Today is Bi/Pan Invisibility Day.

There are lots of folks in cis/het relationships that enjoy the benefit of being perceived by society as being all straight up and respectable. And it is easy. Especially if the marriage is over a decade old, you own a house (no small feet in the Seattle area 2018) and you got two kids. Even if both enjoy extracurricular activities with all genders.

And as sad as it can be those folks might have lots of friends and family back home/from the Army on their Facebook page. People they are too scared to be honest to in real life. And so they can’t be honest, and must pretend, to live a lie, even on social media. Those folks back home don’t really want to know the real me. Everyone is better off just moving forward.



So those people are pathetic and have no place to come out where they don’t fuck up their family and friends back home.... except for Wordforge. After all these years, who would imagine that this was the niche WF would fulfill?

Light me up. Maybe I’ll post again maybe not, but this feels like a Rubicon. Maybe this is my last post on WF. Prost.

Well, if you can't be yourself elsewhere, you can be here. That's a beginning.

Not sure how to handle other social media. I'd think you've got to:

(1) keep it on the down low;
(2) be out with it; or
(3) establish separate social media identities for different circles of your life.

Have you thought that maybe some of this stems from some internalized hatred? Your friends and family may be accepting.

Don't know abou the former, but the latter could very well be a possibility.

I'm not entirely following the opening post. Is Anc saying he's LGBTQ?

The internet is no place to be yourself these days. I don't feel any confidence in revealing my whole self on any online medium. Certainly not on Facebook and certainly not here. I have become a lot more private because I do not trust people, especially those online. Been burned too many times. Most of my close friends do not interact with me online, and even they don't know me fully. Those I know online are mostly acquaintances, old school friends, old colleagues and people that now live away.

I know of nobody in this world that truly knows who I am, even my parents. I hide from everyone because I do not care to be judged. I think social media has increased the need to hide rather than the other way around. I think we all hide to a certain degree. I envy those with the confidence to be more open and not care about judgements, but that isn't me.

False.

I tried to be myself here when I split from my fiancé years ago. I was hurting and was subjected to a huge amount of mockery and racism, the latter of which continues to this day, nearly 9 years later. Then, a few years ago, I tried again to discuss a very personal issue in my Blue Room thread and I was being trolled before the first page was out.

I'll never trust anyone here again.

I dont fully know what you are going through. It is hard being who you are in front of people you think may hate you. The way I look at it is the people who let me explore and be who I am are important. When I come out and a person is not accepting and is insulting that reflects on them. Some of it is feelings they don't express correctly. The worry that you will be hurt is real, but it cannot be avoided.

The one thing I can say is that when your thing is seen for what it really is and you find the people who accept and love you for it, it makes it all that much more wonderful. It is good you have something that you love so much. If it breaks friendships because of prejudice perhaps those people were not such great friends to begin with. When I came out the best people in my life thought about things differently.

Be that as it may, the cat is out of the bag. Anc has not only disclosed this personal information, he's done it in the Red Room.

Yes. And if WF were the place of decency that is implied then people would be respectful, Red Room or otherwise.

Sadly I don't think that will necessarily be the case.

Don't worry, I never perceived you as straight up or respectable.

But seriously, you are who you are. And that's perfectly fine. But you need to decide whether you should continue living a lie or talk to your family about it. No one can make that choice for you but you.

Perhaps you open up too quickly. I have done that in my life too. It has reflected how some people are. You have to be strong enough to take the hit, and you cannot expect anything else but shit. That is why you have to do it for you and not for them. It is unfortunate that people let you down.

You were confused by me when I first came here. I threw out all sorts of crap to see what people did with it. I have to say your interest in the master troll thing was enthralling. Perhaps you just need to figure out what you are willing to trust people with. be a little more discerning. If you just help everyone who comes along you will find the nasties always take advantage. It is not your fault they are nasty.

The Blue Room would certainly be a better place for this even though, as you point out, it's still subject to douchebaggery. The wide-openness of a Red Room topic means there will almost certainly be subject to unwelcome commentary going forward.

Quite the opposite. In fact, in 15 years here I have only done it twice and got burned twice. I only really now disclose things that are hard to attack, such as life successes and the like.

I don't understand the logic. Shit is fucked up, therefore I might stop posting on Wordforge. Why?

