STRUGGLING to grieve for Tim Curry because you spent your teenage years way too into The Rocky Horror Show and don’t want to be reminded of it? You did all these:
Forced everyone to watch it
There was no party and no piss-up that did not end with you breaking out a tired VHS and popping it on ‘in the background’, which swiftly turned to all music being shushed and attendees encouraged to pay it the proper attention. Lucy Parry got fingered in the back garden at her 18th just to get away from it.
Forcing everyone to do the Time Warp
Even before that you’d taken over the stereo and told everyone, no matter what fun they were having, to perform a repetitive dance like Black Lace’s Agadoo and no more enjoyable. Attempts to put it on a second time were rebuffed. Everyone had bottles of Merrydown they wanted to shotgun.
Quoted it endlessly
Nobody could say ‘Have you done the physics homework?’ without you lasciviously saying ‘No. Why, do you think I should?’ which didn’t make any sense out of context. Likewise ‘Such a perfect specimen of manhood,’ and ‘They didn’t like me! They never liked me!’ That last one, at least, was true.
Tried to get everyone to do the audience participation
At midnight screenings in New York the audiences threw rice, squirted water pistols, shouted ‘Buy an umbrella you cheap bitch’ and other responses suggesting 70s New York was less vibrant than previously believed. None of your friends wanted to do this. You spent the evening in front of the film at home, alone, rice unthrown, pretending it was fine.
Forced everyone to dress up
More successful was the Rocky Horror party where everyone had to wear sexy underwear. Fewer of the boys wore basques than you’d hoped but more of the girls did than the boys had dared hope. It’s consequently remembered by many attendees as the night they lost at least one virginity. You didn’t. You were lipsyncing to I’m Going Home.
Weren’t even gay
All of the above would have been acceptable if, years later, you’d come out as gay. Your friends would have been like ‘Ah, explains her obsession,’ or ‘He was just trying to understand who he truly was.’ But you didn’t. You’re married with two kids, terminally boring and can’t hear Sweet Transvestite without wincing.
