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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I have a very old friend from my schooldays. I have known him 40 years this month. He is in Australia and we used to write to each other. Now, just sometimes, we email.
I have wanted to tell him I am gay since we were about 17 years old. I needed a friend and I almost trusted him enough to speak. Except I cared. I cared in case he spurned me I suppose.
Today I got up the courage to tell him in an email who I am.
The thing is I tried not to mind what he thinks. But I found as I wrote the words that I minded. I found I was apologising in a way. So I deleted a lot and told him properly.
We were both only children, and both kind of lonely boys. He was the one hunk I never felt anything for in an erotic sense. But he was warm and like a brother. He truly was a hunk, too.
I was able to do it because he'd told me how he had both enjoyed our mutual school and yet had been incredibly alone there. So now he knows thathe has one more gay friend than he knew he had before.
I find I am hoping to see any sort of reaction by email, and doubting I will get any.
I do care, still, but not as much as I did. I htink I care most that I had (did I really have to?) had to lie to my friends when I was a teenager, and had to lie to myself for much of my adult life as well. It seems, in a way, a betrayal of them to tell them now that I am a little different from the person they knew.
[Updated on: Thu, 08 September 2005 21:37]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Tis not easy, especially when you do mind. But it's good that you do this. After all, a small betrayal to set things straight and end the lie is IMHO better than to live on a lie. But it IS difficult to tell people, even when it comes naturally to do so. I hope that fewer and fewer children are raised with the "homosexuality is bad" taught to them.
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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You said.....
I do care, still, but not as much as I did. I htink I care most that I had (did I really have to?) had to lie to my friends when I was a teenager, and had to lie to myself for much of my adult life as well. It seems, in a way, a betrayal of them to tell them now that I am a little different from the person they knew.
How did you lie to your friends? Did they ever ask you directly if you were a poof?
How could you possibly yhink you betrayed them? Did you wrong them in some way? I don't think so......
Look...... Just because you chose to not tell your friends at that time that you have inclinations other than them..... It is not lying or betrayal..... it is just not coming out and there is nothing wrong in making that choice.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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logic and emotion are so often incompatible.
I started this journey very late in life. It gets easier.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Timmy
I think you could be bit gentler on yourself!
It seems to me that you might be seeing the early 1960's through the eyes of the 21st century ... things really were very different back then.
As you know, I went to a fairly similar school to you, just a couple of years later. Yes - I was always aware that other boys were my primary interest. But many of the other boys at the single-sex school were also interested in boys ... at least physically (at least 70% of my year group had one or more same-sex experiences, as I have discovered by comparing "lists" with a couple of old schoolfriends)! And the prevalent model of 'homosexuality' in enlightened circles in those far-off days was that it was often a phase experienced by adolescents, which they would grow out of. There really was no social model of "being a gay man" ... indeed, society at large was only just beginning to understand the difference between homosexual acts and a homosexual orientation.
So what I'm getting at is that I don't entirely agree that it would have been reasonable for you to foresee that thirty or forty years after the event you would be happy to identify as a "gay man", because the concept didn't really exist. So in that sense I think it's a bit tough on yourself to suggest that "I htink I care most that I had (did I really have to?) had to lie to my friends when I was a teenager, and had to lie to myself for much of my adult life as well.". If you, in your teenaged years, had a clear understanding of being gay - as opposed to liking/wanting sex with boys at the moment, but this doesn't rule out the possibility of girls later - then you were a lot more sophisticated than I was, and more sophisticated than the couple of other guys of the same age and background I've discussed this with.
I hope you find that your schoolmate is as helpful and positive as all mine have been!
(hug)
NW
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Point well made, and taken.
In the 1960s I was not gay. Nor queer. I was at great pains not to be. I adored boys. Perhaps I was different or unusual in that I wanted an entire and monogamous relationship with one boy. I do mean relationship. I recall looking at hom at maybe 16 and thinking "I would marry you and spend my entire life with you if I could". I think that was unusual.
