People think I'm gay

[PARACHUTING IN]

What's your name. Where you from. Having a nice time, la la laaaa. How easy do you think it is to determine someones sexuality from the way they look. Do you think for example by looking at you now, the clothes you're wearing, the way you're sitting on that chair, I could tell if you're straight or gay.

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Opener:

People think I'm gay.

There it is. I've said it. I'm not gay, and I don't mind if someone is gay, or if someone isn't gay, it's none of my business, but what I do mind is when the people who think I'm gay, think I'm gay they just think I'm gay.

There's no, "Oooh, well he could be, he might be, hard to say, if he's not full blown gay - because that's the kind of thing straight people say about gay people - then he's probably Bi. Or Bi on the weekends. Part time Bi.

Part time Bi?

I'm not a sales assistant at B & Q.
Bums and Queens.

I don't do Bi shifts Tuesdays - Fridays.

No.

I've always thought anyway, as a, and I don't know if I need to emphasize this any further, as a straight man, that bisexuality is a bit strange. Again, speaking as a man, and this is a very personal point of view, I kind of think when you suck another man's penis, you've crossed a line.

A pretty big line.

A big throbbing purple line.

And I'm not saying it's impossible, but I just think if you've gone into Penis land, I would think for women it's less easy to take you sincerely.

"I like dicks, but I still like chicks"

Now if you say that on a first date, that's a line a lady will have texted verbatim to at least one of her friends by the time the night's done.

Probably the moment you go to the toilet she'll be on her phone texting like her life depended on it.

While you're in the toilets looking for Bruno.

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So back to people thinking I'm gay.

And right now in the audience and I pretty much guarantee this, there'll be someone who is either about to whisper to her friend, or maybe even already has.

"I think he's gay"

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No.

I'm not.
Part time B & Q.

Definitely.

Nothing more.

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So, I'm at someone's housewarming party at their flat in Chelsea. As you do. Everyone there's pretty well-heeled, and I knew a few people - be a bit weird if I didn't right - and over the course of the evening chatted to a few more people.

And got talking to this bloke who was so posh he almost couldn't speak.
He made Prince Charles sound like a bare knuckle gypsy boxer

"I'll fight you for a fiver"

And he started telling me this story about his girlfriend. And bless him, he was obviously having, or about to have a very modern moment. Before he continued with his story, realising that clearly I was gay and that the sooner that was mentioned the more we could all relax, he said,

"you know how it is when you want to do one thing and your girlfriend, or partner, wants to do another"

"I mean, you're a gay man , right"

What?
Que?
You're a gay man right.


And then he said "Oh, mate, maaaate. I'm so sorry. It just that my girlfriend said there's no way a man dressed like you could be straight"

What, just because I'm wearing a chain mail singlet, arse less leather chaps and noshing off some gorilla of a man, he thinks I'm gay.

No, not that. Extraordinary. I was wearing a purple cardigan and I am starting to think that purple is one of those colours that (finger quotes thing) "Let's people know"

So, I'm in Sainsbury's right.

And my friends, my dear dear friends have just had twins and I've proudly been made the godfather which is such an honour. And they're always looking out for and after me, so I thought, I'm going to go round to there's for some Sunday lunch but I'm going to make them a nice fish pie so they don't have all the hassle of making food themselves and they don't have to leave the house which is a hassle with young kids.

None of this actually happened by the way.

I'm just telling you to make you like me.

Or on the off chance there's any women out there who are considering having sex with me, you know 'turning me', this might be the story that pushes them over the edge.

Of course it happened.

I would never play with your emotions like that.

So I'm waiting at the fish counter in Sainsbury's. As you do. And I got talking to the woman behind me and once I started ordering the fish she said to me

"Are you making a Fish Pie"

And, possibly in an over sharing kind of way, I then told her the story I just told you.

And you know what. At the exact moment when I said

"my friends have had twins and I'm making a fish pie, she smiled and raised her eyebrows" in a way that just said, without saying it

You're gay.

Not you might be gay.
Not even maybe he's part time B & Q.
But he's gay.

And then when I told her I'd been made a godfather of those beautiful baby girls her eyebrows went even higher and her smile broadened in a way that said.

He's unequivocally gay. I'm in fact now going to allocate him as Full Blown Gay or FBG which is one of those gays that does bottom sex. Not just a holding hands gay. A full blown one.

Full time B & Q.

Probably a B & Q manager or something.
Worked his way up.

And I just don't know how to react.
Maybe I've misread the signs.
I haven't.

But I just want to say to her "You think I'm gay don't you. Not that I have a problem with that, but I'm not gay. And frankly I don't welcome the judgement that just because a man bakes his friends a fish pie to take round to their newly born twins, and noshes off someone he met on the night bus, and keeps poppers and magazines like Hard Bodied Man and Man Muscle '(insert gay porn reference here)' that he's gay.

The last things I made up.

So, I'm not quite sure how to deal with this problem. I suppose one thing could be to stop wearing purple. You might even argue that's a sensible solution and I'm sure it is.

There is another idea I've been working with, but I'm not sure whether it's direct enough. And to be honest, I think maybe if I was going to re-do it, I would pick another colour than purple.

But I just find myself so drawn to purple.

Really, I do.

[T-shirt reveal]

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Thank you, you were truly wonderful, I was Matt Janes.

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Back to mic.

I'm not gay. I just heard someone say that as I was walking away from the mic.

Who said that?

Yeah. Well, Please don't say that.