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The other day I was talking to a new member of the Bristol Croquet Clubs and she said 'I don't know if I should say this but Paul is gay'. I replied 'Well so am I'. To which she said 'Different meaning'. The moment passed. (The reason she said that, I surmise, was to waylay any suspicious thoughts I might have on hearing she was going to stay with him in his holiday caravan for a few days.)
Now I'm out on here and to all my family and many friends, but not to the world at large. I don't feel I need to be as my mode of dress probably says enough.
But I'm curious to know whether anyone else has made unpremeditated spontaneous such remarks. What frame of mind must one be in to make them? Am I likely to confess that I buggered the chaplain next time I'm talking to a bishop? Is it just that truth will out?
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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What will be more interesting is when the bishop says "so did I!"
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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Well, Timmy, I know one or two bishops who might have - that is they certainly might have had the inclination if he had had the time, so to speak. But, as you know such people are reluctant to be open about anything and particularly their own youthful exploits.
Love,
Anthony
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As the Bishop said to the actor?
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Once I was flying back to the states from Europe. My seatmate was a very proper elderly English lady. We had a few cocktails, and a lively conversation. She was going to visit her son and mentioned that he was gay. I frankly told her that I was too (although I was still a virgin at the time). It was the first time I came out to anyone. Before I knew it, she had me answering all kinds of questions about being gay. I nervously glanced around the plane to see if anyone was listening. Yes, there was an audience. It was sort of neat to feel 'out' for a while. That's the only time I can remember my having an unpremeditated impulse revelation.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Yes, Macky, that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. And it sounds as if it was both fun, in an exhibitionist sort of way, and scary in case you ever met any of those people and they recalled it when you were among people you didn't want to know.
But every time one does that, it is somehow a small relief.
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I don't think I have ever told someone I am gay when it was not on the spur of the moment. Well I did tell my mother, but that was different. I'd got really angry with her idiocy and told her as part of a whole package of things she needed to hear.
We have friends who invited us to come for a weekend of adult school role playing fun. I prefer not to bend over a desk and have my arse beaten, so we declined. I thought "what they heck?" and said "Anyway that doesn't really turn me on. I'm gay. I know it isn't mutually exclusive, but girls in gymslips are not my thing!"
It took me the next hour to convince them that I'm gay. I think they believe me now. Regrettably we've lost touch. I'm still in the same place but they parted and moved.
Everyone else has been unplanned, too.
[Updated on: Thu, 25 June 2009 13:09]
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Oh, I just remembered another sorta unpremeditated thing. I once spent a week in Worcester. There was once a place called the Imperial Hotel there. The last time I was there, it's name had been changed. Anyway, I was talking to a guy in the pub and mentioned that I was gay. I soon found out that the proprietors were a gay couple, and that there were many gays among the clientelle. They told me I could party with them after hours if I were a resident of the hotel. A couple of them even helped me move my things from a different hotel. While staying there, I was like one of the family. The folks wouldn't go home til the wee hours. A guy would take orders for fish and chips and bring them back in the middle of the night all steamy hot...he must have had a special arrangement. They had card games and darts and served complementary sandwiches. I never felt so much at home while traveling. Heck, after his partner slipped off to Ibiza on vacation, Stewart, the other proprietor, would give me a good night kiss. I am no socializer, but somehow those guys made me feel so free to be openly gay. One elderly fellow convinced me to visit Amsterdam before returning home. I even got postcards from the proprietor after I returned home. It's a very nice memory.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Wow! Anthohny, that pic of you without the glasses. I'd swear I've met you before. I wouldn't know when or where, but suddenly you look so familiar. Wierd.
I had a sort of unplanned revelation once. It was my last year of college and I was talking to a former roommate who was the only friend I had left at the school. We started talking about being stranded on a desert island and discussing various scenarios. I asked that if he were stranded with another man and there were no chance of being rescued, would he consider having sex with the man. His answer was an emphatic "no", he would stick to masturbation for relief. I was dissappointed, but for some very odd reason I told him that I would consider it. Of course I backpeddled a bit, but that was the closest I'd come to telling anyone that I'm gay.
