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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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I have finally decided to register, after about seven(?) years of lurking about the place.
Just thought I would introduce myself, to you all. I'm Dave, I am nearly twenty one, (wow, tempus fugit and all that!)
I have been in the closet since I was about eleven. I was the quiet lad at the back of the class, waiting for my dream boy to just come up and say, "I love you" - subsequently I was in a sense, very lonely during my school days, and somedays I still am. I have a few friends, but they don't seem to fill the void.
Anyway, I thought I would register just to be part of something, you know just a place I can be myself without having to be careful about anyone finding out the deep dark secret.  )
Take care guys.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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 precisely that lonely.
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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It is a bugger isn't it. I mean I am not always unhappy or anything like, it s just that sometimes I can be perfectly happy - then I will see something, or hear a piece of music and it will just hit me like a ton of bricks.
I certainly would not wish it on anyone.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Hi Dave
good that you've felt able to post here - welcome!
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Why, thank you.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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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Well, I had from 1965 to 2009 suffering like that. What I had to do instead I was not brave enough to do. Whether you can do it depends on you and where you live - if in Uganda I'd emigrate first, and you're still not safe from extradition if their new bill gets passed.
But what you have to do is to become open about who you are. It has to be done well and carefully, but it needs to be done.
[Updated on: Mon, 07 December 2009 18:19]
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Fortunately I am from good England - which at the moment is pretty safe.
I feel for those people in countries like that, stopping yourself from being open about yourself is one thing, but when your own country prevents you from doing so - there is not a lot that can be done there. It really is a sad case of affairs.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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A Grand Welcome to you then David. I do hope that you gain from an ongoing interaction here as I certainly have with the folks that inhabit the shire..... I don't know about you Dave, but I still believe in fairies......... ~ Brody
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Thank you Brody, such a nice bunch of folks here it seems.
And if I may say so, the person in your picture...there is just something about them, they are quite beautiful in fact. 
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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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In England you stand a very good chance to be the person you are. Most reactions to those awful seeming words "I'm gay" are an anticlimax. Most.
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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You are the bit of good news that Timmy is reaching for. He's been in the dumps a bit lately, wondering if the younger people even tune into the site anymore. Well, it's obvious that his site attracted you at a very early age. So... Dave, can you tell us what it was about the site at that time that kept you coming back? Is that something still apparent on this site or has the site metamorphosed into something different?
Don't mean to put you on the spot. Answer as much or as little as you care to. Never feel obligated here to present more than you are comfortable with. We don't want people to sign up just so we can scare them away. ;-D
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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Hello, I also wish to offer my hand to you with a warm welcome to this wonderful place. Nice to meet you.
aqua
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. Washington Irving
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Thank you Paul.
The reason I come here is because I simply hope to God, Allah or whomever else is listening that, my dream boy will post a message - though that is yet to happen, but I guess I am just hanging on to a little hope.
Take care.
PS. cute penguin! ;-D
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Thank you - It's nice to meet you too. 
Keep safe.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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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He might, but you have a job to do as well. To catch a fish you have to cast your net where they swim. This is a great start, and will help encourage you with fishing.
Do you happen to be a student by any chance?
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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I hope I get the chance to go fishing for the right kind of catch. Hehe, I'm picky, very picky.
I am a student, trying to make amends for a ruined school career. Is there a reason you asked?
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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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A very good reason. You will never again in your life be surrounded by so many people who are young, attractive and a good number of whom are gay.
Now is the key time in your life where you have the chance to date.
Dating is trying other people on for emotional and intellectual fit.
And you almost certainly have access to a gay student club.
This is the key time to invent the person you wish to be, and be 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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Dave,
Welcome! I couldn't agree more with Timmy's post here. It's the sort of thing you could print and keep in your wallet.
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Yes, he seems very insightful does our webmaster. ;-D
and Thank you for your welcome, Macky - very much appreciated.
Take care.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Another welcome for you, Dave. I hope you are happy here.
I remember being twenty and at college and (because I did 2 years national service) having my twenty first birthday at the end of my first term.
I made the mistake of falling in love with a straight guy at college. It did me no good but in those days almost no-one ever 'came out' - it was too dangerous as all homosexual acts were against the law.
So you stand a better chance of meeting someone - shall we say 'compatible'.
I wish you the very best of luck.
Love,
Anthony
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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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What I don't mean, of course, is go at shagging your way round college. Well, not without a condom at least! What I mean is that you can be yourself now and you have the best possible chance of finding your soulmate now. Ask Deeej on his infrequent visits here what he thinks, and how he almost was brave enough but it was too late in his college career.
