Two taking a plunge

A while ago I wrote a post about seventeen-year-old David from Eastern Europe who was planning to move to my country to study English (see God and gullibility). He also had a thirty-year-old boyfriend here he could move in with. He told me that his boyfriend had shown him around the county last time he visited.

Recently he said he had to come clean with me, and confessed that he had neither been to my country, nor physically met his boyfriend. He had been afraid to look foolish, and when he found out I'm not judgemental at all it was still hard to confess his lie and all the little lies the first one had invoked. I urged him not to move in with his boyfriend immediately and find a place for himself so he would be independent. It turned out he had the same idea.

David loves the English language and wants to practise with it a lot. He's likes reading and writing and he's always got a lot to tell. Next week he's coming to my country for a few weeks, and in two months he will move here to study. There's obviously a lot about to happen in his life. Now, is it just me or does all this indeed scream "Start a blog!"? For what it's worth, I urged him to do so. I explained that if he'd start it just before he'd start his adventure, writing about his plans, worries, and expectations, and then regularly post about what's going on in his life, it would be very interesting for his readers, but most of all for himself. He could practise his English writing skills, get feedback from readers, and enjoy reading back his personal developments and experiences.

I promised him to popularise his blog and to make sure that he had some readers to start with, so please do me a favour and check out the blog of Mr. Fahrenheit. And please comment: not getting any comments is the most common reason for people to stop blogging.

My blog is supposed to be a nice mix of posts about the present and posts about events in my past that shaped me. Being half my age and plunging into a big adventure, David's blog will mostly cover present events. You can imagine that someone twice my age,would have many more interesting stories about his past.

That's why, when my friend Rick became twice my age, I suggested he start a blog as well. He loves writing, and he's certainly got some stories to tell. I recently paid Rick a surprise visit (see A surprise visit), hoping to also meet his wife, who seemed to be a wonderful person from what I read about her from independent sources. Unfortunately, I didn't meet her as she was in the hospital at the time, and not long after my visit she died.

For Rick this was the end of an important era in his life, but also the start of a new one. Although he loved his wife very much, he had always known he was 'queer'. After the tragic death of his beloved wife, he's single again, but now times have changed and homosexuality is not as restrictive as it once was. I think his blog will not only cover his interesting past, but also contain some self-discovery. He's written a few posts already, and knowing part of what is to come I can assure you Rum & Coca-Cola will make a very interesting read.