We were never very close, but hung out a lot when we were roommates. By the time we had this conversation, he was living in the dorms across campus and we had no classes in common and I wasn't in his circle of friends. We got together once in a while, usually when he wanted a home-cooked meal instead of dorm food. However, after this conversation, we spent less and less time together. He had always thought of himself as a liberal who could accept everyone regardless of race, sex, color, creed, etc. But maybe he wasn't as open-minded as he thought because sexual orientation didn't seem to be on that list.
Think good thoughts,
e
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A sad story, e, at least it seems so to me. And I think it is very often repeated. When actually faced with someone gay many outward liberals find that they are slightly repelled and find it hard to ignore.
And since I have a lot of outwardly liberal people among my friends and acquaintances I haven't come 'out' to the world at large. Indeed I think my rather outré habits of dress may improve the illusion as people, once they have got used to it think that that is enough oddity for one person so they don't expect me to be odd in any other way.
But maybe I deceive myself and they are all convinced I'm off the scale and just don't mention it because it's not acceptable polite conversation.
Love,
Anthony
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acam wrote:
> But I'm curious to know whether anyone else has made unpremeditated spontaneous such remarks. What frame of mind must one be in to make them?
I'm sure that I make them all the time, without even noticing. I've spent more than half my life as an out gay man, and while for the first decade or so I was usually aware if I said something that specifically revealed being gay, that has now worn off almost completely. Unless I notice someone doing a double-take at something I say, it isn't something I think about.
It's taken a while, but it's a place I'm perfectly happy being in!
"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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Yes, NW. As usual I agree with your attitude and think I ought to behave like you but I fear that people would treat me differently and don't know how to find out except by doing it. In other words I think I'm too much of a coward.
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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If it helps, I have had no adverse experiences from those whom I have told
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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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Not as sad as it may sound. I was nearly finished with college and intended to move across the country as soon as I graduated so it was inevitable that we would drift apart anyways. It just happened a little sooner than expected. We did remain friendly acquantances for a while. Neither of us ever mentioned it again. We exchanged letters and I even visited him about 2 years later for an evening when I went home to visit my family. The biggest thing was that there were no more nights spent crashing in my room after a long night of drinking at the bars in town and he quit playing raquetball with me probably so he wouldn't have to change with me in the lockerroom. We didn't do those things much anyways. But I did notice that during the few times we did get together after that, we were never alone.
Think good thoughts,
e
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It does help, Timmy, and I can say the same: no negative comments or rejections - but I still worry and I think it is about the people who would find out without me telling them. I think a lot of people would see it as (at least slightly) scandalous and certainly not a positive thing to say about anyone. I would like to be wrong about that: until I'm convinced I am wrong I think I'll be very selective about who I tell.
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I am also fairly selective. Some people simply do not need to know.
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 think there's a strong argument for married gay men, or others who have people very closely involved in their lives, to be a bit selective about who they tell. It is, I think, about being considerate of people to whom one has made a binding commitment: it's one thing to make oneself the topic of "(at least slightly) scandalous" gossip, and another thing entirely to do so when it makes others the subject of it as well.
But I don't, in general, buy in to the "Some people simply do not need to know." I don't see it as being anything to do with anyone's need to know, more to do with my right not to hide. No-one *needs* to know that I'm left-handed: I make no attempt to conceal it, some people notice, some don't. Same with being gay - most people notice eventually, but some don't. My boss didn't, for 18 months, and even then had to ask his partner (who is a good friend of mine) to confirm it!
"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: 13800
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By referring to those who do not need to know, I am thinking of people whom the information would affect, but for whom my sexuality is, or ought to be, of no interest whatsoever.
We have a pair of very good friends whose world would alter were they to learn that I am gay. I see no need to alter that world by telling them. They do not need to know.
Equally I will not conceal it from them. I simply will not tell them unless it ever becomes important.
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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avonseawitch
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Getting started |
Location: UK
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 12
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acam wrote "The other day I was talking to a new member of the Bristol Croquet Clubs and she said 'I don't know if I should say this but Paul is gay'. I replied 'Well so am I'. To which she said 'Different meaning'. The moment passed. (The reason she said that, I surmise, was to waylay any suspicious thoughts I might have on hearing she was going to stay with him in his holiday caravan for a few days.)"
I am the new member of the BCC who said "different meaning" and am now confessing something that makes me cringe. What I thought at the time was that acam was terribly old and was probably using the word gay to mean happy, joyful and so on, and didn't know its more modern meaning! I realise this makes me extraordinarily insensitive, given the lycra, but I had never really thought about the possibility of a gay person not being out by this stage of the game. It also makes me giggle. A lot. ROFLMAO.