[Updated on: Tue, 08 December 2009 10:44]
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 could not agree more Timmy.
Now is the time... in the arena of being a student there is often more acceptance of difference and opportunity to mix and date than ever there is in the working environment.
Forget the 'Gay Scene' at least the shallowness of constant clubbing and s******g and moving on the next morning. It was not for me and messed many of my friends up for a long time. But the friendships from gaySoc and other similar are more amenable to social rather then just sexual contacts.
But that was years ago in Manchester may not be the same now...
Paul J.
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Yeah, I need to do something fast - sometimes I really need someone just to be myself with. 
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Our college doesn't have anything like the american GSA or anything. Without bringing to much attention to myself I can't really raise that issue to anyone. I know something like that needs to be put in place, it would help a lot of people, but as much as it hurts me to say it - I don't think I have the balls at the moment. :-/
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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 serious question for you. First I want to state clearly that I am not pushing you. I don't even want to know the answer. The question os for you to answer yourself, and to know and understand you answer.
I want you to know why drawing attention to yourself matters.
I want you to have a serious think about it, asking us questions if you want to, until you know the answer beyond any doubt whatsoever. I want you to look at home, parents, family, siblings, old school friends, college friends, your living arrangements, the lot.
When you find a reason why you believe it matters I want you to look at that reason and ask "Why does these people's reaction matter to me? Does it further my aims or hinder them? How doers it do that and how can I make it work for me?"
I want you to evaluate your fears and itemise them, make an inventory of them, and see which are real and which are false, fake if you like.
You see, it's almost simple. Whether you ate cute, handsome, ugly, fat, thin, disabled, able bodied, there is a partner for you. But you have to make the step towards him. He probably won't be the boy you think you want, or the one you hope will notice you he'll be far nicer. And he'll be gay.
And you and your bravery in going fishing may be the encouragement he needs to take you aside, shyly, and ask if he might take you to the cinema.
So I want you to think hard.
By the way, heterosexual folk draw attention to themselves every day.
[Updated on: Tue, 08 December 2009 17:45]
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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It will be foolish of me to answer such questions now, to show you that I have taken on your advice; that said I will think hard and will be sure of those answers when I type them. But thank you Timmy. Thank you so much.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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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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The only person who needs the answers is you.
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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I'll get 'em soon enough. 
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Hello Dave, and a hearty welcome to you.
To clarify the "header" to this post; I do know whereof I speak, having in the mid-1960's, and for all practical purposes, "married" a straight fella named Jon, and of whom I've spoken of on many an occasion here, and together we shared eleven wonderful years until his untimely death in the late 1970's.
My problem in developing enduring relationships has had more to with whether they are in fact "Gay", and far less do with their quite possibly being "Straight". I've always had round heels whence it came to a man of limited or no homosexual expertise, and if truth be told rather prefer it to be so; but, then again what works for me, likely would work for very few others, if any at all.
Given the momentum that has swept the homosexual world these intervening thirty-odd years, I suspect that the majority of heterosexual males would (and do) simply smile at, and truth be told, likely be flattered to one degree or another by, however awkward, your attention. This of course has little bearing on whether they "fancy" you, or whether they are even "Gay"; it's simply them taking pleasure from your pleasure in assessing them. Nothing more, and likely far less than what you might want or expect; but, none-the-less, it's a sea-change from what the majority of homosexual men of my age, in their twenties would have encountered and expected under similar circumstances back in the day.
Timmy's advice, and wise counsel, as that of others here of his and my generation must always be assessed for what it's worth to you; this tempered and applied by the exigencies of your own needs and constraints as they service your fulfilling those needs.
There is much that were I able to do over again, I'm sure I would; but, there is far more I wouldn't change one iota given that "second" chance; but, then again, as a youth I lived at a time and in a place where I had no fear of persecution, threats of bodily harm and severe injury while not unknown were something that one only read of in the newspaper, and to my knowledge no-one I knew ever experienced. I couldn't be placed in gaol for being "Gay"; I couldn't be "executed", nor otherwise summarily punished for my, even to some back then, abhorrent behaviour; but, I would practice "safe" sex knowing then what I do know now, with my having lost and buried some forty friends resulting from AIDS in these intervening years; I, too, would be much more discriminating in casual partners having learned the hard way that quantity seldom addresses our desire (and need) for quality.
