After a thankfully uneventful tour of duty and going nearly mad from being a constantly horny, sleep deprived gay guy on a boat with hundreds of fit men, I started keeping a journal, in which I wrote about my experiences, my identity, and how I was feeling. Somebody from Naval Intelligence found my journal, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell reared its head. I was discharged, honorably due to conditions at the time.

 

This was tough. I was bused home, and had to come out to my family. This was rocky for a while, but not too bad; in fact, my Mom set me up with my first steady and official boyfriend, a younger friend of hers who was a wannabe leather daddy. After I enrolled in community college on the GI Bill, we actually had a pretty good relationship for a while, and he definitely taught me more about being with guys (including letting me top once, which was lovely), but ultimately after about half a year, I wore him out. He was a medical worker a few years older than me with a tiring job, and I was an overly energetic college student with possibly too much free time. So that was over.

 

After that I got involved in the local Pride group; went to meetings, conventions, like that. I met another guy at one of the conventions that I hit it off with; he ran a local hotel. We dated for a couple of months, and then our life situations changed. His hotel closed, and I got hurt during a dildo session with him, so that put the kibosh on further activities for a while, during which we drifted apart.

 

Some time after that I got back in touch with one of my other close friends from high school, who got me into the goth scene.