GaryK

I'm really surprised. I thought for sure you'd do a sequel to FTL. Will there ever be one?

Those are all ideas that have merit. For his next story I'm hoping CJ does some sort of sequel to For the Love. There's so much potential there. Potential that CJ deliberately wrote into the story.

I love your sense of humor, Nick.

I'm no fun? I'm not the one who shattered my fantasies! What are you going to send me another one of? A shattered fantasy? I've already gotten a shattered fantasy from Tim. He refuses to have my child. Oh, maybe you've got more pix to send me. Look for an e-mail from me shortly.

The sad thing for me is you're joking around and I'm serious. You're handsome, intelligent, the perfect age for me. I'll bet we have lots of other things in common too. I could probably even fix your WiFi problems. Ah well, I guess some things were meant to remain fantasies.

Your best bet is going to be working out an agreement with your neighbor about which channel you and he should use. It's likely he/she is having the same interference problems you are. I had to do that with my next door neighbor and since then things have been great. Of course I still have access to her unsecured BlueTooth cellphone including her e-mail and contacts list, but that's a whole other issue, . Wanna take me up on that? I'll show you the difference between promises and reality!

They'll die eventually, Jamie. Hopefully they'll be replaced with more enlightened people. That process will need to be repeated several times before we're truly accepted and not just tolerated. I see the same thing happening with African-Americans. We had hundreds of years of slavery in this country and thus lots of time for people to feel the way they do about blacks. It's gonna take just as long for attitudes to completely change about blacks. You can't expect society as a whole to change overnight. In the meantime keep up your tasteful PDAs. It'll help show everyone that we're human and have emotions just like they do and maybe change a few opinions in the process.

I doubt you could put up with me for very long, Jan. I'm way more complicated than the WiFi issues you're dealing with and I don't have a reset button. But until you throw me out you'd have the best and the most sex ever!

That's how the guy before the most recent ex-boyfriend became my boyfriend. We went out for awhile but as always I didn't want to be too pushy when it came to sex. When it finally did happen and he wanted to stick around and cuddle and then spend the night with me I was hooked. Most of the time I'm more like what Jack stated. It's just sex, not love. It's a purely physical thing. No emotional investment required.

Pardon me if my typing is illegible. I'm doubled-over laughing at Kevin's comment about lesbian sex so it's a bit hard to type, LOL. My opinion is clearly in the minority amongst the members who have posted. All of whom I respect and some of whom I admire. When something like that happens I really have no choice but to take another look at my reasons for feeling the way I do. I've done that and still come up with the same answer. I would not choose to be gay. And yet at the same time I think you all have done a great job of enlightening me as to why you would choose to be gay. I wish some of the older members had joined in this discussion so I'd have a better basis for comparison, but I strongly suspect the younger generation feels much more comfortable with being gay or lesbian. If so then I hope the struggles the older generations have gone through have played some part in making it possible for you younger folks to feel that way. We still have a long way to go to be accepted instead of just tolerated, but with attitudes like you all have I'm sure that will happen sooner rather than later. That makes me feel good. Thanks.

Please always remember that and keep pushing to make things even more perfect. Thank you for your concern. Things are much better in my life. The death and funeral happened way back in 1992.

Jamie. Sometimes I don't know whether to hug you or smack you. Either way I love your attitude most of the time. I think you put the disclaimer on the wrong part of your advice because it's that last paragraph that makes the most sense to me. The rest, depending on how one interprets it, seems like a recipe for disaster.

Celia, I have had to deal with all that. The worst part was not being able to take an active role in the funeral for my partner of 17 years. If I had been straight and that partner were my wife I'd have all sorts of legal rights to protect what we'd built together. Instead I had nothing. I couldn't even get some of my own things from his townhouse because the family wouldn't let me have access. At least Dick's brother wasn't an ass, but he was overruled by his father and mother.

Wow, that's actually a tougher question to answer than I thought it would be at first. My first answer was yes, I would prefer to be white. But then I thought about it and realized that while prejudices against blacks still exist the situation isn't as bad as it used to be. Also, there are laws to help blacks fight back against discrimination. Gays don't have the same level of legal protection against discrimination yet. So at this point in time, I'd say I wouldn't choose to be white instead of black. However, until things change even more for us, I would still choose to be straight instead of gay. Again, I'm perfectly happy with who I am. That will never change. But my path through life would have been much easier if I had been straight. Hopefully that will change some day. In some places it is changing and that's great. Maybe in those places I would choose to be gay. That's the most I can concede at this point in time.

