A recap (so that you don't need to bother with my other posts): I'm in my 50s, am totally questioning my sexuality/sexual orientation, and want to resume CDing with a view to taking things a lot further than before.
On Tuesday I went to the Samaritans - for those outside UK they are an organisation that let you speak to someone via phone, email or face-to-face about ANY problems you have in your life that you feel you need to talk about to someone, and a first name is all they want from you. I talked for about an hour about all the various thoughts that have been going through my mind recently. I had hoped that just talking to another person about these things might feel like having a load taken from my shoulders but unfortunately it didn't. It did however prove that I am not so closeted that I daren't speak about CDing to anyone, keeping it my dirty secret.
I figured that a step that I might take is to go to a gay bar for the first time in my life, and googling yesterday revealed a pub 2 miles away. I've walked past it many times and so went out for a walk today just to confirm that it was the one I thought (just checking the name, not going in). I went by a different route than normal and I found a Gay, Lesbian, TG ... centre that I didn't know existed. After a brief hesitation I went inside to ask if an appointment was required to talk to someone; of course it wasn't and I soon found myself chatting quite openly about my CDing and other related matters. And I was told what was happening locally and that I should see about going along just to get an idea of things . The reason that I'm mentioning all this is that I have gained sufficient confidence to get a toehold into the type of social life that I've been wanting to join but was too afraid, and now that the closet door has swung open ever so slightly it is down to me to grab hold of the opportunity.
If I can do this then it means having got past the biggest obstacle of all. Usually when I get the seed of an idea in my mind then I just have to go through with it; I hope this is no different.
Originally Posted by Natty_W
