About Me
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Men of Chicago United Los hombres de Chicago unieron

I was born and raised in a small Southern New Jersey town.  I was the youngest of four kids: sister one year older, brother six years older, brother eight years older. Did the Catholic school thing for ten years, but finished in a public high school.  Did it a lot with my friends as a kid but none of us considered ourselves gay. Gay was a new concept in those times, and gays were considered weird and mentally ill. Moved to Cincinnati after high school to follow in my big brother’s footsteps and become a cop, but failed the “sexual history” part of the polygraph exam (have you ever had sexual relations with another man?). Went deep into the closet until age 28 only hanging out with heterosexual guys drinking beer at neighborhood bars. Finally quit drinking and came out to my family and close friends.  My family was shocked but eventually did a fairly good job accepting it.  However, my close heterosexual friends disappeared like flies. Started making a lot of gay friends, and doing the gay bar scene…loved all the attention I received. Decided to study computer science and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1995. Got tired of how homophobic Cincinnati was and moved to Chicago in 1995.  Best move I ever made.  Met my first lover within three months and we lived together for 2 ½ years before splitting.  We’re still good friends.  Chicago has a large number of Asian, Mexican, and Latino people and I started noticing my attraction to them after John and I broke up.  Also, I started doing some of the gay bars and resturants. I enjoy being single right now but I’m sure I will eventually end up in another relationship.  The next time I want to take it slower, date awhile and get to know the person well before moving in together. I like taking daily bike rides along lake Michigan in the early morning…especially in the spring and fall watching the sun come up. Sometimes I go down to the lake in the evenings to cruise and take digital photos of the skyline. There are a lot of gay guys of every type that hang around the lake.  Fortunately, I live close so I can meet somebody and come back to my place…not subjecting myself to the legal consequences of doing it in public.  I’m also trying to learn Spanish so I can better communicate with some of the Latino guys I meet.  I have a couple of good friends that I go out with on the weekends; they’ve been lovers for 11 years.  They like the same types of bars that I do. Although my present job is in a professional field, I still maintain an attitude from my many years of being a blue-collar worker before I graduated from college. I like average blue-collar type guys and professional guys that have blue-collar mind-sets. At work I do all the professional acting stuff because that’s what they pay me to do, but at home I like to turn it off and just be me. I’m most comfortable in my blue jeans and t-shirts at home and like to wear a leather jacket (another form of drag) to the bars. I also work at keeping an open-mind, which means that I don’t allow my personal likes and dislikes to preclude me from associating with people who are different. Hence, I enjoy a diverse group of friends, older, younger, effeminate, butch, black, Latino, white, female, male, wealthy, poor, etc. Actually, there are few people I don’t have at least a few things in common with, and the common things are what I use to build my friendships.