to live like a heterosexual has much to do with his past four so-called nervous breakdowns. My advice to B. C., if I may make it, would be to try to be patient and to try if he can to form friendships with his own kind. He is, I believe, absolutely right in deciding not to ever marry any woman. Such marriages only bring grief to both parties and certainly cannot bring much, if any, happiness.

Your section of ONE Magazine, titled "Toward Understanding" is one of the highlights of that magazine and to me certainly so far the most interesting along with letters sent in to the editor. You seem to have a great deal of human warmth and understanding in dealing with those who write to you.

You probably would not write about techniques for those of us who do not know the ropes in regard to getting acquainted with those of our own kind. If you would not care to comment about that I do hope that some other writer may do so for certainly my own case is not unique. One may not just go up to someone they might suspect to be a homosexual and ask him if he is so oriented. So if one may not take that course what other course is open to him? That is one point. Another is this: is there any hope that a middle aged manone in his middle fifties-may get any where actively in the homosexual life? Certainly such a one is no longer as attractive as he might once have been to others of his type. Even if there may still be hope for him there is the problem of getting acquainted in nearby Washington, D. C., where the members of the vice squad are very active and who have picked up quite a number of homosexual men on the charge they were soliciting. One of those picked up was a trustee in a church in the better part of the city and spent fifteen hundred dollars in legal fees, after having been incar-

cerated in jail for four months, to get his name cleared. It is much worse for those of us who are genuinely gay, that is in trying to get acquainted with others of our own type. Incidentally this correspondent is retired on a disability as a result of past nervous breakdowns and is therefore in not so restricted a position as he might otherwise be. Even so with a wife and five children he must be exceptionally careful not to become involved with the authorities for their sakes as well as his own. This isolation from those of his own sort and the terrible need to have their society has made this writer feel in a very desperate, very lonely, predicament. He wishes that there were some possible answers to his own problem in this respect. In any event ONE Magazine has been something of a help these past two months and I suppose it must be a help to other subscribers who may be in a similar predicament to my own.

Fortunately in one way, although psychiatrists say that my wife is more sick than I happen to be for this and other reasons, my wife approves of my trying to find a companion of my own sort and have a relationship with him on a permanent basis if possible. Unlike B. C. I cannot expect a Greek God, nor can I hope for a permanent relationship. That I feel is just wishful thinking. I wish however that it might be otherwise. I do not think that B. C. will find what he wants for he is dealing in ideals that few, if any of us, ever achieve. So much for this a rather lengthy letter. And now may I thank you in advance for any helpful suggestions you may wish to make regarding it. I also hope that you will be indulgent with my none too expert typing.

Sincerely yours, J. H. D.. Jr.

Dear J. H. D., Jr.:

This is to acknowledge receipt of

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