PrivateTim

I don't. When Aiden said this: “Owen, I know you’re freaked out about getting to know my mom, but she really does want to get to know you, and I swear it’ll be okay. Just come over. One dinner, that’s all I’m asking.” That is where I would have said, 'funny, yesterday she asked me to stay away from you. She called me a distraction. I don't want to come between you and your mom, but I also don't want her to come between us. I love you.' This would have been the perfect time to drop the L word on him. But again, drama turns on misunderstandings and miscommunications.

Never a dull moment with Dom.

If Owen doesn't love Aiden, who would he ever love? Everything he has done in this story is because he is in love with Aiden.

Time will tell all, reveal all. I have no idea how anyone could conclude that Aiden is using Owen and being selfish? Aaron is the exact opposite of selfish. Aiden is holding in a lot of anguish that we have just began to see. There wasn't any cloak & dagger on how he got Reilly's address, it was from a friend in the office. 🤣🤣 Dennis has to be wondering what it is about him that caused Reilly to get a boner looking at him. 🤔🤔

But when I did see Dennis between classes he actually walked away. And he saw me too. I know he did because he stopped and stared before he walked away. Not that I was complaining, the last thing I wanted was trouble with Dennis. I just didn’t understand why he wasn’t trying to start trouble. It seemed out of character for Dennis. The pitcher took the first sign from his catcher and shook his head. He nodded on the second and moved his middle finger uptight next to his index finger, he was going to throw the curve ball 😁🤣

I don't know about a small town in Oklahoma or Arkansas, but in California coming out in high school or even middle school, isn't the trauma it once was. At the writing of this story, that wasn't as true. It might have been easy in LA or San Francisco, but not Fresno or Bakersfield. Now even in places like Bakersfield the schools have GSA clubs, the staff of the schools are attuned to bullying, and not just gay kids, but any kid who is different. But high school is a jungle of insecurity, kids will spread rumors and knock down other kids if they think it can add to their status.

Adam is a freshman. Freshmen are really, really lost. They are on the first steps of truly growing up. When my son was a freshman in high school (all boys Catholic school, even though neither of us is Catholic) he assigned a senior big brother, as were all freshmen. To watch my Tommy grow from a boy mentee as a freshman, to a man as a mentor as a senior was an amazing, all too fast process. That is where Adam is now, just starting to develop his own sense of right and wrong and not just parrot what he hears at home. As to the school, there are plenty of witnesses to Dennis's physical bullying of Owen in the PE class. Even 20 years ago coaches and administrators were worried about getting sued. But as the storyline goes, well you have to allow some poetic license to move from one point to the next.

Oh, and one more thing. Owen and Aiden are young and in a time long before teaching conflict resolution became a thing in schools. They don't know how to be supportive, how to seek support, or where to look for support.

It has been a very long time since I first read this story. I don't even remember if it was on GA or not, but I DID remember (vaguely) an upcoming plot twist and if it is anything like I remember, the curve balls haven't even started yet. We've merely gone from Slow Pitch to Fast Pitch, hang on for when the curve balls start 🤣 I am trying to remember when Dom first wrote this story. I think the copyright is 2006, but I seem to remember earlier versions. But I digress (for a reason). It is hard to remember sometimes back 20, 25 years what life was like. I can remember a number of guys dropping the "f" word (fag and faggot), but I don't ever recall a girl using the "f" word. Or at least not girls that anyone considered respectable and really not a church girl, no matter how wrong she thought gay relationships were. Now maybe Dom had the Janie character use that word to try and scare off Owen, but the dialog was really demented; the whole thought process was demented, and I mean in a serious, clinical way; like deeply in need of professional help demented.

Ever since Krok the caveman carved the story of his life in the cave wall, ever has literature been. The themes of misunderstandings, miscommunications, misinterpretations and unrequited love echo down through millennia.

When you are forced out on your own at 18 and can't live in your parent's basement until you are 30, stay in college 7 years, stay on your parent's health insurance until you are 25, there is just no need to grow up. An 18 year old male in 2023 has the maturity of a 13 year old in 1940, an 18 year old male in 1940 is equivalent to a 25 year old today. Teen suicide? I think Janie is unstable enough to commit suicide because she thinks how miserable it will make Aiden, and everyone will blame him. Yes it sounds crazy, but... I don't think Aiden is blind, I think he is a caring person caught between a rock and a bitc... a hard place.

The first time I ever had full on, real sex, it was out of doors, on a blanket, in a park. I was inept it was laughable. I think even Owen is going to pick on Aiden's "hint" this time.

Oh please, I can't begin to tell you how possessive fag hags are, how much they cock block anyone who threatens to divert attention from them and how they scheme to sabotage their fag's happy relationships with boys. Adam said it best, "Bite me." Adam shot back. "You know, Aiden is allowed to talk to us. I hardly doubt your reputation will be damaged if your pretend-boyfriend is seen talking to us."

S'okay, I finished Paternity again and am starting Flux. I don't think I'll ever be able to read 9-11 again.

chutzpah noun chutz·pah ˈhu̇t-spə ˈḵu̇t- -(ˌ)spä variants or less commonly chutzpa or hutzpah or hutzpa Synonyms of chutzpah Definition: the state of being gone from GA for three years and then being pissed there is no new chapter of Gap Year in 12 days

In the immortal words of Bill Shakespeare, "The Dennis does protest too much, methinks".