It will. WF is a microcosm of American free speech culture in the sense that people think that because they are allowed to be shitbags in what they say they have to be, even when it may not be time to be. Sometimes it would be nice if people were a bit more intelligent and took things on a case by case basis, performing their own judgment about when something done in the name of trolling might be a step too far. People need to have a sense of where the line not to be crossed is. I'm not saying people should tiptoe around by any means. But when someone mentions an obviously deeply personal issue and someone sees that as an excuse to bullying, I just begin to wonder why.

For instance, if someone makes a sincere, from the heart post about something, as with the opening post, maybe that is the time for people to dial it back? Or if they PM a mod or another member and say "please don't troll on this particular issue" people should respect that? But the attitude seems to be "well, it's the Red Room/Wordforge so nothing is off limits". I think it's a bit of a shame. It is what it is I guess, and after 15 years it's not going to change.

I interpreted it as him saying he was very reluctant to reveal an otherwise unknown aspect of himself and even making this post is revelation enough that he feels worried and uncomfortable. That he fears it will come back to bite him in some way.

Clearly he was emotionally delicate when he composed the message.

@Paladin - see what I mean?

*hug*

For what it's worth, I never thought you were locked in to one straight & narrow cis-hetero identity, and I was always happy for you about that.

While I'm not married, I certainly know the feeling of 'passing' as white-male-cis without ever specifically trying to appear cis, and the reluctance that comes with destroying that illusion once people get used to it. And there is no obligation to either protect or destroy that illusion; but neither should it become a burden to keep stuff secret. You have no obligation to turn your gender or sexuality into anyone else's newscast. Nobody not immediately involved has to know, but everyone can know: and so it is not your duty to keep lists to protect or to inform anyone other than your loved ones and yourself.

I too didn't quite understand why this should be your last post, but I certainly hope it won't be.

The internet does let you reach out to a world of needy assholes. If one of those instances was dayton you should realize you are not familiar with white trash of america. They are a special breed of fucked up. Dayton is quite common in that aspect. There is a saying around here that no good deed goes unpunished. The moment someone starts talking jesus you would do best to shut down completely. people do fucked up things.

Not true, remember we were warned not to insult dayton's dad because it made him cry? So when @Dayton3 cries the present mods coddle his poor little feelings. He can't handle the hard stuff so we make an exception for him.

WF isn't exactly a place I'd choose to reveal deep personal secrets or concerns - we have a number of great posters who will be supportive even to those they usually rag on (>Blue Room info removed by mod<) but we have an equal number of tosspots I wouldn't trust with my weekly shopping list, let alone personal stuff.

That said, props to Anc for feeling this place can support him, and certainly don't make no difference to me who he chooses to be with, regardless of gender.

So... lots of Hobbitses?

I don't remember that. Can you post a link?

I told you I'm not wasting my time with you anymore.

Stop trying to derail threads and stop trying to get a reaction out of me. The trolling is tiresome.

Is that why I haven't seen Nova today?

This is going to make cooking difficult.

Posting a link might be interesting for the rest of the members here as well.

what in the hell is a cis/het relationship? I'm guessing it's nothing like a mentor/protégé relationship*. Maybe I need to get out more or something! Anyway it's easy to be myself on the internet if only because I'm boring as fuck. I try to keep my home & life a "drama free" zone as much as possible, I don't have any dangerous hobbies or interests, I've been employed at the same place for 12 years straight, and I'm a white male conservative. I spend almost all my free time with my family or I'm in the woods or at the gym. My tombstone will probably say "who the fuck was that guy again?"

* when I was typing the word protégé (trying to spell it) my Microsoft edge on Windows 10 automatically spell-checked it putting those little accent marks over the letter e. There is no key on my keyboard with that character if I wanted to put my own accent marks over the e, assuming I knew how to spell protégé on my own. That's pretty cool!

Hard to attack life successes? Dude that's a cakewalk - you can get nailed for "white privilege" AKA having every advantage in life and getting things handed to you. Granted you no doubt worked hard and applied yourself or (in theory) every sane straight white male in the free world would be a doctor, lawyer, scientist, etc.

Life would be so much easier if people would just love one another, and accept each other for who they are, rather than place demands upon others that they, themselves, will never have to live up to.

Cisgender (meaning you identify as the gender you present), and heterosexual (meaning you're attracted to the opposite sex). So what would be considered the "default" relationship type in our society.