Young Gay Men Too Ignorant To Survive

It's such a common occurrence for me to encounter gay men online who are woefully ignorant about the finer details of HIV and the mechanics of its transmission and prevention. The stigma stays about hip deep year round, from coast to coast with occasional beacons of hope strewn sparsely throughout, defying their age with some well studied wisdom. I've dealt with this kind of rejection my entire adult life, since becoming infected at 18. But the fact that my skin has grown thicker and can withstand most of the onslaught of stupidity and discrimination doesn't mean I forgive the men who participate in the spread of such fear-based misinformation and intolerance.

Last night I was minding my own business, playing around in Photoshop and trying to come up with some new designs when I got a notification on my phone that I'd received several messages in rapid succession on Grindr. Curious, I swiped into the app and went into my inbox to see who could be so interested that they were still hitting me up. I was surprised, truly, to discover that the culprit was a very attractive young 25-year old who opened with a short greeting and followed it with a flurry of dick pics that had my full attention the moment I saw them coming in, one after the other, filling my box to capacity.

He was assertive, to say the least. Confident in his choice to hit me up, and apparently finding everything I had written about myself, my likes, and my dislikes to his approval. He asked if I could host. I agreed, but only after I ran a quick errand and came back - about an hour's work. He accepted the invitation, and the date was set.

Nearly 45 minutes later, having raced through my errand, I responded again to let him know I was ready, and I sent him my address. He gave an enthusiastic acknowledgement and said he was on his way. And then he asked a question I would have expected to have come much, much earlier if at all. "What's your status?"

Puzzled by the timing of his question, I referred him back to my profile, which he'd read before contacting me, and confirmed that I was HIV+ with an undetectable viral load. I sent him a screen shot of my latest viral load test to confirm it. Silence. A long, uncomfortable one.

I waited a minute, giving him an opportunity to piece together his excuse, but when it didn't come quickly, I decided to turn the shame back around and told him that if it was going to be a problem, that was fine, but that he had all of that information available to him prior to ever contacting me. I explained to him that I was used to being turned away based on fear like this, and I told him that I always disclosed my status to every partner I have, giving them the opportunity to make an informed decision about how to proceed. I am honest about my status because it's the right thing to do, even though, in reality, I could just as easily have said I was HIV-, since the risk of his becoming infected by me was about the same, but that would make me a liar, like all those guys on the apps who claim to be taking PrEP so they can get their bareback on, but who, in reality, hadn't set foot in a testing facility in years and had no idea what their status was.

He never spoke another word. Nor did he block me. He had probably already used up the day's allotment of blocks before getting around to my profile, so he was literally stuck, unable to block or hide, and unwilling to continue the uncomfortable conversation we were having. Or at least the one I was having. He ignored me and went on looking for another candidate to breed.

What the fuck, people? Those fields in the hookup app profiles are there for a reason. And people like myself fill them out honestly for a reason. If you are concerned about HIV transmission, how about not waiting until you are en route with your dick already in your hand before asking such a game changing question? There is absolutely no reason for a man looking to hook up in this day and age to cause someone with whom he initiated conversation to feel ashamed of themselves, even for a second. It's not okay. You need to do better, gay men. All of you.

If you or someone you know needs a refresher on how to interact with people living with HIV, for the love of all things horny, please visit my Facebook page, HIV4Dummies, and get yourself some education. At the very least, maybe you'll gain some insight as to how to protect yourself from infection in case you come across someone less upfront about their status who's willing to risk your life for a nut.

An Inspiration To Us All

New Haus of Heaux Products Influenced By Charismatic Asshole

We will admit the latest products rolling off the assembly line at Haus of Heaux haven't been real crowd-pleasers, and that's because they are specifically inspired by and meant only for the enjoyment or torture of the master of mean, the conductor of chaos, a man whose personality is a technicality -- the one, the only Shawn J. Schneider.

Shawn Started Shit Over It

The Schneider Goodbye

Thumb On The Scale All Along

Made Because of Shawn

Made For Shawn

Fool Me Twice, Go Fuck Yourself

"And therefore, I don't want to sleep with someone who is that affected by me or by a lack of me. I'm not that important."

8-28-2019 9:33 AM
From Shawn:
It's a sad realization that you were giving me things as a "trade-off" or to keep me around or whatever. I thought it was because you genuinely wanted me to have, (fill in the the blank) or that you really didn't need whatever. Also. I told you not to delete the msgs from your mom. And that I didn't need a new phone.

