libbonobo

Hope you have a really good day today, and a great year!

Happy Birthday, Tim!!! :king: Take care of yourself today!

He's probably not throwing this in your face to cause you pain as his primary purpose; it's his own shame, guilt, and self-loathing that he's trying to deal with. He wants to know what made you the way you are because he wants to know what made him the way he is. Don't take his "Yeah I'm a f**king fag, and I don't like it" as a condemnation of you any more than it is a condemnation of himself. When stresses come along, families generally either fall apart or come closer together. They often are too caught up in their immediate response to give any thought to how they react. Don't do that. CHOOSE to become closer to your brother (he is, after all, your identical twin), and become closer to him. Whatever pain you're feeling, he's almost certainly feeling worse. At least you had Green when you came out, and you have some measure of happiness and freedom now. Your brother is many steps behind you, and is handicapped by being a cold personality (or at least, he CAN be cold to people), which means he has less of a support network than you do. At any rate, call him to reassure him that you didn't walk away from him because you rejected him for being gay, but because the combination of sympathetic pain and remembrance of your own pain was too much. Eventually, the emotional pain will pass for both of you; but if you share the burden, it can go faster, and maybe bring you closer together. My sincerest best wishes to you.

Happy birthday, sumbloke!! :graduated:

Happy birthday, Topher!!! :king:

Happy Birthday, Will!

Sorry about your bloody nose! I used to get bloody noses if I ate too much chocolate (still do, actually). So sad, since I love chocolate

Personally, I'd stick to screwing the ones who like the real me. of course you're right! Oh, and sticking can be minimized with adequate lubrication

Welcome to GA and the blogs, Camy! No need to make anything up....if people only like a fake you and not the real you, screw 'em!

Does "bouncy ball" refer to one of these? http://www.superballs.com/ Those were fun!

wow!!! That's so very cool. If I were looking for a mate, the most important quality would be to be a fundamentally happy person. You wouldn't happen to have an older brother, would you?

Hurray! Not such a testy situation after all.

The trouble with hyphens: "I am Inigo Esquivel-Sanchez-Lopez-Mendoza de Fernandez-Isla-Mercedes-Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Try repeating that the requisite number of times.... As for mawwiage: "Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam. And wove, twue wove, wiww fowwow you fowevah and evah

Are people reading this question as: "Have you EVER felt this way (even once) or not?" or "Do you FREQUENTLY feel this way or not?" I can kind of see how 50% of people might not feel this way frequently, but have 50% of people *NEVER* felt this way?

Happy Birthday, NJ8!

1st video: Hahaha! dbene sent something very similar way back. 2nd video: poor little kid!! Whoever filmed it should be strung up by his intestines.

Wow, this girl scout weekend sounds like it's shaping up to be a journey through the underworld! ::shudders:: :nuke:

Awwww......

I'm glad you & Chaz are still together. Now take this 2nd chance & work hard on being a couple! The impartial answer to this "poll": do the couple's thing, and negotiate between the two of you, as opposed to running away from the relationship (which is what turning to a 3rd party poll is doing). My own answer to this "poll": Let Chaz share your blog if he wants to. Sharing your personal space is what makes you uncomfortable and what you need to work on. The sharing of an online blog is an innocuous thing that can't possibly hurt you, and hence the perfect place to begin overcoming your habits/fears. Oh, and welcome to the board, Chaz!

I'm glad you're ok! Chris is only stressing because he loves you so much. So take every yell as a declaration of love.

