Tuesday: Where oh where is that closet door?

This morning saw the start of the second instalment of the daysoftheyear.com project and already I felt daunted. Yesterday was Native American Day so I’d bought a dreamcatcher, listened to Jamiroquai (good enough), read up on relevant facts and legends and even made cornbread for the first time ever. I’d assumed that day would be hard to celebrate in Hull but it actually turned out quite well. Then the sun rose this morning and I was faced with a much more demanding challenge: Coming Out Day.

Yep, you read it right, Coming Out Day. How am I supposed to do that if I’m not gay? I guess I could pretend but then surely that would go against everything this day stands for: understanding, acceptance and respect. Whilst sipping my coffee before setting off to work, I considered doing a constant impersonation of Bruce from Family Guy. However, I then realised that aside from this also not being in line with the meaning of the day, I’d probably have an office stapler thrown at my head for being annoying.  

I don’t own any gay pride badges (which is fair enough, being straight) so I cut a triangle out of a pink Post-it note and popped it on my jacket pocket. I knew that the pink triangle was a symbol for gay men but had no idea what its origins were, so I quickly checked Wikipedia on my phone during the bus journey to work. I was amazed to discover that it had originally been used as a Nazi concentration camp badge to denote homosexual men, whereas a black triangle signified that a woman was a lesbian. This is probably common knowledge but I had no idea, so already I'd learnt something.

Now, this is probably terribly cliché and obvious, but I listened to Electric Six’s ‘Gay Bar’ on my iPod a few times. Their album Fire is an old favourite of mine, having seen them perform it live at Hull University. Plus you just can’t beat the track's lyrics: “I’ve got something to put in you, at the gay bar, gay bar, gay bar!” Sheer rhapsodic genius.

The rest of the afternoon, however, was a total failure. I couldn’t think of anything that would mark Coming Out Day without making fun of it, or which I had the guts to do. I couldn’t even muster the courage to visit WH Smith’s to buy a copy of Gay Times. Plus I’d lost my pink triangle, no doubt somewhere between Greggs and Poundland, which was most annoying because all of the Post-it notes at the office are yellow.

I finished work at the usual time but was due at a marketing event in Grimsby. Arriving home at 9pm, I felt disappointed that I hadn’t really achieved anything for this day and wracked my brains for a solution. Suddenly leaping to action, I decided to be a man. A gay man, that is. A gay man via social networking! Accessing my Facebook account settings, I scrolled to ‘Interested in’, deselected ‘Women’ and clicked ‘Men’. Then, with a deep breath, I saved this simple change. However, Facebook didn’t make a big song and dance of it on my profile, so I complemented this with the status ‘Richard Sutherland is now interested in men.’

At 11pm I’d received one question, five comments and three Likes, not to mention a proposition. A mate pointed out that no one had suggested I'd been fraped, which was a very good point. Oh, and all of the sidebar adverts were inviting me to go on a date with men in uniform; how very kind of Facebook to cater to my new tastes so promptly. 

Having returned my sexual orientation to its original setting, I feel I can retire to bed a better person. I woke this morning having no idea what it’s like to come out. Now, despite it lasting only two hours and being solely online, I feel stronger, more liberated, and have a sudden interest in whatever Gok Wan has to say about hot pants.

Check out #comingoutday on Twitter and see how others around the world are marking the occasion (chances are a fair few of them feel like a weight’s been lifted from their shoulders).

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter

Follow Days of the Year on Facebook and Twitter

Mine is a Shakespearean love: all the parts are played by men.

Gay saying