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Why? Why do you do it? Well this isn't going to be a short answer. I have all sorts of reasons for keeping the site going. The reasons are ever changing - and my current reasons have nothing to do with why I started the site in the first place. OK, so why did you start the site in the first place? It was my autumn/winter project of 1998. I was bored, and thought it would be fun to improve the joke-of-a-page I had made whilst I was in Japan. I just wanted to make a site, to see if I was capable of it, and also thought it would be a good place for me to write down my coming-out story. I'd wanted to write it down for ages, but had never got around to it. The site that I was building gave me an incentive to write it down. The process was very helpful on a personal level. It made me understand better where I had come from. Besides, during long periods of my teens, I didn't write about any "gay feelings" I had had in my diary, for fear that my diary would be found one day, and that I would be thrown into prison - or worst still - that I would die of shame. After all, I had been seeing a guy for over a year before it dawned on me that I wouldn't be getting married and having children. So that is to say, for a whole year I was seeing a guy, and still thinking I would get married and have kids. And I didn't want any written evidence of what I was doing. (Have I drifted?) So getting a version written down, whilst I could still remember most of the details was quite high on my list of priorities. Right, got that. So why do you have a diary online? At first it was simply to get some content that would be updated regularly. I wanted people to come back, and having an online diary seemed to be a funky new thing to do (don't laugh. I know they're common now, back in Oct 1998, they were less so) - and naturally it would be updated weekly. It all seemed to make sense. I didn't think about how long I would be keeping it online, but I don't think I intended it to be a long term commitment. I always intended to replace it with another section that would be updated regularly - I just never thought of something that I wanted to do more than keeping the diary! I could see that it was at least as popular as the coming-out story, and yet at the same time, I felt I was getting something out of it too: 1) It forces me to keep a diary. I get e-mails if the update goes online late, so I can forget the idea of skipping a week. When I wrote a traditional pen-and-paper diary I would often have long breaks from it. Unfortunately the breaks were often during the most interesting periods. I'd always postpone writing it for a week, but then I'd have to play catch-up, and the idea of having to recap old stuff always put me off re-starting it. So a short break always became a long one. But I do feel that keeping a diary is very beneficial. I've said I used to avoid writing about my sexual feelings - but the process of consciously NOT writing about them, told me an awful lot. When I'm worried about something, or upset, it can be such a help just slowing down and writing my feelings. If I write a pros and cons list (in paragraph form, or course!), then it's difficult to be as irrational as I can be when, say, I'm angry with someone and just thinking about it. 2) I get feedback. My readers have an amazing instinct to offer advice when I'm down, sad or angry. It might not all be helpful, or appropriate, but getting sympathy is very helpful, and advice can be too. Also when things are going well, people tell me that I'm lucky and that they're happy for me. That's a good feeling too. Every now and again, someone writes to me, and points out things that I had never thought of. A few people in this last year have written to me and said; "Look, you're saying X and Y, but think I know how you think, and to me it seems that things are in fact A and B". And they were right. I find that so amazing, I've described my bias view of a situation, and someone else, who wasn't there, who doesn't know the people involved has told me that I'm wrong and understood what's going on much better than I have. It can be a real eye opener. 3) This is as appropriate for the historyP section as it is for the diary: People tell me it helps them. It's amazing how many people wrote to me whilst I was depressed and in therapy. Not to tell me to stop complaining, or even to offer advice (although lots of people did offer advice and encouragement), but to tell me that they had felt the same way X time ago, and that they had been too ashamed to tell anyone. Or that they felt they were the only person who had ever felt that way. They said that about both the depression, and the causes of the depression. It's amazing to me that by telling the world my problems it seems to help other people. That makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. The funny thing is, most people agree with me in that coming-out can be difficult, but that afterwards, your life is easier to live - and your friends are more likely to be real friends. But so many of those people who agree with that, who might even have already come-out, don't apply that logic to other aspects of their lives. They'll be secretive about the casual sex they have, or about this and that. As far as I can see, it's the same