About 12 years ago ( when I was about 17) many of my friends , who I then told that I was gay, knew when I had fallen in love with a twelve year old boy. They didn't think too much of it back then, and neither did I. I had just had my coming out as being a gay, and being honest about loving boys seemed like the next logical step to take. I never really told my friends about being a boylover... actually I had never heard of the word... but I guess it was clear.

Now, more than 10 years later, I hardly ever see those friends I had back then. I moved away, so did they, and there's a lot of new people in my life. When starting college, I stopped being so honest about being a boylover. Most people around me knew I was gay, many of them knew I liked guys quite a bit younger than myself, but nobody had any clew about the fact that I was pretty fond of kids as young as 10 as well.

During the past couple of years, being a boylover has become more and more important for me. I am gay, I do like 20 year old guys as well, but I am also a boylover. And being a boylover has been something I refused to face for some years. So I found this place, and more important, I found IRC, and started rediscovering this part of me, with the support of the people around.

After being on different BL IRC-channels for about 2 years, I decided it was time to meet some of these people. When I did, and spend a day in Amsterdam a few weeks ago, with a couple of great people, I hardly knew what was happening to me. This was the first time I could honestly reply to the question what my age of attraction was... the first time I could see a cute boy walking down the street, and tell someone immediately... which wasn't even necessary because everybody was looking at the same kid anyhow :-)

It was a great day... and I had to talk to someone about it... but nobody in my surroundings ever knew I was a boylover, so I guess it was time for a second coming out. I talked with the person of whom I would suspect he already knew about me anyways, and who would most likely be open minded about it as well. A friend of mine, who himself doesn't mind strawling through the supermarket just for buying food, but also to enjoy the beautiful landscape of the adolescent stocker boys working there.
Most Dutch supermarkets employ adolescents between 13 and 18 years old to do the work there, mainly because they're a cheap workforce. I guess the supermarket owners are usually more interested in saving money on employees, than in the cuteness of their employees, but their economic motifs have a great side effect :-)

Anyway, this friend of mine responded pretty cool. He couldn't really imagine himself ever getting attracted to someone younger than 15, but he was ok with it. I didn't really surprise him with the news that I thought was pretty striking, and he took it really well.

Last weekend, I decided to join a group of people for IBLD in Amsterdam. It was a great experience, spending the whole weekend with a bunch of boylovers, burning candles, talking and talking until dawn, feeling understood and supported.

And again, the day after I got home, it felt like a hangover. I woke up with an empty feeling, quite a contrast with feeling supported and loved the days before. And I decided that it was time for a change. Time to get the secret, that had been bugging me for so long, out. Yes, I had told one friend of mine, but he kinda knew already (though we hardly ever talked about it). There's still a whole world out there of people who love me and whom I love, who don't know. I felt at least some of them should know.

I turned 29 this week. After my birthday, my mother always visits me, and we go out and do something fun. We decided we would just get in the car, drive around a bit through the rural surroundings of the town where I live (yes, there still are rural parts in one of the most populated areas of the world), get out at a nice spot, and go for a walk. We both like walking for hours, and I know it relaxes me... enough to maybe be able to tell her about my being a boylover.

When I was about 18, I told my mother that I was gay. She took it really well, though she was a bit shocked at first, because she had never expected it. She had no problems with it at all, and didn't mind talking to friends about it. She got a busload of books from the library about the subject, and she would ask me any questions about it if she had any. 

After a long walk (some hours), she brought the topic to my coming out as a gay, more then ten years ago. She was telling about a friend of hers, who had a 15 year old son. This woman told my mom that her son was gay, and that she didn't really know what to do with it. She would love to accept it, but was afraid of what other people might say or think about it.
At this moment, my mom had never told this woman that her own son was gay as well. She just responded to the story with pretty cool remarks that she couldn't imagine it being a problem, and that she was happy for the boy that he could be open about this at the age of 15. My moms friend couldn't understand my moms reaction, until my mom told her that her own son is gay as well.

After my mom told me this story, I couldn't think of a better timing to start adding some BL details to the overall gay picture. So I just told her that there was more than just that, and that I have (re-)discovered in the past couple of years, that I can get both emotionally and sexually attracted to boys as young as 9 or 10 years old, as well. I also told her that I had recently met a great group of people who are boylovers as well, and who were really supportive.

I expected her to respond with crying for the rest of the day... not for feeling sorry for herself, but feeling sorry for me. But she didn't. She responded with questions, she asked me what it was about ten year olds that attracted me, she asked me how I felt about it, how I lived with it, how I met these other boylovers (which was a tough one... the only thing about the internet she knows, is that it's my job, and that stuff ends with dot-com or dot-nl, because the radio commercials say so :-)

So, she took it really well, better than I ever could have imagined or hoped for. We talked about it for a while, and then just proceeded our day talking about anything else as well. We had a great day... nothing could do anything about that (not even an annoying football match which the Dutch team lost from the Italians).
 

I hope this story is of any value for anyone out there feeling that an important part of your life is too much of a secret for the rest of the world. I know a story similar to this one, posted here only days ago, helped me decide to take this step.

Lots of thanks to beago and Isaac for their posts here, and to the wonderful people who were with me on and after IBLD.
 

wimmel