Old posters...just fade away

[+ purplekow]

I was checking recent posts and there was a thread pertaining to Doitb4Ugo being ill. The thread was more than a year old and it is unclear as to why the latest poster reenergized this particular dead battery. His post did little to clarify why he brought it up but, he did make a point of mentioning that OneFinger had made his last post at that time and it was a post to wish someone else good health.

In any case, in an attempt to decipher the reason it was resurrected, I read through that old thread and many familar, but not recently seen names, had posted there.

Many of these posters had been very active and each of the posters had shared details of his life prior to joining the site and then continued sharing with details of their ongoing triumphs and a few ignominious defeats. Most of these posters just faded away and I must say I feel as though I read an Agatha Christie novel and then the last pages were missing. Nice story, no resolution.

 

Leighbestoad, married, divorced, friend of every escort he ever met, partnered, Perle Mesta wannabe and then retired.

 

Doitb4ugo shy, reserved, timid about hiring, finds a wild side, pays a price for the wild side, temporarily paralyzed, recovers and then fades away.

 

TomKat Initially reluctant to hire, finds an escort to teach him the ways of the gay world, comes out to his wife, divorces and starts to live like its 1999. Diets, exercises, kind of becomes an escort, finds a guy to date regularly and then vaporizes into the ether.

 

At least 3 Escort of the Year winners fall into the category of frequent posters whose time here ends not with a cry of ecstatic completion but rather with a whimper of a middle aged man losing his erection mid act for the first time. Stories of trips and moves and pets (peeves and actual) family, life and death and then sudden silence, much like the last episode of the Sopranos but without Journey on the sound track.

 

In considering this, I feel cheated of the joy of closure. Yes, life moves on and people burst in and fade out all the time. There is not always a happy ending, and sometimes there is not even an definitive ending. For those of us who have been checking in here for a long time, certain names from the past will bring a smile, a chuckle, or perhaps the agita that had previously only been associated with anchiove pizza or with huevos rancheros with an extra dousing of Tabasco sauce . These sudden fades to dark, however, leave me melancholy. Its as though your friend is leaving for summer camp and you arrived after the bus has pulled away and you did not get to furiously wave and yell "Good Luck" while he waved back, his body nearly falling out the window as the bus shrinks into the distance.

 

Anyone else out there feel deprived of the wave goodbye?

[adriano46]

I started participating here back in the days of HooBoy (using another moniker that I forgot), then faded away because of work and location, and then came back when Daddy kept it going. Many names simply went away (and sadly some others who I enjoyed exchange PM's with were chased away by a lot of the over-the-top vitriol that comes from "anonymous chat sites").

 

For some, I have heard from them privately long after they stopped posting here (either for health reasons, family reasons, personal reasons, or simply they got tired of it all). I am happy to know they are doing relatively well, but we have no intention of getting involved in each other's life more than by occasional notes. And in all honesty, I am very shy about jumping out of my comfort zone and going to social gatherings of denizens of this site. Not my thing - never was, and never will be.

 

People come in here, participate, contribute, and a rare few elevate the conversations quite a bit while some others come in here like bulls in a tea shop and shatter and destroy everything around them and either finally get timed-out or just get bored and move on. It's all part of the anonymity we enjoy here.

 

I would not say I feel I am "deprived of the wave goodbye" as these are not social friends, people who are deeply involved in my life, or in any way related to me in the important moments and events of my life. I do enjoy sharing my experiences in escorts here, and my views of "growing old gracefully" in our community, but I have a life outside of here and that is what is - in the final analysis - most important to me.

 

For the few from here who I do know socially, we do keep in contact and it is enjoyable for a coffee, a drink out or a dinner or social time (many of these being former escorts who I first met through this site; they have retired and moved on with their lives, no longer escort, but we meet when in the same area purely for social reasons). If there is a group I miss when they simply disappear, it would be those escorts who elevated my life by their presence, their sensitivity, their personality and their generosity with themselves with me. But I also respect the boundary between their work as an escort and their actual life. No use trying to dig them up from the past, nor speculate on "what are they doing now?"

