Modern Vespa

I do but why not say your'e bisexual rather than say I'm gay which is what most men do in these circumstances.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not dissing people why come out I just don't see how you can get aroused around someone whose sex you don't find attractive for so many years.

If I were to lay in bed with another man, no matter how attractive he was it's not going to happen.

Bill x

I don't think self acknowledged bisexuals are saying they recently had an epiphany and are changing their orientation. I think they are saying their preferences/interest go both ways. I realize you are saying yours don't, and you don't understand how that works. I don't understand the how of it either, but I accept that some individuals are wired differently than I.

Looking at the numbers, this thread has potential to be a big one.... starting to compete with the no-talk thread?


About development of legistlation and tolerance:

At 1978, there was a small group in Finland who wanted to stop Donald Duck comics entering to Finland. This was because he was not wearing any trousers and had a questionable relationship with his girlfriend.

As it goes, some foreign press caught this, and turned into "fake news" that we actually had banned poor Donald...

And indeed there was wider discussion of this here too, but it was more about the way various minorities (from our perspective at the time) were pictured: characters looking South American were lazy, Arabs crooks.... and, the Beagle Boys were obvious communists, who tried to attack the key capitalists's piles of gold ... OK, this last view was not that widely shared, but it was mentioned.

Now, back to gays and bodily functions...

These are two entirely different things.

Honestly it's what makes MV the best (or worst depending on your view I suppose) motorbike forum on the inter webs. I hear you can even ask serious technical questions about motorbikes both vintage and new and get intelligent responses. Plus pictures of pretty girls and handsome men with scooters. What more could you want?

Meh. Something fishy about her.

Could be worse.

Sometimes you've gotta look back and ask yourself, "how did we get here from where we started?"

Great.. Now we need an index AND a story board... I suppose a logic tree would also work.

I have long known that it takes all types to make our world.
The thread title suggests marriage is not always best and the alternative can be better. The evening news tells us how poorly some couples do this thing called marriage. Hardly an evening goes by without a spouse shooting or stabbing or hiding the corpse or much other gruesome stuff. Hardly does this represent the beauty of a good marriage.
My wife worked for some years as a mental health counselor- yes I've heard it all.
If don't like marriage or want it, it's simple (and the best choice by far!) don't do it. Far too many do it for the sex or the $$$.
I married at age 27 and lived in a cabin back in the woods on a big river with a dock. First to go was the reloading bench in my LR. Second to go was my competitive shooting hobby. A close 2nd, come spring, was the inside plumbing went in and the outhouse went bye bye. 3rd came as me no longer spending my Saturdays at the Flint Hills Fishing & Hunting Club drinking and telling lies... 4th was that certain friends were not my late night friends anymore. I'm sort of losing track here as it's been almost 50 years of a great association with my hillbilly trophy wife. We both have our roles in this thing we have going on and my side of the deal is I do all the maintenance and dirty work. I have a shop building ~ 150 yards from the house., heated, electric lights, the whole enchilada. I built it a couple years after we moved into the house I built for our family. Families are often part of marriage, so it seems. One of my uncles who'd been married 3 times but no children, told us in 1972 that life is lonely without kids. Ours is so far from lonely it' isn't funny! But I say that with our kids living in 3 states not where we are so we see each other sort of when we want to, not like in each others face.
I have no need to paint stuff inside my home or do carbs or other dirty operations. That has far more to do with a lack of a proper place than IF one is married or not? My PTW's go inside a storage building and my expensive car & truck sit outside. Some us are weird that way?

Well imagination, lights off and a whole lot of religious denial I would assume. Many do what is expected of them rather than forge a path for themselves. If you are taught from a very young age how wrong and bad homosexuality is, I would guess a man could force himself to act and live against his own nature. I mean shit, how many times do we do things we dont want to because we are expected to do it, which also goes against our own nature...

I would guess a man could force himself to act and live against his own nature. I mean shit, how many times do we do things we dont want to because we are expected to do it, which also goes against our own nature...

If you believe this to be true I'm not sure that you know men very well at all.

Try to picture yourself ( that's the ladies ) being married to another lady for 25 years if you instinctively found men really attractive.

Believe me I have a vivid imagination and I couldn't shut my eyes and think of happy things with someone of the own sex no matter how many people were judging me.

They are only judging you by their own standards anyway so bollocks to them.

This is the great thing about not being married and living apart, if you don't want to do something you usually end up not doing that something.

I'm not saying I'm right by any means........

Bill x

Look, people can be convinced of just about anything and that it's fine with them.... we all have malleable minds.