The only one of the things you "lent" me that I asked for (and only the second time) is the surface. I valued you, and our friendship, greatly. I now see that I was being manipulated, or at least you were trying to, to get me to fill a spot in your life, (which if you had listened to me at all since I've been here, you wouldn't have) that is empty.

Shannon, you are an amazing person and a stand-up dude, current situation aside. You didn't have to trick me into giving or buy my affection. Unfortunately, though, now I really don't want to be around you anymore. Between feeling guilty that I make you sad, and making you sad in the first place, and you getting upset or jealous if I'm not in your presence or having sex with you, I can't deal anymore.

Another thing is that part of the reason I don't have sex with you - you care too much. Seriously! I've tried time and again to explain - just chill! You won't. You refuse. And therefore, I don't want to sleep with someone who is that affected by me or by a lack of me. I'm not that important.

So, to sum things up - I'm not mad, sad, or otherwise upset. I wish nothing but the best. And all the good things in the world I hope come to you. I will get you everything you GAVE me back in a timely fashion.

Thank you for your friendship.

Sorry I cannot be what you need in life, or that you need more from me than I have to offer.

Sincerely ,

Shawn J. Schneider


Me:

Well said. I'm sorry you never felt that you could say those things to my face.

I shouldn't have tried to buy your affection or to "trick" you into caring about me. I saw how transactional your affection was with other men and must have thought that was the way someone who looks and behaves like me has to go about getting someone who looks like you. That wasn't fair to either of us, and I now feel the full cost of my actions after seeing them for what they were.

I hope you let yourself be loved again someday,Shawn, perhaps by someone who cares only the proper amount. You deserve happiness, whether that's with someone or alone and chasing it for just yourself.

Selfishness is going to take a toll on you one way or another, though. It's good that you care about yourself and satisfying your base wants and needs more than I was ever able to do for myself, but there's risk in taking that too far in the other direction. Fare as well as you will.

I'm going back to therapy to help myself avoid future you's. My life is fucked up enough without my chasing after men, especially those who want only to receive and are not equipped to give.


Him:
Well you obviously never believed me when I told you you were my friend, so I don't know what else there is to do. Have a good one.

Me:
I nothing you, too. But do take care.

Him:
👏likewise. I don't "nothing" you. This sucks. Take care, Shannon. Good things will come to you. Just don't grip them too tightly.

Me:
I have to admit, it's not as difficult this time around. Watching your example last time taught me how to turn off the hurt. I feel nothing except a bit of disappointment that things ended up this way. I vowed to never give you more of my tears, and I'm happy to report that you've been given none.

So, thanks? I guess? For the new skill. I didn't think this old dog had it in him to learn any new tricks. Hopefully I can teach myself some more.

Not to love less hard or with less intensity, though! Loving is something good I managed to do despite the buffet of shit life has served me. My lesson needs to be in finding someone who can love back as fiercely without seeing it as a burden or a chore. I apologize for having thrust that expectation upon you. I know you didn't want that role from the beginning, and your inability to communicate plus your willingness to keep going along with it only led me to think that perhaps, given enough time, I could change that about you. I was mistaken.

Take care of yourself. And of Corey. He's probably the best thing you can claim in your life, and you should be proud of that. He's a remarkable guy, and you are lucky to have him in your corner. There's a good chance he and I will remain friends after all of this blows over, because he and I have a lot in common, aside from our ability to communicate and our shared status as victims of Enamoring. I hope the best for you both, whatever that turns out to be.

It'd probably be best for us both not to cross paths again, though. I don't want my surprising new ability to feel nothing for you to suddenly evaporate into another leaden shroud of anguish, desperation, and depression like you left me with last time you decided to throw me away. If you would be so kind as to allow Corey to return my things, I think it would be in everyone's best interest. I'd rather not have to lay eyes on your face any time soon.

Out of curiosity, and I know this will sound petty as hell, but I just have to know... How much would you have charged me had I gone about hiring you as a hooker rather than what I tried to get out of you as a lover and a friend? For some reason I feel like knowing what others pay you for the honor of being fucked by your will make things seem right and closed and final. Somehow. Maybe.

Or not! I'm sorry I asked. You can't put a price on what I felt for you anyway. It just sucks that you couldn't see its true value or feel it back. I'm sorry that you, too, are broken, and that your addiction to sex outweighs your need for a healthier kind of intimacy with people who actually give a damn about you and would drop everything to be there for you if you needed. It's as sad as my own set of circumstances, truth be told. At the risk of sounding like I care too much, I hope you see your way to getting some help for that.