Aiden is equally clueless and Owen is unwilling to clue Aiden in. That is kind of the point. Chris and Tony who know both sides of each story are waiting for the boys to be willing to clue each other in. And then fuck like bunnies. 😲 Just like Aiden is oblivious to Owen's already there infatuation with him.

Seriously you went camping on a Boy Scout trip and thought you were the only gay boy? 😂 Even the straight boys on the trip were mutually jacking and sucking. And don't even get me started on how many times I got lucky on church trips or Christian camps. No lead character of a Dom story is ever socially aware or has a hint of gaydar. They are completely clueless and miss what everyone else sees so clearly. But if they weren't that way, these would be very short stories. "the minute I met Aiden, the look in his eyes, I knew he was gay. I didn't even say hi, I kissed him as his hand slipped inside my pants. The end." 😁 Even in real stories, I am thinking It Started With Brian and Crosscurrents, etc, misunderstandings, poorly made assumptions, etc made the lead characters miserable, unhappy and desperate.

My first thought on 'no girls aloud' was the amazing Welsh choir, Only Boys Aloud, which remains one of my favorite auditions ever on BGT. My other thoughts were about two things that always have bugged me about gay fiction, especially gay youth fiction. One was 'partying', 'getting trashed' and especially when drugs were involved. I can count on one hand the number of times I drank in high school, twice my freshman year, once as a junior and again the summer between my junior and senior years. I didn't even see marijuana until I was in college (Berkeley, so I saw a LOT) and still to this day have never seen coke, even though it was popular in my fraternity house in college. So I wasn't a partier and most of my friends weren't, but some were. The ones that did seemed miserable the day after, and the day after never seemed to quite balance the 'fun' of getting there. The other staple of gay youth literature is the fire-breathing preacher, delivering stem winding sermons on ho-mo-sex-you-al-a-tee. Now seriously, I've been going to church my whole life, 40+ years of sermons I can remember and I've never heard a single sermon where homosexuality was the sole topic. I've heard it mentioned, but it is always part of a list with things like slander, gossip, fornication, etc and homosexuality was never treated as a worse sin. In my moves I've made in my life I've been in a variety of denominations and non-denominational churches, some were even open and affirming churches, but not all. One of my best friends is even a lay reader in his Catholic church, which is probably 20% gay parishioners. I have a cousin who is a deacon in her Episcopal church and her wife has been an elder in the same church. My point is, churches and Christians are not uniformly against gay relationships and in my experience, even the churches that don't approve of gay relationships aren't hateful about it. There are also many shelters for gay youth run by Christian organizations. Okay.... off the Soapbox (even though the Soapbox is sadly gone from GA and turned into a Pit instead).

The format of GA was very different the first time I read this story. I am pretty sure there wasn't a comment section, otherwise I would have commented. We did have a Forum called Domaholics, of which I was a pretty active member. It's nice to see Owen having fun and getting over his shock of how he came to live with his brothers. He definitely has PTSD, I am surprised Chris & Tony didn't get him into therapy. It is also nice to see Owen developing real friendships, 'no man is an island'.

It Started With Brian, Lem, and The Best Little Boy In The World by Andrew Tobias were three big ones for me. They were the three that convinced me, You Are Not Alone.

The ironies of ironies is that in California, gays are victims partly of their own success in societal acceptance and partly because of the Internet. Not just Hillcrest, The Castro, WeHo, Palm Springs, but in Laguna Beach, Santa Barbara, Studio City etc, gay bars and clubs are going away. Guys don't need to drive 60 miles to WeHo or Laguna Beach anymore to meet a guy they can surf the Net from home and meet guys in their own area. They can go to local bars, get on Grindr (is that still a thing?) and find someone in Straightsville.

That was Camilo, as I recall? Sorry it didn't work out. I remember jealous at how cute you two were. I've been gone probably three years too, just because life is busy and I've had less time for pleasure reading. I think I found my way to GA because of Dom Luka, but it could have been because of Mark Arbour. I stumbled on an old work of his, maybe his first and I was led here. I liked the old chatroom. I liked reading stories with characters I could relate to and I liked reading stories with people who had more drama than me in their lives.

The Tower Treasure - I started reading The Hardy Boys when I was around 10 I guess. It me awhile to figure out I was in love with Joe Hardy.

I understand where Owen is coming from. He put himself out there with his best friend Nicky, and as Owen sees it, Nicky abandoned him because of it and his other best friend Anna, was the cause of Owen getting beaten by his father. I am sure Owen feels that because he is gay, that based on his experience, everyone is going to be negative and react badly. So why make friends (like Adam) if you think they will just hate you later. I found this line really interesting: A block away from the apartments I noticed that Aiden was tightening his seatbelt and looked a little nervous A person under 40 maybe wouldn't get that, because it seems like every seatbelt in a car today is the retractable type, there isn't a way to tighten or loosen it. It is a cultural detail they'd miss.