written on April 10th, 1999

I remember when I was young, thinking that my father didn't really love me because he never really showed it.  I remember having an attack in the middle of the night several nights in a row and as soon as I was able to breath, calling out "Mommy! Daddy!" over and over again until they came.  My mother was sympathetic, but my father was just annoyed.  Of course, today they don't remember that, but it really reinforced the way I perceived what a father was.

Recently, he's been trying to say things like "I love you" and be a good father and all.  He tries to talk to me and be a part of my life, where he wasn't really before.  He never talked about emotions at all in the past.  I think he's trying to become a real father.  His father never said "I love you" to any of his children and that was sort of passed onto the next generation.  Fathers were expected to be gruff and stern.  They were expected to "be a man".

Today's society still raises these kinds of fathers, people who are so afraid to be weak, unmanly, or even gay, that they cut off their emotions and become rough, cold, and violent.  So, a romantic man is incredibly hard to find, even though that's what every wife wants in her husband.

Society didn't randomly make up the roles of men and women.  It comes down to the fact that men simply are physically more rough than women.  In society, a man is supposed to be strong and unemotional.  Emotions are left up to the women, because it comes easier for them and is more accepted by society.  In the Bible, it tells men to love their wives, but it doesn't tell wives to love their husbands.  Why?  Because God knows it's easy for women to show emotions, but not for men.  Men are told even to die for their wife.  Why, then, are men so afraid to show true feelings?  Because feelings are considered feminine ("your feminine side") and, despite whatever he may want to do, he doesn't want to go against society.  Of course, it's obvious that this shows true weakness that no macho act can cover up.

I can feel that I am disappointing my father by having too many colors in my room, acting too "feminine" by having emotions, and basically being a nice person.  It's not that that's not who he wants me to be.  It's just that he feels obligated to raise a son the same way he was raised.  Change is very difficult, but it happens all the time.

Most of the people who visit my site are here because they are attracted to boys for one reason or another.  Society doesn't accept that and they may not accept it.  But, it's not a terrible thing to admit that you have some kind of attraction to boys.  It's terrible to ignore it or to say that's just the way you are.  Society separates people into groups and labels them, but people are not cattle.  If you are here, then it's not because you believe you are "gay" or "bi".  It's because you doubt that you are.  Society said be macho or be gay.  Inside, though, you doubt that the label fits you.  You begin to analyze your feelings and you see that no one is "straight", "bi", or "gay".  Everyone is an individual with similarities and differences.  People are attracted to things like beauty, strength, youth, and emotions for various reasons.  I'm attracted to boys my age and younger because I want to be them.  Does that make me "gay" or any other label?  Does that at all change who I am as a person?

Is a grown man who is still attracted to boys (which seems to be common in many people who email me) any less of a man?  All of us will eventually become a "man" on the outside (even if we are very much against the idea), but that doesn't mean we have to play society's game and be rough, violent, and uncaring.  Just like a father who learns to be a child again from his son, we can all learn to recapture our innocence and youth.  We can all learn from our Heavenly Father how to become the person God intended us to be on the inside.  We don't have to be the stereotypical male.  We can be the ideal male, who is not afraid of society or of himself, but can actually show emotion, show feelings, and show love.  We are not animals, with wild passions, desires, and violent urges.  We are all, young and old, children of God.