‘How I came out in Bristol’

By now, you’d assume, someone would have a formula for coming out; they haven’t. As an adolescent in the noughties, trying to piece together the concept of gay from a semi-in-the-burbs was tricky. For a start, television was my only educator because no one was gay. They lived simpler lives of saloon cars, winter holidays, and barbecues. Millennials may remember Byker Grove – and remember everyone on Grove had problems. More importantly everyone on Grove cried about those problems, after which they’d drink White Ace in the park, go shoplifting, and set a youth club on fire. I wasn’t brave enough to ‘come out’, so drunken arson in stolen jeans seemed a push to deal with my ‘problem’.

Sex education was rudimentary: fear of STDs was a main pillar, as was dispelling myths like the ‘standing-up-is-a-contraceptive’ favourite. The heterosexual process was sketched out and, to ensure my time wasn’t wasted, I coloured-in the creases on my hand with a biro. There was no mention of gay, except the infamous 1-in-10 statistic on the interesting facts slide. The other interesting fact: complimentary keyring for every chlamydia sample submitted. That’s the problem with millennials – there’s even prizes for taking part.

A confused state was where I sat. Did I need a drama when there were qualifications to acquire? I needed bleached skinnies from Topman in order to be cool – better to save any difficult conversations with Mum and Dad for something more tangible than acceptance. I just assumed my frustration, mood swings, and separateness were down to hormones. Hormones are a go anywhere, mean anything reassurance for teens. I also remember being told gay’s a phase – it got worrying when mine never reached its sell-by-date.

I’d never been happier than when I arrived at Bristol University. While I had no intent on ‘coming out’, I had bought every line about university being the best years of your life. I must have had the face morons have when they sign-up to email pyramid schemes. In shopping terms, I’d gone crazy on poundland clichés and my head was a brimming shopping basket of anecdotal tut. Someone should have slapped me and reminded me I’d enrolled, not checked in. I look back on University as constantly improving – every year better than the last. University didn’t improve, I did. Coming out was the fulcrum.

University set me up with a new flat-pack life. Flat-pack implies too much intent; ‘coming out’ was an accident. Less Louis Pasteur and penicillin, more Al Capone and his tax receipts. No one knew what an antibiotic was before penicillin, but everyone knew Capone was a crook before he was arrested. It was that sort of accident, if you catch my drift.

My drunken ‘accident’ was relayed over the phone to my best friend as I sat on a train at Temple Meads. The conversation got very serious very quickly as I sat on buttock-resistant seating, facing a woman feeding herself a muffin crumb by crumb. I’d prepared jokes so that I could be honest but avoid a heart-to-heart. Instead, I had found myself the focus of my friend’s best Oprah impression: How long had I known? Who was I going to tell? Did I know I was still loved? I still wonder what those commuters must have thought.

Following the rush of the first admission, comes the realisation that ‘coming out’ is as long as the phone book, and then some. Some people don’t come out until ‘they need to’, and I wondered about doing the same. The main reason I couldn’t were friends. Whether it’s the diet you’re not really following, or the ex you say you’re no longer texting; friends deal with you better than you do. My best friend always knew I’d join her in the oestrogen club. Honesty strengthened every friendship I had. There was nothing about myself that I couldn’t be honest about, nothing I’ve had to admit since has been as hard. I’d say it was an emotional detox, but I’d sound like Gwyneth Paltrow.

I worried ‘coming out’ would be like a tattoo. Once I was ready to ‘commit’ to it, the rumour mill made sure most people I didn’t really know, knew. A few near-strangers said they ‘understood me’. Lots of girls told me it was such a shame I was gay – I was a loss. What’s more, everyone knew a single gay guy who would be just perfect for me. I felt like an endangered species in a breeding programme. I know it came from a place of kindness and a need to say something, but it’s nigh on impossible to know how to respond to statements as tactless as those. All that aside, labelling was liberating. It’s not fashionable to endorse labels, but I do. I am different and after years of being bullied (by myself and others), being able to understand and explain it made it legitimate. If I couldn’t say ‘I’m gay’ because we did away with labels, I don’t how else I would have vocalised and accepted the upset I was in. I also suggest that if you believe labels have gone, cast your eye around the world.

Bristol is one of the most liberal cities I have known, and walking along the street seeing lesbian and gay couples holding hands on a Sunday was important. I think taking control of one’s life was also important. Maybe once I had my first Nectar card or grasped the importance of fabric conditioner, ‘coming out’ was the next step of maturity. Maybe it was the other way round; whatever drove me to come out also wanted a nectar card and fabric conditioner to get the best deal for me in every area of my life.

While complete strangers knew, my family might as well have been tucking away His ‘n’ Her slippers for a magical day. Telling my parents turned out to be a weekend mission – we went for dinner, we went for walks – I’d never been so keen for ‘quality time’. But then as I stood in the hallway on a Sunday afternoon with booked train tickets ticking ever closer, I blurted out what I’d come to say. I stood and shook. With hindsight, I’d have written a letter because I realise now my admission was something my parents would need to process. Sadly, processing doesn’t look a lot like cheering, and that was the ringing endorsement I’d hoped for.

I’ve read countless times that coming out is a never ending process: for the rest of your gay life, gay writers have told me, you’ll be coming out as gay. I disagree. I found coming out to be completely personal. A woman I called Gran told me: “there’s only one person you have to know your whole life, so make them a friend”. I think I ‘came out’ the moment I could face the question – “are you gay?” For a long time it felt like a stinging attack. It was the nightmare question to duck at all costs – presumably similar to the way shy Tories feel during an election cycle. When I could handle being asked my sexuality with a sweet smile and a nod, I felt I’d come out. That, and when I could buy a Kylie album in public without having to explain that it was for a dear, dear friend of mine.

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