Why I Blog

"DIG" Magazine, my favorite reading material when I was a teenager. I remember this cover, oh how I wanted to win this guy as my slave!

Three main reasons why I blog:

1) THERAPY 

I found that writing about myself and my view of the world is the best therapy from keeping me from going crazy. 

I've been blogging since 2005. Prior to blogging I kept a journal nee diary (which I still keep). Prior to keeping a journal (which I wish I had started when I was a teenager) I had multiple pen pals. Oh how I loved my pen pals. At one time I had over sixty pen pals mostly from the United states but also a few foreign pen pals (Japan and Germany). 

I've always been interested in other people's life experiences and have had a desire to express my life experience to others who I thought were as interested in my life as I was in theirs.

But overall I found that blogging or writing provided a release for my bottled up emotions. I'm like that pot of boiling water on the stove with a lid on it. Keep that lid on and I boil over. I need to take that lid off occasionally so I don't boil over. 

2) MAKING FRIENDS

Like many teenagers, I was lonely. Growing up introverted because of a mentally and verbally abusive father I had low self esteem. I didn't feel I was worthy of real life friends so I found pen pals a way to have friends without those "friends" having to see me in person. Me with the big nose, too tall for my age and too skinny. Me, who my father constantly reminded me was a big disappointment to him because I was "stupid". Me, who my father called me by his name for me "Beak". I don't think he ever called me by my real first name the whole time I was growing up at home. Never. When I saw an ad in "DIG" magazine for pen pals I quickly answered it and viola! I had friends. Mostly girls (which was all right) and some guys. No gay pen pals though although I suspect one guy in Wisconsin was a pubescent gay but back in the Fifties, the very regressive Fifties how was one to know? All I knew is he liked to talk about designing dresses for women which was my desire at that time too. Believe it or not, when I was growing up I wanted to be a women's fashion designer. I still have an eye for women's clothes (they should look comfortable on a woman). If I had more self confidence I would probably have followed my dream of being a fashion designer. One thing I know for sure, I could design more fashionable (and comfortable) clothes than many of the designs I see today.

And of course another aspect of "making friends" was even at twelve years old I was looking for Prince Charming. I too was an awakening pubescent male with hormones just beginning to stir. Mainly what I wanted was a very handsome man like Guy Madison ("Wild Bill Hicock") to come in and sweep me away to Living Happily Forever Land. Alas, I had to settle for watching Wild Bill on TV in his tight buckskin outfit with fringes and his raspy sidekick Andy Devine.

3) LEAVING A MARK

We all are here only a short time (I'm over extended at eighty years old now, Gravy Time) and I've always had this desire to "leave my mark." That my existence mattered. Of course it won't matter at all to me when I check out (die) but right now and for most of my life I have struggled with "how do I leave my mark?" I have no discernible unique talent unless you consider survival a talent, and maybe that is. But there are a lot of people who have survived under much more difficult circumstance than your humble blogger here. I figured if I wrote about my life that maybe someone, like me, hundred or two hundred years down the road will read my blog and say to him for herself "Ron sounds like a nice guy, I wish I could have met him." In other words, proof that my life mattered.

We are all unique in this world, every one of us. I am always so grateful that I have this forum (blogging) that I can do all these things. 

I have made friends. Some I have even met in person and they are splendid people. Not once have I been disappointed when I have met someone through my blog. Of course the most prominent example is Pat F. of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I am convinced that we were the same ectoplasm in a previous life just because we have so much in common. And the irony is that he isn't a regular blog follower. He happened to see my image on the Internet when I was testifying before the Delaware State Legislature for Marriage Equality and he looked me up and found my blog. That was in 2013 and we've been best buddies since. He comes down here in a week to visit me and help me for my first cataract surgery visit. I haven't seen him in person for two years. It will be good to see my friend Pat again. He is truly a unique person who I would never have found if I wasn't blogging. Meeting him alone is worth all the years of blogging I've done.

I've met Spo in person. A perfectly splendid fellow. Sean ("Sassy Bear"), a joyful guy who makes all smile who are fortunate enough to be in his presence. I even met Fearsome Beard (through Spo, Fearsome doesn't follow my blog), oh my what a nice guy. Others I would like to meet someday. Walt in France but that seems unlikely. Then there are the regular blog followers I have now. Victor, Jim, Jon, Joel and Woody in Ohio. Some come and go over the years. I'm always sad when I don't hear from them anymore. Did they die? Did I say something to cause them to head for the EXIT door? Or did I succeed in boring them too? Anne Marie of Philly used to be a fan but something I did pissed her off and she was gone like a puff of air. Oh well, I moved on.

Now through the years of my blogging I've had to make many adjustments in the way and what I write about. More than a few times I've stepped on some sensitive toes. I've always divulged private information which I should have kept to myself out of respect for the person I was writing about even though they have passed on. Family members are easily offended and don't like having a queer write about their father he seduced him (I was a willing participant). These days I try to avoid writing last names lest I embarrass the surviving family members who in reality deserve to preserve the memory of their father (always men) who was the boy scout leader and respected church elder and not the eighteen year old fellow soldier who was looking for a blow job. Oh the stories I could tell but those stories will go to my grave with me and only a few selected friends will know those "details." 

Then there are also the people I have outed (both male and female) who,  upon second thought I should not have done. I'm not a believer in outing people, that's a decision they should make, a private decision and none of my business. I daresay I have permanently alienated more than one person where I am not welcomed into their homes now because I outed a family member who prefers to live their life in the closet. Yes, even to this day there are closeted gays as unbelievable as that sounds. Must be a combination of self hate and a desire to live a "normal" life. 

I've permanently alienated all the gays here where I live in southern Delaware (Rehoboth Beach). I've written more than once they're a cliquey self serving group who are not welcoming other gays outside their clique. Took me a while to realize that but as Groucho Marx said:

That's why I blog folks!

P.S.

I had saved all buy DIG magazines including the one with the guy on the cover to win as a slave. My Mom threw out all my magazines with my EXTENSIVE comic book collection (including all my Crypt comic books pre censorship) when I joined the Army at eighteen years old. She thought they were a "bad influence." Too late Mom, I was already influenced. I WANTED that guy as my slave!