But I was not queer, though I think I fulfil your definition of a gay man.
I tried so hard to both be heterosexual and to be found out as not heterosexual by firts the boy I loved and then by as many other cite boys as I could. If my school was having same sex experiences I missed them all.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy wrote:
> (snip)
> I tried so hard to both be heterosexual and to be found out as not heterosexual by firts the boy I loved and then by as many other cite boys as I could. (snip)
Was this because you just didn't think they'd understand, and you might / would be teased or bullied? (it was in my case).
Or was it because part of you felt that it was "wrong"? Either being attracted to boys, or possibly it felt wrong to want to actually express your sexuality, regardless of who it was directed at?
In which case you possibly need to take out your inner 13-yr-old, feed him a hot milky drink, put your arm round him and tell him that you are proud of him, he did well, and that you like the way he has turned out. And other people like, respect and value the way he has turned out, too! Go dig out an old photo and look him in the eyes. I'm only half-kidding: it can actually be a tremendously powerful symbolic visualisation thing to do.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I had to hide because my parents would have sent me to be cured.
I tried to reveal it to those I was desperate to be with because I hoped they would feel the same about me.
Bullying I coped with when I was outed anyway. Oddly I did not fear bullies. I was terrified instead of aversion therapy and the alleged cure.
It never felt wrong. It was me, and part of me. It was a shocok to find out that I was queer instead of being attracted to girls. I'd never expected to be anything other than the statistical norm.
Hiding did make me afraid to express any sexuality at all. I was dreadful with girls. I was incapable of speaking with boys. I still get tongue tied around handsome men.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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My own school was full of same-sex relationships, some open, some secret, as I hope to show if I ever manage to finish my current story under the working title of 'Nathan'. My regret is that I didn't share in these as I so easily could have done.
One's standing in the community depended on the respect one was held in as a person, not on who you had or didn't have sex with. The most highly respected boy in my year had regular open gay relationships in the local park during breaks from playing football. Another boy, predatory and personally unhygienic, was universally hated.
I can't ever recall anyone getting beaten up or ostracised for being gay. Yes, it was a single-sex school and it was in the 60s.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Same sex activity existed at my prepo school (well between ages 11 and 13) but I was fiercely shy of anyone seeing my little dicky, so never joined in.
I did have a friend at the desk next to me. We did "via pocket fumblings" and enjoyed them, though never to orgasm. But naked was never an option.
When I changed schools at 13 sex was never ever on the cards with anyone.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I was at prep school aged 7-10 - possibly a bit too young for specifically sexual stuff, although there was a lot of playing of 'dares' and mutual comparisons. I was a weekly boarder (ie slept at school Mon-Thur, at home for weekends), and used to enjoy bathtime - two in a tub, except for one massive Edwardian tub which was expected to hold three boys. (And my best friends were a pair of twins ...).
When I re-visited the place, shortly before it closed, in my mid-thirties, I was astonished that the big tub was not nearly as big as I remembered it: we must have been even more tightly packed together in reality than we were in my memory!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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so I watched the email today. And naturally there was no reply. I expect he checks his mail every few days rather than every 27 seconds like I do.
I wonder why I imbue things like this with such seeming importance.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I was -- and perhaps am -- pretty naive.
I was terribly attracted to other boys, from about 13 onwards, yet I thought it was so unlikely (a) that any of them would be gay too, and (b) that anyone could *ever* find me attractive (I was an ugly child, in my opinion, and my complete lack of fashion sense didn't do me any favours at all) that it never occurred to me that it might be beneficial to come out.
Well, it did at about 17 or 18, but by then it was too late.
I still don't believe that anything like 10% of people can be gay. In my experience, it must be more like 1 in 50. Schoolboys may flirt with each other but I've only known one or two who actually identified as being gay. Once they enter a mixed-sex environment they become straighter than a die.
BTW, on the tiniest, remotest off-chance: Any lurkers here from my school?  Please post an anonymous reply if you went there (or are there)...
Former Keeper of the College Wheels of Steel
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Actually......
