“My brain goo's coming out all artistical, thanks to you” – Moe Szyslak

Not a bad weekend. I wanted to point out that I participated in an exercise in self awareness that Allesandro is conducting over at disc0mb0bulati0ns. It was to write a letter to your teenage self knowing what you know now. I didn’t know if Id like it or not, as I am a private person (so says the guy who has faithfully written this blog for over 12 months, 170 entries – doesn’t sound too private) and don’t normally like to show my flaws, at least old flaws. Flaws from today I can handle, flaws from 20 years ago usually embarrass me.

But I decided to try and write a letter, and to be honest, it came easily. And it was interesting to think about what I would actually tell myself back then. I tell everyone that I wouldn’t want to be 17 again, and that is truer today after looking back at what I actually was at that age. But that doesn’t change the fact that we all had to go through this age, these mistakes, the turbulence of the age, and hopefully we learned.

My mother used to always say “Youth is wasted on the young.” And I used to believe her. But in looking back now, I think that we learn so much when we are young that we apply for the rest of our lives that it isn’t wasted. In watching my nieces and nephews grow up, I agree that teenagers do spend a lot of time screwing things up, but how are they going to learn if they don’t make mistakes?

I’m sure you’ve all heard of George Santayana’s famous line “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I think that our teenage years are when we learn so much about other people and relationships that we have to learn from it, or we make the same mistakes again and again. And I don’t think we can learn it just by hearing it from people, we have to experience it for ourselves.

I also think it is harder growing up gay, though, as we don’t usually hear it from anyone. Anything we learn is from ourselves. Sadly, in the predatory nature that seems prevalent in the “gay community,” older gay men want to keep younger gay men innocent of the truth long enough to seduce them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the sexually predatory nature of relationships from older to younger is relevant our society regardless of sexual identity, older men have been tring to seduce younger women for ages (Even Julius Cesear was 31 years older than Cleopatra when they tumbled together in 48 & 47 BC.)

I think the difference is that, for the most part, younger women have a lot of warning growing up, from parents, schools, police, even televisions shows on a regular basis. Most 18 year old women working at Hooters know the score, they know that they are using their youth and sexuality to get bigger tips and such, and there are many chivalrous men who will come to defend them when one man gets too pushy or touchy

I don’t think that young gay men are given this information, so they are more vulnerable until learn that on their own, usually at a later age than women. I’m not saying that young woman have an advantage, but society as a whole has protected them more.

And that is where we, as gay men, must learn from our mistakes. I think, in looking back at my teenage years, I did an adequate job of learning. I wish I’d learned some things earlier than I did, but in the long haul, I did learn. I think that blogging about them is a way to get it out there so that some younger gay men might learn from some of my mistakes.

I realize that that sentence sounds arrogant, but it is one small way I can change the world, specifically the gay world. It is the reason I am out to everyone at work, why I talk to people at work about it when they ask me. It may seem like a small thing, but I’ve had at least 3 people tell me that they’ve changed their minds on gay people (most specifically, that it isn’t a choice), and each of these people are parents, so they get the chance to shape their children’s minds.

If I can teach a younger gay man something important, maybe they will be that much wiser, or ready for what is to come. They aren’t getting it from their parents, teachers, police or television shows (that gay character that was on “Desperate Housewives” wasn’t exactly teaching anyone anything good!) So they have to get it from us older gay men. And we need to stop being predatory.

Does that make sense? Oh, and there is a picture of me along with my entry. Once I figure out how to do pictures on my own blog, that picture will be here as well, but I can't figure it out.