My story is inspired by your magazine. I came across Fluffer Everyday in Berlin, in a friends house a couple of weeks ago and it triggered me. The innocent story of the guy practicing basketball is speaking to me so much. As a university student I was living in a dorm full of kids from all around the world. Shy as I was, I didn’t spend much time in the common areas. I preferred staying in my room, listening to my music and gazing outside my window. The boys would gather outside the building and play basketball and other manly sports, and I would stare at them behind the safety of my curtains. Closeted gay back then, I was too scared to even think about approaching any of them, in any way.

One day as I felt campus and I was walking back home, the boys were there playing again. I was so mesmerised by their sweaty bodies that I didn’t see the metal sign in front of me and totally bumped my head. The massive bang made everyone turn around and look at me. Thank god not many laughed. As I was trying to pull myself together, a fellow student that was living a couple of rooms away from me, came to check if I was alright. Joking he said that he have had the same thing happened to him as the boys are always so yummy. He wanted to let me know that he was gay too.That day we spent the whole evening talking, getting to know each other. That guy became my very first gay friend and we would spend every day watching the hot boys throwing many kinds of balls around.

Today, 25 years later, he is someone I consider family. And all this because some hot boys were playing basketball.

W, Brussels.