Three words for you:

Stanford Prison Experiment

Also, when society as a whole convinces you that you need to act in a certain way, you'll find a way to conform or face the consequences (which at times were horrific).

I understand that you don't feel any attraction to men (neither do I, though I do find some men attractive). And society, religion, whatever has helped enforce that feeling.

A less innocuous example... I love bacon, as do most people. Of course, there are many who won't eat it, like Jewish people who follow the rules of Kosher eating... it's integral into their lives. So you build a life around the idea of no pork or shellfish (bye bye Lobster, scallops, mussels, and oysters!). And for some reason in almost every family I know that keeps a Kosher house, the Dad always steps out for a "cheat day" now and then. Never to bring it into the house, because that would be disrespectful to his family, but to enjoy the forbidden fruit.

OK, maybe that last paragraph was more in line with fidelity in marriage.....

Tell me about it. I worked at a kosher Jewish summer camp as a councillor. Yes, I was the biggest goy there.... Anyway the burger joint down the road sold tons of sin burgers to my fellow much more Jewish than I councillors.... Bacon double cheeseburgers sold like crazy , can't get much less kosher than that

Look I'll admit to finding certain men attractive, be it looks, personality, build , sense of humour etc but the element that's important here is the sexual attraction.

If it's not there then nothing, especially my penis isn't going to work, so if I don't find you sexually attractive it's not going to happen.

So if I'm into men..........

Bill x

Ohhhhh Bacon.

Bill x

In my much younger days my band was playing a luau, complete with a whole pig cooked in a pit. All afternoon we're smelling it. Finally it's dug up and served. Our bass player, the son of a rabbi, kept strictly kosher. Finally, though, he just couldn't stand it.

"Guys! Quick! Tell me it's Turkey!"

I have a lot of friends with very long marriages, and some relatives. I failed at it, or someone did or we just were not suited...live and learn and grow.
And there are some awesome positive things to my little life here, and drawbacks, but on the positive, no one pitched a fit when I went to town with the car that had just been serviced and came home with a different car wearing those license plates.
And tonight I put the center stand on the rally scoot, that's still living in my living room. Much stronger than me son will help attach that spring this coming weekend, and I'm going to turn that cover from that economy car into a cover for that scoot, get a can of Scotchguard and make it more water repellent for that vintage baby.
Oh, and the new car got named Precious as I told coworkers that car better be 'precious' as I had a lot of payments to make before it's paid off. But she's a very lovely blue and 6 gears and a clutch!
I wouldn't have 3 Vespa scooters if I was married, probably wouldn't even have 1, and I would not have the peace and balance I have in my life. But I also am alone a lot, and have had a man who was great companion, funny, kind and a loving heart and I miss that and him.
But I make this life work and I'm rocking single and in my 60's, sure beats being miserable about it.

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved before ?

I wonder.

Bill - Still posing at 54 Maggie.

Many words of wisdom, well written.

Oh crap, here we go...

I'm married for 33 years now. Have I regret it? Hell yeah, many times! But I've been happy far more times. From all the friends I ever had, only two are still married (and I have had more than two friends). If I had never married, I surely had kept my motorcycles, and had no wife and kids nagging, and the house would have been so quiet, just doing what I like to do. But since I did married, I have plenty to talk, and from all the couples I know/knew, me and my wife are the ones that talk the most with each other. That might help, if you're the type that likes to talk. My wife has some Italians in the family, and that lead me to relatives that were in a Vespa club, which lead to me and the missus buying a Vespa and eventually ending up in the board of the club.

Now, I'm sure that if I stayed single I might have had a blast, doing my thing, but I'm sure that if I had divorced my wife, my chances of getting to ride Vespa and cruise around here, in Italy and other countries would have been very very slim. Being single, I'd be riding motorcycles until my back was completely worn out (that's already a fact for years now) and hanging in bars, unless I'd be married a Daisy from a knitten club that serves me bier und wurst, instead of my current wife's mediterranean kitchen (no offens to the girls and guys on MV who knit).

Just to say, life goes the path it is destined to go, and you better be happy with it and make the best of it, in whatever way that pleases you. Be it single, married gay or whatever. I don't care who is what. If I see they are happy, then I'm happy too. Good for them. Amen.

I am gay and single bilingual. To some people it is an identity thing. I don't need to date to validate myself. I don't date nearly as much today compared to my younger years. Marriage? That horse has bolted a long time ago.

I'm not sure what that means, but it sure has a ring to it!

Portuguese and English! You are reading stuff into it;)

Last time I checked my tongue did not come to mind.

