An Evening Out In Brighton

I wrote this around March 2023. I was feeling exceptionally low at the time, I think things have got better in many ways but underneath it all, I think it accurately represents how I still feel, in many ways.

Last Saturday I struggled, as usual, to get myself together and go out of the flat.

I walked for about 35 minutes. I do this by being optimistic and positive. I tell myself it’s good to get out, get some fresh air and exercise. The real reason is that I fear using the bus, and I’m concerned about constantly spending money on taxis (as well as the fear of being alone with a man in a car).

That walk featured me feeling very self conscious about being visible, and fear of being rejected anyway, but at least I had my own legs to get around with, which gives me a feeling of being more in control.

It was early evening, I got myself some chips, I’d only had porridge to eat hours before, because I have a practically lifelong internal problem with feeding myself.

So far so good though in a way, I’d done some things I was trying not to do out of fear. So I can still count going out as a success.

I went to the pub I’d gone to the previous Saturday. I had a good time, the first time I’d visited it. I’d met a whole group of people simply by overcoming my fear of being in a crowded noisy pub, and being visible with my mandolin. They’d been very welcoming, and people enjoyed my playing along with the DJ in the pub. Though at the end of the night, after the clocks had gone forward an hour, other members of the group I was with, were allowed to stay in the pub, while the manager, who seemed polite enough about it, threw me out into the rain and I went home alone in a taxi.

I got to the pub again this Saturday. There was a group of men I let go ahead of me as I was nervous about potentially being surrounded by them or having them come in behind me. That meant I had to wait until the bar was reasonably clear, I’d lost my place at the front of the queue, and had to hover around behind everyone feeling exposed.

I asked for a small glass of wine, unusually the manager asked me if what measure of small glass of wine I wanted, “125 or 175?” she asked. Normally I just ask for a small glass of wine, and I get the smallest measure. Being asked this simple question, caused me to wonder if I was a problem, out of place. Quite frankly part of me wishes I’d have known about this beforehand and then passive aggressively, loudly said “I require 125 ml of wine!”.

“125” I said, while wondering if I was actually a visitor from another planet.

I waited while she measured.

Yes, there is a perhaps spurious pun there.

I got my 125 ml of wine. Looked around for a seat, among fairly loudish people who were very much not like me. I struggle with people being loud around me, and other noises, such as coffee machines in cafés, because I’m both Autistic and have ADHD, as well as having developmental disorders. This is a reason I carry my mandolin everywhere, because if I’m getting overloaded, I play, and it gives my brain something to focus on, to tune out of the other noises, and the playing grounds me.

Then came the “What instrument is that?” moment. I am very used to this, it’s partly why I carry my mandolin as it’s a great ice breaker, I’m generally immediately spotted as being approachable, and there’s a chance my being trans becomes at least secondary to the fact that I’m a musician. Yes, I do carry my mandolin around me as a means of defence, I shouldn’t have to, but it works.

Historically I have had a tendency to take people completely on face value, which has got me into a lot of trouble at times, since I don’t necessarily spot risks to my boundaries. Though it’s a lottery, because I think it’s also meant I’ve met some really good people as a result.

I’ve started judging things more though, out of fear. I very quickly decided that the person asking me about my mandolin was white, probably cis het, on his own, and probably not a threat. Yes, I have C-PTSD as well so I’m hypervigilant.

The usual, but welcome light conversation about my musical instrument happened. As usual I felt compelled to not just stand there with the mandolin and talk about it, so I started to strum it, not loudly, in a busy pub.

At that point, I heard a voice from behind the bar behind me, it was the manager, a tall woman with long dark hair (though that simple description may also fit me), who said something like “We can’t have that here”.

I think I detected a bit of shakiness in her voice, I’ve got much better at observing these things. I also had my back to her, I couldn’t see her, and she could only see the back of me, and apparently she wanted to see the back of me too.

In a split second I was 3 or 4 years old, that time when I accidentally wandered into a paid play area for children, and an adult towered over me, asked me if I’d paid to be there (a totally alien concept to a small child really), then made me leave. On my own, feeling wrong, and crying.

Except it was much worse, because since being 4 years old, I’ve had a whole heap of other incidents in which I’ve been rejected for just being who I am, or attacked for being in the ‘wrong place’.

Crucially, I have become aware, more than ever, that my music is a fundamental part of who I am, it’s probably the most stable, secure thing about me, and I have been becoming a lot more confident about saying I’m brilliant at music. Though this is largely because I’ve started to trust other people when they tell me how good I am. I may appear confident with my self expression through music, but I’m actually very fragile but getting better. I hope so.

Being told to stop playing equated to me being rejected. It’s not a simple case of “I can’t do this thing here”, it’s “I am not allowed here” or even “I am wrong”.

The man I was talking to and tried playing to, was also clearly taken aback by me being asked to stop as well.

