I wanted to be a writer from my early teenage years, but I never told anyone. Writers, in my opinion, were god-like creatures, and to say I was striving to be a writer would be incredibly arrogant.
I'm fortunate in that I'm a lecturer too and this gets me out and about and away from the computer. I also have loads of friends all around the world, plus a core group of special people in my life that I can lean on, chat to, or just hang with.