Bokomaru

A former co-worker shared one of her favorite things to do when traveling:  go to the bar of the fanciest hotel in town, walk in like you own the place, order a drink, and soak up the atmosphere.  So my nomination (so far, still have 2 weeks here) for most underrated spot in Buenos Aires is the bar of the Four Seasons, fantastic ambience and people-watching, plus the fringe benefit of a smokin’ hot bartender.
Most overrated:  La Boca.  I found the tour interesting, the story behind the multicolored houses and all the different immigrant communities.  But the neighborhood is super-touristy.  I’ve enjoyed myself in plenty of super-touristy places (the entire city of Venice, for example), just something about the vibe of La Boca rubbed me the wrong way.
A bit overrated:  The Flower, only because it’s taking them a long time to repair it.  A couple of petals fell off, which makes it photo-worthy from only one angle.  Dunno why but I simply love the sculpture, and for that reason really want to see it restored to its full splendor.

My real estate taxes on my house are $7500 a month and I'm on a prime West Village block.
$20K is absurd. I'm guessing your quoting the fee for one of those Arab Oil Sheik piggy-banks on 57th st.

I once had a (very hot) Dom provider command me to say “I love you” in the middle of fucking me. It caught me by surprise. I think he was trying to get me to loosen up because he knew of my deep affection for him (I had been going to him for several years).  
 
So I said it. And I said it again. And again. It became a fun part of the fantasy. I’m a bit honored that he asked me (told me) to say it, if I’m honest. 

I once had a (very hot) Dom provider command me to say “I love you” in the middle of fucking me. It caught me by surprise. I think he was trying to get me to loosen up because he knew of my deep affection for him (I had been going to him for several years).  
 
So I said it. And I said it again. And again. It became a fun part of the fantasy. I’m a bit honored that he asked me (told me) to say it, if I’m honest. 

it's NOTHING like it was before - i only joined after the politics board was gotten rid of, but a close friend of mine was bullied non-stop back then - enjoy this forum for what it offers, and just develop the capability to quickly monitor what you read and edit out the silly stuff!
While the negative posts seem to come from members who post too often and are insecure ego-driven types, there are really good people here

Thank you - I feel seen.   LOL 😆

I once had a (very hot) Dom provider command me to say “I love you” in the middle of fucking me. It caught me by surprise. I think he was trying to get me to loosen up because he knew of my deep affection for him (I had been going to him for several years).  
 
So I said it. And I said it again. And again. It became a fun part of the fantasy. I’m a bit honored that he asked me (told me) to say it, if I’m honest. 

In the 90’s I had chronic suffering from epididymitis - the result of my kids running into my arms and kicking me in the balls as their feet dangled while swinging in my arms.  Occasionally, the pain was quite severe.  So I went to doc in the box where I had the cutest young red headed dr seeing me.  I described the problem and she got a little ruffled saying “we need to examine it, but I must have someone in the room with me”
so, she steps out and gets a nurse.
then, halfway hyperventilating she describes what we are going to do
- sit down and drape this sheet over your lap
- unbuckle your pants and belt and push them down under the sheet
- then stand up holding the sheet to shield yourself.  
 
I comply…the dr reaches under the sheet and starts feeling around blindly
I’m standing there trying to not make eye contact with the nurse in the corner who’s trying not to make eye contact with me.
as the Dr feels around she suddenly exclaims “oh!  That’s a big one!”
“Young Frankenstein” comes to mind and my spontaneous response - with proper inflection and tone - was “well thank you Doctor!”
at this point, the nurse in the corner is muffling a laugh as am I.   Finally, I said “oh!  You mean my epididymus?”
oops, I guess I shouldn’t have been so easily flattered, eh?

I was having my annual exam with my gay GP, and in he walzed with a stunning blond 20-something year old med student from Germany, who was on an exchange residency. He asked if I minded the visitor, chortling under his breath. Now it happens I have had a pea-sized benign lump on one testicle for years. My doc proceeded to examine, inspect, and manipulate both testicles in great detail. Then he turned my nuts over to this Teutonic beauty, who went through the same procedure several times (practice makes perfect). At which point my doc looked at me, and gave me a big knowing wink. It was all I could do not to break up laughing. 

Look up the song “Mystical Magical.” There’s a 99% chance you’ve heard it, even if you don’t actively listen to music. It was absolutely ubiquitous in pop culture for a while. 