So there's still hope for me then Max ?

Bill x

I have long said that I am merely a lesbian trapped in a man's body.

You know, Bill brought up the examples of men (and women) who were miserable as a result of divorce. Scarred and angry.

Maybe the key to a happy marriage is witnessing a happy one in your parents.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I never understood my parent's marriage. Mom seemed to nag constantly, Dad seemed to be henpecked, but maybe that structure worked for them. They were married a month short of 45 years, and she stood by him as ALS took his ability to be physical (though his mind was 100% there). He often made unilateral decisions for the family (Mom didn't work outside the house until the kids were in college), and his decisions weren't always the right ones (in retrospect). Perhaps that's a function of their age (they were married in 1959).

To contrast that, I worked with a guy when I lived in Texas shortly after graduating college. Henry and his wife got married just after college (before starting work) in the mid 1980s. Attending their wedding was his Mom and her third husband, his Dad and his second wife, her Mom and her fourth husband, and her Dad and his second wife (I can't be positive about the number of marriages, but it was a lot).

Let's just say that nobody was surprised when they were divorced within 2 years.

I think modeling is a great start. My parents weren't the best match (dad's love was the wrong version of Christianity...not that he actually adhered to the one he was born with).

I think they both suffered from enough childhood trauma to mess up their potential for a good relationship, but like a lot of people of that generation and class, counseling wasn't something you did, and the expectation was just to weather things out. I give them credit for that. Didn't model a lot of ideal marital behavior, but their presence in my life as a couple did provide a feeling of stability. Could have been a lot worse, at any rate.

A happy marriage is not only a joy to the couple, it's a great gift to the offspring.

My parents were married for about 50 years which I guess was a good example but it's never been an ambition of mine but it fascinates me why others do.

You'd assume that with such a great example I'd see it as am ambition but it;s never touched me. It could be that I realised from an early age that nothings stays the same, people especially.

Bill x

FTFY

Have had a miserable day. It would have been our 55th anniversary, but Philippa died a year ago. I played our wedding waltz Moon River over and over and wept. I think a lot about joining her in oblivion. Don't like being single, and unlikely to find another life companion at my age.

Will be going to my Scottish Dancing class tonight. That may cheer me up a bit.

You can't afford to think like that.

Things change and often you don't see it coming so don't convince yourself that you'll never love again.

All because your loved ones aren't with you it doesn't mean that they aren't there.

That's my belief.

Bill x

Mike Holland - so sorry you are having a tough time right now. 55 years... that's a darned long time.

It takes a lot to put yourself out there again after such a loss, but the engineer in me says that at your age the statistics are stacked in your favor (assuming you're somewhere north of 75)... there are more women than men in your age demographic, though this doesn't speak to their willingness to date.

Focus more on companionship without rushing romantic things. Of course, this is the same advice I give my 24 year old daughter.

Why is it that men seem to most times feel the need to find another woman after their loss, but women don't seem as keen to do the same afterwards?

Because women can cook for themselves?

Because men are high maintenance, emotionally and physically!!

I have no idea why men seek partnership after loss of a partner, but it seems to be common.

I know some of it is society thinks most men are dolts who cannot live a life without a mother/wife/husband taking care of them. And single Dads as parents, oy don't get me started.

My father-in-law is almost 76, has been widowed for 2 years now, runs his own business full time, and when someone mentioned setting him up on a dinner date he quipped "Why would I want to do that???"

He's surprised me... he cooks, he cleans, he has lots of friends (most of them younger than he is)... though he won't go out to eat alone, something that I enjoy from time to time.

And do laundry, and clean, and......

BTW, "FTFY" sent me off to Google. Thanks for that.

Good for your FIL. He sounds like a survivor.

My own FIL has been pretty interesting. His first wife had a rheumatic heart and died young in her fourth surgery. Married soon after, that didn't work out (she wanted to live in another town 6 months of the year for one), remarried to the woman I'd first met until she died 16 years later. Within a month he's starting to thing about dating (actually wanted to get on FB, until he found out you usually can't meet women there. Never mind the chance to see pictures of his granddaughter or anything familial....), met someone soon after, they've been together the past 4 years or so, talking about marriage. He's 84. After #3 died, he'd moved to my SIL's house...lots of family around, maid, pretty good life all considering, but it wasn't enough. Gotta grab life by the balls, it seems. I do realize it's nice to have social contacts your own age and all..... whatever it is, this is working for him it seems. He's in rough shape...diabetic, bad back, etc. but still working and driving.