Tonight I sent an email to family and friends about (Gay) Mormon Guy. Within a few minutes I already had responses - all of them incredibly supportive and loving. It's not all of my family, or even nearly all of the people who have been close in my life. But it's at least a step. With that done, the next and final step of merging my worlds is posting here and on Facebook.
There are people I know who would prefer some type of personal contact, and others who don't use Facebook at all... but I finally realized that sharing the facets of my life, as opposed to the normal coming out stories, isn't a huge thing for me like it is for some people. So I don't have to treat it like a huge or overly delicate issue.
That decided, I thought I'd just choose a day and be done with it. Next Thursday. Why? Because I have time afterwards for whatever eventuality.
As soon as I share who I am and about my life here, I won't be constrained by the confines of anonymity... and I'll be able to post about anything. That actually sounds sort of cool. But you know me as single-faceted Mormon Guy, not a real person with a real life... so over the next few days I'll post about my real life. If you know me, or are really good at scouring the Internet for commonalities, this will be information that is unique enough that it will identify me. Either way, it'll make it easier to understand who I am when next Thursday comes.
I'll start with an obvious one - my love of writing. I inherited awful wrists, so writing with a pen or pencil hurts like crazy... and I hated writing because it was painful. Then I discovered typing... and life got awesome. Today I'm a bit of an enigma. All of my blogging and emailing happens on my phone. Yeah. Thousands of pages.
I fell in love with writing on my mission, when I realized that I could influence people's lives through the things that I wrote. At the end of my mission, I began blogging to keep up the habit. That blog needs to be updated, but most of my creative energy goes into (Gay) Mormon Guy. Family & friends encouraged me to write books, and I did. I've published a couple of them (LDS bookstores carry one; the others were limited print or self-published).
My writing is usually limited to personal essays - sort of like what you see here on (Gay) Mormon Guy. I've done some other stuff, but I like this the best because it's real and because it has the ability to influence people on a deeper level than fiction or technical writing.
I'm autistic, ex-bipolar, and attracted to other guys (gay/SSA/whatever). More importantly, I'm a son of God and faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). My life is usually amazing. This is my story of hope, happiness, and faith.
Sunday, November 4
9 comments:
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It really bugs be that writers of blogs call people who read them stalkers. If you don't want the world knowing things about you, then don't write them. But, why call us stalkers? Stalkers are the people who invade your real life with attention that you do not want. Stalkers are people who frighten and scare you because they will not stop when you ask them to. Stalkers are people on whom you have to call the police. Stalkers are people for whom you have to get restraining orders and orders of protection because you fear they will literally hurt you and/or people whom you love.
ReplyDeleteSo, don't insult your readers, and me, by calling us stalkers if we read what you write. We are not stalkers. Stalkers are those people I just wrote about. Sheesh. Please watch your words.
Sorry about that, Duck. I've obviously hit a chord there. I wasn't referring to readers as a whole - I would never call the people who just read my blog stalkers.
DeleteMy intent was to talk about people who take the little bits of information and then scour the rest of the web to find parallels with the rest of my life. Who send my writing through a word sort to find commonly used uncommon words, then search them. And yeah - I've known people to do that (no bad feelings - I would have done the exact same thing). It was a remark in jest more than anything, but I'll change the wording.
Thanks again for the heads up on emotional volatility.
do you think you'll feel as free to be freely open on here if you know certain people are likely to be reading it?
ReplyDeleteI'm far more open in my real life than I am here, because I have more to be open about. I don't think it'll be an issue, except for maybe dating. Talking about my dating life while dating a girl who is reading it might be awkward.
Deletehaha, yep, I bet that could be.
DeleteIt's been comforting to hear of the positive response you have been getting from your friends and family. I've been debating over telling my family, and this has helped me to consider doing it.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Mormon Guy! It seems like not a "big deal" to you, now, coming out, but someday it might, ha ha. In any case, good for you.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, I can't believe you do all this writing by _phone_!
Finally, don't discount the potential power of fiction. :)
Yeah. The only downside was when Google changed the Blogger interface to make it almost completely incompatible with my phone. Now I use the Blogger app to post stuff and adding tags or labels on the app is a nightmare. I'm hoping something changes.
DeleteYou do this all by PHONE? I left two comments on your blog yesterday by phone because I was too lazy to get my computer out (and it was really early in the morning) and I ended up messing it all up by posting on a thread and then posting a comment to you on the same thread and I was like "I should explain I was on my phone..." as if that would justify it. But, apparently I have no excuse.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I am posting from my laptop.