Anthony, I'm very glad you found another opportunity to tell me what I didn't hear the first time. x L.
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Dear lady,
Our Anthony is not old. He's a sweet, delightful, sensitive, generous bard.
The conversation that you two had is really a riot though.
Macky;-D  )
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Well, andante, I wondered whether you would look further when I led you to APOS. So the rain had some consequences apart from putting us off croquet!
Love,
Anthony
PS This is my standard signature on here - as you no doubt have seen.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Go girl, you rock! Didn't I meet you at Anthony's house last week?
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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avonseawitch
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Getting started |
Location: UK
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 12
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Anthony's age has not reached double figures in a lot of areas! And this is by no means the only riotous conversation, or game (of croquet) we have had. He is an absolute sweetheart. Which should not be interpreted as meaning that I have mistaken the standard signature
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avonseawitch
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Getting started |
Location: UK
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 12
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We did meet briefly Timmy, but you didn't look much like your photo on here!
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As Emily, my daughter says, 70 going on 4!
[Updated on: Tue, 04 August 2009 16:59] |
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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andante,
I must confess that I also currently look some 45 years older than my picture on here. For me anyway, it is a matter of not being recognized (and maybe because I thought I looked cute at 13). I am out to my wife, but otherwise not. It would be scary for me (and possibly the rest of the forum) for me to have my current picture on here. Anthony, however, does not do "closet".
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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The boy inside is there. He is all that matters.
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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Dear e,
I think the nearest I've been to LA was when an APL conference was held at Stanford. That was in 1991. The reason for omitting the glasses is that I don't need them any more for distance vision. I've had both lenses replaced by bits of plastic from Bausch & Lomb and can now see better, I think, than I ever could.
I'm sorry to hear you only had one friend left at the end of your last year at college. If it had been me that would have made me very miserable indeed. I hope you weren't.
I've also been to New York and Toronto and San Antonio in north America, but that's all.
Love,
Anthony
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avonseawitch
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Getting started |
Location: UK
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 12
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Hi Macky - I am a bit unsure whether I should be blundering about on a forum about which I am largely ignorant, but I hope you will forgive me if I am tactless, on the basis that it is not out of malice.
The question of concealing and not concealing your identity at the same time is one that I have only started thinking about since Anthony told me for the second time that he is gay, and I understood what he was saying. What he does is hide it in plain sight which seems like a very difficult thing to pull off. It has to be extraordinarily difficult to maintain both your identity as a gay man, and your marriage promises. I admire Anthony enormously for keeping himself and his family whole.
About THAT conversation: I was expressing to Anthony my take on the "one of us" theme whereby, if you are not white/male/heterosexual/christian/whatever it takes to join the club, you are "other". My gay friend P had said he didn't feel very welcomed by other club members and I wondered if it had anything to do with him being gay.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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All comers are welcome here  the only rules are at the head. Blunder about and you will give as much as you get. or get as much as you give.
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Anthony is my idol for a committed and monogamous relationship with a woman. I understand he is in his 46th year of such a relationship, while I'm in my 22nd. Living this kind of live got much easier for me after I told my wife I was gay in March of this year. Now it's just another thing we share.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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avonseawitch
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Getting started |
Location: UK
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 12
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Anthony is an exceptional person and the rest of us can only aspire I think. I wish you well, Macky, and am glad to hear that being out to your wife has improved your lives. In general, I believe secrets are poison and it is hard to have much understanding or empathy with others if you are keeping secrets from them. I practise a technique called "reflection in action" which means thinking about what you are saying while you are saying it and, if it doesn't sound like what you actually mean, keep talking until it does. This makes me extremely verbose of course.
As a hetero woman, I would like to hear the other side of the story. How does it feel to be married to a gay man? How easy/difficult is it to be open about the way you feel? I asked myself whether I would have knowingly married a gay man in my 20s and the answer was no, because I would have felt that I was always second best/not what he really wanted/inferior. The other side of this is that many gay men seem to be emotionally literate in a way hetero men aren't, and that is a very big deal for me.
