TetRefine

I actually don't think it's bad looking, and it is definitely unique. Hell, it looks a heck of a lot better than the super-tall condos they're building here in New York with no architectural quality and selling penthouses for upwards of a $100M.

Reminds me of the dildo tower in London.

Naughty Boy - Runnin' (Lose It All) ft. Beyoncé (DJ Aron Remix) The first time I heard this song was at a party in Shanghai in 2017. When they hit the 'Runnin', Runnin, 'Runnin, Runnin' line the DJ would pause the track and a thousand shirtless Chinese boys dancing below would belt out the chorus. It was awesome.

I'm currently watching Tyrant. The first season was really good, but the second season was kinda 'meh'. Hopefully Season 3 goes back to the style that made Season 1 great. My guilty pleasures are Below Deck and 90 Day Fiance. My boyfriend and I will binge watch those shows for hours.

When I first joined, I was an avid Tetris player (hence the 'Tet' part). As I was signing up, I had just read an article about an oil refinery, hence the 'Refine' part. It was basically just random.

I was browsing YouTube the other day and came across some amazing footage of the 1982 Castro Street Fair. It's almost an hour of footage, just showing the beauty, freedom, and sex of urban gay life at the time. For some reason I was just enthralled watching this little video time capsule. But...the year was 1982, HIV was just beginning to be identified, but people didn't really understand what it was. The highly sexual atmosphere of San Francisco at the time was the perfect breeding ground for the virus to sow death onto so many. The Castro Street Fair (now known as the Folsom Street Fair) is a very sexual event, and you'll see people having sex all over the place. I can't imagine it was anything different back then, and was probably a huge spreading event that led to countless sickness and death. I'm guessing that most of the men in this video, especially the younger ones, never made it out of the '80s. Their very liberation was their ultimate undoing and I can only imagine how that must have felt when they realized it. I'll be making the pilgrimage to San Francisco this coming year for the event (virus permitting...how ironic). The weekend still retains its sexually liberated atmosphere (just go Google some videos), but the threat that wiped out so many in this video decades ago is now greatly diminished. Thousands of men in 2021 will do what thousands of men did in 1982 on that street, but it won't bring about the mass death it did in this bygone era. I feel like keeping the festival's original atmosphere is a way to keep alive the memories of those who didn't make it out of that awful period. But now, with all the advances, we can do it at much less of a price. That feels like progress to me.

I remember the first time I heard this song, somewhere around 3am at Avant Gardner. You could feel the whole vibe turn so loving when this song blasted on.

I know, lol. Sometimes even I'm surprised when I realize how much has changed. And no, he's no-one from here. I met him actually at a circuit party one weekend while I was up in New York. It started out as a summer fling (among several others), but he was totally different. Tomorrow it'll be two years since we met, and we're now in the process of buying an apartment together.

In my college years and early-mid 20s, it was very much about raw, physical attraction. I was exploring all this newfound freedom I had as a young gay guy in the big city. I had boyfriends too, but looking back I was much more interested in Mr. Right Now and whatever I wanted at that moment. I was a creature of the clubs and bars, and that lifestyle fed into the spur of the moment attitude toward my sexuality that I had. There was also a bit of an ego healing that went with it. I grew up internalizing all sorts of homophobia and hatred for what I was, and suddenly I could gain all this attention and positivity for being animalisticly sexual with all these other guys. It was a weird way of healing, but it also wasn't the healthiest way to overcome all that either. Eventually life changed, I got a little older, a little wiser, and a little more sure of what I wanted. I finally met someone who I really connected with on a level I hadn't experienced before. For the first time in my adult life, I've been monogamous, and happy to be that way. While we definitely still enjoy the sexual side of our relationship, it's much more emotional, and I feel like that is the main spark that keeps it going. Ironically we are still both creatures of the night and spend most weekends going out, but I've re-learned how to enjoy all those late nights without the sexual aspect. In a way, I actually like it more now that it doesn't factor into the equation.

It almost depresses me to look back on my response a year ago and compare it to this year. Before this all happened, we had planned to go to LA for Labor Day weekend to attend Masterbeat. We had a house for the week of Pines Party in Fire Island, but both got cancelled. We figured (back in March) that by September this would all be over and it would be a good time to travel. We planned on going to San Francisco for Folsom, but that too got cancelled. At this point, since we can both work from home, we'll probably keep staying for a good chunk of the summer up here in the country where there is plenty of open space and few people. I don't wanna be holed up in a small apartment in the city through a sweltering summer.

