- Part of me wanted to film this video
from the inside of a closet
so that it could be awkward stories from the closet,
from the closet,
but then I thought that'd be too much effort
and I'd probably get a leg cramp and I get claustrophobic,
so please just appreciate the thought.
I made a video where I talked about what it was like
growing up as a young secret gay
and all the awkward moments that came with that
and a lot of you in the comments were like, fuck!
So I've delved into my brain,
found some truly cursed memories that I've repressed
and I'm here to share with you them,
them to you.
(subtle music)
Hypnosis.
Okay, so I was about 13 and I had a friend,
a friend, remember what that was like?
And we'll call him Dwayne,
or if I was up North he would be Dwayne. (Northern accent)
He was one of those kids that would always bug me
to go stay over at his house for a sleep over
and I'd always think of excuses, like my horse is pregnant.
Eventually he whittled me down and I was like,
fine Dwayne, I'll stay at your house.
What's the worst that could happen?
Famous last words.
So after a school day, I trundled over to, trundled?
Is that a word?
I went over to Dwayne's house
and that's when things got weird.
He told me that on the internet,
he'd found a completely real way to hypnotize people.
Yup, let's just let that sink in.
That's one of the first things he said to me
when I got to his house.
Not like, do you want some toast?
I found a true way to hypnotize people.
I'm the kind of person,
if you told me that he'd written gullible on the ceiling,
I'd look up.
So at that age, of course I believed him, a hundred percent.
But before we began, he looked at me and said,
when I'm hypnotized, you can make me do anything.
Like you could make me kiss you or something,
which would be so gross,
but I'd do it because I was hypnotized
and I won't remember anything.
Okay.
So being the completely clueless Gulli-beast that I was,
I didn't realize he was shooting his shot
and hoping for a cheeky kiss
and this was his weird way
of getting through the gay barrier.
I was like, yeah, fair enough.
I could make you do anything because this is totally real.
So then we got to the hypnosis part, which was super weird.
I don't know if he'd written this
or actually found something weird on the internet.
I think it started with just staring at each other
for five minutes, which was kind of awkward
and then it was like, imagine you were at the seaside.
Imagine you are a sand castle.
Imagine you are a sand.
So Dwayne, great actor actually,
started to go a bit cross-eyed like,
okay, I think it might be working
and then after a few more sand castle-y words,
he just stood in the middle of his bedroom
with his eyes closed,
pretending to be hypnotized like.
In his head, probably thinking,
this is the moment I'm going to get my kiss
and I said, be a sheep.
Yep.
(laughter)
I said, get down on all fours and pretend to be a sheep.
So props to him, he went full into this.
He was just going around on all fours in his bedroom,
just baaing into the sky for about five minutes,
probably in his head thinking,
this isn't what was supposed to happen.
So yeah, I don't think that was what he was going for
with the hypnosis game and I didn't stay at his house again.
I wonder if he still thinks about that.
Maybe he'll watch this video.
Hi Dwayne.
I feel like that was more of an awkward closeted story
for him rather than me.
Maybe he should be making this video.
Train guy.
So this was in the early days of YouTube
and I was on a train home from Manchester to York,
going back to Uni and towards the end of the journey,
it was just me and some cute, alternative looking guy
left in the train carriage.
We'll call him Blaine.
All I remember is he had a lip piercing
and he always sat in one of those four person seats
and I was about four seats back,
probably playing Doodle Jump on my phone.
Who remembers Doodle Jump?
Simpler times, man.
Anyway, we're about an hour off York
and suddenly he looks up from his table and said,
"Hey, this train takes forever, doesn't it?"
Hey, this train takes forever.
So I introvert-ly felt was just like,
who's he talking to?
Looking behind me, hoping it was someone else,
but no, it was me.
So we had some mild back and forth bands
and for some reason, my brain and my tongue
were communicating with each other for the first time.
So I was actually being quite funny and charming
when normally I'm just like, blah, blah, blah.
So I might've given a false impression
that I was cooler than I was.
He asked me if I wanted to sit with him and have a beer.
Kind of awkward position to put me in.
Imagine if I just said no.
Anyway, brave me, I did, I sat with him,
we had a beer on the train
and we actually got on really well.
I was playing it cool, but in my head I was like,
oh no, I instantly love you.
So I had no way of knowing if he liked guys,
except for the fact that he asked me for a beer,
which is also a pretty straight thing to do,
let's be honest.
So I tried asking a few little Sherlock-y questions like,
oh, who's that on your phone wallpaper?
Is it your girlfriend?
And he'd be like, no, just a friend.
Give me something Blaine.
I didn't figure it out
because you shouldn't just ask about someone's sexuality,
so I figured I'd have one little Sherlock-y question
and then just let it go.
We had a nice, ambiguous train ride
and then during the conversation,
I found out that he lived five doors down
from my University house.
What kind of fan fiction realm had I entered?
Why was this all going so perfectly?
Then, even more insane,
he suggested we share a taxi back to University.
Side note, he could have been a serial killer,
but I figured the taxi driver would protect me.
Anyway, we sat close together in the taxi,
having more bands.
Obviously in my head, I was still like, I love you,
I'm spending the rest of my life with you.
