Author Topic: Celebrating Six Months: How has your life changed...  (Read 10586 times)

Offline Kelda

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Re: Celebrating Six Months: How has your life changed...
« Reply #20 on: January 16, 2007, 06:09:15 pm »
a bump since we are now at a year on......
http://www.idbrass.com

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Offline vince55

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Re: Celebrating Six Months: How has your life changed...
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2007, 10:04:32 pm »
I am a 58 year old gay man who has seen Brokeback at least 5 times. I come from the era of Brokeback which was the early 60's. The movie profoundly affected me in several ways. During that period of time the gay culture was underground. There were very few clubs or bars you could go to without fearing a police raid. I was actually in a bar raid where paddy wagons arrested about 100 people for being in a homosexual establishment. We also feared leaving clubs without being escorted to our vehicles in fear of being bashed. As far as my professional life, I was in the education system which was definitely not the place to be. I had to remain closeted and fearful of being outed. I had pictures of various girls on my desk as a decoy and the lies were excessive. The isolation was horrible. In addition I was an only son in a first generation Italian family. When my father found a note I had written to another gay man, he began drinking heavily which in a short time killed him.

I had the opportunity of having an eight year relationship with someone. We broke up in 1981 and he died of AIDS in 1989. Since then, I more or less gave up on relationships and stopped dating. I haven't lived with anyone since 1981. I retired to Florida from New York about 2 years ago. Last October when Hurricane Wilma hit Florida I was alone and suffered a heart problem and ended up with a pacemaker. I've kept my life filled with a few friends but never wanted to pursue a relationship until Brokeback Mountain. When I saw Ennis looking out that window all alone it made me realize that you shouldn't give up on love and you need to take risks. I never wanted to risk the chance of being hurt again in a relationship but BBM made me realize that the alternative (Ennis) was not the way.

I work part time at a furniture store and I met another gay man who asked me out. I never would accept a date from anyone. BBM made me change my mind and I decided to take a chance. To make a long story short, we've been together 7 months now and very happy. If it wasn't for BBM, I would have never found my own Brokeback Mountain. Thanks Ennis! And Thanks to ANG LEE [/b] for showing everyone the isolation and the fear we experienced! 

Offline Meryl

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Re: Celebrating Six Months: How has your life changed...
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2007, 11:49:30 pm »
Hi Vince,  it's nice to read your story again.  I remember it from another thread.  Hope you and your partner are enjoying some nice warm weather down south.  It's getting mighty cold up here in New York (finally)!  :)
Ich bin ein Brokie...

Offline Kelda

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Re: Celebrating Six Months: How has your life changed...
« Reply #23 on: November 03, 2010, 05:35:47 am »
Wow.. just found this old thread and thought I'd bump...
http://www.idbrass.com

Please use the following links when shopping online -It will help us raise money without costing you a penny.

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/idb

http://idb.easysearch.org.uk/

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Celebrating Six Months: How has your life changed...
« Reply #24 on: January 08, 2012, 10:04:45 pm »
Great to see you here today, Becky!! Happy Brokie anniversary to one of the originals, and the creator of the Performance Thread!!

I know I am so late on this, but seeing as I have been away for a few weeks(with all my bloody coursework) so I thought I would catch up:
Ways I have changed since I've found Brokeback, Bettermost and you guys:

1) My writing skills have become so much better, well than they were. They are not quite perfect yet but they are better than when I first started posting I'm sure. I remember the first ever IMDB post I made. It was all in text language, I would die if I wrote like that now! In fact you guys have given me a little bit of a pet peeve in that every time I see one of my friend's has spelt something horrifically wrong, I will change it...I'm weird like that.

2) I've become so much more mature, well I say that... When I want to be I can be serious and I have real opinions on real issuse. My taste in films has also changed, before I would just watch like the normal blockbusters my friends would watch, but now there are some quite serious films in my top ten...even if they are in between Disney films, somethings just never change.

3) I can express myself better and I have better all round knowledge. So I am going up in grades, well a bit anyway. So I could get A/Bs on my exams...that is if I don't spend all my time on here talking to you guys instead of studying.

4) I am so much more confident, and it's down to you guys. Before I was quite insecure about myself, as most teenager are especially when they are in upper school(high school). But now I really don't give a F about what anyone else thinks when I do things, if I want to do it, I will. I think ever since talking to all of you and brokeback I realised that everyones different and whatever you do there will always be someone, somewhere judging you. What ever you do you can't stop them thinking that, so you get on with your life. What is the point in saying things just for the sake of it, life's to short to hide behind nicities, why be fake when the real you is so much better.
An example of how much I have come on is that I will be acting in a play this year, Pigmalian(I play Clara Enysford-Hill and don't have a clue who she is or what she does), before this year I never would have looked at acting, cause I didn't believe in myself enough to do it. I couldn't even put my hand up to answer in class properly, but early next year I'm going to act to a whole room of people.

5) Most importantly I have made friends with all of you guys. If someone told me this time last year that I would be talking to a bunch of people from all over the world about a film about gay cowboys: I would have called the nut house on them. But I am serious; you guys have made me the person I am, I really don't believe I would be the same person if I hadn't have taken that Bus to Cambridge, seen this film and found you guys.

A BIG thank you goes out to all of you!

LOVE YOU! :-*

"chewing gum and duct tape"