I’ve always seen sexuality as just another part of me, like a limb or an eye… and so when it came to things like pride marches, or the LGBT society at university, I never bothered. It’s not like I go up to people in the street and wave my arm at them to prove it’s there… So why should I stand up and say “I’m a geek, I like food, and – oh – I’m gay”?

Lucky

It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I’ve actually been really lucky. And no – not because I’ve always been able to fulfil my loves of eating and gadgetry – but because I’ve not once come up against a bad reaction to the way in which I live my life – not once have I had anything other than neutral or positive reactions from people ranging from friends back at secondary school through to colleagues today.

However – Alan Turing, Benjamin Britten & Oscar Wilde – three people I have always greatly admired for very different reasons (notably my love of technology, music, and literature) and who all died long before I was born, weren’t quite as lucky as I’ve been.

Recently I started to think that maybe the reason people take the whole ‘pride’ thing seriously isn’t because they want to draw attention to themselves, but to those people who were ridiculed, persecuted and ultimately doomed for simply being who they were. That said, I wanted to stay true to myself too – and I knew I wasn’t part of the ‘scene’ that so many people I know are. Then, one evening, a good friend of mine inspired me.

Gay and Geeky

There’s no way I could accept that I was the only gay geek in the world of IT, and meeting my good friend Seb confirmed that for me. While I love talking gadgets and technology, it was the first time in an age I’d been able to, in the next breath, talk about relationships and love lives.

It was then that Seb had a lightbulb moment – many of our female friends talked about how great it was to go to the girl geek dinners that were being organized – maybe it was time to organise a gay geek dinner, and see who showed up.

As it happened, quite a lot of people expressed interest and came along – including another one of the people I’d always looked up to, as the photo shows.

That was April last year, and once a month since then we’ve had a dinner and a bunch of help organising them. I’ve met so many new and interesting people – not least my partner – and my own confidence grew as a result. Before I knew it, and without changing who I was, I was making a difference and helping people.

Why tell the story now?

Anyone who knows me will know that I love talking – whether it’s about the fantastic technology I work with, human rights, or what I’m having for dinner. Over the past few months I’ve talked to a lot of people – some not quite as confident or as forthright as I can be. Some who have only recently begun to accept themselves for who they are, or who have only just started to realize that the days aren’t looking as dark as they did for Britten, Wilde and Turing.

And so it’s for them I’ve broken my usual tradition of technology-focussed blog posts and told this story. Come along to the next gay geek dinner – you never know who you might meet!