For a Klondike Bar?

I've been wanting to put this all to you for awhile: If you were outed, what sacrifices would you make to continue to be with the girl[s] you loved? Would you give up GC? Would you claim to be "cured"? Would you stop your political activism? I can't count how many times the words 'love' and 'little girl' in some combination or other have appeared at GC, but these are only words. What do they really mean to you? What would you do to continue to be with the ones you love most? Would you consider "selling out" to be more dire and destructive to your well-being and sense of identity than giving up contact with very reason you're here? Which is more important to you?

These questions are not to be taken lightly. Give them a good deal of thought before answering, expound on your reasons, and please be honest.

Hmmmm.

I don't believe that love exists absent of the people involved. There is no abstract "love" there are only the people one loves and the expressions of such love.

Further, "outing" might take different forms under different circumstances. So any attempt to make a grand pronouncement about abstracts would be mere posturing on my part.

However, I've always assumed that being "outed" would be a permanent state. And therefore, it would make absolute honesty about who I am a permanent state.

Therefore there would be no "giving up." If everyone knows that I'm "Dante" at GC, then why on Earth would I need to give it up? At this point those that I love the most are adults. Those in closest proximity already know. So I guess the only ones I'd be doing any explaining to are the ex-Wife and adult step-daughters. I have resolved that anyone I'm involved with in the future be someone who I could "out" myself to anyway. So I can't see any difference in the future of my currently nonexistent love life.

I would assume then that the biggest consequence wouldn't be to my "love life" but my career life. Of course that might be the best thing to ever happen to me. I've been in a major work rut. And investing in options which depend more on my skills and knowledge and less on the approval of my public persona would almost surely be better for me than staying with a "sure thing."

On the other hand. If the "outing" isn't obvious, then why acknowledge it at all? I've always believed that one should neither confirm nor deny. And since most of those doing the "outing" are slipshod vigilAntis whose reputation for inaccuracy is legendary, why inform them about whether there was a "hit" at all?

I guess that my best answer is that I'm a GLer, even in the absence of any girls in my life. Contact with LGs is not the reason I'm here. Its an orientation, and its one which shapes my outlook on a lot of other things too.

Each major past relationship has been very different from each other. Unlike my work-rut, the expression of love is unique to the person who inspires it. I'm between loves right now. So I have no idea what the next set of circumstances will be. But I will be there in that moment when it occurs.

Dante