It’s funny how things change. When I was a kid and into my teens I had a lot of naked friends – probably about two thirds of my close circle were people who occasionally or regularly got naked at each others’ houses or when they went on holiday. We never thought anything of it and whenever we met someone new the odds were good that at some point soon we’d see each other naked.Nothing sexual of course as we were kids, and even when the teenage hormones started to kick in and I started to realise that some of my friends were a LOT more interesting when they were naked we never took it any further.

After I left school there were a few years where I began to realise that not everyone was comfortable with nudity and some people even found it a bit (or a lot) weird. I still met up with some of my earlier naked friends though and got to know a few people at beaches on the occasions that I was able to go, so I still had a group of naked friends and contacts around me.

By the time I had decided that talking about a naked life was the best way to normalise it I had started a series of jobs that took me around the country (and occasionally beyond) and everywhere I went I found people who shared my love of social nakedness. Work colleagues at one place; people I met through the film and TV industry; friends from dancing evenings; whenever I mentioned that I went to nude beaches or routinely stripped off in the countryside somewhere there would be someone who said “Oh I do that too! We should meet up sometime,” and shortly afterwards we’d be naked on a beach or in a field somewhere

But these days things are a little different. I don’t travel anything like as much for work as I used to and so I tend not to meet as many new people as I once did, The people around me here all know that I’m a naked person (or at least if they don’t it’s because they’ve not been paying attention!) but whilst no-one seems to have a problem with it very few of them seem interested in joining in. I’m still in contact with some of the friends I met during my travelling days, but even the ones who are still in the UK are in west Wales, the north of England, Cornwall, Scotland, and other similarly distant places from where I live in south-east London I don’t get to see them often (if ever).

So how do I expand my network of naked friends? I don’t particularly enjoy pubs. Nudist clubs are hard to get into with very few offering “drop in” visiting, and the few I have been to aren’t my kind of vibe anyway. I don’t do any sort of team or group sport, and I’m not likely to start as the idea of hanging out with a bunch of sports-loving blokes is pretty much the antithesis of ‘fun’ for me!

My latest plan is to take up art again and go along to a few painting and drawing groups, especially life drawing classes as there is guaranteed to be at least one naked person there for us to draw! They might even need another model and I would be happy to stand in for that (I’ve done it before), and that might get conversations going too.

I’ll let you know how it goes.