John Jones: Going Gay

Right. That’s it. I’m done with women. Make-up, straighteners, Grey’s Anatomy, tampons... Bleugh.

Over the last nine weeks I’ve done everything for you ladies: I’ve trawled the moderately-shady parts of the web, dated blind, dated speedily: I was one step away from dating with my arms tied behind my back in the dark just to meet a nice, friendly woman with a love of fajitas. That’s it. That’s all I was after.

But no. After one rejection too many, this week I’ve decided to try a different avenue. After all, variety is the spice of life or whatever it is they say. Long story short, this week I’m going gay.

I’ve had one experience of a gay club before in my life, and I’ll have to admit it wasn’t the nicest evening of my life. It all begun in a small central London club, where a Hungarian friend suggested we move on to another place. “Ve Vant to go to this club in Vauxhall. Free drinks all night” she said. “Do you vant to come?” Stupidly I agreed, without checking the details. Next thing I remember, I was sitting in a car being driven by a drag queen, honking his way through London’s traffic in a sparkling gold bikini and sarong.

The club felt as if it had been built specifically to pander to stereotypes, filled with bald, chunky men clad in leather getting overly sexual to a ‘Mamma Mia’ soundtrack. I spent the evening in the corner of the club, petrified as I quietly sipped from my (free) cranberry and vodkas. What a winner. However, deep down I knew that London’s gay scene was more than just cheesy music and an overly-friendly toilet attendant: there was a heart and soul in there that I hadn’t yet witnessed, so this week I headed into the depths of Clapham to see if a man’s arms would be any less judgemental than a woman’s.

I’ve never been the world’s biggest ‘lad’, downing my own sick in the heart of a testosterone-filled drinking circle, but at the same time I’ve never been the world’s most effeminite man. I have my moments, don’t get me wrong (he says after pausing this week’s ‘Cougar Town’), but I’ve never been able to relate to the femininity that seems to be the free gift that men receive when jumping out of the closet.

Nonetheless, this week I’ve decided to ignore my aversions and confront things head on. Being the coward that I am, I recruited back-up in the form of two of my closest friends (one of whom, a straight man, jumped at the chance to go to a gay bar. I’ve not got a webcam here, but if I did you’d see one of my eyebrows raised to the point where it would be off the screen).

With a bit of searching online, I decided to go to a club called ‘The 2 Brewers’ in Clapham Common, and after several pints of Dutch courage in a pub down the road, we headed in tentatively. Please excuse my surprise here, but the club didn’t look like a Village People convention in the slightest: it was a large, friendly space and couldn’t have been further from the beefy intimidation that I had expected. Now I’m a straight man, straight as a Roman Road, straight as a robot’s ruler (one too many?), but even I could tell that this club was full of attractive men, rather than the men who are forced to work in the Argos stockroom because their face would scare off the customers.

But being able to appreciate attractiveness doesn’t make you gay: it doesn’t take a genius to work out that, say, David Tennant is more attractive than Danny Devito. If I wanted to really see what the gay world had to offer a single man I would need to look further. Luckily, it was karaoke night in the club.

Now I don’t want to brag, but I’ve got vocal chops that would put Orpheus to shame. I once gave a rendition of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ that made Susan Boyle weep for joy. If I was ever going to impress, this would be my moment.

We ordered drinks from the bar, and from the moment that I said the word “Foster’s”, I knew that the game was up. The barman might have been saying “There’s your change, Sir”, but his eyes were screaming “STRAIGHT! STRAIGHT! WE LET ONE GET IN!” I realised immediately that if I were to do this properly, I’d have to be a little less obvious. After much convincing from my giddy friends, I approached a group who were browsing their way through the karaoke songbook. Not only were they friendly, but after two sentences they invited our group over to their table.

Half an hour (and one impressive rendition of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Because Of You’) later, the table was occupied by twelve men (and two women), all talking openly and inclusively to the group.

There was an atmosphere at the table that I definitely wasn’t used to, and I’ve got no shame in saying that it was genuinely refreshing: When was the last time that I had sat in a normal club and been surrounded by 12 single women with no effort? I tried my best to get my flirt on, but knew immediately that I was out of my depth. I had no idea how to flirt with a man. The moment that I met my friend in the pub she had said: “No. No-one will believe you’re gay”, and sitting at this table I certainly felt that I hadn’t got the vibe right.

Several drinks later, my (probably) straight friend took the moment by the horns and managed to somehow ask the group if they believed that we were gay. “You and her, no”, a man from across the table asserted, before pointing to me: “He is though”. I had done it.

It no doubt casts whopping great shadows on me as a straight man, but It was incredible: I had hacked into the Matrix, I had solved the Da Vinci Code.

As the evening grew to an end, our small group headed to the bus stop and one of the men from our table (Tim) reached out and took my hand. There was a minor shudder, but I pushed through and held it back. Forget ducking behind a bush in Afghanistan, hurriedly reporting to the cameraman as a trickle of wee runs down your leg: this was committed journalism. The commitment wavered, however, as he leaned in for a kiss as we waited at the stop.

I’ll tell you one thing for sure: gay men are quick. I jumped back involuntarily, but even as my head hit against the back of the bus shelter I felt a bristly lip brushing against my face. If Tim is reading this (he isn’t), all I can say is that I am genuinely sorry for not being entirely honest. I’m sure he’s not at home, crying his way through an Alanis Morissette album, but all the same it probably wasn’t the fairest of things to have done.

Needless to say, I’ve tasted the water, but am definitely not gay. I’ll keep my ear out for the moment when the women of Britain read this article and rejoice in unison.

Next Week: The last part of this series, where I talk bout wat I’ve dun learned.