Minutes 0–5 · Arriving
You join muted, with your camera however you want it. I say hello, read out the one sentence this circle sits with, and say the rules out loud so nobody has to remember reading them. Nobody is asked to introduce himself.
Sixty minutes. Four to eight men. One Sunday night.
One hour on Zoom, and I’m the one holding it.
Here is every part of it, in order, so nothing about Sunday is a surprise.
This is the first one. There is no back catalogue and nobody has sat in one of these yet. 30 August is where it starts.
The one with a date
Sunday 30 August 2026
- When
- Sunday 30 August, 20:00 Amsterdam (tentative).
- Where
- Zoom. The link arrives on the Friday before, from a name that doesn’t say what this is.Zoom. The link comes the Friday before.
- How long
- Sixty minutes, and it ends at sixty minutes.
- How many
- Four to eight men.
- Seats
- Eight. Eight is the ceiling on every circle, not a number left over from this one.
This one sits with a single sentence — I’m pretending to be fine — and that sentence is the whole subject for the hour.
Ask for a seat
Sunday 30 August, 20:00 Amsterdam (tentative)
The circle runs when four men have taken a seat. Eight is the ceiling — past that it stops being a circle and starts being an audience.
This first circle is anchored to Europe.
The hour is 20:00 Amsterdam, still tentative. In London that’s 19:00. In New York, 14:00. Further east and it lands in the middle of your night, and I’d rather say so than have you work it out and decide you weren’t wanted.
The hour is in English. It doesn’t have to be your first language, and nobody is going to say anything about your accent.
Page last checked 6 September 2026
Not yet scheduled
- They read my message and said nothing
- I want to be chosen
- I can’t rest
No dates on these yet. When one gets a date, it gets a row like the one above.
What the hour actually contains
Minutes 5–20 · The first round
One question, and it goes round once in a fixed order, so nobody has to work out when it’s his turn. A minute or two each. You can pass, and a pass is a whole answer, not a gap in one.
Minutes 20–40 · The middle
This is the open part. Whoever wants to say more says it, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t. I talk least in this stretch — my job is to keep it from turning into advice, and to watch the clock so you don’t have to.
If a man gets upset, nothing is asked of you. You don’t have to respond, fix it, or fill the silence. That one is mine to hold, and I hold it.
Minutes 40–55 · The second round
The same fixed order, one more time, with a different question. It is shorter than the first round. You can pass here as well, and I won’t come back to you.
Minutes 55–60 · Leaving
I say thank you and it ends on the hour. Nothing is arranged afterwards and nobody is put in touch with anybody. You close the laptop and the evening is yours again.
What holds, every time
- It is never recorded.
- No video, no audio, no transcript, no notes afterwards. There is nothing to leak because nothing is made.
- First name only.
- No surname, no photo, no profile, no job. What I hold is the name you gave me, and a first name is plenty.
- You can always pass.
- Say the word and I move to the next man without a follow-up question and without a look.
- Missing one costs you nothing.
- There is no attendance record and no note about who came. A Sunday you skipped is not held against you in any way, because there is nowhere to hold it.
- Nobody sees who else is on the list.
- No attendee list, no names in an email, no shared calendar. You find out who is in the room when they arrive in it, and they find out about you the same way.
- You can leave the call at any point.
- Close the window whenever you want. Nobody follows you out and nobody emails you afterwards to ask what happened.
- Your camera is yours.
- On, off, or off halfway through. I don’t ask why, and nobody in the room says anything about it.
Who this is for, and who it isn’t
This is for a gay man who has people around him and still gets home without having said anything true. You perform “fine” so convincingly that even the people who love you believe it. It helps if you can sit for an hour and let somebody else finish a sentence. You don’t need a story, a diagnosis, or a reason for being here.
This isn’t the room for a man looking for a date, a hookup, or somewhere to be seen.
That is a different night, and if it turns out to be why somebody came, I take him off the list.
It isn’t the room for a man who wants to be the one giving advice — the middle twenty minutes is not for that.
And it isn’t the room for a man in the middle of something acute who needs help tonight.
An hour on Zoom with a man who is not a clinician is not what that needs, and I’d rather say it now than have somebody find it out forty minutes into a Sunday night.
The questions that are awkward to ask
Is this therapy?
No.
