Hey, everyone

You have come to be my friends, my cycling buddies, and I feel like I am a part of a real community here, a community that I have not yet found where I live. The conversations here are insightful, generally supportive, often, but not always, about cycling, and often inspiring. I continually feel grateful to be welcome here.

My DH posted here once - I had posted a concern about his health, and we were overwhelmed by the positive wishes and prayers that were sent his way. He felt privileged to post his thanks to all of you, and his report that the cancer scare, was, in fact, a scare, and all was well. I tell him often about some of the interesting threads, sometimes ask him for technical advice when someone is seeking it, but he doesn't read the forum directly, and doesn't feel it is his place to post here.

That said, he's got as many online friends and community elsewhere as I have here, and he gets what he needs from them.

It seems that this is a bit of a delicate topic for some of us, and I can understand that. Many good points were raised in the other thread, the underlying thought seeming to be that men have lots of other forums, why hang out here?

In general, I agree that if this were to be a truly co-ed forum I may not feel as comfortable here, and may not spend much time here.

But part of me really hates the idea of "allowing" or "not allowing" a whole group of people to be here ever, just because of their gender.

I would hate to think that under new rules, in a similar situation, my DH would have been prevented from posting his thanks, or that another caring DH would have not been able to give us updates on our sister's progress recovering from an injury.

But when speaking of Mr. Silver, I haven't yet read a post that wasn't respectful, interesting, humourous, supportive or helpful....he's done nothing that should single him out to be kept out of the forum.

It is interesting that he is posting so much, but I do understand this. He spends his weeks away from home and he's just embarked on a difficult weight loss journey. He's very focussed on his food intake and exercise output, and is encouraged by the support and acceptance he's found here....it's hard to go hang out with the boys when you're trying to lose weight.

This is an extremely difficult question and I'm not sure how it will be resolved. If the question requires a yes or no answer, without any specifics, I would still have to answer yes....

Good luck to our moderators!!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~