Forum Reality vs Personal Reality

[+ glennnn]

Does anyone else feel a strange division or disconnect in their life between the events you experience through the Forum and those in your "real" life? I spend way too much time with all of you, because you have become important to me, even though I've never met any of you. I know some of you have met, but there still must be many others that haven't. It's like I have two lives now. I'm busy and happy in my life, but I am irresistibly drawn to interact with you everyday. I've never had friends with whom I could be so frank.

 

Purplekow's recent illness really upset me, because I realized I had no real contact, and no real right to contact, with him outside of the Forum, and yet I feel closer to him, and to many of you, than i do to the guy who lives next door. If Kow had suddenly just disappeared, how would we find out what happened? It's an odd dichotomy of being hidden behind a pseudonym of privacy and anonymity, and yet coming to know and care about each other, becoming very close through the revelation of very personal feelings and events that we may not share with those we live beside. The tenderness and support I have found from you has often brought me to tears, and yet if we passed on the street we wouldn't know it.

 

Perhaps, it is just me, because I have no other source of fellowship regarding being gay. But, surely, I'm not the only one leading this dual reality.

[+ azdr0710]

you're definitely not alone.....yes, it's a weird internet thing, all these forums and message boards.....certainly healthy to be honest and blunt here, but weird opening up the most to people you don't know at all.....maybe that's why we do it??.....

 

have you thought about attending any of the few forum get-togethers held each year?.....very good stuff!.....or does your home "situation" forbid it?.....(I forgot)

[+ purplekow]

I believe he will be in PAlm Springs and many of us will get to meet the Real Glennnnnnnnnnnnn. Glennn you have met Nick an escort in LA who I met in Palm Springs last year. I did not hire him so he may not remember me, though i will recall our "conversation" in the parking lot at Trio. You probably have other very low degrees of separation from most of us here. If I were to disappear from the forum, it would probably be with a resounding thud which which eventually echo here. Most others here are similarly connected. Most of us are similar to our forum personalities, only more.......human

[+ purplekow]

By the way, Quoth The Raven is a woman....so there is stuff like that which could surprise or not depending on how close you inquire. The racial makeup of the board may be a bit more diverse than some of us imagine, as I have had a well travelled escort mention that he was surprised on several occasions about the racial diversity here. I am, as far as I know, the only Inuit, (By the way, I am not an Inuit)

[+ glennnn]

I found out early on that several of my friends here, just like in my other "home" reality, are female, which pleases, but does not surprise, me. Diversity is the spice of 21st Century life. I will definitely be in Palm Springs to embrace it all.

[klifhangar]

Due to the nature of the forum, I assume people are careful about identifying themselves - where they live, posting pictures etc.

 

Is the client age on here diversified? I have been getting the impression that the median age is probably somewhere north of 60?

[jjkrkwood]

For me, each has its OWN place, and can be separated and distinquished clearly. I think the problem with sites such as these is that people take them way too seriously, and while it does fill some void, the Reality of it all should be taken at face value. Memebers who live close to each other might find some face-to-face kinship at some point, but otherwise these are only people we know from afar, and only know what they reveal to us. However, if this is Your definition of Friendship, then these people ARE your friends.

[mike carey]

For me, hiring is the truth whose name I dare not speak, at least not yet. Acceptance goes only so far.

[Reluctant Daddy]

My own reality is painfully mundane. Like hiring, this forum gives me an opportunity to escape that reality. I confided in a friend that I started to hire, and was made to feel sad and pathetic for having to stoop to it. I guess that's something I need to deal with in my own head. Many of the guys I've interacted with on here have been great with advice and guidance, and I feel a little more comfortable baring my soul without judgment.

[+ Keith30309]

For those inclined to further push the boundaries of a virtual vs. ‘real’ existence and experience alternate states of mental & emotional being, check out www.Secondlife.com.

 

It’s deceptively simple and can be quite immersive once you get past the awkwardness of being a newbie. I’ve friends who have spent 12 hours/day being ‘something else’, engaging with others who have similar interests, some to the point of a dissociative experience and an unhealthy derealization.

On the flip side, many experiment with sexual identities they otherwise never would.

 

Trippy.

[mike carey]

Keith, I have heard of it but not looked. I'm content to experiment with the virtual reality of this room and fit that into the rest of my life. The advantage of this virtual life is that you can cash out a contact here into the real world.

[MikeyGMin]

My own realty is painfully mundane. Like hiring, this forum gives me an opportunity to escape that reality. I confided in a friend that I started to hire, and was made to feel sad and pathetic for having to stoop to it. I guess that's something I need to deal with in my own head. Many of the guys I've interacted with on here have been great with advice and guidance, and I feel a little more comfortable baring my soul without judgment.

 

Wow, I don't know whether I have just been lucky with my friends or just chosen wisely. I have 5 friends that I am close enough to talk about sex in any detail. All of them know that I hire and none of them have made me feel sad or pathetic in any way. They know about my regular and frequently ask how he is doing and when I will be seeing him. A couple of them jokingly call him "my Mercedes" because I chose him over a new car, but it's all very supportive with just a twinge of envy.

 

Does anyone else have supportive friends or does everyone keep it to themselves?

[bigvalboy]

Forum reality and personal reality is different for everyone. For myself, they are one and the same ( well except for that brief deviation in identity )...For the most part, this is who I am. I don't come here to escape, it's a natural part of my day. Some of the members I have met here I now count as my best friends, and some I have yet to meet, I trust and feel a strong connection with, and as such, I have shared intimate details about my life, and I feel comfortable doing that, but the forum is much like life, not all here is as it seems, so everything in moderation, and don't take it too seriously. Sit back and enjoy the forum for what it is. We all get a little something different out of it.