Don't forget the thing you stole from me despite my protests! I definitely want my messenger bag back, and the stylus for my Surface that you lost needs replacing. I would appreciate having Belly back, too, if you can find it in the hoard of boxes and stuff. I've gathered up the few little things you ever GAVE me into a pile by the door ready to hand off to Corey.

You can have the table back if you want it. I don't want to think of you every time I see or use it. Or ever again, actually. So it's up for grabs. If you don't want it, I'll sell it. I just want to erase you from my home.

I'll be available this evening, but I have plans tomorrow and Friday after work, and will probably be going to Portland for the holiday weekend. Please do whatever you need to do in order to make the exchange happen during my available window tonight so that we can end our unfortunate  entanglement as amicably as possible, given the circumstances.

Goodbye, Shawn J. Schneider. I sincerely wish that we both get what we deserve one day. Truly! I hope karma does its thing in a most magnificent way, and that the energy and effort we each put into offering kindness, patience, generosity, and love is repaid to us accordingly in the great cosmic scheme of things. I honestly can't wait for that. I think I'll do pretty well in the next go around, if that's how things go.


Lastly, I know it's not your style, reading so many words and being quick to process and reply to them, but if you could please acknowledge that you have at least read these messages, it would be helpful. Otherwise, I'll have to assume that you have already blocked this number to hide from my side of the conversation the way you usually do. If that's the case, I'll find other means of getting this message to you so that my intent is clear and understood.

When I Needed A Villain, He Donned A Black Hat

He wasn't equipped to handle love, and I wasn't able to stop giving it, no matter the cost. He knew I needed to hate him before I could stop loving him, so he stepped out of his true self and into a suit of pure, selfish evil to help me get the rest of the way over him.

In doing so, Shawn helped to expedite what might have taken weeks if not months to finally wither and die. So, even though his actions over the last 72 hours have prompted a fierce and tenacious hatred to flare up in me, I have to credit him for the act of kindness hidden in so much cruelty. He hurt me like no one has ever done before, and I am damaged as a result. More damaged even than when I arrived on his doorstep in Yakima some 7 months ago in what would be our first face-to-face meeting after a year and a half of flirting and chatting on Scruff.

Had I known then his capacity for love was so limited, I would have turned my heart off and just enjoyed the hard fuck he was always so good at delivering. I would never have let myself attach so much importance to his opinion of me, nor would I have allowed myself to feel so nurturing and caring for him. I let him use me, and he let me use him. He gained from our relationship in material things, and I gained the illusion of love and intimacy he was willing to supply in such small, intentionally limited amounts.

That should have been enough, and had I let it be, we wouldn't find ourselves locked in an ever spiraling circle of mutual destruction the way we have these last few days. I will always love some part of Shawn, if for no other reason than that he knew when I needed to hate him and bore the weight of that need to its bitter end.

Thank you for being such a heartless fuck, you fucking amazing man. I hate you so much only because I loved you so hard. That is behind me, and I never want to see your face or hear your voice again. I really do wish you both the best in life and the worst that you deserve at once. May our paths remain mercifully uncrossed for the rest of our lives, so that the hate you bequeathed to me so easily can continue protecting me from loving you ever again.

Goodbye, Shawn. Go be selfish, loveless, and alone amid so many meaningless encounters, just the way you always wanted. And may you always regret what you threw away in me, because I could have been very good for you. Now you'll never know just how good. And that's for the best.

That's My Best Friend

Goodbye, Best Friend. It was real while it was real. Please remember that.

Inequitable Heartache

At some point, even the most self-loathing masochist reaches a point where he must acknowledge that the one-sided love he's been feeling is damaging his already crippled sense of self-worth. When the person he loves cares so little about seeing or spending time with him, what is a love sick fool to do? Berate himself for having been so blinded by feelings that he ignored every single sign and signal that the relationship was one of convenience for the other person? Or wallow in self-pity, worsening the contempt he already feels for himself by painting another layer of pathetic across his reflection in the mirror?

