I just clicked on Reallynow's name & checked out his/her previous letters, just filled with oh-so-charming opinions on sexuality in general & homosexuality in particular. Disgustingly instructive, to say the least.

If ever we needed a specific example of someone who makse "gay" a horrid insult ...

While I'm still not sure about sending the letter, your further responses make it clear that you indeed want to honor what Carla brought to your life. I find that honorable in itself.

My only suggestion now would be to look inward a little more deeply. Maybe some, maybe even much of what she brought to your life actually came from you -- from your response to her caring & concern. Maybe she wasn't so much the source as simply the catalyst. Maybe there was more to you than you allowed yourself to believe, right from the start, and she saw some of it when you couldn't.

No matter what, I wish you the best of luck. Your story is touching, and it made me muse, reflect, think.

Perhaps what other posters have suggested is the best final response: pay it forward. I've seen for myself how much something as small as a simple courtesy, a single kind word, can do for another human being. Seems to me you'd have a good deal of that to offer.

That's the real problem, isn't it?

I don't buy the "it's just kids being kids, it's inevitable, get used to it" school of thought. Yes, troubled children will tend to take out their fear, anger, frustration on others perceived as being weaker. But there's so much in our culture that encourages & even glorifies that behavior. So often it's not condemned or called to account -- it's applauded & celebrated. Kids learn what they see, and they repeat it themselves. In a culture where winning is everything AND the only thing, some have to be crushed, trampled underfoot, in order for others to emerge on top. They're rewarded for it.

Thank you for your heartfelt post. There's so much callousness & cruelty in the world -- as we've seen in this very column -- that it's good to be reminded of what basic human decency & compassion sound like.

You've dealt with this many times, Glenn. And I'm sure everyone posting here has run into it on a regular basis as well.

I'll be talking to what seems like an otherwise normal, decent, intelligent human being -- and as soon as any of the right-wing hot-button issues is mentioned, you can see the frightened child totally possess & subsume the supposed adult.

When they start talking about being tough, strong, badass, kickass, and all the rest of that pathetic macho crap, you can practically see them running around in circles, bawling incoherently in terror, looking for Daddy.

And of course it shows in the general tenor & tone of their talking heads -- a smarmy, smirking, pseudo-intellectual veneer that only reveals a bunch of little boys playing so desperately at being what they perceive as grown-ups, crudely mimicking the surface but clearly & utterly unfamiliar with the substance.

And this is at least 1/3 of our current population & culture!

Do these pathetic blowhards have any idea of just how transparently insecure they are? The rest of us can see it -- they might as well be wearing red neon signs 20 feet tall, proclaiming, "ULTRA SUPER EXTREME MANLY MAN!!!"

What's really disgusting, though, is that they're so damned determined to prove their manliness by making others die for them. Whatever else Wilhelm Reich was mistaken about, he was absolutely on target when making the connection between fascism & thwarted sexuality.

If only these frightened little boys would have the decency to fight among themselves, and leave the rest of us to live grown-up lives. But of course you'll never find any of them backing up their mouths with their fists. Better to sit back as others die horribly, watching & commenting from the womblike safety of their computer cubbyholes ...

... of Richard Pryor & Gene Wilder strutting so manfully & proclaiming, "That's right, we bad, we bad."

Except that we're supposed to laugh at the absurdity of that scene, and "real men" like Klavan take it seriously, actually believing it's a viable model for living real life.

But he goes one step further & does it from behind a keyboard in his little room, which is no doubt adorned with Dark Knight action figures ...

Glenn, you've had several posters object to your writing about Klavan, saying that it's beneath you, or that he isn't really worth writing about, or that you're being an armchair psychologist, etc.

I think it's very important to expose this puerile worldview, and to ridicule it as much as possible, because it's the sort of "thinking" that leads to so much human misery & suffering. Strip away all the uniforms, all the ideology, all the noble phrases, and what's left is a shivering little boy, desperate to prove to everyone (and most of all to himself) that he is TOO growed up -- and he'll inevitably prove it with the lives of others, who really don't exist as human beings in his terrified, solipsistic view. God, what must it be like to live in such a perpetual fog of fear & monstrous insecurity?

But any pity I might feel is lost in the sheer horror of what "real men" like Klavan do to this world.

So please, keep on writing this sort of column whenever the need strikes!