I looked toward the door. What I wanted to do was run away and cry. I had a glass receptacle in my hand with 125 ml of fermented liquid in it though, and I didn’t want to make people think I was weird by just abandoning it and walking away, and I didn’t want to get drunk by downing the drink then leaving. I also didn’t feel safe staying in the pub.

My optimism and positivity kicked in, I turned the scenario into me going and sitting at a table, outside, in the fresh air, away from the noise, where it was also colder.

I went outside and sat at a table on my own.

The man I was chatting to, followed me out. This then caused me to wonder if ultimately he might want to have sex with me. Since I’m extra wary of cis men, I didn’t find him particularly attractive, and sex was at that point, not at the forefront of my mind, I wasn’t interested in sex, but I also felt that I’d be able to hold my boundaries if something like that arose (unless perhaps I’d been intoxicated, then I’m unsure of what I might have done). I am now considering the possibility of someone spiking my drink as well.

He asked if it was ok to sit at my table. I quickly went through the process of thinking “Hmmmm.. if I say no, that could cause a scene and mean I’m totally on my own, if I say yes, I’m probably being passive”. So I was easy about it, made myself amenable, and welcomed him to sit down. Then I thought to myself “Oh god, will he take this as a signal that I am open to something more happening? Am I being too friendly? What’s wrong with me?”.

Then we had a longish conversation about me being asked to stop playing, in which he actually told me he was upset by it, that he was going to order another drink at this pub but now would go elsewhere. He told me he’d recently lived in Spain, and we talked about how people playing in pubs and clubs had essentially spawned pretty much the entire music industry in the UK. We talked about how things were changing.

During all of this, I was wrestling with the reasoning behind me being stopped.

Since I know the licensing laws myself, particularly the Live Music Act 2012, I very confidently knew that there was no licensing issue. The manager was at no point at risk of losing her licence. It was between 8am and 11pm, I’m unamplified, and considered ‘incidental’ (people aren’t at the venue to see me play, I’m like background music or a jukebox).

There was a possibility that the person who stopped me from playing, didn’t know the licensing laws. However, she’s the manager of the pub, if she doesn’t understand the licensing laws, that’s a problem in itself. I think it’s a safe assumption she does know the licensing laws though.

The man I was sitting with made some good points about how the bar had changed, that perhaps what I was doing simply didn’t fit in with the ‘vibe’ she was trying to create. He told me you can’t buy pints in the pub anymore, they do other measures, but not pints. Maybe pints are too working class or something, and that my posh voice, uncommon attire, shade of lipstick and wine drinking habits, weren’t enough to hide my working class roots. Maybe my propensity to suddenly break out into a tune on a mandolin in a bar, gave me away as being a prole?

But then she’d allowed me to sit there all night the previous Saturday and play. Though she probably had to, since practically everyone around me was enjoying me doing so (and people do tell me, and each other this as well). Perhaps this was the problem, she probably wanted to stop me before, but knew that if she’d have done so, it would have backfired on her. I am speculating of course, but I’m talking about someone who doesn’t appear to have made their reasons clear to me, it wasn’t an authentic exchange.

I could have asked the manager her reasons for stopping me playing, but I would likely be rightfully annoyed, and then I’d be assertive, but formidable, and then she might get embarrassed, and it would probably have made the situation worse. In any case, the deed was done, I had already decided I wasn’t safe, I wasn’t welcome, whatever happened, so my next best course of action was to try to accept it, move on, and not go back to that pub.

Underneath all of this, there was my intuition.

My intuition was telling me, that regardless of the arguments around licensing laws and potential wanky ‘trying to make a certain vibe’ arguments, that two main things were happening:

The first is that possibly the manager is insecure in her position, trying to assert herself, and trying to do so by very firm control over her domain. That includes who plays music in her bar. This control probably overrides the feelings of her Customers, she may be only ok if people seem happy because of something she has put in place. I then came along, just being me, and perhaps in her eyes I ‘took over’. I was not in her control, not invited to play, therefore I must be controlled.

The second is that she may be jealous of me. This, I am finding, is a thing. I struggle to understand how anyone can be jealous of me, but I am realising it does happen, it’s possibly even the main reason why I meet adversity.

I am very insecure, I am in part, an introvert, but I have an extrovert side which the introvert in me thinks is too loud, going to embarrass ‘us’ and I think perhaps my introvert both wants to be more like the extrovert, and is perhaps jealous of her. I think I may be in effect, sometimes jealous of myself.

The thing is, lots of other people are insecure as well.

My feeling here is that the manager saw me, but didn’t really see me. She would have seen this (trans) woman getting the attention of possibly most of her Customers, and she will have seen that people enjoy being around me because I apparently have some almost innate ability to play an instrument better than practically anyone else around, almost effortlessly.

I’m not going to be apologetic here. I can’t help it if I happen to be fucking awesome.

I am actually seriously afraid of being narcissistic, to the point that I implode and don’t feed myself and make myself feel lonely, on top of all of the things that I’ve had no control over, that make me feel lonely.

