It seems I am making a new network of friends through the Internet, at the age of 34. It feels that it's as rich a time for me now, with the seeds of friendship on offer, as it was when I was a member of the Dublin gay youth group in my teens. Then, we were all starting out on a new adventure together; the first group of its kind in Ireland. We fully expected pickets outside the Hirschfeld Centre on Sunday afternoons but, miraculously, nothing untoward ever happened. The friends I made then are still close to me now, 15 years later.

It was an extraordinary time in the Dublin gay scene. The Hirschfeld Centre, staffed mostly by volunteers and (under)funded by takings at the weekend discos, attracted the most widely divergent group of people I have ever witnessed - from priests to choirboys, prison warders to conmen, barristers to prostitutes.

The "quay queens", so called because they plied their trade on Burgh Quay, provided the most colour and humour in that world. Streetwise, mostly working-class, and hard as nails, they went by "camp" names such as Martina, Georgina, and The Countess of Athlone. On disco nights they would arrive bedecked in outrageous drag, screaming "howya girl" across the floor to each other, taking no prisoners.

Fights would inevitably occur. I remember one night picking up something that had landed by my foot; it was a large and bloody front tooth. The unfortunate queen who had just been walloped had a drag show in one of the upstairs lounges in Aungier Street; she carried on with her show for years afterwards with that tooth missing. On Sunday lunchtimes, walking down the quiet street, you'd be able to hear her tinny voice rising to a falsetto shriek, with a roomful of old biddies joining along in chorus.

Nowadays, the commercialisation of the scene has meant that these "undesirables" are barred from pubs and clubs. It's understandable, but it is also true that it was the quay queens who were always at the front of gay pride marches. They were brave, defiant, showy and embarrassing to those who wished to appease a hostile society.

The fading of a sense of gay community in Dublin, which started with the fire at the Hirschfeld, has revealed an increasing homogeneity that is both a mark of progress and a depressing rejection of fiery originality.

That said, I must pay tribute to Gay Community News for continuing to fly the flag; London has nothing to match it. I do not know now whether Dublin rent-boys now have anything like the same culture or cohesiveness. Perhaps they have faded away, having been replaced in the 90s by ice-cool bodybuilders who take credit cards over the phone.

The fact that I made such firm friendships during that time, through the youth group and in the Hirschfeld as a young adult, is due to my willingness to take full part in a group effort. This may seem self-evident, but I hadn't considered the importance of groups before in my life, nor quite what a difference it makes when one joins a new one. One's personality is in a state of flux, and one is ready to redefine oneself, and share secrets and lies with complete strangers. One trusts that the kindness of strangers will win through, as one is prepared to take risks to find others with something in common.

What is interesting, is that this period of openness doesn't last. After a while, we change back into steadier, less fluid versions of ourselves, having established who's worth knowing in the group, the subtle hierarchies at work there, and who is to be avoided at all costs. Once that happens, when someone new arrives into your (by now familiar) group, you're not willing to take the same risks with them; you may be polite and friendly, but there is no sense of adventure; the window of opportunity for shared vulnerability is closed.

That's not to say that good friends cannot be made outside groups; I'm just remarking on the fact that joining a group offers an opportunity to grow that is second to none. When I arrived in London, four years ago, there wasn't a group I could join to enable me to make friends in the same way. The London gay scene is utterly devoid of a sense of community. Perhaps it is too large, perhaps it believes that it has already arrived at its destination of the coolest place to be on the planet, and is therefore not interested in changing.

But all is not lost. Aidan Shaw, a gay porn star, poet, and performance artist, has just been on Gaytime TV as I write, on the Beeb. Having spent the majority of his adult life as a sex-worker, both prostitute and porn star, he was gently and sincerely urging those who were going to follow in his footsteps to think again. He said that he had only begun to connect sex and feelings recently, having given up prostitution two years ago.

It was pointed out by his interviewer, Richard Fairbrass of Right Said Fred fame, that he wrote two sorts of poems; those about sex were hard and stirring, and those about love were somewhat naove. He acknowledged this to be true, talking about his previously impossibly romantic attitude to love.

As I was watching, I was aware of a pleasant first for me. I was watching two gay men on TV talking about the separation of sex and love, and both of them seemed to be sad about it. The fact that both of the men were in their late 30s/early 40s has something to do with it; but it marks a pleasant change. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.

It's interesting that this exchange should be on public service broadcasting; for the sad fact is that in the London scene, the gay print media is free, and therefore depends for its revenue on advertisers. And the biggest spender of all is the sex industry. I have been hearing rumblings recently about an implicit censorship at work; that contributions which question the hedonism of the gay male scene just do not get published. Don't offend the advertisers, they are told. This is not a mark of a healthy community.

And so, back to the Internet. Over the past four years, I've been reporting on my largely ineffective attempts to find a sense of place, a sense of home, of belonging, in London. With the Internet, and IRC in particular, I appear to have found it; the ironic thing is that I could have done it all from Dublin. And I've made Irish friends too, on gay-ireland. What I have found is a group of people exploring a new medium, with that openness that I referred to earlier. Each evening, one can check in, say hi, ask how each other's day has been.

On Sunday afternoon last, I witnessed a public row which reminded me of the tooth incident of yore. Two members of the gay-skinheads group started hurling insults at each other; for a full 20 minutes my screen, and the screens of all those watching all over the world, were filled with wounded feelings and rage. It became apparent that both men were disabled, one with AIDS, and one could see how much the Internet mattered to them, allowing them to interact with others when they could not even leave their house.

The row died down, and they both came to the conclusion that they had so much in common with each other due to their disabilities and their rage against their bodies and illness and the world. They agreed to talk on the phone, and try and arrange to meet.

It was hard not to be moved by it all. The Internet is the future, folks, and it ain't all bad.