Taking stock

I started this blog 4 months ago, and, given that I haven't got any particularly newsworthy things to say about what's happening now, I thought I'd have a more general meander through where I am in my life, and why.
As well as the third of a year anniversary for the blog, it's around about a year (although I couldn't quote the exact date) since I found the website that started me on the road to where I am now, typing this post. The website did pretty much 'what it says on the tin' - it's a collection of stories about boys having sex, either with adults or each other. I've only read those in the section described as 'Consensual', because I don't like stories where the boys get hurt - I know it's all fiction, but I don't even like the idea of fictional characters suffering, and in any case, I don't find pain, either giving or receiving, the slightest bit erotic.
The upshot of reading the stories was that I came to understand and accept, after many years of repression and confliction, what my sexual orientation really was, namely that I'm bisexual, but with the same sex element restricted to boys around puberty - the chronological age would obviously vary according to the individual, but would be very unlikely to be younger than about 11, or older than about 16. That's not to say I don't find some younger boys attractive to look at - some are absolutely beautiful - but I don't see them as sexual at that younger stage. I'm well aware that in making an honest admission of my sexual predilections, I'm laying myself open to being accused of being that most hated figure of kneejerk tabloid demagoguery, the 'paedophile', even though the use of that word in that context is proof only of the illiteracy of the user, in my opinion - the Greek root 'philos' means 'dear' or 'beloved', in the same sense that a bibliophile is a 'lover' of books, the proper word for someone who is sexually attracted to boys being 'paederast', the root in that case being 'erastes', 'sexual love'. However, the etymology is, largely, an irrelevance, because whatever anyone might choose to call me, it doesn't change the realities of the situation - for all my years of seeing boys I've found attractive, which go back to the time when I was a boy myself, I've never had sex with a boy, and I have no expectation of that situation changing. I'm overweight, and wouldn't be physically attractive even if I wasn't, my only other significant advantage being my intelligence, which isn't, in my experience, a factor that leads anyone, male or female, young or old, to rush towards the bedroom.
I have had a very close emotional relationship with a boy, though, with my cousin and still closest friend. Even though there was never any possibility of a sexual element ever developing - it was obvious from when he was very young, 10 or 11, that he was going to be 100% straight - the connection that I had with him was the most important in the first part of my adult life. I was, without any doubt, deeply in love with him for a long time, something like 5 or 6 years, and even when he was coming to the end of his school career, when, in all honesty, any sexual attraction I'd had for him had gone - puberty wasn't kind to him, he went from being a very good looking boy to a not very good looking young man, as he would admit himself - there was still was a serious chance that he was going to leave home and come and live with me, before he did finally grow away from me around the age of 17, when he started his first full time job. We then went through a fairly rocky phase for the next three or four years, even getting to the stage of not speaking to each other for some months, but we came through that, and are still, as I said, best friends, even though we now live several hundred miles apart and don't get to meet up too often.
One side effect of the interlude in the close friendship with my cousin was that I met my wife during that time. I'd had a few more or less unsuccessful relationships with women through my late teens and twenties, unsuccessful in most cases because of me - either I couldn't commit because I didn't have the self-confidence to believe that anyone could 'love me back', or because my heart wasn't sufficiently into the potential relationship because I knew I was in love with someone else, namely my cousin, but when I met my wife, even the first weekend we were going out together, I felt that there was something different about her, something that made it worth making whatever extra effort was necessary to make her 'the one'. In fact, I almost blew my chances with her by being too eager, she actually told me that she was going to finish our relationship because I was putting too much pressure on her - I was so upset I couldn't speak for nearly an hour - but I regrouped, toned down my enthusiasm to more manageable levels, and, some months later, had got to the stage with her where I felt the time was right to ask her to marry me, and, to my great good fortune, she said yes. We've been married now for more than 17 years, and while I would be lying f I said that we'd never had a cross word, the great majority of it has been pretty happy. For much of the time we've been together, I've managed to suppress my attraction to boys, to the extent that I'm sure that my wife has no idea about that side of my personality. It's just as well, because she subscribes to the general public loathing of 'paedophiles', perhaps with slightly more justification than some, because, as a psychiatric nurse, she has had some professional dealings with convicted child sex offenders, and to say that those dealings have left her with negative views on the subject is a considerable understatement. There's little doubt that if she happened on this, and some other of my blog posts, the divorce lawyers would soon be finding some business coming their way. I really find it hard to have to live with the level of deception that I'm obliged to use - I really do love my wife, and I've had no inclination to be unfaithful to her, but knowing I've got to hide my true self from her on a daily and ongoing basis is a major source of frustration in my life.
Another frustration at present is my being trapped in a job which I fervently dislike. I've written about this at length in other posts recently, so I'm not going to retrace too many of my steps over that ground, but one thing I have promised myself is that I'm not going to be doing this same job by the end of this year. Hopefully, with current applications, or failing that, a chance which may well arise in coming weeks to return to my last place of work, I'll manage to deal with the problem by moving internally within my company, but if, for whatever reason, none of that comes to fruition, I'll take early retirement, which I'm now old enough to do under the terms of my occupational pension scheme, and find some other way of making a living. I'd like to have a go, even if it's only for a year or two, at trying to make some money from writing, even though I know it's an extremely precarious occupation. I do feel I've got some degree of ability in writing, and feel that some of the stuff I've written for my other blog has been of quite a good standard, but there's a big difference, I know, between writing for fun in a blog and attempting to produce enough, of a high enough quality, to provide an income.
There's only one significant compensation, in my eyes, for my imprisonment in my current job, and that is in the shape of someone who lives close to where I work, and I see on a reasonably regular basis (except when I'm on nights). That person, as I've mentioned a few times before in this blog, is a boy of around 13, who is, as far as I'm concerned, and with one exception nearly 30 years ago, the most attractive person I've ever seen in my life. What I'm going to say next will probably sound ludicrous, given that I've never even spoken to him, and know very little about him, but I think I'm probably in love with him - I've used the word 'infatuation' before, but that word seems to me to have implications of insincerity and transience which don't reflect the way I perceive my feelings for him. I've been watching him passing my workplace for almost 4 years now, and watched him grow from a pretty little boy into someone now on the cusp of puberty who is just quite stunningly attractive. I almost said 'beautiful',  but I don't want to give the impression that he's in any way 'girlish' looking - the acceptable male equivalent 'handsome' just doesn't do him justice, he's so far above the run of the mill, to my eyes, at least, but I can't think of a word you can use to describe a boy which would do him that justice. I'll stick at 'stunning', that's the best I can do. For all my hyperbolic language, I haven't lost my grip on reality - I know there's no chance of my ever getting anywhere near him, but if I had a genie's lamp and one wish from it, he would be that wish.
I started by saying that there wasn't any news today, but something has happened during the time I've been writing this post, although, sadly, I can't say too much about it, because if I did, it would be an absolute dead giveaway to my real identity. 'My' sports team won a vital match today against their biggest rivals, but, much I would love to shout about it from the cyberspace equivalent of the rooftops, the fact that it's not a UK team and not a UK sport, and I am, to my knowledge, the only fanatical supporter of that team anywhere in this part of the world - in fact, the only supporter of any stamp of that team around here - would just be too much information to give out, so I'll have to just have to say how delighted I am, and leave it at that.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B