If you hadn't guessed, I'm the love sick masochist (and you're clearly an idiot). For months I've tried my damnedest to stop the growing fondness that developed between me and my friend, S. I knew from early on that he didn't share my fondness of  him; that my feelings were not reciprocated at all. And yet intensify they did. That's what happens, I suppose, to someone who subconsciously hates himself so much that he actually enjoys being treated poorly and disrespected at every turn. When his texts go unanswered and his intended goes around sticking his cock in any and every hole that'll take it - except his, of course - there seems to be some internal mechanism that turns that pain into sustenance and feeds on it as he sinks deeper and deeper in to depression.

Two weeks ago, I nearly killed myself. There wasn't any grab for attention. I didn't write a note or leave any hints for some friend or acquaintance to find. I simply drank what I knew to be a lethal amount of GHB, left my apartment so the cats wouldn't eat my corpse, and walked a few blocks to a semi-private place where I intended to die. I had taken a look at myself, at my prospects or lack thereof, and at how many years lay ahead of me during which I could look forward to worsening expectations of happiness as I aged and grew more sullen and somber. That wasn't a very attractive future for me, so I opted out of it.

Or at least I started the process of opting. What actually happened was that I chickened out at the last minute and puked my guts up all over the Spanish Steps just when that beautiful, thick honey feeling began to envelop me and make everything feel beautifully slow and sexy. The thought of my friends gathered to bid me farewell flashed before me, and I heard how they spoke of the waste of life I'd chosen. I was confronted by the fact that lying there slowly approaching death in perhaps the most chickenshit way possible, I was giving all of the power to S and reserving absolutely no agency in the matter for myself. I had surrendered my will and thrust all my worth and wellbeing upon his disinterested shoulders.

Fuck that noise. The thought of being so thought of was enough to start the nausea, and a quick diddling of my esophagus with my middle finger sufficiently finished the deed, causing the contents of my stomach to erupt in a sickening spray that decorated the historic steps with my sadness and disappointment. And also with corn.

And even after having narrowly dodged my own stupidity in that moment, even after the rage flooded in to replace the feeling of pity and sadness, still I went crawling back for more! What a piece of work is man indeed? This piece of work nearly offed himself because a self-centered man who took him for granted and made him often feel unwanted acted like a self-centered man. How unexpected!

I need some time, I guess, to feel the full brunt of hurt and withdrawal that has to happen before I can tolerate time spent without him in my life. I'm hopeful that I can come out the other side and be mature enough to still be his friend in some capacity, but I wouldn't lay odds on it with any hope of winning that bet. In all likelihood I'm going to have to hate him in order to stop loving him so hard. And in order to do that, I have to somehow find this hateful internal switch that transforms his disinterest into fuel for my self-hatred and thrives on the hurt that our fucked up relationship keeps causing me.

I regret having let my feelings for him drive me so close to the end. I never wanted to hang my toes over the precipice of suicide again, and yet there I was, guzzling death and welcoming it to the party all over again. Maybe it would have been the easier route around the hell that is to come. Perhaps the deep, dark nothingness that awaits would have been a kind of reward compared to all the fuckery that's about to unfold in my heart. I don't want to think about that. I just need to start feeling that hurt to its fullest measure and letting it corrode my feelings of love until they burn themselves into a bubbling tar of hate. Then I can survive it. That's when I'll be okay. I just have to kill the love for him, not myself.

So, I guess I'm off to commit a murder this weekend. Rest in peace, sweet love of mine. I wish you'd had a chance to flourish and thrive. But now I have to end you.

His Growth, Their Gain, My Loss

On the subject of HIV stigma and the impact it has on those it touches, I am not naïve. It's safe to say I've encountered it firsthand a time or two. And I've had 26 years during which to observe how many different ways HIV stigma feeds into other facets of my life. I've seen how stigma based on ignorance feeds fear and results in rejection, discrimination, and even violence. The moving parts of that basic machine may vary from facet to facet, but the function they carry out when in motion is the same. Ignorance is the root of the problem, and one that, much like the retrovirus in question, wreaks havoc on those things that might otherwise be its undoing.

Ignorance can inflate the fears of a person or group of people beyond what most would consider rational limits. It supercharges a person's fear by highlighting all the unknowns and filling them up with terrible possibilities.

I'll give you an example.  A person is never taught by a trusted, credible source like the CDC, that people living with HIV who maintain an undetectable viral load are essentially unable to transmit the virus to a partner. As far as this person understands, based upon whatever sources of information he's had up until now, an HIV-positive person is leaking virus all over the place if they bleed or ejaculate on or inside an uninfected partner, thereby transmitting the virus to any person they share a needle with, have unprotected sex with, or give birth to. In this world he inhabits, people living with HIV are forever one mistake away from infecting those HIV-negative people with whom they interact.

