Tim Murray says so many gay guys don't go for his 'authentic, goofy, effeminate self'

If you are a queer person and in the market to date or hook-up, I would suggest any career other than comedy. I think you’d have more success getting dates as a garbage man, tax auditor, juggler, someone who steals dogs and sells them to real-life villains or maybe even as a giant squid.  I don’t know how much giant squids get paid, but I am sure they’re pulling in more tail than me.  The last Grindr message I received simply said, ‘hi clown.’ 

When I was in London I was already ON MY WAY to a man’s flat when he wrote, ‘my boyfriend thinks your Instagram is a turn-off. Which is fair. Don’t come.’ Then blocked me. 

I assume he was referring to my series called Every Conversation in LA where I don fake lips and speak with effeminate vocal fry. I think a lot of gay guys are turned off by someone who isn’t masculine looking/sounding and wearing Speedos at a beach captioned ‘Fire Island photo dump’ which is a cute code for ‘Fire Island cumdump’. WHICH I SUPPORT.

But gay guys don’t want transparency. They want illusion, confusion, and delusion (my new cologne line). A lot of gay men are obsessed with fit bodies, people who have money, perfect physiques, nice torsos and did I mention fit bodies??  That is not exactly the protype for a comedian. Gay guys are conditioned to want someone hot and bland. 

Of course, not all gay people are like this. You may be thinking, ‘Tim, I saw your show in Austin Texas and hooked up with you in the bathroom after!’ First of all, thank you for your service. You are a hero and your country and community thank you. But I think if you spoke to most queer people in comedy, and women for that matter, they would tell you that people often want to hook up with straight male comedians after shows, but that is not the case for the rest of us.

Every now and then, you will run into a man who is sapiosexual, which means they’re attracted to intelligence. I’m not scoring with those people either because I am, at my core, very stupid. 

When people do want to hit on queer comedians, they often do it by trying to be funny themselves and they end up saying something really mean instead. We don’t need you to be funny. We want you to be nice and hot and to think we are funny! We are surrounded by people doing bits all day. 

Once after a show a guy said ‘ever heard of an iron?’ I knew that meant he wanted to ‘do gay’ with me but his approach wasn’t the smoothest. WHO NEEDS TO IRON SOMETHING OUT NOW STEVE!? 

Some of the wildest things that have been said to me have come from gay men who were likely trying to flirt. Once in a gym locker room in San Francisco a guy asked me, ‘do you work in tech? You look like you sit at a desk all day’ and then PATTED MY STOMACH. I don’t know if this person knew I was a comedian and was trying to be funny or if he’s just completely out of touch with human interaction but either way he was amazing in bed.

 Kidding! I didn’t hook up with that creep. I went to the front desk and told them he was pooping in the toilets and not flushing them and that they should cancel his membership immediately. 

Another time, a guy I hooked up with in the past came up to me at a bar and started telling me to stop making comedy videos because he didn’t like them. I was like ‘Okay, as long as we’re doing a notes session I have some ideas for how you can be better in the sack. You might want to grab a pen and paper….’

All this to say I can feel this dilemma in the gay community gradually getting better. We are starting to treat each other with more respect and I have had fellow gays say some really beautiful, kind and inspiring things to me after shows. I think in general as a community, we are embracing each other in a much more inclusive and exciting way. 

I’m very grateful to the gay community for making such strides to figure out how we operate with each other and for coming out and supporting LGBTQ+ comedy.

I hope you come to Tim Murray is Witches and feel seen by what I have to say about queerness. And if you think that guys don’t find you attractive just because you’re being your authentic, goofy, effeminate self… just know that there are people out there like that perfect man in Austin, Texas, and they will start revealing themselves more and more… come out, come out wherever you are! 

• Tim Murray’s debut Edinburgh Fringe  show Witches! will be at at the Underbelly  Bristo Square at 9.20pm from August 2 to 28.

Published: 16 Jul 2023