Making lemonade when life throws lemons at you, or throwing more bird seed at the canary when things seldom go your way, are the stuff of "fiction" and not reality. Our true soul-mate is seldom, if ever at all, the stuff dreams are made of; and in the very rare of rarest situations when the planets do align and the heavens alight incandescently, and "Dream-boy" does fall in fact into right into your lap, for God's sake, and yours, grasp it for all it's worth and hang on tight and never, ever, let go; should you not do so, you'll spend your life for all eternity in search of the impossible, and become miserable in the process.
Living your life to its' fullest will always be filled with compromise; this is neither good nor bad; but, rather simply how it's done. Compromise teaches us more about ourselves than it does about others, and learning who our true self is is absolutely essential to our finding a lifetimes' worth of fulfillment and happiness.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
[Updated on: Tue, 08 December 2009 19:54]
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Thank you, for your welcome - and your words - both are appreciated.
I'm not bothered about harm or injury, those are the little gifts life holds for us. I think the main thing I'm bothered about really is the reaction of my family. Those around me - classmates, friends etc. I can handle. But my family is what worries me, and that is the only thing 'holding' me back.
(PS. Webmaster, you can close this thread if you want. I'm feeling a bit egotistic just talking about myself.)
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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"someone just to be myself with"
I never really understood what a huge thing being able to be myself was, until I came clean with my wife about my orientation and past, in March of this year.
Believe me, that little phrase quoted above, is just about the biggest thing in your life.
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Warren, every time I read you I'm impressed. I feel like a schoolboy at the feet of a teacher. I'm 75 and wonder how you got so wise so much quicker than I did.
Tell me what is the metaphor about having round heels, please. I've not encountered it before. Do you really mean that you liked to introduce guys with no experience to the delights of homosexual love? I find that strange but I've prbably guessed wrong.
Love,
Anthony
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No, no, Dave. watching you respond is a delight. Don't stop. I'm enjoying it.
May I go on watching please?
Love,
Anthony
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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 don't close threads unless they become abusive.
In case you had not gotten fully to grips with it, this is a place to talk about yourself
Family, eh? What is the worst thing that can possibly happen there? Enumerate the bad things. Be brutal.
What if they just love you for the person you are?
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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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Sure. It's quite an ego boost to have a voyeur, in any shape or form. 
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Good then. I would hate to step on toes this early on.
With my family - I don't really know why it is such a problem - I just don't think I have the balls to come out to them. In my family it's pretty much a case of joining up, finding a good gal and having a bunch of kids. It's just quite scary knowing that I break the mould. :-/
I guess I have it slightly easier than some folks, as I'm more 'bi' than gay (these labels are becoming quite an arse).
You see aswell as my unrealistic expectations of finding my 'dream guy' I have equally unrealistic expectations about finding my 'dream girl' - no chance of me bringing a girl home to meet the family anytime soon.
Someone once told me I'd only be happy with a nice butch lesbian.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Beholden
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: December 2009
Messages: 33
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Yes, I suppose it is the biggest in my life.
Well done for telling your wife, bet it helped lay a few demons to rest.
...night has brought to those who sleep, only dreams they cannot keep...
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Hey, no matter how gay you are, don't rule women out. Sometimes the right person is the wrong sex. It's more important to get the right person first.
I led a totally gay life before I got married. I isn't a mistake or an act of desperation. It's just that she is the perfect partner for me.
And yeah, that "gay, bi, straight" stuff really doesn't apply most of the time.
Just my opinions.
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Labels are just that Dave. I'm a reporter, so I spend alot of time just listening to folks tell me their stories. Recently I've spent a massive amount of time chatting with your peer group. In this case, LGBT kids in their twenties.
As we've bantered back & forth on a wide ranging variety of subjects that are near and dear to this group, that particular subject has been discussed frequently. Most of your peers do not like labels, for example, "I'm studying to become an astrophysicist who also happens to be deeply in love with my boyfriend." [ Or girl friend depending on gender. ] It's not that your peers are discounting being Gay or Lesbian or Bi or Transgendered, in fact that is hardly the case. Instead, its a matter of defining themselves as individual human beings with the sexuality not being the defining characteristic. No, more of a desire to be defined by the context of one's character than colour of one's skin to paraphrase the late Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now, having said that. What you view as unrealistic expectations? Someone else may not Dave. That someone may end up sharing your bed, your life, and themselves with you..... Keep your options open. Oh and yeah, sometimes you might feel like you gotta throw a shoe at a moron.........
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Re: Hello people... 