I appreciate your reasoned response to what I had to say. If you can't explain the situation with your girlfriend then I sure can't either. Except perhaps to state that sometimes, despite our orientation, the right person of the wrong gender comes along and you just fall in love. Nothing wrong with that. If it works for both of you then who am I to pass judgment? I wouldn't do that. I'd be happy for you. If I were you though I would be constantly asking myself if I'm being true to who I am. If you're satisfied with the answer then keep on keeping on. I admire Kevin, too. He and I are usually in agreement about things. That's why his comment caught me so off guard. It's one thing to accept who, as you put it, the good lord made [you]. It's quite another to state that if given the choice you'd choose to be gay. I fully accept who I am. It's not even an issue for me anymore. That doesn't change the fact that if I were given a chance to choose my sexual identity I'd choose to be gay. To me it just doesn't make sense to choose an orientation that's bound to make life more difficult than it already is. Really, I can't state it anymore plainly than this. Why make things harder for yourself on purpose?

Nick, your comments about potentially facing a violent reaction when coming out to someone make me wonder why you'd choose to be gay. Straight people don't have to deal with that. Pardon me if I'm getting too personal but isn't the situation you're in now a bit hypocritical for you to claim you're proud of who you are? I feel bad for what you're dealing with. Honestly I do. We don't know each other that well, but from what I've seen you posting in the forums you seem like a decent and smart young man. But it seems like you're trying to run away from being gay, not embracing it or choosing to accept it. Please forgive me if I've overstepped the bounds of what should be discussed in a forum.

I agree these are issues that should not be happening, but they are happening. Until gay partners have the same rights as straight partners these things will continue to be a problem. Maybe the younger generation doesn't find it as difficult to be gay as it was when I was your age. Is that how you see the situation? Have things changed so much that you honestly would choose to be gay?

The computers are my only extravagance and a lot of them are for work. Apart from that I'm fairly low maintenance. My condo is 1,100 SF and is paid for. My car is a Corolla LE and it's paid for. I mostly wear jeans and t-shirts. I'd be a great boyfriend in case anyone here is from Miami, LOL. I've got the hots for Jan, but I guess that'll never happen. Sigh.

This is just my opinion, but I think Win2K was the best OS MSFT has ever produced. XP is sort of like Win2K with all sorts of consumer-friendly crap added on to it. They're both stable OSes. XP has more drivers available for it. But for basic stuff I still prefer Win2K. Let's see, I've got eight computers/servers that are running here at home/office. The names that are in caps are the names for each machine. 1: DESKTOP runs XP Pro mostly cause the Remote Desktop client is so great 2. MULTIMEDIA runs Win2K. 3. BACKUPS runs Win2k3 Web Edition 4. DEVELOPMENT runs Win2k3 5. STORAGE runs Win2K 6. BETA_1 runs XP Pro 7. BETA_2 runs Server 2K8 8. LAPPIE runs XP Pro What is it with Vista and the NVIDIA chipsets? Sheesh. ADDED: I forgot one computer that's not on the LAN. It's a 455MHz Celeron-based machine and it runs XP Pro just fine.

Kevin, sometimes the naivety of youth surprises me. If I had to guess I'd say you've never been attacked by a gang of bullies just because you're gay. Never been denied a job because the boss thought you were gay. Never come out to a co-worker who ratted you out to the boss who in turn fired you. Never been called names by strangers in a theater because you and your partner were holding hands. Never trusted your partner to manage your money only to lose all that money when your partner died because you had no legal claim to it. Never been refused the right to sit up front with the family of your deceased partner at the funeral home because they never liked you to begin with and you just had to accept it or risk making a scene. Why anyone would chose a more difficult road in life completely escapes me. Granted things are changing for the better in some respects but being gay can still be a terrible challenge, especially if you don't live in a bubble that contains only friends, employers, etc. who are cool with you being gay. Nick, at least you'd have a really slick hairdo.

I asked Bear and that's what he told me. Urban Dictionary has lots more meanings that just that.

I've always understood it to mean an Asian person who looks Mexican. Good point, Graeme. LOL

Tim, that's exactly why I prefer to conquer the world one person at a time by showing them I'm just like they are except for the gender of the person I chose to love. If we all did that instead of having freak show parades I suspect we'd be much farther along in terms of acceptance than we are now.

Silly boy. Geese can't wield a machine gun and still stand up. Goats on the other hand can.