That's a frightening prospect! It discounts the fact that adherence to a regimen of antiretroviral medication therapies can lower the virus' presence in one's body to such a level as to be undetectable by the tests designed to detect it. It ignores evidence that PrEP and TasP have been proven to be 99% effective at preventing new HIV infections between  serodiscordant partners who adhere to their daily medication routines.

These missing facts remove an aspect of comfort and reassurance from the overall picture of HIV in his view of it, and it leaves gaps in his understanding of HIV that are then easily filled with musings, ponderings, misinformation, and the unknown, each of which can ignite fear.

My very close friend, who you might guess from the fact that my entire blog has been dedicated to him, now comes into this story. Since we first me, he has shown that there some gaps in his understanding of HIV and about the risk involved in various sex acts with an HIV+ partner. There would be a statement here about how the virus did this when the body did that and then something else arrives and does this other wrong thing, and he knows, because it came from someone's story retold about their uncle's former lover's old maid, or some such convoluted string of citations and sources.

It was clear that he experienced a certain amount of nervousness or anxiety during sex with me, but I didn't have the heart to ask him about it, thinking he was already trying so hard to hide it so that I wouldn't feel judged or feared, even if somewhere deep down inside he was judging or fearing being with me just a bit.

He was very polite and always respectful whenever we discussed my HIV. He was curious to hear firsthand details about how the virus operates, how it can and cannot actually be passed between partners, and about how effective PrEP and TasP are at preventing HIV from infecting him. I shared my experience and knowledge, addressed some of the ways that stigma had negatively impacted me, and corrected those parts of his knowledge that were ill informed and misleading. He accepted those facts and experiences into his world view and has begun to build a new understanding for himself that now has less room in it for ignorance to breed and nurture fear.

My good friend is now taking Truvada as PrEP, and he now has less anxiety about having sex with men who have HIV if he feels he can trust their claims of being undetectable. I am proud to have been a part of his new expanded view of the facts surrounding HIV, and I am happy that he now carries less anxiety about having sex without using condoms. I want him to feel safe when he is safe and to enjoy the experience without being concerned about becoming infected. 

That being said, I would be lying if I said I wasn't also grievously hurt by his lessened worry and concern. Given the state of our relationship, following what was a transformative and  devastating weekend, it is quite clear that sex between us is no longer a good idea for either of us. It hasn't been completely ruled out as a future possibility, but even then there are likely to be complications for both of us if we continue having 1-on-1, intimate, meaningful sex with one another.

He would be pushed closer and closer toward feelings of romantic love and obligation toward me, which he steadfastly declares he does not want for himself at this point in time. Having spent the last two decades in one relationship or another, he wants to give himself the space to feel what being beholden to no one but himself is like. He says that he doesn't want any relationship with any person right now that is close enough for them to be hurt by his actions, deeds, or words. He wants to have only those friendships that he knows can be maintained with minimal effort and could be ended without hurt feelings or dramatic separation. 

For me, having sex with him would weaken my resolve to turn off the feelings that were causing me so much pain and him so much anxiety. It would be too easy for me to regard it as love making, which would make me susceptible to a resurgence in romantic feelings and a desire to win his love and commitment. Those things are simply not available to me at the moment whether I like it or not. So I can't let myself consider them as factors in the relationship I manage to salvage between us. I have to lock those away in order to move forward without constant pain and emotional trauma.

Dealing with all of that is already pretty complicated. Now consider this:

The man with whom I was falling in love, who harbored a number of fears and reservations about how to have sex with me when we were still having sex, is now more comfortable having sex without condoms with HIV positive people -  except for me. It seems that my being such a temptation for him to begin to view me as his boyfriend has won me the great honor of NEVER getting to be his boyfriend, and the added bonus gift of getting a front row seat to watch him evolve beyond the fears that plagued him during sex with me into being able and indeed a bit more than willing to engage in more and more bareback sex with a now widening range of possible partners free of such fears or concerns.

What a fucking fucked up mind-fuck I have created here. Fuck my life. Fuck all of these fears. Fuck his worries and fuck my broken heart and fuck all the fucking suspicions and jealousies and betrayals and fights and separations. And fuck me for fucking myself thusly. FUCK. How am I going to pull this off?

