Goedric

ok cjay, just pointing out. on the list of perfect match qualities you said... so just asking... is it time for you to change the little bisexual leaning female tag on your profile? just goofin with ya!

carl: Your friend cares about you a great deal or he would not have given you a qualified aceptence. Basically you are challenging him to rethink his position and most likely ask questions about himself. this is very difficult for anyone and it should not be surprising that he would react by avoiding you. its human nature. he is trying to reorder his world and to fit you within it. in terms of what should do you need to ask yourself what you want tio do. from where i sit you love this guy at least like a brother, - perhaps more. he is in the same boat. we cant know the reality of it here. determine what you want to do in your heart and ask yourself if you have the strength to see it through. this process could take months or years and the ending may not yield the result you have hoped for. you have to balance fixing a challenged relationship with walking away and keeping the good parts in your memory. you will never be able to accept hate from one you love in a healthy way. it has to change of you need to get yourself out of the situation. dont do anyting quickly. time is your friend. take it slow. no sudden moves. if you want to keep the relationship give him space to breath but not space to obliterate the memory of whats good between you. too much silence and time allows stupidity and indifference to reinforce themselves. good luck man. no easy answer. but who knows maybe you can yank a soul out of a hateful abyss, - or at least know you did your best. but if your feelings are too tied up in him dont do your self the diservice of taking on all the pain. in such a case its best to politely move on. abrazos

ive always imagined god as being very lonely. so i guess i would create him a boyfreind so that when my day was up id be leaving something behind to keep him company. maybe together they would come up with some beautiful solutions for the problems all around us.

well i moved to mexico from the states (chicago) about 9 years ago. It felt odd at first but i got over that quickly. once i could get by in spanish it was a snap, - and where i am there are lots of english speaking people. i can have a much better quality of life here on much less money which basically allowed me to retire at 40 rather than like 70. Where i am near puerto vallarta is one of the most expensive places in mexico, but even considering that there is Great health care here for almost nothing, food is 20% cheaper, gas is 20% cheaper, lodging is 70% cheaper and there are virtually no property taxes and you can get someone to help out cleaning or gardening or whatever for about $25 a day. all conveniences are here even obmoxious ones like 3 walmarts, costco and 2 walmarts within 10 miles. just like back home. We even hve about 20 gay bars and a new gay community center. only things missing are chicago hotdogs, taco bell and good thai food.

Actually im haaving my 5th date with a guy tonight and im hoping he askes me exactly that question.... ill let ya know how i answer it!

well there are some characteristics that i find sexy and which my ideal mate would have if i was creating him from scratch but which i would never use as criterion to reject a potential guy. So i can see what dark was saying as well now that im thinking more clearly after a glass of wine. they include... long reach pronounced adams apple propensity to sweat buckets strong male scent rich voice (not necesarily deep but a voice with overtones) Reticent rather than talkative Overly serious bright eyes (color unimportant) Sings to me in restaurants or bars when a familiar song come on Striking appearence (could be elfin pretty or ruggedly handsome/part chimpanzee doesnt matter) classic features that will still look good in 30 yrs, perfect nose, square jaw line etc A mysteriousness about him, maybe even an element of danger cold white skin (opps sorry thats my vamp thing kicking in) oh well. mas vino!

What i think is sexy is exactly what i look for in an ideal man. So i wouldnt know how to answer one question without the other. If that makes any sense. I guess if there were things that one was attracted to that one would not want to marry then the questions would be different. For me they are the same.

Well i now live in Mexico where many many people are together and not married (gay as well as straight relationships). In both cases a very common term used is Pareja which technically means... Couple, Mate, Partner or Pair. It is also used singly so i would refer to my parter/lover as follows: This is Leonardo my pareja. (my mate). Or I could say Leonardo an I are parejas. (are a couple or are partners or are mates) So here is works really easily and its used the same way in heterosexual nonmarried romantically involved couples or partners. The word pareja is always romantic never used for business or friendship purposes. So partners in business would be socios and partners in friendship or would be compañeros.

To be honest looks always play an important part of the equation. I have to find him at least somewhat physically attractive, - period. He doesnt have to be a 10, or 9 or an 8. But he has to be a 5 at least to me or it wont go any further. Then there has to be something that catches my attention in some way to set him off from the crowd. Something than moves a guy who is a 5 in the looks department to a 7 or an 8 on my personal perfect guy scale. Maybe he has a great voice at a kareoke bar, or an amazing smile, or fierce eyes, or a deep sexy voice, unique sense of humor, similar interests, etc. At that point with time his total personality and all the other parts of him can turn him into a 10 for me and ill have eyes for noone else. in the same way a 10 in the looks dept can move to a 1 after a few conversations. Thats the way it works for me. It does start with the looks.

