I met a dear friend at summer camp. Both of us have struggled with loneliness and despair. Neither of us was very strong or “masculine” growing up. We both took our religious faith seriously. In our adult lives, we both went to seminary. And we both like poetry. And today, whenever I struggle with stuff, his words comfort and encourage me to keep going.

Leading up to this fall’s YOB retreat, I had a lot of anxiety. Who would be placed in my tribe? What if my tribe members asked me questions I couldn’t answer? What if strong disagreements between tribe members happened that I couldn’t peacefully stop? I felt unqualified for such a leadership task as this!

I realize that this labyrinth is a metaphor for how I tend to view my life back home: stuck in a place all alone that was never meant for me. A place designed by the other broken humans around me to leech off me until nothing remains. But I can’t judge. I’m just as bad of a gardener as the other broken men in this desert around me.

With straight guys at the gym, I’m witnessing a world in which I can’t partake; whereas in YOB I’m witnessing a world in which I already take part, and I’m very happy to step back and see other guys enjoying our world.

There’s a special tension for a married guy who isn’t straight hanging out with a bunch of mostly unmarried guys who also aren’t straight for an entire weekend. Questions swirl over how to demonstrate faithfulness to my wife and our kids – would it even be worth it for me to attend a YOB retreat?

So much of YOB life (and, indeed, Side B life in general) is in the unofficial "meetings"; by this, I mean all the conversations to/from retreats and conferences. It's in the downtime chats and interactions that spontaneously happen. This was driven home especially this year as I wrote and read affirmation notes to and from my fellow YOBBERS, a new component of this year's retreat. Small things can be so impactful.

I found myself constantly dealing with doubt, low self-esteem, loneliness, and feeling unloved. As I sat there looking around, I saw so many guys, including the newbies, hanging out with one another, playing games, laughing, and hugging. I felt like I was being avoided because of my stuttering.

I continually wrestle with this dynamic in leadership of Your Other Brothers: where do I keep proper distance in the name of boundaries and self-care, and where do I let someone else enter my birdcage? Can I do both well? Can I lead and participate well?

Was I in love with him? Did we have the deepest friendship, or was it actually something more? This is for the lot of us who have gone from strangers to friends to kin to nothing.

I learned that it wasn't safe for me to talk about or process through any of this struggle. Not at this church. And that is just what I did for the rest of high school. I didn't talk about my sexuality with anyone at that church again.

Even if all the sexual stuff with men is wrong in God's eyes, I still just want to be with a man physically from time to time. Is that wrong too? Does God really care if I share my bed with another guy, as long as there's no sex?

It's hard to classify some of my attachments to other men as "crushes," per se. Emotional fixation is a more accurate term, I think. When I fixate on a guy, I'm not imagining him as a lover or sex partner. I'm more imagining an ideal life where he is a close friend or, yes, even a brother.

I joined Your Other Brothers back in 2017. I experienced the first and second camp retreats in good ole North Carolina, but then I took a break from YOB the next two years. Why? Because I was tired of it.

Something else that astonished me over the weekend was how much like myself I felt; how proud I was to be seen in the company of my fellow queer brothers; how un-worried I was about what anybody else thought. That's not like me. At least not how I have been.

Anticipation was running high. This would be my first retreat since joining the YOB community last year. A poorly timed illness prevented me from attending previously, so my heart was more than ready for a weekend away with my other brothers. And God provided.

As I left, one of these guys thanked me for showing the group what a mother-son relationship should look like. That was definitely food for thought on my long drive home! So many thoughts ran through my head and heart.

I believe that if I hadn't come to this retreat, I wouldn't have found this perspective shift – especially with my brother's encouragement. Perhaps I did need to have my hope renewed. My time with my brothers that weekend would facilitate this renewal, refocusing our eyes on the source of our hope, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Despite all the incredible people in our online community, I've recognized my need for more men in my city on whom I can depend. This has been a sobering searching process because YOB has become such a pillar of my identity. If I'm no longer close or as intentional with a large lot of our YOB community, who even am I?

Perhaps it was the touch of melancholy in me that many other "Side B" Christians also feel, or simply being a disabled man, or maybe even a combination of the two – the fact that I have often felt both a physical and mental peace listening to classical music. Whatever it was, my soul felt ministered to in a previously unknown way.

You know, after fifteen years of blogging about gay things and masculine things and all the other intermingled, messy faith things, I often feel like I've run out of stories to tell here. Gay kisses, wet dreams, fetishes – what on earth is there left to say?? Ah, but then I wake up one day and suddenly remember that time another "Side B" guy from a Facebook group asked if he could do something to my genitals. Ah, yes – a new story to tell. Glory be.