Sunday 9 January 2011

Taking leave of my senses

I did something monumentally stupid last night, which I was extremely lucky to get away with. I was on my own in the living room with my laptop on, perusing various corners of cyberspace which wouldn't meet with universal approval, so to speak - nothing pornographic, but eye candy, without a doubt. I heard my wife coming downstairs, but rather than closing the page I was looking at, I merely 'alt-tabbed' to another window I had open. Then my daughter appeared as well, and she started talking about something she was interested in, so I opened another tab on my 'safe' window to get some information for her. Sadly, when we'd finished with the stuff my daughter was interested in, I closed the whole window rather than just the tab, as I was intending, leaving a large picture of a scantily clad pubescent boy visible on the screen. And my laptop has a large screen. If my wife had happened to be sitting at the right hand end of our sofa, rather than the left as she was, she would undoubtedly have seen what I'd been looking at, and the meltdown I've been skating around the edge of for months would probably have come to fruition. I almost literally had my head in my hands afterwards, thinking of what the consequences could have been, and for what? It wasn't even as though the photo was especially wonderful, just nice to look at, for me, at least. All for the sake of clicking on a cross on a computer screen. My daughter caught a momentary glimpse of the picture before I did what I should've done twenty minutes or so earlier, but she wasn't surprised, knowing what she knows. Hopefully my outbreak of pathological carelessness will teach me a salutary lesson - I've certainly been a lot more circumspect today, even though I haven't been anywhere near any photo sites. I know I've said in the past that there's a part of me that would like all this pretence to come to an end, but to almost out myself in such an inane way wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

4 comments:

  1. Wow, that was a close call. I guess I'm lucky (?) in that I'm the only one here. But I still close the browser when I'm not in front of the computer or when friends visit, even though the computer is on the second floor and not visible from the living room.

    You hint that your daughter knows? Wow to that, too. I'm glad the consequences weren't worse!

    Peace <3
    Jay

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Jay
    Yes, I accidentally came out to my daughter about eight or nine months ago, and she's been fantastic about it. I know most people would say she's much too young to have such a thing put on her, and I certainly don't make a point of talking about the subject to her by the hour, but it's really nice to have someone non-judgmental who I can speak to occasionally IRL, as well as the great support I've had from my cyberspace friends.

    Love & best wishes
    Sammy B

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sammy!! You REALLY need to stop taking so much cold medicine!! Geezz... leave the surfing to times when you know you have your privacy, for cryin' out loud!

    Well, unless you're subconsciously trying to out yourself to your wife...hmm... Well, I hope that if you decide on that, you do it in a controlled setting and are ready for it....

    luv, tman<3

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello Tony
    Like I said, I think there is a corner of my psyche which would like to escape from my 'double life', but not in stupid circumstances like the other evening. I've learnt my lesson - I hope!

    Love & best wishes
    Sammy B

    ReplyDelete