When I first discovered blogs and really got into reading them, I was working for bestgayblogs.com doing reviews and interviews. One day I stumbled across a blog titled, “Boys are Ugly but so Cute,” and I couldn’t stop reading it. The posts were about young gay men living life and getting through their lives one day at a time, and I fell in love with them all.

By the time I was finished reading the entire blog, I had to contact the author for an interview. I was nervous. I thought he might turn me down. But this very young blogger answered my e-mail with the nicest reply and graciously agreed to grant me the interview. Since then, though my life has changed in many ways, from work to personal, I’ve continued to follow this blogger daily. I found out his name was Ryan, I found out we had a lot in common in spite of a fifteen year age difference, and we formed an online friendship that is just as strong as any other friendship I’ve ever had.

But it wasn’t always perfect. When you blog about your life or your work, there are always going to be negative people making hate comments and trying to ruin things, especially if you’re openly gay. I’ve experienced it so much myself that I’ve had to implement comment moderation. And I know for a fact that my blogging buddy Ryan has experienced more than his share of haters. The best we can do is post about it, get if off our chests with a few rants, and then focus on the positive things.

And this is exactly what Ryan has done all these years. Until this week. He finally had enough. I was shocked and saddened to learn that he’s decided to close the blog and discontinue “Boys are Ugly but so Cute.” But I do understand why he’s doing it, and I support him 100%. Everything, good or bad, eventually comes to an end. Even though a lot of readers are going to miss Ryan’s blog, he feels it’s time to move on and do different things.

Personally, I’ll miss his posts, including the rants. Most of the time I absolutely agree with his opinions, his politics, and his frustrations. We’ve already talked and I’ll keep in touch with Ryan once the blog is down. I might even ask him to do a guest blog here…if he agrees. But we both think our friendship goes beyond blogging at this point. And I can’t say that I don’t know how he feels. I do know and I’ve been feeling the need for a few changes myself. Maybe this decision by Ryan will spark me to make a few changes I’ve been pondering for a while, both career wise and with blogging. In coming months I have a feeling I’ll be announcing my own huge changes, too.

Good luck, Ryan. We’ll miss you. You made us laugh and cry. But we’re also very thankful to have had the opportunity to read your blog and experience so much of your life!!