logic. OK, so I went to a gay sauna in December 1999, and loved it. Should I be ashamed of it? Hell no. OK there's a touch of hypocrisy here, because at the time, I didn't put it in my diary. But now I've got to the stage where I am able to write about it easily, and my life is so much easier to live as a result. In a big way, having the diary has allowed me to "graduate" to the stage of being so open. It's certainly not been easy. When disasterJo found out about my website a year ago, I just couldn't handle him reading my diary. There are lots of reasons for that. For a start, I'd only had it for a few months and wasn't as confident about it as I am now. Secondly the relationship was going very badly, and he had actually got his best friend to find the site for him. DisasterJo didn't want his best friend reading about all his faults. disasterJo is the opposite of open, and he wanted me to take down the site. The relationship was already very messy, and my openness just made things more difficult. If I'd never met him, I would know less that I do now, but I regret that I had to go through being treated so badly to learn those lessons. Please return to the subject. So, at the end of that incident I moved the site to a new secret location. But after several months, I was able to face being open enough to discuss it with people I know. I'm certainly not trying to preach. But I am trying to show people that living a totally open and honest life can be much easier than living a lie. Be that in talking about their sexuality, or details of their sexuality. Honesty really can be the best policy. I wouldn't want to have friends who liked a fake-me. For me, the friendship would be meaningless. It was hard to come out, and it was hard to tell someone that I'd gone to a gay sauna, but once you've come-out to a few people you realise it's not such a big deal. If you tell them like it's such a big deal, then they will act correspondingly. If you tell them as if it's totally natural, then they're less likely to react badly. So if I'm not preaching, what am I doing? I'm trying to show people that it is possible to live the way I do. I don't have a conventional life, but I don't hide it. Any lifestyle choice someone makes is fine, as long as they know all the options. I'm trying to show people the option I've chosen. As a writer, I'm sharing an option (the honesty one) with others, through the only way I know how to share things: through writing. In this case, I'm writing a diary (by the way - it's not the only thing I write or publish.) Cool. I get it so far, but isn't your writing affected by people you know reading your diary? Yes and no. It is strange, but since I strive to live an ever more honesty life, it has become ever easier. Having said that, I prefer people who know me to find out about my life through talking to me. Every now and again someone else I know starts reading the diary, and that kinda affects me, but then I get used to the idea, and forget all about it - and the writing returns to normal. When I write I can't handle other people being in the same room as me, and have to be in the right mood, but I can induce the honest open mood - it's got easier the more I practice honesty in the rest of my life. OK OK, so am I achieving anything? I think the following unedited e-mail extracts (from one e-mail) sum up best what I could hope for: " I thought I would tell you that I have at last had the courage to begin the coming out process. This is long over due and is something that I now feel able to deal with. Although not entirely due to you, your web diary was actually the catalyst which made me assess my situation and begin to deal with it. Your positive outlook on life and the honesty with which you deal with your sexuality made me realise that it was actually possible. I am very grateful for this." -snip- " You obviously are aware of the sense of relief felt when you begin to stop telling half truths and actually tell it how it is, but believe me when you have done it for 34 years its even more of a rush." David above just said it most recently. But that theme has been said many times in different ways. I feel honoured to feel that I am helping others with my exercise in honesty. I think it's the combination of feeling that keeping a diary helps me, as well as helping others, that makes me continue it. I do still think that probably the most worthwhile section of the site is the historyP section - but nobody asks me why I have that up online. Having a regular readership because of the diary though, has allowed the forum section to flourish as a place for people who have yet to come out (historyP readers?) to have their questions answered. I simply don't have time to answer everyone, but regulars have been fantastic in helping those who are less confident in the forum. I didn't plan it that way, but I'm very pleased to see it happening here. It's only things like that that give a touch of credibility to the term "gay community". I'm glad to have taken the time/space to explain why I'm doing what I am doing. It's not just self-promotion and exhibitionism - although I can't deny that they have at least a little influence too. I think it's worthwhile both as an exercise in honesty, and because it helps others. And besides, I'm a writer - do I need a reason to write? |