If you know his name you could try a less eye to eye approach if he is on facebook for example. You could send him a friend request with a little note saying "hey ive seen you around etc" and then take it from there. Or approach him with a stupid question like... Hey do you have change for a dollar, or a pencil, great shirt where did you buy it, whatever to break the ice. If he is at all interested it will be easier once the ice is broken. Good luck. Its never easy but just keep in mind that all you are doing is saying hello. A rejection to a simple hello isnt likley unless he is a total creep. Now after that there will be bigger questions perhaps but at least you will have started the conversation off and you can move as slowly as you need to and observe all you can. Jeff

Nephylim that is absolutely correct. Obviously if one is considering dating the ex of a friend, then one has done some homework and sees potential. so we really dont have to worry about the ex being an abusive or uncaring piece of garbage. SO if its over its over and everyone deserves to find someone and be happy. so if it feels right take whatever steps you can to make it easier for all and move forward. dont cheat yourself out of something thats potentially great out of fear that a friend isnt beig enough to wish you and his or her ex the best in life as well. Jeff

Have to play devils advocate or maybe just the devil. My answer is absolutely, without a doubt I am 100% sure I would date a lovers ex as long as i gave them time to make up and change their minds. And i wouldnt not hide the fact. I would be very open about it and i would give my friend notice so he wasnt surprised. Everyone seems to be concerned about losing a friend, - sorry but id be more concerend about losing a potential life partner. If the feeling was mutual and their old relationship was over its fair game. And my friend should be happy for me. If not, he (or she) wasnt really a good friend. We are not talking about breaking up your friends relationship. Its already over. anyway thats the way i see it.

On the one hand its difficult to give up on finding your true love, but there is something to be said for simply having someone to love as well, - even if its not the perfect image that floats around in your head. My grandparents had an arranged marriage. She was 13 and he was 26. By the time i knew them well they had been married 45 years and were very much in love. They had grown so close that they couldnt even imagine not being together. I often wondered how they felt during those years before there was any love between them. And how many such years were thee. Maybe they just lucky or maybe we can we all find enough to love in another good person if we are forced to look close enough. I dont know. Ive always held out for someone special sparks and all. When i find it and the feeling is mutual (no luck so far) will it be any more real that a couple who spent 40 years building a life together in an arranged marriage. Who knows? I hope so but im not 100% sure. When you think about it, many of the people whom we love the most are not in ours lives by choice, -- our biological family. Perhaps its the blood concept perhaps not, - but we usually have little choice and we more often than not end up loving them a great deal. History is an important part of any relationship. To the degree than an arranged marriage works I would guess its becuase it tends to be less negotiable as time goes on and as a result it has the chance to develop a history worth remembering (otherwise i immagine it would be like being trapped in a personal hell). I think about how some of my best memories center on incidents that at the time were anything but enjoyable. Memories of overcomming obsticals and the getting through difficult times sucessfully seem to somehow become fond ones over time. Maybe it would be that was in an arranged marriage as well. And if the goal is to find that one perfect relationship that was set in the stars then it would seem that such a marriage has also been arranged as well, - perhaps by the universe or fate. Dont get me wrong, im still holding out for my own price charming, - one i find and fall in love with and who feels the same about me. But... doesnt mean its the only way to be happy.

hey lugh ive had too much wine already. cheap red wine out of a box. you know what that means. i start typing and i cant stop myself. so... Well rating systems generally try to give us some kind of predictive score, - something one would call a measure of central trendency if one had the misfortune of spending too much time in stats courses. What we usually use is an average (1 to 5 stars) or the sum of pluses and minuses. An average is a measure of central tencency as long as the underlying population from which the scores are obtained is normally distributed which stars can sort of be. The sample population of 1s and -1s cant be normally distributed so if 100 people rate something and half love it and half hate is you get a zero and it looks like no one likes it. the rating in such a case actually describes no ones opinion at all. In a way the people who tend not to give negs have modified the +/- system to a +/0 system which at least always presents some descriptive information acurately reflecting the votes, i.e., The number of positives are tabulated and to the degree they exist the information is useful. another way would be to have two running tallies: a plus tally and a minus tally. so a story could be rated... 50 people love it and 50 people hate it. which would be interpreted differently than a single score of zero. HOWEVER because the present system takes points away from a score it does have a built in conscience so to speak that encourages all but evil or careless people to carefully consider whether a negative click is called for. So i MAY actually favor the existing system even though it may not always provide an accurate measure of central tendency. Ill need to drink some more wine and think on it some more...