[+ Charlie]

I don't know that what happens here is very different from what happens in the real world. I have met many people in my life, with whom I interact--sometimes fairly intensely--who then just disappear. I have moved on to a different place, or they have. Sometimes something reminds me of them, and I wonder what became of them, but often I never find out, or find out unexpectedly. I worked with a woman for many years, even shared an office with her, and was quite fond of her; just this week I learned by chance that she died--four years ago. It wasn't until I went back to my college class reunion this June that I found out that my roommate, with whom I shared a dorm room for two years, and in whose wedding party I was a member, died in 2003. My first partner, with whom I lived for four tumultuous years, disappeared from my life forty years ago; for the past couple of decades I have tried unsuccessfully to find him, so we could catch up on what has happened in our lives. It was a shock to discover in a recent Internet search that all the years I assumed he was out there waiting to reconnect, he has been in a cemetery. Since in most cases we don't know much identifying information about other posters beyond their handles, it is inevitable that they will disappear from here, and we will never know the rest of their stories.

[dcguy20]

I was kind of shocked to see that LBT retired without a formal farewell. His last post didn't hint at anything.

[Frankly Rich]

purplekow, you missed the point or chose to ignore it.. I said it was ironic that One Finger's last post was a congratulations to someone being able to post again. I find your post insulting. My comment made sense in the context of what One Finger did, thus I 'revived" that thread, which was only about a year old, so it isn't as if it was ancient.

[+ purplekow]

purplekow, you missed the point or chose to ignore it.. I said it was ironic that One Finger's last post was a congratulations to someone being able to post again. I find your post insulting. My comment made sense in the context of what One Finger did, thus I 'revived" that thread, which was only about a year old, so it isn't as if it was ancient.

 

 

 

Frank, your post seems to just reiterate my first sentence. When I read your post, I thought there was some significance in bringing up a year old post. Perhaps you were going to relate something new as to OneFinger or perhaps even to the original theme of the post, but after reading through, there is no evidence of your posting being anything more than a random posting to a year old thread. Your posting did however lead me to consider those posters on that thread and the manner in which many of them have left this site. So although your posting had not obvious connection anything going on at this time, I was wrong, your random, seemingly mindless post to a long forgotten thread did indeed trigger some further consideration. So well done to you. It truly is one of your more interesting posts.

[Steven_Draker]

I'm sure there are those who are quite happy opening a new chapter in their lives.

 

Some posters just decide to turn the page and never look back.

[Diverdan]

I have kept up via personal emails with many of the "former posters" here... in most cases they got tired of the nonsense and tiresome vitriolic banter... those that I know are very happy, and while they miss some aspects of the Forum, they don't miss it enough to come back and deal with some of the problems that have occurred. As Steven said, most have opened up a new chapter in their lives and have moved on..I miss their contributions here, but I don't know of any of them that will be back.

[Chuck50]

I still read the board regularly but seldom post any more

[bostonman]

I think the 'drifting' effect is just part of the web. As someone involved in music and theatre, I have been part of the community of a number of discussion sites in those fields - some I have stayed with, some I have drifted away from, and some I come back to periodically. Sometimes I just find myself tired of the M.O. of certain posters or the general, repeated topics on a given board, sometimes I feel I just spend too much time with all of these sites and need to give myself a break, sometimes I find I just haven't logged into a site for a while without even having thought about it much.

 

I've seen some people post "goodbyes" but not that often - sometimes they do it out of anger or dissatisfaction with others on the site, and want to make that known - or sometimes they have other reasons for moving on but they do want to let people know they're going away, at least for a while. But I find that most often people just come and go without too much fanfare - the web is still a very anonymous and ever-changing, fluid place, even though we do form close ties with some of the people on these sites.

 

People may have specific reasons for not posting here anymore (though they may still be "lurking" of course), but I have a feeling that with many people, it's just a desire for a change in their routine, or maybe even a desire to spend less time online (how many of us feel addicted to the web, lol?) - but it's really not meant to be a personal slight to anyone here.

[Frankly Rich]

Thank you, purplekow, for saying so. Another interesting aspect of the doitb4ugo thread is that he himself quit posting three months ago. Steven Draker is correct- some guys just leave and don't look back. That doesn't mean we don't miss them or wonder what happened. Several posters have died. One was signed in when he passed, although he had gone to dinner with his partner. The partner came back to their hotel, saw that his just deceased friend was signed in, and told us what had happened. Funseeker and ncm1269 passed. I don't know if anyone else has. No doubt my turn is ahead, but I hope not to be signed in when it happens!

[marylander1940]

There is also the case of posters who warn about retiring and not coming back, even open a thread about their goodbye and after receiving a lot of best wishes quit for a couple of weeks.

 

Unfortunately their new life outside the forum doesn't last, and they're back posting very soon after a highly publicized "goodbye"....