Re: Question: How many here were genuinely abused?

My response can hardly compare to Dissident's, but I just wanted to say that several things you say are familiar to me. I have on occasion tried to do the whole "being sociable" thing, and it just doesn't work - at least not with regular people. Each time I would try to fit in I found that I could not. Over time I learned to be OK with that, and since then, on a few occasions when I have been surrounded by people with similar interests to my own, I have found that I can do the social thing quite well - so perhaps a portion of the difficulty lay with the people I tried to be social with. Perhaps that has been your problem too.

And, like most children, I had times I was abused in my childhood, though never sexually (excepting being inculcated with the anti-sexual views of the church). Fortunately, I met a boylover who was not at all abusive, as well as a number of other adults who were willing to be my friends. It saddens me that so many young people today do not have the options that I did.

I also want to say that you do have many friends here, even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes.