|
|
unsui
|
 |
Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
|
|
|
No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 18:16] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
marc
|
 |
Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
|
|
|
Good years or bad years?
Surely, you've got to be kidding.......
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...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
 |
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
|
|
|
My school years seemed sweet at the time. But my memories of them are bitter as I realise what an awful time I had because I was in love with my schoolfriend.
Almost all the times I have contacted someone else who seemed to be a friend at the time I have been rebuffed, on at least one occasion with extreme rudeness.
It amuses me, now, to seek contact with them again, just to see how often I get knocked back ;-D
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
My experiences of school were mixed: until the last couple of years there, I was a physically small, emotionally retarded child, frequently bullied, and (I now recognise) prone to bouts of extreme attention-seeking behaviour. In short, a problem child with zero friends.
After my (physically abusive) father left home, things got better in some ways: at least I did develop a couple of friends, and a social circle (mainly of the druggies and delinquents) ... although my attendance at school was irregular for my final years, it served as somewhere for us to meet up.
I didn't keep in touch with any schoolmates after I left. Twenty-five years later , in 1997, my year was invited back for a re-union: one of my ex-druggie mates tracked me down on what was then a rather primitive internet and persuaded me to attend, if only to scotch the rumour that I had committed suicide in my 20's.
Of course I was scared of re-visiting a place that had so many miserable memories, but I saw it as an opportunity to lay some ghosts to rest, and to bring an adult perspective to sorting out adolescent confusions that remained. So my (then) partner dropped me off, in the bar where my year were meeting up before going over to school, and went off to waste time round Oxford, having promised to come and rescue me if I phoned him!
It actually went OK - the first person I recognised was a guy who had helped organise it who I was pretty sure would have turned out gay (he did), so the whole "being out" thing was cool. The couple of people who had been my closest mates were there, and the qualities that had drawn us together were still evident - in fact, two very close friendships have grown up.
There was much to forgive, and to be forgiven, among the group. But we've built on that, keeping in touch by e-mail and twice-yearly meet-ups. around 20 of us (out of 60 in the year) remain in irregular touch ... indeed, we're meeting up on Sunday week, ostensibly to play a Charity cricket match for the school.
In fact, of course, what keeps us together (despite our now very different lives) is the problems that we can share - elderly parents, kids exams and careers, growing older with illness, disability and retirement ... We don't dwell in the past, but somehow the emotional nakedness and vulnerabilities that we showed each other as adolescents combines with our successful adult social personnas in a way that means we can be more open with each other, and more supportive, than is usual for guys of our age and background.
So no, I haven't found time to "mellow the memory, softening the edges of reality, creating the beginnings of a myth" - school was a loathsome institution and my attempt to burn it down was a reasonable response to an intolerable situation! But some - in fact many - of the people in my year were, at root, decent human beings, and I'm much richer for having renewed my friendship with them.
"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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
That was fascinating, NW.
I never went back to a school reunion. The school was very caring and when I did get bullied it was stopped at once when I told someone. Stephen Spender (I think) called it 'the gentlest of schools'. And I was happy there and very immature, I think, because although looking back I can see that I was getting to be sexually aware, I didn't realise it at the time.
I'm jealous of your group of 20-odd. I'd like to be in touch with the people in my sixth form or that rowed with me.
But I only had two fairly close friends at school and one of them refuses to meet or see anyone and the other gave Sylvia and me an evening meal and we felt outclassed - he was so obviously wealthy and so on. And after that which was at least twenty years ago we haven't seen or heard from him.
But on the other hand I'm still close friends with about a dozen people who were at university in my college. And, I think, I am the only gay one although two have gay or bi sons. I know of quite a few others who were gay at least then, but am not close enough even to have addresses for them.
I'd actually very much like to renew acquaintance with most of those!
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unsui
|
|
Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
|
|
|
No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 19:29] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unsui
|
|
Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
|
|
|
No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 19:28] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unsui
|
|
Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
|
|
|
No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 18:16] |
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
