Fix me?

Back in harness today, to one of my periodic double-shift Sundays - I'm in the 'intermission' at the moment, I've had a couple of hours sleep, a shower and something to eat, and I'll be heading back to work in the next hour or so.
The last day of my break, yesterday, though, was an interesting and largely positive one. I met up with an old friend and colleague, who I hadn't seen for around three years. As I mentioned when he got back in touch with me a couple of months ago, he used to espouse some pretty strident homophobic views, so I didn't think he would really be that impressed with 'the new me'. He assured me he had changed, though, and he had been a good friend for many years through most of the nineties and into the 'noughties', so arranging to meet up with him didn't strike me as being too massive a risk. So off to Norfolk I went yesterday morning, to his adoptive home town - he was actually born in London, but moved to Norfolk as a boy, and did most of his growing up there. The original plan was for us to head out to a place way off the beaten track, with a very intermittent train service, but, in the event, we went somewhere which, while still pretty rural, was rather more accessible. It was a thoroughly nice late summer day, warm and unbrokenly sunny, and much of our day was spent sitting by a Broadlands river, in more than one beer garden, watching the world go by over the rim of beer glasses. And talking. About the changes in both of our lives, and the implications of those changes. He had, as he'd suggested, mellowed considerably, to the point, after a couple of hours, in response to his enquiring about where I was going to head next in my life, that I was able to tell him about the second half of my equation, that I'm a boylover. He was pretty surprised, I think, but did a fair job of assimilating my admission. He didn't, however, approve, as, indeed, most people wouldn't. I tried to explain my perspective, as best I could, about my doubts about the validity of a 'one size fits all' age of consent, and about what I would and wouldn't be prepared to do. He seemed to assume that I am the way I am because of some 'trauma', the implication being that I'd been abused myself. I did my best to convince him that no such thing had ever happened, which it hasn't, but I still think he ended by thinking that I was 'broken' in some way - he actually called me 'a tortured soul' at one point - and that I needed counselling/psychiatric intervention to be 'fixed' - he suggested that if I spoke to a professional in that kind of environment, that I'd remember some incident that I'd forgotten that had 'made me this way'. Except that there really, really was no such incident. Nothing palpable happened in my childhood or youth to lend any explanation to my sexuality. Which is why I don't subscribe to the view that I need to be fixed. This is me, this is who I am. I don't, as I said recently, know why I am the person I am, but how many people really do have that degree of insight about themselves?
Still, the lack of convergence in our views notwithstanding, it was a good day, and nice to reconnect with someone I'd lost touch with. And I doubt if it will be last trip to Norfolk.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B