Category Archives: A Gay Old World

I Have An Unbearable Feeling Of Sadness

You may recall I said, on September 11, that my thoughts were with Bart, who was going through the process of coming out as a gay man to his parents. He has been discussing this process in his blog for months and finally posted a letter to them telling them he was gay. Their initial reaction seemed positive and supportive, but now it seems to have turned negative, and he is receiving emails from his father quoting a range of anti-gay websites.

Now, I feel an unbearable sadness. Here is a young man trying to do the right thing, and here is a set of parents whose world seems to have fallen apart. While a blog offers only a small window into someone’s personality and the life they lead, I do get the impression that his parents are good people. So why do his recent entries make me feel so sad? I am certain they love their son and want the best for him. I am positive that they are trying to do (what they see as) the right thing. I am also fairly sure they will accept their son and, in years to come, regret how they handled the news (doing it all by email is, perhaps, not an ideal way to do this). Still, a part of me wants to believe people are good and supportive, and that discrimination is something we will eventually only see in historical movies. I fear I am either naive or (as I would rather be) eternally hopeful.

There are coming-out experiences posted across the web. All are useful to a certain extent, and all are useless in that none of them deal with our own families and the dynamics of our relatives and their own belief systems. Many of them, good or bad, serve to show the world what a painful process this is for many gay men. Will it ever change? Tom posted an entry (see September 16th) which summarises some of this and, one day, I may post about the awful way I procrastinated the subject for too many years.

On this day…

2004: Crazy Name, Worthy Cause
2002: Individual Portions
2002: Nike 10K

Old Compton Street At Night

So, I have just told you how having an American in London with me has made me see London in a new light. Once again, I love it. Last night we went to dinner again (with some other people this time) on Old Compton Street. Sometimes, I have a problem with Old Compton Street, and I am not sure why. As a gay man, I should be able to celebrate the area for the visibility and safety that it brings to London’s gay community. My problem is that I find I am not a scene-loving gay man, and so I am generally made to feel alienated by the people there. I also feel slightly wary of taking straight friends to Old Compton Street in case they feel I am either trying to make some kind of point or that I am, somehow, testing their acceptance of me. All of the above is, of course, personal paranoia and my own insecurities, which a therapist, of some sort, would take lots of money off me to talk about. Instead, I blog it.

Anyway, back to the point. We were on Old Compton Street. It was late-ish (for me, not for Old Compton Street) and the place was alive. It being a Tuesday night I suspect that the worst aspects of the weekend drinking crowd were not to be seen which made it a pleasant, friendly place to be. It was a wonderful feeling to walk out of a restaurant into a heaving mass of happy people. It was cool, but not cold, and (as OCS Queens will) people were sitting at tables outside. Maybe I should be less judgemental about Old Compton Street. The mood was relaxed and fun; people were smiling and chatting and even the music drifting onto the street seemed appropriate and not excessive.

I seem to be painting a picture of a pack of hysterical, laughing people. Of course, it was not like that. It was just that the mood was great, people seemed relaxed and it made me feel positive about life when so much of this city has been making me feel depressed of late. Isn’t life sweet?

On this day…

2003: What Was I Doing One Year Ago?

It’s All Queens on 4th July!

The Foreign Office, strait-laced guardian of a global empire in Victorian times, has embraced the 21st century by offering special advice to gay and lesbian travellers.

Only in America on Independence Day: A group demanding voting rights for Washington, DC is to mark America’s Independence Day by asking Queen Elizabeth to place the US capital under British rule [BBC]

On this day…

2005: God Is Bored Of You
2005: Fleet Street editors Back the Bid
2005: Countdown is Progressing
2005: Powered By Rotting Fruit
2002: Did They Make It Up?
2002: Amazon A-Go-Go
2002: Finally – CSS