Surely, one day in the not-too-distant future, I will be able to look back on this absurd collection of painful experiences and laugh. I will have figured out how to move forward and I'll be less impacted by the memories I'll then have of the time I am chronicling right here, right now, and the comedic element inherent in these ever increasing misadventures in adult friendship will be made delightfully apparent and nostalgic in my melancholic recollection of it. 

These things have to be true if for no other reason than that I am paying so richly for some kind of relief with a currency made of tears and anguish and emotional earthquakes that keep shaking the foundation upon which my sanity rests. The hurt I am depositing into eternity's' First National Bank of Karma is surely going to secure for me that small future luxury or else it has all just been a waste of time and a regrettably unnecessary injury upon my future happiness.

A Homo With FOMO

There's a man I know and love as my very close friend. Things have been a bit tense with us lately, mostly from my perspective as an over-apologizing, self-loathing pleaser. You see, I admitted to my friend that I cared for him very deeply, in defiance of a previous warning he had issued about the grim future he sees for us should he and I become romantically and sexually entwined.

My admission was followed by several episodes of my friend simply ceasing to communicate with me, usually while a conversation is underway via SMS messaging, for entire days and nights at a time. That terrified me the first time and has infuriated me all the subsequent times.

Anyway, as I was saying, my friend tries his best to go with the flow when it comes to me, which is challenging due to the amount of emotionally charged baggage I carry with me. He absolutely slips up now and then, and he hurls razor-tipped arrows directly at my heart, but he usually realizes it soon after doing so and tries to fix it. I let him slide a LOT.

Now, for someone that patient and accommodating, you wouldn't automatically think, "This handsome fellow looks as if he has a subconscious fear of missing out on anything, anytime." But you know what? He does! His FOMO manifests itself in so many ways, too!

Chief among the examples of this fear showing up and fucking shit up is when he is almost off work and starts to think about what he wants to do when he clocks out. Will he hang with a fuck buddy somewhere up in North Seattle for a while and then go to the bath house, or should he be going home and maybe inviting me over, doing some laundry, and perhaps eating a bit of dinner or smoking a little weed?

Still, there are more options for him to consider, because his phone is perpetually filled with notifications on Scruff and Grindr - dudes who dig him and want him to put that junk in their trunk. Good for Friend! Really! He's been well received since moving back to the area in February. Being new and one of the dwindling local supply of bonafide, honest to god, butt-fucking tops, he's been received by more bottoms than he can even shake his stick at.

Say his better angel prevails and nudges him toward the homeward decision. He messages me, or responds to one of a dozen of my text messages piled up and waiting for his response. We make a quick plan to meet up, hang out, and maybe have me sleep over. It actually happens pretty often, so don't let my cynicism infect your perception of my friend. He's a good guy. Well, he tries to be. Okay, he'd like to be! (I kid!)

Imagine happy me dashing hither and thither packing up laundry, grabbing essentials to bring with, all while wearing a real, honest to god smile on my face. Fast forward an hour or two later, when he resurfaces in text message format and admits that he's been double, triple, even quadruple booking his social activities, mostly, I'd wager, due to how much of his time I've lately begun consuming like a damned drug.

He's been on the phone trying not to let anything slip between his fingers. The thought of a hot and sexy experience with one of his other friends does to my friend what catnip will do to even the most refined, laid back feline when sprinkled around on the floor. He does everything the cat would do except perhaps for rolling on his back and trying to wriggle some of the thought into his skin somehow.

He overextends himself so often and to such an untenable degree, though, that what ends up happening is someone, often multiple someones, are going to be disappointed, inconvenienced, made angry, or jealous. As you might have read in this blog before, it's frequently been my lot to enjoy the jealousy toward his other friends.

His relationship with the whole truth is like my relationship with clean work clothes. I always want to have and use them, and I do my best to make sure that I always have some on deck, but if push comes to shove one obnoxious morning, you can believe I'm going into the office wearing whatever is the least wrinkled in the hamper. So you might say his excuses can be categorized sometimes as temporally asynchronous stories of obligations that he actually might have had - FOMO is going to be the death of me, or of our relationship if I have to keep finding myself juggled between 5 other obligations he's made for himself at once, or thrown into uncomfortable, sometimes hurtful situations where he imagines I'd be alright with shedding my clothes and jumping right into some group sex with him. (I strongly suspect that somewhere in his mind, he is counting that as two or more birds with one stone. He gets his rocks off, fucks some strange, and fulfills his quota for spending time with me as well.)