[+ Keith30309]

Keith, I have heard of it but not looked. I'm content to experiment with the virtual reality of this room and fit that into the rest of my life. The advantage of this virtual life is that you can cash out a contact here into the real world.

 

I actually know of 4 people who met their SecondLife soulmates and are living happily ever after.

(Of course, I also know someone who was stalked and had their tires slashed.)

[AdamSmith]

Forum reality and personal reality is different for everyone. For myself, they are one and the same ( well except for that brief deviation in identity )...For the most part, this is who I am. I don't come here to escape, it's a natural part of my day. Some of the members I have met here I now count as my best friends, and some I have yet to meet, I feel a strong connection with, and as such, I have shared intimate details about my life, and I feel comfortable doing that, but the forum is much like life, not everything is as it seems, so everything in moderation. Don't take everything here too seriously. Sit back and enjoy the forum for what it is. We all get a little something different out of it.

What he said.

[+ sync]

My own realty is painfully mundane. Like hiring, this forum gives me an opportunity to escape that reality. I confided in a friend that I started to hire, and was made to feel sad and pathetic for having to stoop to it. I guess that's something I need to deal with in my own head. Many of the guys I've interacted with on here have been great with advice and guidance, and I feel a little more comfortable baring my soul without judgment.

 

My hiring experience has been quite different. When I began hiring, I came to have sympathy for those around me who, for some reason, felt it was better (more dignified) to spend countless and fruitless hours cruising streets and bars then going home alone and frustrated or being disappointed or perhaps physically endangered by a random contact. Hiring has enabled me to experience the precise hormonal attentions I desire when needed/wanted by many individuals who have impressed/inspired me with their characters and intellects (money and time well spent). Bottom line: tell your friend you are returning his sad and pathetic projections, you don't need them.

[+ WilliamM]

I am just happy there's a small enough group of people here, so I can remember most everyone.

 

Otherwise, I have never thought about it.

[Reluctant Daddy]

I just need to clarify that this board and its members are actually an excellent support for my "escape from reality" and not an actual escape.

[LADoug1]

Is the client age on here diversified? I have been getting the impression that the median age is probably somewhere north of 60?

 

I've been wondering the same thing. Knowing the stats would be interesting.

[LADoug1]

For me, hiring is the truth whose name I dare not speak, at least not yet. Acceptance goes only so far.

 

I'm in the same position. I have told some close friends that I've hired but for the most part it is something I am very reticent to share. And certainly not with my family despite the fact that they are extremely liberal and supportive.

[LADoug1]

Off topic I guess but sometimes I wonder about the reality of the escort reviews. In some part they often read like porn and I wonder if some of the facts are exaggerated for many reasons. Look at the difference of the escorts' vitals from one reviewer to the next. Cock size varies, even cut/uncut varies along with other stats. I've learned to take some of the reviews with a grain of salt.

[Reluctant Daddy]

Does anyone else have supportive friends or does everyone keep it to themselves?

 

This board is the only support I have. I'm not as seasoned as many on here. In theory, hiring seems like an easy thing to do. Realistically, there are way too many variables to sort through. I keep encountering a number of fake ads, add on costs for services, etc. I appreciate the help given in making sense of it all.

[+ Charlie]

I started hiring at 35, when I got tired of cruising for casual sex, which was often more trouble than it was worth. I liked the efficiency and non-commitment of hiring escorts, since I was happily partnered and didn't want the "boyfriend experience" that many clients desire. I hired at most ten times per year, never hired for appointments longer than a couple of hours, and rarely hired anyone more than once. In other words, I had no emotional investment in hiring escorts. I also didn't know anyone else who hired escorts, so I never shared information about the experience with anyone else. When personal computers were invented, and then the Internet came along, I was fascinated to discover this site, and got hooked into the ease of discussing the topic freely, but that soon got old; what kept me here was all the other interesting topics I could discuss with interesting people--or not, if I didn't feel like it. I stopped hiring several years ago, but I still feel at home here. This is the only "social media" in which I participate.

 

I feel like I know some of the longtime posters here, even though I have never met them, as well as I know my longtime friends in the "real" world. Yet the posters I have met with outside the site and become friendly with are never quite what I expected, and one person whom I knew outside, long before the site existed, posted here for several years before each of us realized the other's actual identity.

[+ purplekow]

While not quite like trying to imagine what a radio dj looks like just from his voice, this site give you some information and you fill in the blanks. How effficiently you fill in those blanks, results in a picture of relative accuracy. I would say, that Purplekow is a bit bolder that I am in real life but otherwise relatively accurate. Fat check Horny Check Old Check Man Check

[beachboy]

Does anyone else feel a strange division or disconnect in their life between the events you experience through the Forum and those in your "real" life? I spend way too much time with all of you, because you have become important to me, even though I've never met any of you. I know some of you have met, but there still must be many others that haven't. It's like I have two lives now. I'm busy and happy in my life, but I am irresistibly drawn to interact with you everyday. I've never had friends with whom I could be so frank.

 

Purplekow's recent illness really upset me, because I realized I had no real contact, and no real right to contact, with him outside of the Forum, and yet I feel closer to him, and to many of you, than i do to the guy who lives next door. If Kow had suddenly just disappeared, how would we find out what happened? It's an odd dichotomy of being hidden behind a pseudonym of privacy and anonymity, and yet coming to know and care about each other, becoming very close through the revelation of very personal feelings and events that we may not share with those we live beside. The tenderness and support I have found from you has often brought me to tears, and yet if we passed on the street we wouldn't know it.

 

Perhaps, it is just me, because I have no other source of fellowship regarding being gay. But, surely, I'm not the only one leading this dual reality.

For me its a place where I can connect with like minded guys & discuss topics ranging from the intellectual to the downright filthy & flirt outrageously with certain guys- e.g. Brian Kevin!