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"Many" gay men? How many is that? Apart from the friends I've made here I know too few gay men for me to feel safe generalising.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were true - if only because gay men in this society are almost forced to think about relationships and prevented from taking them for granted. But that is the same for 'outsiders' of any kind. If a boy can't stand football when everyone else is football mad and keep asking him which team he supports, he is forced to think about why he is different. I found both cricket and rugby boring and rugby, in addition, cold and muddy. My gay friend Ian called it a homosexual fertility rite! To get out of them I had to learn to swim so that I could join the boat club and go messing about in boats instead of both of them. But people who are disabled in some way have to think too. The most sensitive and caring of my brother's children is the deaf one.
But there are some gay men that somehow shy away from being fully open about themselves and their feelings and it surely must be admitted that the more repressed of us find relationships hard to sustain. My friend Lewis, for one, who is coming to stay tomorrow. And, of course, it has been very hard for two gay men to find a socially acceptable way of living together. Bejamin Britten and Peter Pears is on such pair but until at least the seventies, I'd say, it was very difficult. Any homosexual act was punishable by law, for one thing, until 1967 and even then it was only legal behind a locked door.
One of the things I'm glad I did was to introduce two friends (one from the navy and the other from the boat club sometime in 1956 - they are still together, I believe, but I haven't checked recently! Nowadays people die on me. :'-(
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Fri, 07 August 2009 13:14] |
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Andante, When I told my wife that I was gay, I discovered something pretty important to me. It allowed me to feel loved. You see, when I hid myself from her, I did it by showing her a mask rather than my true self. Any affection she showed meant to me that 'she liked my mask'. As for me, as I really was, my mask prevented me from feeling acceptance and love.
It was only by showing my real self to her that I began to feel totally accepted and loved. I was totally taken off guard with the torrent of feelings that accompanied the revelation. As wonderful as that revelation has been, I still can't bring myself to reveal my true self to anyone else...just anonymously on this board. The society in which I was raised has made this small thing about myself seem monstrously big. It has affected every area of my life, and I suppose that it always will. But on the other hand, it has made me the person that I am, and I like myself, so I guess its OK.
My wife reads this forum, but doesn't wish to participate. If you would like the wife's side of the picture, she invites you to email to my profile address and she'll discuss it with you offline. Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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avonseawitch
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Getting started |
Location: UK
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 12
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I did know many gay men over the years I lived in London, but none until recently since I have been living in a provincial city. Although I did meet a gay couple not long ago who said they had been together for 25 years. Being labelled "other" does make you think more carefully and more kindly about other ppl, the more "other" the more carefully. But nearly all of us are "other" in some way, there are very few who are "one of us" all the time. I remember that black feminists in the US thought the movement was owned by white college educated "feminists" who really just wanted parity with white males, not equality for all. And repression isn't exclusive to gays. Not personal and not social repression.
Macky, thank you so much for your very open description of what happens when you hide yourself and what happens when you stop. I have had this experience myself from both sides, although not in the context of a relationship with anyone gay. In my 20s, I had a relationship with someone who was hiding himself from the world, and partially from me. He dragged me into his world so I was hiding half of myself from the world and I didn't escape from this for 15 years. I well remember the torrent of emotion you describe when I finally got free from a fantasy world which had first been imposed on me, and then carried on by my still believing it.
In my late 40s, I had another relationship with someone hiding from the world but this time I felt equipped to deal with it. I tried gently to find out what he was hiding, not just from others but from himself, and to persuade him that facing it wasn't as difficult as he might think and that I would help. I failed. He chose to leave me when he realised that I wasn't going to give up. I was devastated. I think now that what he was hiding was a sense of shame. Someone had convinced him that he was shameful (quite likely in childhood) and he was scared to let anyone see the real him because he was convinced he'd be rejected if truly seen. The saddest thing for me is that I would have walked across the world for him, I thought so much of him. But i couldn't see someone I loved in pain when I had the means to help them, and do nothing.
So, for me the heart of the matter is hiding yourself. Which is why I will tell almost anybody almost anything about myself.
Macky, I will email your wife as I would like to talk to her. I hope you can gradually reveal yourself to more ppl, perhaps carefully chosen, rather than unpremeditated impulses, although I think that the context of the conversation had already shown Anthony that I was safe.
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Remember the bugblatter beast of Kraal?
"Is it safe?"
"Oh, yes! It's quite safe: it's you that's in danger!"
Love,
Anthony
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Re: Unpremediated impulse revelations 