TV and movies are different matters. There are many many movies with realistic gay characters. TV is a bit more difficult, even cable. The earliest gay character that i can remember who was realistic, although never shown being sexual was cliff waters on the series brothers on showtime. They used the flaming donald as his foil which made his more realistic portrayal less challenging to the wider audience. And talking about normal how about the way too normal series called normal staring john goodman as the big gay guy with an ex wife and a son living in normal illinois. Even though captain jack in torchwood was supposed to be bisexual to cover all the bases his scenes with the boys seemed to pack more of a punch. In the episode Captain Jack they had one of the best gay kiss scenes one could of hoped for on this type of show. some other great gay movies for realistic gayism i have in my collection include (many are non english with available eng subs): A Frozen Flower A Love to Hide A Single Man An Unusual Affair Avril All Over the Guy All You Need is Love Bear City Bent Boring Love Breaking the Code Burn the Bridges Davids Birthday Do Comeco Ao Fim East Side Story Eighteen Fashion Victims Gemini (1979 showtime rare) Hate Crime Ignorant Faries Imagine Me and You Just a Question of Love Le Fil Mr Right My Brother Nikhil Mulligans Patrik Age 1.5 Permanent Residence Reinas Road Movie Saturno Contra Summerstorm The Man I Love The Singing Forest Walk on Water Watercolors Wedding Banquet All of the above are worth watching, even though some of the acting isnt the best (at times like singing forest god awful but the story was unique)

Hi all. I have had the pleasure of talking with some of you online in the chat room as well as on the boards a bit. I am new here and I have just started reading some of the imaginings that live here. Today I was about to leave some comments, and well, I decided not to because I was afraid of how they might be taken, - not because I thought the work was bad, quite the reverse, - I felt the story was quite good, but that it had the potential to be even more exceptional. The particular story and the details are not important here. My question is, how do you all approach giving criticism? For me, if i love a story or have a few minor issues its easy enough. I would just speak up. If a story isnt quite my thing topicwize i feel im a bad judge and I just leave any comments pro or con or constructive to those for whom the story is more kindred. If i feel a story is in need of a serious overhaul I tend to frankly point out the things I felt were well done and then suggest than another draft be considered with maybe a bit of direction. But when i read a really good story which for me takes a turn or otherwise misses being a great story, i am a little taken aback about how to broach the topic. Im just one reader after all and it feels odd giving the author serious advice no mater how heartfelt it is. So how do others deal with this sort of thing. ?honest and straight forward? ?maybe a hey loved the story but have some ideas, let me know if your interested? ?or a sideways, have you every thought of.....? (2) Another question, do authors want to hear about editing issues in stuff they have online or should i just ignore minor details like the annoying words which slip through spellcheck etc. Anyway just interested how others approach giving constructive criticism. Brazos Jeff

I also enjpyed your story. If only fate were that kind! My only comment is that for me the section where they professed their love, kiss and all happened to quick. i dont know maybe a little more flirtatious lead up over the days, or a more tenuous leap into it all. i got the intention that the floods finally broke and pasion ensued, etc. but i guess it felt a little too jump to me. That being said, it ws sure refreshing to read a good story that wasnt focused on teen love. Thanks! Jeff

When you think you are done learning or loving then you are old and its time to wind down

Really liked the story. Unfortunately having been in just about that situation I can actually tell you what I would do and mean it. I got out, leaving a part of me behind which left a wound that never quite heals. Torn souls are a bitch. But dead ones are worse and that was the alternative. I do have on literary comment. For some reason one early line just made me stumble and Im wondering if maybe there isnt a better way to say what you want to say. Could just be me. The line is... What leads a person to this point is a very personal choice maybe something like... At some point the decision a person has to make is a very personal choice Anyway. very well done.

