The Pride celebrations in San Francisco have started and the sea of people have entered the city that my friends and I have affectionately called the Emerald City.  The world famous Castro District is ground zero and we nicknamed it Oz.

The celebrations center around the gay rights movement but it is also a social party.  My friends and I are in full swing  participating in that party.

You can already see the high anticipation in everyone here just being out to meeting new friends, getting some sex, and perhaps falling in love. It is all that human stuff that happens with such such a gathering of this proportion .  It really does not matter whether it was gay or straight event. Human behavior is human behavior.

For me this is the first Pride I have attended as a single person  after 11 years being in a relationship, so it is especially significant.  I have been fully engaged in it, meeting new people, getting some phone numbers, and even engaging in some friendly make out sessions ( hey, it happens – after a drink or two…).  However, something else is happening and it has caught me by surprise.

Through the wonderful world of social media , I have made friends with people from all over the world and it has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life.  I have enjoyed getting to know these people.

One of them in particular has had daily and even twice daily communication with me.  I have found that I look forward, even more correctly, I anticipate, his messages.  We skype, facebook, IM,  etc.   We chat about our lives, work, and views of life.  We keep each other company while we work on projects on our computer.  We greet each other in the morning and send each other off to bed at night.

I miss him when I do not hear from him.

Through the powerful medium of words we have been able to clearly communicate what is in our hearts.  It has definitely had an affect on me.

All through these Pride celebrations I have thought about this person who lives thousands of miles away.  I see his face everywhere.

Now, I have tried very hard to talk to myself about being realistic and intellectually, it has worked.  I mean there are no shortage of gay guys here. However,  I do not work from my mind in these matters. I work from my heart.  This man has tugged at my heart.

I don’t know if this is going to go anywhere. I only know that by writing how I feel down, it makes me express honestly how I feel. I also can express  that I never knew I could feel this way again so soon. I am not talking about love. That takes time and actually meeting someone and so many more things. I am talking about feeling vulnerable about someone again…about possibilities.

I talked to one of my good friends about this, who has my best interests at heart. Of course, he was concerned that I was perhaps letting my heart take over reason.  I thought about that and I really feel that I am not doing that.

All I know, is that these feelings are genuine.  I know that Pride 2010 is significant to me not necessarily because of what is happening here in San Francisco,  but because of how someone in another continent away has opened my heart.

“Babe, jy ontsluit my hart om weer te voel. Dankie dat jy my gegee het dat die geskenk. Jy is my gelukkige gedagtes en my vreugdevolle gevoel.”