Just a Small Town Boy

Despite having a lawyer and a journalist for parents, I hate lying.

I suck at it and will avoid a lie at all costs. I might as well be Catholic for all of the ensuing guilt a lie will cause me. As a result, I often tell a half-truth instead. A few of them I use regularly when confronted by a similar situation. The most annoying of which is that I’m ‘just a small town boy’.

When confronted by something such as two guys holding hands or a man wearing a dress, I will blame my stare on being ‘just a small town boy’. The stare isn’t manufactured however. I do still tend to gawp at open displays of affection between two men or two women, despite being gay myself. It doesn’t make any sense, I realise, but I still find it surprising to see in public.

I am however not strictly a small town boy, at all. I was born in a city, moved to a posh village and then was finally transplanted to a small town at the age of 8 or 9, where I had to take the plum out of my voice and turn glarss into glass. After finishing school I moved to university in Nottingham, after which I moved to New York for a couple of years, only to return to England where I promptly moved to London.

Not the simple boy raised on a pig-farm that I might pretend to be. I’m not totally sure why I do it. I think it might be a way of me trying to explain away my often overly traditional values. When it comes to relationships for example, I'm the modern-day equivalent of a 50s prom date.

Having returned home for the festive period, I can definitely attest that I'm really not such a small town boy. Okay so I did scour the empty shelves on the final day of Woolworths but I did so without my three illegitimate kids in tow and all of my teeth still pretty much in place.

My knowledge of this half-truth won't prevent me from still using it however. When I return to Sin City on Monday I will keep it prepped for the next sighting of a transsexual lesbian stripper kissing an elderly gay midget. 'We certainly don't get that in Kidderminster!', I might add for effect. Deep down though, I fear that may not be true.