I came out to strangers before I told my family I was gay

‘My dad stormed out of the room in a bad mood. I thought I’d ruined the family and that they wouldn’t want me to be around them anymore.

‘Then my dad came back into the room, and handed my mum £10…’

The crowd went wild.

The real story behind that routine is something that happened when I was 17, while working as a delivery driver at a pizza place.

My workmates were joking about my sexuality, wondering aloud about whether I was going to come out of the closet because I was still a virgin.

‘If I was gay, would that be a problem?’ I asked. ‘Aye, if you were a bender I would be raging… cause I would owe Stevie £10.’

It was the kind of place that had the logic of: If you were 17, male and a virgin you were gay. If you were 17, female and a virgin, you were a Protestant.

I wasn’t going to tell them, though – I was already getting made fun of enough about the virgin thing.

I performed this routine onstage years later, but pretended it was my parents.

In reality though, my parents had no idea I was a picnic basket (one stand up routine of mine that’s 100% accurate is how you can use any noun in the English language to describe someone as gay).

I can genuinely see why it would seem strange to be more comfortable telling audiences personal things than those who are closest to you.

But, annoyingly, coming out isn’t something that can be done in one go. I wasn’t able to send a newsletter or social media post to share with everyone, and unfortunately I’d already dropped my gay card in the school playground years earlier.

I left my home in Glasgow at 18 and moved to Southampton to go to Solent University (not the posh one) to do a Writing and Performance degree, where we did stand up as part of the course.

When we did performances in class, albeit in a controlled environment, I came out as a postage stamp for the first time in public, and my classmates didn’t care – in the best way.

I think they just found it funny how unstereotypical I was. I had a skinhead, three quarter length shorts, and would wear a fleece on a night out. It would have been more convincing if I’d come out as a lesbian.

But when I said I was a foot pump on stage to them, it felt like nothing at all.

Besides, they were all performers on my course, the exact demographic of: ‘I know what it feels like to not fit in’, so I never had any issues with them.

I was just chuffed that I could admit I liked guys and could finally have the chats that most people get to have in school about who you fancy and how you’re going to do absolutely nothing about it.

Now, I was finally able to let some people know that I was a Fruit Pastel, even though I was too ashamed to tell anyone else. So, I was gay in Southampton, straight in Glasgow… which must have meant I was bi-sexual in Birmingham. That was one of my first jokes. Shudder.

If you mention you’re a bicycle bell on stage, for some people it’s all they hear. No matter how many impressions I do, how many non-gender specific routines about relationships, how many jokes or silly faces, the gay thing is all they remember.

But as I worked my way through the comedy circuit over the years, I began to share car journeys with other comedians and, over time, became comfortable being myself and chatting about dating and being a pamphlet.  

If I help at least one person feel less ashamed of themselves than I did for being different, it’s all been worth it

A few comedians would tell me to chat about this ‘gay stuff’ on stage, because they thought it was funny and a different angle on gay comedy (or gomedy) that they said they hadn’t seen.

I thought I’d give it a go, and from 2012 I started coming out to audiences again. 

It felt great to be able to express this part of myself in my work, mainly because it was a gold mine for material.

And it helped, because as I don’t fit the camp stereotype, sometimes I had to point out to the audience that I’m a can of Fanta before talking about my boyfriend or dating. 

No matter how horrible the gig was, though, or how much the audience liked me up until I dropped the G word, I felt secure enough knowing that other comedians would have my back.

Horrible gigs weren’t common, as even 10 years ago most comedy audiences were great with the whole teapot thing. But the support I knew I would always have from comedians was that we could have a chat and a laugh about it afterwards. 

These experiences on stage and with other comedians led to me having the confidence to finally come out to my family – that, and the guy I was seeing at the time (and lost my virginity to (yaayy)!) told me that if I didn’t tell my parents about us, he would break up with me.

So I had my big confession and the evidence to prove it. My parents were OK with it, they’d had their suspicions. My mum said it was strange I had never brought a girl home, and my dad thought it was gay that for my birthday I’d asked for a scarf.

I honestly don’t know if I would ever have been able to have the guts to tell my family and get over the shame of being a spaghetti hoop if it wasn’t for the clowns who stand up on stage every night and try to make strangers laugh.

Friends are like an insurance policy for emotional and self esteem issues.

You don’t have to be an activist to make other people believe in themselves; sometimes you just need to be an unapologetic weirdo. Thank you, comedians.

So, I guess if there’s one hope I have for my stand up career, it’s that – regardless of how some people might label me – if I help at least one person feel less ashamed of themselves than I did for being different, it’s all been worth it.

Larry Dean’s new comedy special ‘Fandan’ is out now via 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Watch it here.