Below you can read a passage of a chat conversation about gay condition in Italy.

Mike wrote: what about gay life in Italy?

Project wrote: what do you mean in particular? Associations? Gay rights? Gay Pride?

Mike wrote: what about normal gay life, private gay life, closeted or not, how can people react?

Project wrote: straight people usually don’t even care about having gay friends, but I mean gays who are gays only in private. Here gays look exactly like straights. In Rome there is a gay street, but gay just because there are bars that show rainbow flag. I think there are a lot of gay guys but there are also a lot of tourists, I’s a street like all the streets full of tourists near the Coliseum. Just on Saturday night there is little gay movida, but nothing excessive. There is also a lot of police but usually nothing happens.

Mike wrote: and at school?

Project wrote: it’s a quite delicate subject. The behavior is very different from a place to another, from a school to a school. Some teachers are really open-minded, and usually teachers are not the real problem for gay boys. For the younger boys the greatest risk is represented by schoolmates, specially between 11 and 13 y. o., because schoolmates are immature and behave like a gang, have introjected all adult homophobic speech and all forms of intolerance of adults, and apply what they have learned in the most violent way and without reasoning. The situation improves much after the age of 14, because boys grow up and mature and start to think with their own brains. Typically, in the last years of school, up to the age of 19, homophobia is still perceptible, but it is not aggressive. In essence, older boys do not care at all about gays. There are also terrible situations of teenagers who came to suicide because they were exasperated by being scorned, especially on the Internet.

Mike wrote: and what about coming out? Gays are yet all closeted in Italy?

Project wrote: well the great majority are closeted. Coming out is a big problem for gay guys, but when I was young no one at all had in mind to come out. All the guys come out with some of their friends they trust, but virtually no one comes out publicly.  It would be like putting a loaded gun in the hands of other people. They will not use it right away, maybe they will not use it for a year or two, but if using that gun may be useful to them, then they will use it, perhaps to get a career promotion or to discredit a colleague in the eyes of bosses. There have been guys forced to change university because the gossip was so widespread that it had become uncontrollable. Even the teachers during the lesson allowed themselves to make allusive jokes and this is just unworthy!

Mike wrote: And what does the Catholic Church say about gays? Because I've read some of your posts on the forum on this topic and I think the environment is really oppressive.

Project wrote: Look, one thing are official documents where the condemnation of gays is clear and strong, and a different thing is the attitude the church demonstrates towards gays in everyday practice. Today, with Pope Francis, the attitude has changed, the pope does not speak more about gays, while with pope Benedict the condemnation of homosexuality was almost daily.

Mike wrote: I have read that in Italy gay marriage has been legalized. Have you ever met gay guys who married in Italy?

Project wrote: It should be clarified that in Italy civil unions that have been legalized can be used by both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Here speaking of "gay marriage" is impossible, because there is a Catholic church, and then we speak only of civil unions, although civil unions produce effects in practice identical to those of marriage.

Mike wrote: But did you know guys who celebrated a gay civil union?

Project wrote: No, I never knew guys that did a civil union. No, sorry, I met one but he did not have a civil union in Italy, but went to marry to Spain where gay marriage is legal, just as it is in France. Nevertheless I know a lot of gay couples. Couples using civil union I think are really a small minority compared to the number of gay couples. Civil unions do not have much success because, even if they legalize a gay union, they do not eliminate the social homophobia that exists and will remain in spite of the law. Gay couples know that for them, in spite of the legalization of the union, it will still be difficult to be accepted for what they really are. Changing laws is just a first step toward full recognition of gay rights, the real problem to overcome is the ignorance and preconceptions that are still widespread and deeply rooted. To overcome ignorance the only useful means is education. Culture is the best ally of gay people.

Mike wrote: Have you noticed changes over the years in people's mentality about gays?

Project wrote: Certainly and very strong, especially determined by internet. I do not know whether it's positive or negative. Thirty or forty years ago the fate for gays was just one: loneliness, now there are so many opportunities to meet other gays, but it's not said that meeting people brings you to meet the right people. It's not easy to build real friendships, and it's even harder to meet the right guy. Nowadays, many gay boys, sooner or later, stop looking for a companion. We all assume that happiness for gays is to create a couple similar to the married heterosexual couple, but it is not said that things are just so, and for many guys it is not.

Mike wrote: Do you believe that a gay guy in Italy can live well?