In my experience at school..... There was no such thing as the unattainable..... every boy in school was fair game and every boy was more than avidly willing to play around.....
To me it was like walking down the candy aisle at the supermarket.....
All I had to do was pick my flavor and take it.....
But I was out and it was common knowledge as well.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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'College wheels of steels' will obviously mean something to somebody. Tracked vehicles have wheels of steel. Could this have anything to do with a steam locomotive named after your school, Deeej?
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Nope. It's a notional name derived from my initials. (A wheel of steel is a record player, I believe.)
For a fuller explanation, see the section on College Notions on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notion_%28slang%29
(most of which I contributed)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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As a side issue I really think you might give the formal definition of "goive".
It replaces so simply the last link of Gone with the Wind.
How much simpler to say "Goive!"
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Interestingly I have met several people from my old school via this site. It was the stories that attracted them, and they recognised the locations. I've often wondered of anyone has spotted the one story set in your old school, though, apart from you. Obviously the location is slightly doctored. I do that to almost all locations that actually matter.
At prep school at least 50% of the class discussed jerking off, and no-one considered it queer to jerk someone else off, or to jerk off in company, or even odd to jerk off in class. We discussed matters of masturbation as clinical matters, no emotional attatchment there at all
I think that is what allows heterosexual males to develop. They never become involved, often not even with their female partners. There is something different about gay boys and men, more all embracing somehow.
Many more than one in 50 deej, many more. If I look back at my grim school on the downs I can see so many who were at least "up for it" let alone gay.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Hmm. Wykehamical sarcasm. Good Lord -- I've forgotten most of it now. Goive, guad, quat, rel, I'll be laking you, et cetera. I'm sure I read an article on it somewhere. It might have been The Wykehamist or it might have been everything2.com.
I'd post something about it, but I'm too tired now.
Night night.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I have just had the most wonderful email reply from him. It's hard to put into words, but he understands.
I have rather wet eyes at present. It's a bit like finding a brother I never knew I had.
Oddly he and I were each in awe of each other as kids, it seems. And we each did really stupid things trying to "out impress" the other.
He was hugely good looking then. I never worked out why I was not attracted to him, but I guess it just goes to prove that gay men do not fancy everything in trousers. I wish he lived closer. I want to hug him
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I'm so pleased to hear that, timmy!
You have every right to have damp eyes: finding a real understanding when you'd been worried about it is good reason for finding release in "happy tears".
And lifelong friends who truely understand (most of mine are not UK-based, although I see them regularly) are a true blessing.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I've been thinking this over a lot. I have come to realise that I loved him deeply, emotionally, but not sexually. And he and his approval have always meant a lot to me.
His email to me showed me that I meant a great deal to him, too.
The odd thing is I did contemplate whether I was physically attracted to him. Handsome as he was, the answer is no. He was somehow more special than that. We were each special to each other, and I think we each disappointed each other, too.
I think that is behind us.
The thing I wish is that I had been able to have such a friendlship with the object of my obsession. That was, mostly through my own stupidty, never possible.
I am getting along the road to contentment. Thank you, Peter, all the way away in Rosedale in Australia, for helping me feel a little freer.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I am happy for you, Timmy - as was said, such things are rare and precious.
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Ah, This story timmy, although i guess it is long passed, is still relavant to most people i think.
I still feel i lie to my friends when i don't tell them i'm gay. My sister will arive from university tomorow, and i'll have to change my entire life to seem "straight" again, which i always do in public...
It really does feel like i lie to some people i love, but, sometimes when i dont know what and how things are and what their opinions are about certain stuff, i think remaining quite makes us less vulnrable...maybe not
I just know one shouldn't feel like your lying when ur not telling someone about ur sexuality, yet, i do the same thing myself. Ironic, really. Oh well, c'est la vie
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I think we tell the people it is important to tell when we find it is important to tell them.
