What's old is now new!

[Deleted]

Good evening everyone,

So here goes.  Many years ago I was a member.  Well, a lurker as you call it.  Completely uncomfortable with everything that this site is based upon.  During that time, I read and digested everything could on the site trying to come to terms with, you guessed it, me.  Never had the courage to respond to anyone about anything.  Eventually I deleted the account.  Spring of 2018 I resurrected myself and joined in the conversations.  It was a great experience and I will write more on that later.  Eventually life took over and I let the membership go again.  Last week, I decided, WTF!  And here I am again.  I sincerely look forward to interacting with as many people as possible and both contributing and (most of all) learning.  

Let the questions begin.....because we all know you have them.  

Robert

[SouthernCalGal]

Welcome @robert! I hope you stick around this time and get to know us. PD has been a great place for me to discover the intricacies of being a dev.

I hope you enjoy it as well.

[Deleted]

Thanks so much for the nice welcome. What I am enjoying so far is all the reading. SO much to digest. Some of it makes me go "hhmmmm" and other times I literally laugh laugh out loud. Definitely looking forward to getting to know folks.

[feelsunshine]

Welcome Robert. I also hope you stick around this time.
What was it the very first time when you were here on the board that held you back in ever writing or replying?

[blueskye101]

Welcome back!

[Deleted]

Jul 13, 2019 0:11:36 GMT -5 feelsunshine said:

Welcome Robert. I also hope you stick around this time.
What was it the very first time when you were here on the board that held you back in ever writing or replying?

FEAR! 

As I have read many others say, I was afraid of confronting this part of me that most in the outside world (outside of PD) would consider a mental disorder.  I am from the South here in the US and it's a well understood fact that if you don't discuss something, it doesn't exist.  Take being gay for example.  For the last 100 years, and in many Southern places that would include yesterday, if a man was gay no one would discuss it.  He had his "friend" and while everyone knew, as long as it wasn't uttered out loud, he was just like everyone else.  When he came out was when the shit hit the fan.  Susie can be in Hospice but as long as it isn't uttered out loud she's gonna live forever........it's the old head in the sand trick.  (This also answers the question as to why I moved to DC where nobody gives a rats rear who your mama's family were or who you sleep with).  If I "came out" so to speak on this site and people found out that I was attracted to a guy with a disability, I would be perceived as having something wrong with me.  When you have internally struggled with that for as long as you can remember, as many of us will attest to, you don't want any more undesired scrutiny.  I did a fine job of convincing myself that there was something wrong or unbalanced about me and I didn't need anyone on PD to crawl my ass and confirm it.  

Jump ahead.....I was confident in every aspect of my life except this one.  I'm a gay man but also extremely proud and not offended at all that I worked next to a woman for five years and she never thought I was gay. I don't try to "pass" as straight but I'm not effeminate and being a "queen" just isn't in my nature. An older married female told me at dinner last week that I needed to "be more gay".  "People think you're straight honey, you need to work on that".  Hysterical and I knew she meant well.  It's simply what I do in private if that makes sense.  However, at some point in my life I had to look in the mirror and say Hello Robert, you're a gay man.  I never could look in that mirror and admit I found a PWD attractive.  Well, no more.  I am a gay man who is attracted (initially) to a guy with a disability.  We all know there are douchebags that walk and ones that roll.  I have a list if anyone is interested and I just added another one recently.  LOL While I was lurking, yes I will admit it, I was able to digest the thoughts of many extremely eloquent and mindful men (sadly most of them are straight) and enlightened women.  You guys have been the reflection in the mirror that I could not provide for myself and I thank you immensely.  You make me think.  About myself, about relationships and what I want from one, and most of all, you give me hope.  My PWD might not ever appear but if he's out there, I know I have a better chance of finding him here.

Until he comes along, (soon please, I want to get on with this relationship building thing) I will continue to devour more of what people have poured onto these pages.  While some of it gives me pause and being human I have my own agrees with and disagrees with ideas, I have found that most everything is written with honest and sincerity.  What more could anyone ask.  

[devman1950]

Welcome back Robert and your story sounds so much like mine and I'm not even from the South. If you'd like to compare notes sometime just shoot me a message...Thanks
John

[newmn]

Thank you Robert. What you say was me 10 years ago

[robbb]

Welcome Robert.

Great post and I can identify with a lot of what you say.

One exception is that when I found PD there was no fear, there was a feeling that finally I could talk openly to people who understand. Hopefully you have now found that too.

R.

[pam]

Welcome Robert. I can also identify with a lot of what you say. I always thought I had something really wrong with me to be attracted to PWDs. I was so totally amazed when I found PD that i was not the only one in the world. Enjoy🙂

[feelsunshine]

@robert
thanks for your very detailed explanation.
It makes sense and yes you’re totally true - we all carry something that’s inside us and usually very hard to talk to outsiders about.
This board helped me a lot to be more self-confident (however I still don’t necessarily talk to people in real life about being a dev. But being here and talking to people helps to make you strong on the inside which will eventually help also being strong to the outside world)

Yeah, stay here, take part in the discussions and I’m sure you’ll like it a lot.

[Deleted]

Decided to upload an actual picture of myself to my profile. Since I am genuinely interested in finding a guy, thought they deserved to see me. As I told a friend this morning, I have nothing to hide so I have no reason to hide.

Again, thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome.

[Deleted]

Hi there, i missed your post initially but look forward to hearing more from you