Can You Forgive?

Everyone deals with things in different ways when we are scared. I'd forgive ya.

 

I'd forgive. 12 is very young.

 

You would be surprised how many people on here probably felt some form of homophobia at some point in their life. As long as anyone admits their mistakes and learns from them, they should be given the chance of forgiveness. Besides, you were twelve years old. Anybody who doesn't have something they regret and would take back when they were younger is a liar.

 

I dont know what you did when you were younger, but I act slightly homophobic. If someone says at school 'thats so gay' I would say yeah or something, but I would never be personally rude to a gay person.

 

Of course I can forgive you.

 

That was something you did when you were very young, and, I'm sure, very confused. Peer pressure and fear of ostracism or rejection are powerful motivators, even if it's the wrong thing to do. You seem truly sorry for it, and we all make mistakes, so of course I'd forgive you!

 

it was a different time for you, even today people make that same decission. the point is your trying to make amends for it now. if u really need closure try and contact ur old lover and ask for his forgiveness

 

Not only were you twelve, that was thirty-eight years ago! I'd be surprised if more than a handful of people thought being LGBT was fine almost forty years ago.

 

It's not me you have to ask!

 

I can't honestly say I would.

I hold grudges and I'm not afraid to admit it, and what you did sounds horrible.

If I were in your lover's shoes, I can't say such actions would ever be forgiven.

Even in my shoes, I can't forgive such betrayal of another person's trust.

 

yes.

 

I was in exactly the same situation back in 1981, except I was 'the lover'.

Would I forgive you? Yeah I would.

Have I forgotten? not in a million years.

Not only the humiliation of being over powered, but degraded by the one I love. If I ever walked passed him again, I would punch him in the face.

 

I don't understand how him being 'young' at the time is a valid excuse for you guys.

Being a 'confused', twelve year old dealing with 'peer pressure' doesn't justify the humiliation and pain his boyfriend must've suffered that day.

It doesn't even come close.

At that age, I knew it was wrong to treat people in the way he had treated his 'lover'.

What happened after that, anyway?
Did he have to change schools or something?
Did he inflict bodily harm on himself or others?
What therapeutic sessions did he have to go through?

Where is he now, huh?

 

Yeah, as dfiant said, things can be forgiven. However, they are not easily forgotten.

I think the key word is "change." We all need to walk away from the person who we forgive and then cycles through whatever they were doing wrong all over again. Some people are like this. It's about a major problem with boundaries. On the other hand, I've known some people who have done some uncool things while young and who were different people as adults. Whatever they did was now so out of their adult character and never repeated that you can almost forget. I'm thinking of my childhood best friend's brother. I didn't like him when we were kids. My best friend was, and is, a knucklehead with a big heart who never grew up. When I saw his brother again, after about 20 years, he was almost cooler than my friend. At least, his brain functioned better!

 

The only way to get to "old and wise" is to first be young and stupid. Growing from a kid into an adult is never a smooth process, and being homophobic before acknowledging that you're not straight (or that you are straight because it's still not cool :/) is just one possible hangup. I can forgive myself because I learned from my younger and dumber self.

 

It's not our place to forgive on his behalf, so there is no way any of us can offer you any kind of absolution.

That being said, for what it's worth, had I been in his position, personally, I would forgive you. If, for any other reason, simply because you were only 12. 12 is still a baby! You couldn't really understand your actions, very well.

 

A baby who's starting to feel the need to be grown up, which raises the pressure of day-to-day life immensely. I hated being 12 >.<

 

If I was your lover, I would probably not feel safe around you, even thirty eight years later. But I would feel sympathy for you, and I would wish you well.

(This, by the way, is the reaction I have to the two kids who sexually abused me. The younger one was probably around 12 when he started.)