I like your writing style, and you have well established the protagonist as a man focused on the tense doom of gloom. I found myself wondering how he got to be so frightened and unsteady with life. Perhaps he has had good reason. Perhaps there has been a grey cloud over his head for far too long that has slowly eroded his self-confidence... Im sure as you develop his younger lover, who is not so young, and their relationship together - that we will get a chance to see the mirror of his soul so to speak. What is he looking at through that window? Another time? Another place? Dreams unmet? Great job at sparking interest. I enjoyed it. Hope you keep with it. Also as a very ninor point i wouldnt mention normally but it was in the very first line, - i found myself stumbling over the word "here" which might be a typo. Cheers Jeff

A battery issue usually manifests when the computer forgets its startup info, - like which drive is the boot drive, time, date etc. Doesnt sound like your problem On a laptop a shorted battery can cause what your talking about, - in which case one can take out the battery and just plug the thing in to see if the problem goes away. First please back everything up. Cause the demons in your computer are not happy. It sounds like the cpu is having problems with the information that its reading. Usually its not the cpu. Usually its a corrupt sector on the hard drive (often caused by a bad power supply), or a bad memory address in your RAM. A bad RAM chip may be your only problem. Computers as so cheap these days that i would not spend any real money on repairs. I would just go get a new one. Unless you are really into gaming or graphic arts the cheapest one you can find will do the trick. There is alot of wasted money being spent on fancy computers that people dont make proper use of. Good Luck Jeff

I usually get paid to go on a date... so my dates generally expect at least a kiss

Do it. I just got mine a week ago and love it. I amso thought i might not use it all that much but i was wrong. The colibre program mentioned above works just fine to reformat. Basically you save any word document into filtered html (option on the word pull down menu), and then drop it into colibre reformating to its mobi format. Then you hook the kindle usb up to the computer and it appear like another hard drive with a document folder. You drop the reformatted document into the folder and you are done. I also like it because traditionally i go through alot of paper proofing. For some reason i need to see a real page to proof effectively, - wierd I know. Anyway with the kindle I can get away from that. I keep it on my desk next to the computer and I read it while i make corrections on the computer. We all have our quirks I guess. So my kindle is going to save me money on toner and also save a few trees. Best of Luck. ps. the smaller one is really qute and compact, but if you want to see the whole page go for the larger more expensive one. Ive used both and prefer the bigger one. Jeff

The werewolf book i purchase was not of great quality but that wasnt really my intended point. Sorry, I didnt explain my self very well. There is a difference between quaility and perspective. When i say that i would prefer a NG story written by a gay person im talking about perspective and the world view that the author might have, not the quality of the story. I dont relish reading a bad story be it written by a gay, nongay or four footed author. We all have our own voice and our voices have been shaped by our experiences as well as who we are at our core. Every voice is unique and beautiful in its own uniqueness. My point was only that gay people, in my opinion, are defined by much more that our sexual behavior. As such, the art that we create might just be painted with a different brush whether or not the topic is gay. It is because of this possibility that i have a special interest in both gay and nongay works of gay people. which is not to say that i dont love to read a great story regardless of its origin. I do. But the discussion here focussed on the inclusion of NG stories written by gay people and whether or not this was an approriate forum for them. I just wanted to make the point that in my view, nongay fiction written by gay authors is as GAY as gay fiction written by nongay authors, - one being the flip side of the other so to speak. Jeff

The most incidious form of homphobia is the sort noone has mentioned. Most rational people will at least admit publically that overt cruelty, discrimination or violence is not one of mankinds noble actions. however, we cannot forget the power of the love that dare not speak its name. Until all too recently we didnt even have gay people in films or televison. If you are very young, imagine growing up as a gay person and never seeing two men or two women kiss romantically. Imagine knowing that the entire world had conspired to leave you isolated from even the very notion that gay people exist. Fortunately things have changed, but not all that much really. Even today in most towns two men will think twice and often better of it before kissing in a public place. No matter what the laws are there are social pressures for us not to push the envelop of equality. If a thing isn't seen then it is by defination peculiar. Its difficult to levy 100% blame on ignorant small town teens full of testosterone for making fun of the gay guy because as a society we have created an atmosphere where it's permitted at least by the sin of omission. I can remember years ago (many many many years) when i went to a gay bar for the first time. It was a place called roscoes in chicago. I felt like i had finally found the world that i had only dreamed existed. It wasnt more than 30 minutes before two young men, in love or lust, moved close to kiss each other. I had never seen a more beautiful thing and the moment it happened i looked away in shame. I, the guy who thought himself immune to internalized homophobia looked away for just a second and i understood how a reinforced invisibility was even more insideous than the more easily addressed gay bashing. anyway. just a thought