Each perosn we tell is different.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Whilst I'm not usually able to relate to the oftentimes anguished and largely tortured "coming out" experienced by yourself, and a goodly number of others, I do wholeheartedly commend you on your being able to surmount yet another hurdle of what has transpired as being your rather personal and yet very public, arduous journey of self-swareness. This truly is a great milestone.
As I've mentioned to you and others, before you, I figuratively came out of the closet in fire-engine red diapers and have never, ever, once since looked back. I do realize that I have been most fortunate, in the extreme; with my experience seldom having been duplicated by the vast majority of gay youth, nor adults, when confronted by their realization of their emerging sexuality.
What doubly makes this all so remarkable simply is that notwithstanding my being born into a family of some priviledge, it was also a family with an exceptionally long history (14 generations before me in Canada) of being racists and red-necks. That I did not suffer at the familial hands that bound me is an endearing testament to my grandfather, who at the age of 90 some-odd, took it upon himself to silence all derision and dissension within family ranks over my having brought home a most worthy young man named Jon instead of a young woman for their approval. As the eldest male, my grandfather's word ruled all. His pronouncement that I was an adult, with an adult's sensibilities and responsibilities, and that I should ever after be treated accordingly was received not at all well; but, his wishes were taken as a given, although admittedly it would be some 20-years before my father (when he asked me to move home to care for him as he lay dying) finally accepted the situation. Nevertheless, from that date forward family solidarity closed around me, and none would brook any criticism of either Jon, of myself, or of our relationship. This took place in 1967, two years before Stonewall and a year after the first of many harassing Canadian Criminal-code clauses were repealed, a process which culminated in 1971 with the repeal of the last of those remaining. Throughout that troublsome 5-year period my father, and his legal-beagles, stood watch over Jon's and mine affaires, smoothing considerably our passage into young adult hood.
Once again, in my usual, inimitable, fashion, I'm taking far too long to get to the steak, having preferred to serve up the sizzle nonetheless for it, so here it be:
As priviledged as my living as a gay child, then youth and now adult may have been, I have had my regrets - a great many of them - and I, to this day, am clearly able see their faces, resoundingly hear their voices, and to my greater shame not count a one of them as either a friend, or even acquaintance. For you see, if there has been one downside to my openly living my life as a gay spirit, it has been the many simply wonderful souls that I was never, ever, able to come to know well, if at all, because my sexuality, and theirs, always stood between us; whereas, you, and others, living as you so indelicately put it, a lie regarding your sexuality, will never be troubled by these same regrets, nor missed opportunities.
If I could have but one wish granted in my lifetime, it would be that all peoples, everywhere, embrace one another in brotherhood and euality; not just in spirit, but in totality.
Thankfully, for all Canadians, with the last remaining construct hindering blessed equality within the territorial confines of The Dominion of Canada having now fallen by the wayside, it has become a distinct possibility that the dreams of those remarkable statesmen who framed the course of manifest destiny for us during the early 1960's, and the dreams of all our future youth, regardless of their race, their cultural differences, their religion, their gender or their sexuality, could very well come true, and they, unlike I, had we been able achieve this far sooner, may likely not ever be troubled by these same regrets at all.
Cheers Timmy, and once more, congratulations on a job very well done!
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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Dewald van den Berg wrote:
> My sister will arive from university tomorow, and i'll have to change my entire life to seem "straight" again, which i always do in public...<
I don't understand. How does one "seem" when one is in "gay mode" and how does one "seem" when one is in "straight mode"?
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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When one "seems " to be in gay mode they "seem" to be wearing a beautiful pair of patent leather Joan Crawford come f*ck me pumps.....
When one does not "seem" to be gay one "seems" to don a pair of industrial steel toe boots.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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If you "seem" to be this or "seem "to be that swinging with the wind so to speak you will eventually "seem" to loose exactly who you are.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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No Message Body
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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That is so simple and so true. I have spent most of my life wearing the steel toe boots, and regrettably kicking out.
I can't yet get the cute patent pumps on. so I go barefoot right now.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Big feet?
ROFLMAO
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I hate petite feet. But I can't quite get them on
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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