I’m not a therapist and I’m not a clinician, and this is not treatment. Nobody asks you about your childhood, nothing gets processed, and I don’t reflect anything back at you. A question goes round, you answer it or you pass, and then it’s the next man.
If you’re in therapy, this doesn’t replace it and I’d keep going. If you’re not, this isn’t a substitute for it either.
Can I bring a friend?
Not to the same circle.
Two men who already know each other have a version of themselves they do around each other, and everyone else in the room can feel it. It changes what gets said.
Send him the phrase and let him take a seat on a night that isn’t yours.
Is this a hookup thing?
No.
Nobody’s photo is on this site or in the app. There are no profiles, no browsing, no likes, no way to see who is in a circle before you’re in the room with him, and no way to contact anyone afterwards. I’m not building a place to meet men. I’m building an hour where you don’t have to perform for the men who are already there.
If somebody propositions a man in the hour, I ask him to leave the call and I don’t put him in another one.
What if I say nothing the whole hour?
Then you said nothing the whole hour.
You can pass on any round, and I won’t come back to you unless you tell me to. Nobody notes it, nobody asks after you, and it has no effect at all on whether you’re in the next one.
Who else will be there?
Four to eight gay men, first names only, most of them strangers to each other and to you. Four to eight is the men who take a seat; I’m not one of them, I’m the one holding the hour.
I don’t know which men yet, and I don’t assemble a room out of the list — men take a seat and that is the room. You won’t be shown a list before or after, and nobody is shown your name before the hour either.
The man who gave you the phrase is not told whether you used it. There’s no way for me to tell him, and no way for him to ask.
What if I recognise someone?
Eventually it will happen. It’s a small world and Amsterdam is a small city.
Here is the honest version. If you recognise him, he has recognised you, and you are both in the same position. You both came to an hour nobody repeats afterwards. That is the rule I enforce hardest: what is said in the hour does not exist outside it. Taking it outside gets a man removed from every circle after it.
If you would rather not take the chance, tell me before you take a seat. Give me a first name and I’ll keep you out of a room with him. A first name is a blunt tool — if I have two of him, I’ll tell you that rather than guess. If that leaves you with no circle that month, I’ll tell you that too, instead of quietly putting you in one anyway. I won’t ask who he is or why.
What if I’m in crisis?
Then this is the wrong hour, and I’d rather be blunt than polite.
I’m one man on a Zoom call with a clock. That is not what someone needs tonight, and pretending otherwise would be the most dangerous thing on this website.
If you’re in immediate danger, call 112 anywhere in Europe, or your own country’s emergency number. In the Netherlands, 113 Zelfmoordpreventie is free and answered day and night, on 113 or 0800-0113. In the UK, Samaritans is free on 116 123.
The circle will still be here when you want it.
What if I can’t make it, or have to leave halfway?
Then don’t come, or leave.
There is nothing to cancel and nobody to answer to, though a one-line email helps me know whether the floor is met. If you leave halfway, close the window. Nobody follows you out and nobody emails you about it afterwards.
There is also nothing to catch up on, because the hour is never recorded. No transcript exists to send you and no summary gets written.
What if it’s just me and Frank?
Then I tell you before Sunday, and I don’t run it.
Four is the floor because two men on a Zoom call is a different thing, and it is not what I said I would make. You would be sitting in it wondering what you had walked into, and you would be right to. The four are men who take a seat. I’m not one of the four; I’m the one holding the hour.
If fewer than four have taken a seat, I move it and tell you the new date. Either way you hear it from me in advance, and not from an empty room on the night.
Money
Everything here is free right now, including 30 August. Money comes later, because one man can’t facilitate circles forever for nothing. When it does, it’ll be priced like a monthly subscription — not like therapy, not like a retreat. The model is solidarity: the men who can pay carry the men who can’t, and nobody is turned away for money or asked to prove anything. There will never be a paid tier that buys attention, priority, or a better seat.
That’s the whole hour. If you want the seat, it’s one question and two fields.
Ask for a seat
Sunday 30 August, 20:00 Amsterdam (tentative)
One question, two fields. No account. No card.
Not that Sunday? I’ll tell you about the next one.
Free. Invite-only. Leave whenever — one click, no note required.
Sunday 30 August · free
Ask for a seat