Project wrote: yes, I believe so, many things have changed here. I would say that the real problem here is not homosexuality but finding a job. Today it is difficult to find a job and keep it. Being gay is quite secondary. However, I think a gay guy, if he can get along with people, can be fine in Italy. Of course, things change a lot depending on local circumstances. Certainly in a big city a gay couple can save their privacy better, in a very small city things can be more complicated. On the other hand, in whatever nation all depends on the people you have around, if you live alongside open minded people then you also live well if you live with unreliable people full of preconceptions then it is better to keep them away.

Mike wrote: Have you ever had any problems managing the Italian Gay Project sites?

Project wrote: No! I had more with English-language sites, where many users responded to my posts about the relationship between gays and religion by quoting Bible passages and reminding me that gays are in the abomination of God. In Italian sites there have never been such things, although in Italy there is the pope.

Mike wrote: Have you ever known in person the guys who contacted you through the Gay Project?

Project wrote: Sure, many times. I can add that in this way true friendships are born that I think will not be lost. Without internet all this would have been impossible, but the most important thing is that all these guys know each other and I think this can be very useful in dealing with life more serenely.

Dear Project,          

I’m maybe just a little boy (twenty-one) still naive, but I want to continue to dream of having a decent life and also of finding a guy who loves me well. When there's a guy whom I like and who makes my heart beat, my life is really upset, I always think about that guy, it's as if I always had him in front of me. My friends tell that I'm too romantic, and I'm really so. I also come to cry at night but not for my loneliness but because I think that that guy can be alone while he might be with me. Maybe that guy would not even want to stay with me, but I go on fantasizing about him, I build all the talk I could do and that one he could do, I study the attitudes I should take to make him comfortable and so many other things of this kind. A few months ago I fell in love with a guy, I had done a thousand searches on him, I also dah searched for the smallest traces he could have left in Internet and in practice I had find many elements of his life, then, in the end, news that did not have to come, came like a lightning strike. In his profile, he stated he was straight, and became crazy for a girl! For me it was a catastrophe, a dream was shattered. I had believed in that dream, I had thought it was realistic, and instead he “became crazy for a girl!” Until now my life has been completely devoted to study, but not just for college, I really enjoy reading and reading everything. From scientific journals to poetry. I filled my house with books and read them almost all. I have few friends, I should say I have only two, because it is objectively so. They do not know I'm gay and they will not know for sure. I wonder every day whether my wishes will ever become reality and I have the terror that time passes and that nothing concrete can be achieved. For the moment I can only fantasize because I'm too much afraid of reality, or, I'm too much afraid of those disappointments that, according to what I read in your forum, depress many guys, I’m afraid that such disappointments can, before or after, arrive for me as well. For the moment I'm waiting, I do not know exactly for who or what, and I try to avoid dreaming too much, I try to build an alternative life, where there is no boyfriend, no gay relationship, no gay friendships, but there is something different like study, work, personal commitment. You can also live a life without real gay content, in the end being gay is not everything, it does not define the individual, but it's just a quality.

I have my friends, and I think they are all straight, I know their girlfriends, they do not ask me questions and I do not ask them. We are talking about things that only affect me marginally, but to overcome the sense of loneliness it’s enough.

There is another question that seems unimportant, but it is decisive: I'm not the classic Californian gym guy to put on the front page, no! I'm a very normal guy, so to speak, and maybe in some ways even a bit below the average. I have had complexes on this since I was a little more than a child. I've never been to a gym, especially for the fear of the dressing room, which is my great fantasy and also my great fear, because there you can see naked guys, but you also have to be naked, and I could never do this.

I have often asked myself whether my being shy and pudic is not actually derived from the fear of sex, but I do not think so. I think that with my boyfriend I would have no problem, but I should need love, true love, I should feel good with him. I could never have sex with a stranger, not even if he was the most beautiful guy in the world, my dream is a sweet boy, who strives to understand me and to love me, who is not ashamed to tell me it, and who do not think I can be useful just for sex, but I hope he could be interested in my person as a guy who has problems in all fields. When I write these things I feel naive, terribly naive. I think that in the gay world there are a lot of people less more complicated than I’m, and I think that it is right that those people can see their dreams come true, and then I am sorry for my destiny, that I see, unfortunately, as a fate of solitude. I have no courage, I think long before acting, and often, after thinking a lot, I do not act at all. I never take the initiative, I expect that things come from outside but I also know very well that such an attitude will not produce anything good.

Before sending you this email I thought about it a thousand times, I wrote it many times, corrected, modified, I weighed the words, I was careful, almost maniacally careful not to put things that could put my privacy at risk but still now I do not know if I'll send you the mail. And I do not even know what to expect from you.

I confess that I'm afraid but also anxious to see what's going to happen.

I stop here, before that little bit of courage left behind could vanish. Thanks for everything.