ARGH Green! You don't need to make a catalog compulsively laying out your mistakes. Insight is not the problem here; you already know what's wrong. That's why it's so boring. What you need to do is start working on fixing it. In the other post, I tried to show you the pit you were digging for yourself not so that you could wallow in it, but so that you would be motivated to start climbing out. Obsessing negatively on how you've alienated one boyfriend after another is not going to help you. Really, that's just another form of running away from what you really need to do, which is to figure out positively how you're going to start opening up. If you're honest and really start working on this, it will be a real challenge and anything but boring. You'll probably hate it. Fortunately, you're not starting completely from scratch. You already have some tools--as Rocket pointed out, you express yourself well in writing, if not in person; and you're creative and imaginative. Put these things to work. Think of ways to overcome your fear of letting anyone closer than arm's length...and then bite the bullet and put them into action. Forget the stupid poster of your faults. Instead, start working on what you need to do to be able to relate fully to other people. Start working on what you need to do to be a truly loved and loving human being. Start working on what you need to do to be truly happy. That's what I want from you, in answer to the question in the title of your post. I want for you to be truly happy. But you're the one who has to make it happen.

The evidence shows otherwise He knew Chaz would hate his running away. And everybody knows that lying to someone is hurtful, particularly if you're in a relationship with them. That honesty & communication are the keys to a healthy relationship is almost axiomatic. He clearly knew what he was doing and did it anyway. Moreover, and this is key, this is far from the first time he's done this. As shown below, he admitted months ago that he's aware of his bottle-things-up-push-people-away coping strategy. Despite what you say about trusting your friends, you *don't* trust them. You do not trust him to see you weak and vulnerable, or to see your "ugly parts", as you put it below; you do not trust that he WANTS to share your burdens, because you think he has his own, even though he's told you repeatedly that he does want to; you do not trust that he is CAPABLE of sharing your burdens, because you think he has his own. Chaz is right. Moreover, you KNOW he is right. You said so yourself on November 18, 2005, after running off to be alone after the fight with your father: The other point this raises is that you've known for a long time that your coping strategy of alienation is a habit. Maladaptive habits need to be actively worked on, in order to break them and replace them with more adaptive behaviors. It takes a lot of time and sustained effort, and frequently HELP, which you have to be capable of accepting. Of course no one is perfect. The key is to acknowledge shortcomings and strive to improve. And that's what's lacking: the effort to change, and start opening up. So far, all you've exhibited is defense of your behavior--unapologetic defense of not wanting to appear weak and vulnerable, and brave-faced statements that you'll just have to live with the "consequences of your life" and that you got what you wanted (and therefore want what you got). That kind of digging in your heels is only going to perpetuate things. The point is that things can be different, but only you can decide to make the effort to change yourself. What's it going to take? How much more pain are you going to have to inflict on yourself before you decide to start the effort to change? I don't say this stuff to hurt you or beat you up. I'm actually trying to help. In fact, I feel really bad for you, watching you go through this again and again. It's just that watching you do this over and over, it's apparent that without some kind of jolt, you're going to continue in this pattern, so I speak without mincing words. This is not for any one else's benefit--not Chaz's, not Selene's, not David's, and most certainly not mine. The main beneficiary of a more adaptive coping strategy will be YOU. Best wishes.

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

I agree that you don't deserve to be alone. However, being alone is a natural consequence of pushing people away, which is exactly what you did, and I disagree with the sugarcoating in many of the posts above. The killer is that you knew that this is what you were doing; you knew that it was highly maladaptive to push people away at exactly the time you need to have support; you know that it is false pride to not want to appear weak when you really are (and for that matter, use of your highly drama-laden self-defeating coping mechanism makes you appear even weaker than simply crying would have); and worst of all, you knew that it was all over NOTHING. The tumors weren't even malignant. All this drama and angst were generated entirely in your own mind, and despite knowing that you LET it hurt you and then spill over into hurting everyone around you. This is not intended to make you feel guilty per se, although if feeling guilty motivates you to learn from this experience and figure out how to overrule your irrational impulses, then yes, I want you to feel horribly guilty. The trouble with your friends coming back so readily is that you will continue to think that you can get away with this sort of crap. One day, you will have to learn that when you stick your hand in the fire, the natural consequence is that you get burned, and you should stop doing it. Start practicing a more adaptive way to cope with your panic, and start TODAY. Begin by not avoiding Chaz's letter, and confront it head on.