This was the first story I ever read on Gay Authors, waaaay back in 2009. It still remains my all-time GA favorite.

The list of very prominent people she had as investors and board members blew my mind. She was a master con artist.

With all this free time on my hands, I've been reading like crazy the last couple months. And as much as I hate too, I've been buying Kindle e-books because it's so much faster and easier. Kings Of Cocaine: Inside the Medellin Cartel- An Astonishing True Story Of Murder, Money, And International Corruption, by Guy Gugliotta & Jeff Leen- It follows the Medellin Cartel's rise from the late 1970s up until 1988 and how they became the de-facto power in Colombia and the largest drug cartel in history. Bad Blood: Secrets & Lies In A Silicon Valley Startup, by John Carreyrou- The story of Elizabeth Holmes & Theranos' rise and fall due to lies and massive fraud. Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, And The Last Stand Of The Aztecs, by Buddy Levy- Tells the fascinating story of Hernan Cortes and his conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico in the 1500s.

For sure!

On Wednesday, a fast-moving snow squall turned sunny Manhattan into a dark, blizzard-like nightmare in a matter of minutes. Here's a time-lapse video of about 2 minutes condensed to 30 seconds. I was leaving work right when this was coming in. It was totally sunny when I left my building, and literally a whiteout by the time I reached my train a few minutes later. It was crazy.

Yesterday marked my official 1 decade membership here on GA. I still remember that terrified 17 year old kid coming home from school that day and finally deciding to create an account in secret. I met a lot of great people those early first months on here, back when Chat was still a thing. Most of them are long gone now, often randomly disappearing without a trace back into the real world. I think that has been one of the weirdest experiences of my time on the internet, and especially GA. You go from "seeing" someone online every day to suddenly, and the next moment they're gone. You check their profile somewhere down the line and they haven't logged on in years. I sometimes wonder how true to form they were online compared to their real-life selves. What did they change? And more interestingly, why? GA really did change the course of my life. Without it, I'd probably never have gone to college, never have really accepted being who I am, never become a teacher, and never have ended up in the very happy point in life I'm at right now. It all started with meeting a boy on here who completely threw the trajectory of my life for a 180 spin, and while it didn't last, it led to a series of chance, luck, and good and bad decisions to where I'm at now. Who would have thought creating an account on a random gay site you found through a porn link (true story, circa 2009) would have changed so much. It kinda makes me think of that old Ashton Kutcher movie, The Butterfly Effect. If I hadn't decided to create that account (and I came very close to not doing it), I don't know if I'd even still be here right now. It's a bit chilling to think about, and just proves how even the most minuscule decisions that seem inconsequential at the time can be life-altering. I'm not nearly as active as I used to be. A lot of the parts of GA I enjoyed in the past are now gone or changed to be unrecognizable from what I enjoyed so much. That isn't a criticism at all, and things have to evolve to survive. A website from 2010 can't survive in 2019. I mostly just lurk from time to time, occasionally throwing some thoughts out there. That probably won't change, but I doubt I'll ever leave this site completely because of the impact it's had on my life. Heres to hopefully another decade of GA.

Different strokes for different folks. As long as it works for everyone, that's all that matters.

Funny you mention Junior because he played the after party Monday morning we went to. He played every big hit remixed from the 90s and was still spinning on CDs. It was a perfect closing to an epic weekend.

As some of you know, New York City recently hosted World Pride, and it fell on the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riot. They estimated that close to 6 million visitors came to the city to celebrate, and I can tell you New York, especially in certain areas, felt like a gay-majority city. It was amazing. Some personal highlights: Dancing with 13,000 other people at WE Party: Magic Planet at the Javits Center. Literally I have never seen that many people at a single party before. We really showed our numbers at this one. Cindy Lauper, Bette Midler, STOMP and Cirque de Solei all performed before the main dance party started. It was one hell of a sight to see. The weekend ended with Alegria, which is the traditional Sunday night marathon closing party of Pride. It went for 11 hours, both outside and inside. This is probably the single best party of Pride every year. When they unrolled the massive rainbow flag you see in the video, I swear I've never seen so many grown men cry. It was beautiful.

