable with my own duality; rather than being judged or ridiculed for my deeper voice and frank approach to issues, these aspects of my personality were simply accepted without question, and celebrated by both these fabulous ladies and members of the public watching, who sent me lovely messages on my Facebook page. I learned that I love to make people laugh, and that I could use these aspects of myself, which I had always considered cumbersome, in order to achieve this.
Finally, thinking of myself as a person rather than as a girl became not only a natural, but a desirable state for me to be in. Totally unexpectedly, it was only by throwing myself totally out of my comfort zone and into the welcoming embrace of thirty-plus wonderful and glamorous strangers – along with the British general public – that I eventually reached the revelation that I really could wear whatever I wanted and be interested in whatever took my fancy, be that wearing huge heels and bright pink lipstick or learning to skipper a thirty-odd tonne passenger boat. (Though I wouldn’t advocate doing both at the same time; that would probably just be dangerous…) Either way, I’m sure that Intercontinental Truck Driver Barbie would be proud.
Lois Barnett is a 21 year old writer from Windsor, Berkshire. You may remember her from Season 4 of "Take Me Out" – she can be found on Facebook HERE.
Pictured: Barbie's monster truck, Lois Barnett
