Our EC Fairytale

Hi everyone! :smilewave

I admit that I haven't been around EC for a couple of months, but there's a good reason and I want to share it with all my friends on EC. Zume and I are engaged to be married this summer, and we owe it all to EC!

Here's our story. I joined EC on January 12 of last year. Zume had joined EC on December 26, just a couple of weeks before me. He had already come out to his family a few months earlier and he was looking for a place to share his coming out story and to have some fun with other gay people.

I had sort of come out but I was really messed up because I hadn't done it right - I was still ashamed to be gay and I was hiding it from my family. With the help of EC I came out "again" to my sister, I really learned what it meant to be gay (and more importantly what it didn't mean), I busted a whole bunch of stereotypes that I had bought into over the years, and I finally came out to my parents in late March, the single hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Since that time I have become openly and proudly gay, and I have never been happier.

I first met Zume on January 19 of last year when I replied to one of his posts on EC, and it rapidly grew into a bond of friendship. We shared our coming out experiences, our similar victories over our weight demons, our common spiritual beliefs, our interest in nature and animals, our furry sides, and our passion for gaming. We filled our walls to capacity with messages, then exchanged some 3,000+ PMs with each other. We met in person for the first time in early July when we went camping together, and it was obvious that this was destined to be much more than a friendship. On August 21 we made it official that we were in a relationship, and we spent another two and a half weeks together in September, this time as boyfriends. We moved in together in late October, and we've been living together ever since. Our love for each other has grown every single day , and on January 19 of this year, exactly one year from when we first met, in a chalet with a glowing fireplace and our own private hot tub, we got engaged! We are passionately in love with each other and we want to share the rest of our lives together as a happily married gay couple. And we're both proud to shout it out to the whole world!!

I know a lot of people come to EC looking for help coming to terms with their sexuality and with coming out to the rest of the world. They've been living lies, faking interest in the opposite sex, perfecting the art of denial, and convincing themselves that they're unlovable. Many are at a point where they want a relationship but feel it will never happen. They worry that it's impossible to find other gay people, that the pool is too small, or that they'll never find someone who is compatible for them, and so they worry that they're forever destined to be alone.

Here's the thing. Zume and I found our perfect mates on EC, and neither of us was even looking for a relationship when we joined. It just happened naturally. I believe that if this story can happen to me, it can happen to everyone and anyone. You really can be openly gay and very happy - in fact I'd highly recommend it. You can and will find your perfect soulmate, often in the place you'd least expect. For me, it all started because I joined EC. I've come a long way thanks to EC - I owe this wonderful community a whole lot. A year ago neither of us would ever had believed it if someone told us that this was going to happen in just one year, but here we are.

So EC has at least one fairytale romance to its credit - Zume and I are getting married this summer and we're going to live happily ever after together. Woohoo!! :eusa_danc =^.^=