Man do I hear you on learning the lesson plans. One thing a lot of people don't realize about teaching is that the way things are taught now is radically different (mostly for the better) then the way we learned in school. Having taught kindergarten, first, and second grade math has been a revolutionary experience for me in the way I think about the fundamentals of math. I'm moving to a new school in a new city in a new state that uses a completely different curriculum then what I teach now. So like you, a big chunk of my summer will be devoted to learning it so I can actually teach it to my kiddos when the school year comes around. If you think teachers just get one, long vacation in July and August, you are sorely mistaken.

That camping trip sounds like a lot of fun (and work with three boys!) I have a pretty busy summer ahead of me... June- Leaving my current job, moving to New York City, and of course NYC World Pride at the end of the month. July- Taking the month off from work, a weekend in Fire Island for Pines Party, and a weekend in Asbury Park to chill at the beach. August- Starting my new job, long weekend in Chicago for Market Days, and finally finishing up graduate school.

I've been a member of GA now for almost ten years, which might as well be a lifetime in the internet. I was 17, closeted, confused, and was just looking for any kind of escape from the miserable existence of high school in a small town. I met so many great people in those early days through chat, where I would stay for hours talking about anything and everything with whoever was in there. I learned to refine my debating skills in the old Soapbox, where ironically I was one of the most vocal conservative members. I remember some of the early stories I read on here that touched me: Viv's All I Wanted, and Camilo's The Perks Of Loving You. I would eventually meet my first boyfriend on this site, and we were together for over 6 years before we parted ways. I met up with two other GA members while I was on a trip to London, and enjoyed great conversation over two dinners. I recently ran into that ex-boyfriend in a bar in New York one random Saturday night. In a city of 8.6 million people, you oddly run into those you know. We hadn't really talked or seen each other in years. I didn't even know he was living there anymore, and to be honest I didn't really recognize him all that much initially (to be fair I was a few vodkas in). We said a quick 'hey, how's it going' and kept right on walking. At that moment and for the rest of the night what had just happened didn't really register. I went and found my boyfriend, and pretty much forgot it even happened. Fast forward a few days, and suddenly the whole encounter became incredibly strange to me. How could someone I dated for over six years and lived with for almost 2 seem like such a total, insignificant stranger now? At one point, he knew me better then anyone else, but now years removed, he might as well have been a passing acquittance. I'm not wishing to get back with him, as we really weren't meant to be together long-term. It worked great as teenagers and early twenty-somethings, but adulthood exposed the flaws. I learned a lot from him, and applied all that to my relationships afterward. I guess it just goes to show the fragility of human relationships and how totally they can change.

I was the originator of that thread....The point of it got twisted and misconstrued, partly because of my wording, and partly because my experiences have been completely lived within a big-city setting. But, gay people getting uppity and judgy about other people's lifestyle is dangerous and insanely hypocritical.....

At 27, I still can’t tie a tie well enough to wear. I’ve always gotten other people to tie them for me, then when I take it off I just loosen it and slip it over my head. That way I can just put it back on next time without having to tie it myself. Some of my ties have been tied for four or five years... In my defense, I only wear a tie probably 3-4x a year and despise every second it has to be around my neck.

I thought it would be fun to share stories of how we met our significant others. I met my boyfriend at (of all places) a circuit party. He was my friend's friend's ex's friend. I met his friend (the ex) first, and thought he was really sexy. Then my boyfriend-to-be came back from the bathroom and we got introduced, and I was floored by how incredibly sexy he was, forgetting all about the first guy, lol. We parted ways for a bit as the party got started, but a little while later he migrated back towards our group. He was shirtless and wearing only booty shorts and high-tops (the usual dress for a circuit, haha). We danced opposite each other in a group for a while, eyeing each other the whole time. Eventually he came right across to me and started grinding on me. I was instantly infatuated and we danced together for the next five hours until 6 in the morning. We traded numbers, and ended up visiting each other in New York or Philly every couple weekends. Finally after months of being friends with benefits and "circuit boyfriends", I asked him out one night as we were walking through Times Square subway station. He practically jumped into my arms and gave me a huge kiss right in the middle of the busiest station in all of New York. We met almost a year ago now, and have been officially dating for 6 months.