The first Pride I ever went to, Brighton in 2012, was one of the best days of my life. My best friend was living in the city; I met and fell in love with the man who became my first boyfriend; and I was overwhelmed by a sense of communal warmth, in the cheesiest, most cliched way possible. It was like a heartwarming Netflix drama set across the course of a single day that changes everything for ever. Two years later, I returned to Brighton for Pride. And it was one of the most miserable days of my life.
My best friend had moved away, my ex and I had broken up. I’d just graduated and had no idea what I wanted to do for a job or where I wanted to live. I felt old. I was working at a summer camp for teenagers learning English as a foreign language; to them it didn’t matter whether I was 21 or 28, I was simply an “adult”. The day before Pride, a brassy 16-year-old Italian girl asked me what I was doing after class. When I said I was meeting some friends to have a beer in the park, she frowned at me, with infinite sadness, and replied: “Teacher … you are very old to be drinking in parks.” When you’re working with kids there’s no escaping your own obsolescence.
So when Pride came around I was determined to have a wild time, in a defiant attempt at reclaiming my lost youth – I’d soon show those Italian teens! I would prove, once and for all, that even teachers can let their hair down and have a good time! But the day was a washout. It started badly when I was falsely accused of shoplifting a bottle of beer from Tesco’s, and reprimanded for failing to respect “the spirit of the day” – as if the Christopher Street Day parade was an impassioned defence of the property rights of major corporations. It didn’t get much better after that. I didn’t really know anyone in the city, so I mostly just wandered around by myself, hoping for a chance encounter that never arrived; getting increasingly drunk in a dull, lethargic way. There was a boredom deep in my bones.
I was trying to recapture the fun I’d had two years before and failing spectacularly. Like Madame Bovary and her one evening at the chateau, I was doomed to be haunted for ever by a single moment of perfect happiness that could never be repeated. That, and I didn’t get laid. Brighton Pride had become more expensive, more closed off. Before it had seemed truly ecstatic; now I could see the grubby, mercenary heart beating underneath it all.
So why dwell on such a dismal moment? A Bob Dylan lyric springs to mind: “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” That Pride, I felt as if I was at the end of the line; that nothing exciting would ever come my way again; that I’d lost, irrevocably, the feeling of turning up somewhere and thinking you might have the best day of your life. When you’re in the midst of it, being jaded feels like a permanent state. But it doesn’t have to be; it wasn’t for me. In the years since, I’ve enjoyed Pride a lot.
Pride’s relevance is often spoken about in relation to wider factors – its commercialisation or lack of radicalism (both of which are important) – but whether or not you enjoy the day is probably contingent on who you’re with, the mood you’re in, what else is going on in your life. Which means that no matter how bad Pride gets, it can always become good again. No matter how permanent your weariness feels, life can become newly exciting. If anything, I’m even more cynical about the commercialism of Pride today, but I’ve also learned to chill out a bit. While the cynicism is warranted, it’s not something you want to indulge to the point where you’re sabotaging a nice day out with your friends just to spite Tesco. You’re setting yourself up for failure by investing so much political meaning in a parade. “Having a good laugh” isn’t a radical form of resistance, but neither is going to Pride and spending the entire time complaining.