Your experience is probably more  typical than not, which is why I steer clear of porn stars, hot OF/JFF types, and perfect looking younger boys in general. 

Although… had I been given the chance, I would have hired Jason Branch in a heartbeat. 

“Pedantic condescendence” is such an accurate description. Thank you for that wording.

I think it does help to have a thick skin. It feels like some people are delighted (looking for it) to be offended. My view is if someone is behaving badly it’s their problem not mine, I’ll ignore them, or if I’m feeling mischievous I’ll wind them up a little bit more, just for general amusement. 
If you’ve engaged in ‘discussions’ on Twitter this place is a kindergarten by comparison. People are generally civil, it’s well moderated and uplifting / informative. 
 

Moderator's Note: Not sure whether everyone is familiar with Snopes.com,  a fact-checking site that proves/debunks items circulating on the internet and other media. They have conducted a pretty thorough analysis of the  claim that Canada has opened its LGBTQ+ suicide line to US citizens, including contacting officials from Canada's national health system. Rather than rehash the entire analysis, I'll cut to the chase - there is no evidence that this claim is true. Here's a link to their analysis. I encourage everyone to read it.
This topic has been laid to rest and is now locked.
 
 

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

Greetings folks...
As you might have noticed, this site has been offline since around mid-day Tuesday.   Our prior hosting provider decided that they are unable to continue hosting our website and had ended service to us.  Unfortunately they did not provide any notification to me about this decision and I was forced to move the site to a new server without any sort of heads up.  This includes arranging for the new hosting company, configuring the new server to meet the technical requirements, getting a copy of our current data, restoring that data (over 300GB of files), recovering the database (over 18.5 million records in that database taking up 11GB of space for the DB alone), and reconfiguring the software itself to run in the new environment.  
While migrating there was also some technical issues that I ran into that required me to coordinate with Invision's technical support team.  So that back and forth added additional time to the mix as well.  
And to pile on further… all of this occurred while I'm traveling for my day job. So I've been doing this while in a hotel in between doing my day job on the road.  
There are most likely several other things that will need to be fixed still and I'm working through them.  For example, email may only be partially working.  I still need to setup things like SPF and DKIM for the new server so our emails don't flag as spam.  There are other settings that might need to be redone to work in the new server as well that I'm not thinking about yet.  (As you might have imagined, I've not had much sleep during this whole process.)
But anyway... you get the idea.  No... we're not going anywhere!  This was a minor setback but we'll continue to move forward.  Thank you all for your understanding and support!
Rob

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

Canadians are generous.

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

That strikes me as a specious argument. We wanted the same rights as others, so that means there should be no hotline to deal with gay issues, suicide or otherwise?
If a deeply closeted gay teen is contemplating suicide because of shame regarding his sexuality, doesn’t it make sense that he would be more willing or likely to get help from someone he views as having a similar experience?  Hence the gay suicide hotline.
 
When you’re scared to death that someone will find out, the only person you want to tell is someone else who is gay. That’s my view at least, from someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, and was constantly told that I was going to Hell.
 

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Errata. When I was a very young man, I made inquiry of my great uncle, a financier of some note, as to whether or not I should take accounting courses in my studies. His reply was succinct, "No, that is why we have bookkeepers". I applied his dictum to any number of rudimentary skills inclusive of typing.  

I had a similar experience with a local masseur in the beginning of this year, right after Christmas. He was texting every five days or so, asking if I wanted to book an appointment for the coming week. I kept refusing him as I was very busy with work / life. I kept telling him "Sorry, but this week is crazy for me - I have no free time to schedule an appointment." Plus, I was trying to catch up on holiday debt, so I was cutting back on 'extras' for financial reasons. 
I repeatedly let him know that 'as soon as my schedule frees up' I would contact him. That didn't stop him. He kept reminding me of the 'importance' of a massage for my well-being (I always booked a $200 erotic with him, and always had a good time, so he had a point there...sort of). 
FINALLY, after nearly 2+ months  of this, I responded "I agree - a weekly massage is beneficial for my overall well-being. However, I'm broke this week. If you're truly interested in my well-being, and you're willing to give me a free massage this week to keep me healthy, I'll take it ! Let me know what day and time, and I'll make it work." 
And that was the end of that. (I haven't heard from him since, and I've decided to take an extended break from him).