Still, didn't get any closer to finding out,
but then we pulled up to our street and plot twist,
before we got out of the cab, he said,
"Hey, so can I have your number then?"
What, you, I, did he actually say that,
or had I drifted off into some weird fantasy universe?
But no, he'd asked for my number.
It was happening.
Do straight bros swap numbers
after a taxi ride with a stranger?
I don't know, maybe.
He might just want a new friend.
So I got home
and did probably one of the bravest things I've done.
Yeah, so I waited a few hours and then sent him a text like,
hey, nice to meet you.
Sorry if I got the wrong idea,
but did you ask for my number in a,
hey you want to be friends way,
or in a want to go for coffee way?
Which was my most subtle way of saying,
did you wanna gay it up?
Anyway, guess what?
He didn't reply, which made me want to tear my own face off.
24 hours later and still no reply.
At this point, I just wanted to change my name
and move to Sweden,
but then when I was thinking about my Swedish passport.
Do I need to Swedish passport?
Maybe, thanks Brexit.
Anyway, my phone started dinging.
Very nerveracking, opening this text message
and he just said,
"Ah dude sorry, I'm flattered, but I'm totally straight.
I just thought we could hang some time."
I mean, good on him for replying to my thirsty ass.
So that was nice enough.
Anyway, we did kind of become friends after that
and he came to my University Halloween party
and passionately kissed my female housemate
in front of me for the whole night.
So that was a win for her.
Mystery messenger.
This one was a bit weird.
I mean, not that the hypnosis one was totally normal,
but this was weird in a different way.
So towards the end of Uni, when I was in my third year,
someone added me, I think it was on either MSN or Facebook,
I can't remember, but it was a blank account
and it just had a name like York Lad 27 or something.
So I got a message that just said,
"Hey, I was wondering if you like guys."
I was a bit confused because firstly,
I didn't know how they added me
and secondly, it sounded like a catfish,
or a bot, or a catfish bot.
So I was super suspicious, but I was also bored.
So we chatted for about half an hour
until he revealed that he went to my Uni.
Gay alarm ringing.
What does the gay alarm sound like?
Maybe the Buffy theme.
I swear anyone that watched Buffy was at least 1% gay.
He went to my Uni, well according to him,
he could have been anyone.
He could have been some 97 year old creep stun
speaking from a moon base,
but still, it piqued my interest.
He said, "I don't want to meet up,
I just want to talk on here."
I was confused.
Why would this random at University add me?
He said he you don't want to remove their face,
remove their face?
Not reveal their face, they just want to talk on here.
Also, he seemed nice enough in the messages,
but he also gave me a paranoid, weird vibe
when I was walking around campus.
Like what if he was watching me
messily eat a Greg sausage roll at 9:00 AM in a lecture.
That's not sexy to anyone.
Well maybe someone, I mean everyone's into something.
So I thought, you know what?
I'm not going to talk to this person anymore.
I'm just going to block them,
but then I had the Galaxy Brain Sherlock-ian idea
to Google his email address.
I don't know why I didn't think of this before,
but I thought of it at this moment,
so I put it into Google to see what I could find,
like Catfish. He must've been a bit of a dummy,
as this email address linked up with another page,
I don't know what it was, he had on the internet
and it had a photo of him on it and I was shook.
I knew him, I knew who this was.
I sat next to this guy in a couple of lectures.
I'd never spoken to him, but I recognized him
and I think I might've just said like a friendly hello
in the morning.
Also, kind of a relief
because it showed that he wasn't lying.
Oh yeah, let's call him Bane.
So I was kind of a bit out to some of the Uni,
so I guess he knows a bit of a subtle gay,
so maybe I would have been someone good to get to know.
I thought I'd break the ice.
I messaged his actual Facebook and be like,
hey, I Googled your email address, so I know who you are.
Just letting you know.
Just to see what he'd say and then he freaked out.
I felt quite bad 'cause he was like, I'm not gay,
please don't tell anyone, I was just messing about,
it was just a laugh, I'm so sorry
and I was just like, okay, okay, calm down,
I was just letting you know
and maybe change your email address
if you ever want to do more
mysterious gay activities online.
So then he blocked me.
Really?
Come on, dude and for the rest of the year,
he just sat at the complete polar opposite of me
in the lecture halls, just so we didn't make eye contact
and I did feel bad
'cause he was probably going through some stuff
and he wasn't ready to come out yet or something.
So I just let him be and never mentioned it to anyone.
Awkward, it was a shame too 'cause I was totally up for
maybe having a little flirt.
Now, weird coincidence.
Are you ready for this?
I bumped into him a few years later in London
and he was living on the same street that I was living on.
So as soon as I saw him, I was like red flag,
he's followed me to London, lived next door
and he's been filming me through the wall,
but then I saw that he was holding hands with his boyfriend
and it was just a coincidence
that he lived in the same place.
So he obviously worked through
whatever issues he was going through.
Good for him.
So I think that was enough cringe for today.
If you enjoyed this, please give me a thumbs up.
I put my last awkward closeted moments over here,
if you want some more.
Also, make sure to leave a comment with yours,
as they are always an interesting read.
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do all that other stuff and I will see you very soon.
Goodbye.