Site News
Spam
Posted May 07, 2021 8:11PM EDT
Since the start of the year, we’ve welcomed nearly 900 new friends to the site. Along with this growth spurt, we’ve welcomed our first serious round of spam. It ramped up in the last couple of weeks, first with messages targeted at our demographic, then with generic spammers who didn’t read the room and posted pictures of themselves as large-breasted women in American flag tank tops shooting rifles.
We’ve banned the spammer accounts as we’ve found them, and I believe I just found and fixed the bug that was letting them post so many messages at once. This fix shouldn’t affect any legitimate messages you try to send, but let us know if you run into a problem. In the coming days, I’ll be making several other changes that should greatly reduce the chances that spam will reach you here.
In the meantime, this is a good reminder to follow basic online safety practices. Don’t share your personal information...
COVID Vaccine Resource
Posted Mar 16, 2021 10:17AM EDT
The Fort Lauderdale Prime Gentlemen alerted us to a company that matches people who want a COVID-19 vaccine with providers who have unclaimed doses in danger of going to waste. If you’re having trouble getting vaccinated, it only takes a moment to sign up for their text alerts. We hope everyone who wants a shot gets it soon, and we’re back out in the world together this summer.
Coverage in the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/health/covid-vaccine-leftover-doses-dr-b.html
Direct link:
Details:
Happy Anniversary!
Posted Jan 24, 2021 3:14PM EST
Today makes 24 years of OlderGay.Men (in its various forms). Thanks to all of you for being a part of it, and here's to a long future of friendship together.
Ask The Lawyer
Posted Jan 11, 2021 2:45PM EST
One of our members is a lawyer who has kindly offered to start a column in which he'll answer questions about legal issues related to older gay men and their partners. The usual disclaimers apply — this isn't a substitute for legal advice specific to your situation — but we hope it will be of interest and use. If you have a question to ask, go here:
Click through to his bio and disclaimer (https://oldergay.men/law/disclaimer/), and you can submit your question at the bottom of the page.
You’re Not Seeing Things
Posted Dec 28, 2020 10:15AM EST
Don't be confused if the Birthdays section of this week's newsletter looks unusual. It looked unusual to me, and a little exploring showed that we have over 12,000 members who use January 1st as their birthdates.
My guess? It's a combination of guys acting in the interests of a) privacy, b) online security, or c) not bothering to click the drop-down menus for Month and Day. If you know a doctoral student in Statistics, he or she might enjoy working up an estimate of how many of these dates could possibly be legitimate.
For our purposes, it comes to just over 50 men appearing in the newsletter. I guess we can put up with that for one week. I don't want to skip the real New Yearsers, and the others should get their acknowledgement sometime.
I will someday get around to talking to all the guys who are over 120 years old...
Happy Holidays,
Jeff
Self-Care Guide
Posted Dec 17, 2020 7:40AM EST
We received an email update from SAGE that might be helpful to our U.S. members. You can read it online here:
If you have trouble clicking through to their PDF guide, here's the direct link:
The holiday season can be especially hard on our group. Festive lights and cheery advertisements can grate on those of us going through family estrangements and other isolations. This time, after nearly a year locked away with unrelenting fear, I'm sure some of us are going through the worst of the worst. I hope we're providing an outlet here on OlderGay, but if you need more contact and an ear to listen, please check out SAGE's offerings. You're not alone.
And for our younger members looking for a way to make a difference: I hope you'll check it...
Where The Boys Are
Posted Dec 14, 2020 6:57PM EST
Our team hit a milestone last week: All of our listings of places now include photos. They’re both attractive and informative, a quick measure of whether a given spot could be for you or is probably not your scene.
Ramesh has opened a thread on our discussion board for suggestions of places we’re missing:
https://talk.oldergay.men/t/local-expertise-needed/52289
If you have a favorite older-men-frequented place near you or one you remember fondly from your travels, let us know, so we can share the word!
A hospital near my partner and me received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines today. Hang in there just a bit longer, everyone, and we’ll be taking advantage of these gathering places once again. Here’s to a normal summer.
Stay safe until then,
Jeff
Annual Memberships and Shining, Happy Places
Posted Dec 04, 2020 3:42PM EST
Holy Cow, it's been forty days since I checked in with you! As a step toward amends, I'd like to share the following message I posted to our Patreon subscribers.
But first, to clarify what's been going on and why I've been out of sight: My partner Al started having medical issues in August. Tests showed he'd had three strokes and needed surgery to prevent more, possibly fatal ones. He quit smoking, was cleared for surgery, and finally went under the knife on November 11th. He came home for a weekend... and went back to the hospital for a week because he'd had another stroke in the process. 🙃
He's been home ever since, but he's needed a lot of immediate hands-on care, as any lover of older men will eventually attest. I'm the only programmer on the site, so I hope you'll understand why there have been no great leaps forward of late.
Still, our membership has grown and the site has improved and the...
Tweet Tweet
Posted Oct 25, 2020 4:36PM EDT
We’ve restarted our Twitter feed, so you can follow our updates there if it’s convenient for you:
I Can See Places Now
Posted Oct 19, 2020 6:41PM EDT
If you look at our places page, you’ll see we’ve started adding photos of the places we list. It brightens the site and helps you get an idea of whether you’d like to visit a venue that catches your eye (when we can go visit places again...). We’ll be adding photos for groups and events, too. This is another large, long-term undertaking like our photo editing. If you have time on your hands and would like to help, just let us know! It doesn’t require any special knowledge and whatever you can contribute would be welcome; every bit helps.
Enjoy, all!
Jeff