Last night's gig was...shall we say eventful?
Firstly, during my set itself, I had a nice back-and-forth exchange
with two guys in the front row. One of them was a bald heterosexual man called
Dom, but he initially said his name was Jon - for no discernible reason. I
renamed him Daisy. I went on to have an odd flirtatious chat with him - all for
comedic effect, of course - in which he at one point joked "shall we just
go to the toilets now?", implying we would have homosexual relations. It
was all funny and light-hearted, and it made me think "ah, it's always
nice when people are carefree and rational enough to be comfortable with their
own sexuality to joke about things like this".
After the gig, his mate came into the green room and
apologised for heckling, to which I said it wasn't needed as an apology,
because they were friendly and helpful heckles. We then - along with a comedian
friend of mine who also performed - chatted for a good hour or so, and he said
that he used to be in the army. He told me he'd had to return fire at people in
Afghanistan, jump out of planes, and that his best mate died in his arms. He
then went on to say "I could never do what you do", insisting it was
"a different kind of bravery". I am struggling to get my head around
it, to be frank. I've never been more proud of the fact that I do stand-up,
though.
At this point, I will reveal the fact that the other
comedian was a gay man. This shouldn't be something I need to reveal, but sadly
it was.
My comedian friend offered myself and the army man a lift to
the train station, which we kindly accepted. The army man went up to his mate
and said he was getting a lift with us, to which his mate said "careful!
They might bum ya!", before looking over at us and saying "No
offense." Then, as we were leaving through the door, he shouted
"remember to spit on it first!" He then called the guy up twice in 30
mins to check he was alright, both times implying nasty things. I'm not
entirely sure what he said, but his mate had to respond "no, they were
just two nice guys", and "yes, I'm safe and sound".
Firstly, saying "they might bum you" about
non-heterosexual people, while talking to your heterosexual friend, is not
something you can simply say "no offense" about. You have just
implied that you think that any man who is interested in other men is therefore
likely to rape every man he sees, which I think one would be quite within their
right to take offense over. Secondly, I wouldn't have a problem with someone calling
up a friend if they were getting a lift with a stranger, far from it. It's the
fact it was more than that. It's the fact that I am certain, considering the
guy phoned up twice asking if his friend was alright in such a short space of
time - and the responses his friend gave - that it was something worse than
that. What made it all the more confusing was I had earlier thought this man
was clearly a tolerant and open-minded individual - he had been willing to joke
about the idea of himself being gay, after all - but it turned out that he was
the type of person who genuinely believes that non-heterosexual men can't be
trusted, and are a real threat.
This is, sadly, not a new thing. They are many cases of
straight men being scared of non-straight men; phrases like "keep your
backs to the wall" and "don't drop the soap" are ones that most
people will have heard. But I had never before come across a man who was happy
to joke about the concept, but actually had deep-rooted homophobic tendencies.
It's more than a little disconcerting.
Aside from this, it was a nice gig. It was at a pub called
The Unicorn, too, which is an awesome pub name. Also, seriously: what kind of
homophobe says to his mates with a straight face "anyone fancy a pint down
The Unicorn tonight?" A stupid* one.
*All homophobes.
Thanks for reading,
Tom.
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