Hey, I know how that feels!  I know when a fellow dragon fell a few years back, I cried....  So yeah..., online friends are real friends, too! 

4 hours ago, R J Drew said:

I hope one day to become a part of the GA family. 

You are RJ .. gosh.. i remember a few lovely kind and welcomed PMs from you.. they meant a lot and could only have come from family xoxxoo

For the Nth time...  Thank You Jay for saying what many of us feel.  I also do not have many friends in the real world.  I have only 2 people that know I am gay.  I find much comfort and solace in the online friends I have here.  I am relatively new here, but was welcomed the very first day by Ricky and Graeme and have PMed and played the games and read the stories AND made several online friends here.  It is VERY nice to have a family that accepts us as we are with our faults and issues.  The stories help us relax and find the peace many of us do not have in the world around us.  GA is a family and we can be as close or as distant as we are comftorable with.  Online friends are as real and needed as real world friends are.  CHEERS for our online friends and family !!!!!!!!

Stalking does indeed happen and anonymity can be a good thing online. On another site I mistakenly used my full name and, since I'm the only one in the USA who has it, I started receiving daily phone calls from a character around the world who wanted to come live with me. Another showed up where I work. My bad, I should've known better. But it was a book-writing site! Stuff like that's not supposed to happen.   Recently I received anti-gay hate messages and one of my books was reported even though it had been on for two years and had 265k reads. The book was OK but they did take down the cover, two sexy dudes embracing. LOL. I can't tell you how many covers they have with sexy m/f's embracing. So I figured it's time for a change. Very friendly here and everyone has been so nice and encouraging. I haven't had much time yet for conversing and getting around, but I'm enjoying it all very much, thank you all!

Thanks, Jay T. A really good blog. There are a lot of similar websites on the net, most of which keep me interested for no more five minutes. GA has kept me interested for more than five years now and after reading these comments it's easy to see why.

I've always felt comfortable here and maybe I'm being naive, but I've never considered it to be a happy hunting ground for stalkers or internet weirdos. There are easier prey out there than the discerning members of GA.

I think that it's safe to assume that most of the regular members here are genuine and consider them friends. I came here with no experience of writing fiction and at first, I was expecting to be either criticised or ignored. Instead, I found even the most experienced authors, editors and readers here to be welcoming, accessible and very helpful. I've managed to learn from all of you and make some friends along the way, so for me, it's been a good experience.

Of course, all of this is coming from a guy who hides behind a picture of the Fonz and goes by the name of Dodger (and I expect people to take me seriously), so maybe I'm one of these fakes or internet weirdos, because I'm nothing like the TV character that's for sure.

Heeeeeey!

Straight but not narrow? I love that description!!!!