Maybe I have things all wrong here. it’s possible, I don’t hate the manager of the pub for stopping me playing. As an incident, it seems pretty minor, no need to get so worked up about it.

What I am doing here though, is showing my complexity.

No-one can read my mind and my feelings, but I think most people might see not much at all. At best, a man in a pub felt upset by a seemingly out of place reaction to some trans woman playing a mandolin in a pub. Though that also has a whole heap of ramifications about how he feels about society as well. There’s little there that forms any understanding of what I go through.

Most people, if they know what happened, may just see that I went out, and someone was mildly unreasonable about me playing mandolin. Then I left.

Actually, the man invited me to go to another pub with him. I briefly considered it, but quickly decided though he seemed nice enough, he may well have had an agenda, but crucially, probably not my kind of person, and I might have ended up getting drunk with him.

So I left but invited him to walk down the road with me, since I knew he was going that way, and very deliberately parted company with him, without exchanging any contact details.

I then was going to walk back to the flat, but it was cold, and I went to the pub where I now am pretty much a regular at, where I normally feel safe. I then order a small glass of wine, without being asked about how many millilitres of wine I wanted. I chatted to the person behind the bar, and someone I know at the bar. I was asked how I was, I partly hid how I really felt, but at the same time was trying to indicate that I wasn’t ok at all.

I got my wine. I stood around on my own feeling awful for a while because the pub was full and in order to sit down I’d have to have asked to sit at a table with strangers. I pictured myself doing that, and then being rejected and feeling unsafe.

I then saw there was a small table available. So, like on my birthday, I sat down on my own, near the door, sipped my wine, broke down into tears, hid my face behind my hair, and then tried dissociating. Mostly I was looking at all the different footwear going past me on the floor. That was interesting, I don’t spend much time normally looking at people’s shoes.

I didn’t want to leave but I didn’t want to stay either. I wanted someone nice to come over, ask me if I’m ok even, to which I’d answer “No, I am really not ok”, then I’d not talk much about it, and I’d just get a hug, and feel safe, and crucially, not lonely.

I think one person noticed me, but I have this terrible constant feeling that I am too much for people, especially people who are also struggling, so I just sat in the corner and felt like a small lonely crying child. Because underneath, that’s exactly what I am and have been practically all of my life.

I hate being like this, I really, deeply hate it, and it translates to hating myself. And I hate hating myself too.

I would be happy to just be a child though. One that is spontaneous, creative, co-operative, who feels safe and loved though.

Eventually my mood changed a little (oh BPD up yours!). I went to the toilet mainly to check if my eye makeup had actually run and if my face was now covered in black streaks of eye liner and mascara. Apparently this time the fixing spray has mostly worked. Though in a way, I wished it hadn’t, as it would have been a sure sign I was not ok and perhaps someone might have talked to me. But then that’s also not a healthy way to get the attention I need either. Oh but then I don’t really feel safe to go and present myself to someone and tell them I’m really not ok and need help. Plus I’m pretty much alone here, I don’t have the relationships (and one in particular) I used to have. There’s no-one at home to comfort and support me, I don’t even have a home really. I have no parents, no partners, no-one physically there for me that I feel safe enough around.

After going to the toilet and my mood picked up a bit, I resumed my performance of trying to look like I wasn’t imploding inside. I sat back down, even played a little mandolin. I didn’t want to leave because I knew I’d be going back to no-one, to be on my own in someone else’s home. I didn’t really want to stay either, because I felt unsafe (not that anyone had done anything there to make me feel unsafe).

I talked to myself a bit, but while being conscious of looking like the lone mandolin carrying trans woman gibbering to herself in the corner, that I essentially was. It helped though, guess I was just parenting myself.

I did the only thing I could think of that put me back in control of myself, which was to make a decision to leave. I realised that there was no hope of saving my night out, of having any of the simple fun, socialising that I needed, so made my decision, ordered a taxi, and left.

That wasn’t the end of it of course. I then spent days with the whole escapade digging at the core of me, culminating now, in writing this blog post. It’s just another stressful event, built on a heap of stressful events, to add to my overall pile of stressful events. Fucking yay! Not.

So maybe now, if you’ve read this far, someone can see that a simple trip out, to try and socialise and not be lonely, can be a whole world of emotional pain for me.

This very long piece of off-the-cuff writing, doesn’t even do me justice. If anything, I now fear the exposure of having written it, that once again, it amounts to me feeling like I am ‘too much’.

I know the ropes here, I’ve done very, very hard work with myself. I can hear others telling me, and a voice in me saying “You’re not too much, you’ve just been hurt”. It can help a little, but without safe spaces to be, without safe people to be around, I feel I am treading water all the time, and it’s very exhausting.

Yet here I am still, throughout everything, and I have suffered far worse in my life than someone telling me to stop playing in the pub. I go through all this, practically every day of my life now, in some way. I’m a survivor, I realise I am probably exceptionally resilient and skilled in survival really, but I am so very tired of it, I just want to be.

Copyright © 2026 Siobhán Sarelle