Except, remember the part where I admitted feelings for him? And may I refer back to the section where I labeled myself a self-loathing pleaser? Those things haven't gone away since you set out on the journey of reading of this post, leaving me A-OK and painlessly fallen out of love with him. No! It fucking hurts ten times WORSE now because he is aware of my feelings and still lets his dick make decisions about how to incorporate me into some of his extemporaneous hook ups and orgies. (Sorry - but even remembering that made me queasy with heartache.)

So, my friend isn't able to give to me all of the parts of our friendship that actually exist. I'm forbidden or at least heavily throttled from being regularly sexual with him, because he fears that our fucking too often will cause him to begin feeling too attached in a way he doesn't want to be attached. He gets to determine which touches are okay, and which ones aren't. There are significant pieces to our friendship that I feel have been stripped and locked away as if to protect them from me.

When I have to watch or listen to him fucking someone else, I feel physically ill. I literally get nauseated, because that other piece of shit twink or bear or daddy is getting access to some of those coveted, stripped away friendship perks, and my only reward is being invited to be included and adjacent while it happens to someone else. WTF?

It's cruel! I wouldn't put anyone into such a situation if they had spoken to me at length about their feelings for me. Doing so would seem intentionally hurtful, and I would feel terrible afterward. His dick doesn't suffer the same moral dilemmas. It just points him where it wants to go and leaves him to clean up the aftermath once it pukes all over some guy.

"Hey, man. I bet we can get another 3 guys!"

Friend, I beg you - slow down a little. Take things on one at a time. I understand you feel you can juggle half a dozen things sufficiently well to get them all done, but you actually don't. You drop people and chip or break them a little every time you propose meeting up but end up breaking that date in favor of some other task or obligation or a more persistent piece of ass. The same is true of your non-people obligations. You try so hard to do everything at the same time and end up getting none of it done as quickly or to the same standard you wanted to have done. You aren't going to miss out, I promise. Those people will still be there, and they'll appreciate their time with you more because it will have been devoted exclusively to the two of you. (Three if your dick is involved.)

No more throwing me into your sex parties with other men, especially bottoms that you fuck on the regular. I am not a second bird for you to hit with that one stone, and our taste in men are usually at completely opposite ends of the spectrum, except for some universal overlap in the middle. You're hurting me deeply when you suggest it, and sometimes I feel obligated to agree to it because you've had to leave one or turn down one before thanks to my fragility. There are now three such cases for you to think back on as examples. I was hurting in each and every one of those. Hurting badly. I know you wouldn't want to do that if you knew, so now you know.

And still, I love the shit out of you. Let's fix this shit.

The Unfuckable Hulk

The Unfuckable Hulk

Fat, middle-aged, balding, somewhat effeminate gay Bear with AIDS, bad skin, an average length dick that he hardly ever uses, a strong preference for bottoming, and intense emotional sensitivity seeks authentic, honest comrade and confidante with whom to share intimacy, closeness, support, and a legitimate mutual attraction culminating in frequent, enthusiastic sex, either 1-on-1 or with others.

Candidates must be well educated about and sensitive to the underlying traumas caused by HIV, long term exposure to stigma and rejection, body dysmorphic disorder, child abuse, major depressive disorder, social and performance anxiety, chronic substance abuse, as well as domestic violence and infidelity.

Please have steady, gainful employment, enough pride in yourself to strive for growth and self-improvement, integrity, empathy, and an innate sense of compassion. No liars, thieves, hustlers, users, junkies, or opportunists need apply.
    

Tall, Lean, heavily tattooed, dominant tops and alphas get priority admittance to this roller coaster, plus a free gift certificate worth 100,000 fucks, sucks, cuddles, and hugs. Must be over 21 with state issued identification to apply.

Ouch As FUCK!

As prophecized in the scriptures of the Lordt, I really got what I was asking for if being humiliated and cut through the heart were the top two items on my wishlist. He didn't say much. More like, he let my conclusions resonate in the awkward silence until they were deafening. Uggh!

I don't want this heart anymore. I think it's defective, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's broken to pieces right now. 

Fuck.

Careful What U Wish 4

My incessant need to always confess shit has brought me to the precipice where I currently find myself perched. I don't know what I expect to get out of the conversation that I all but insisted Shawn have with me tonight. I guess the main objective would be to get it all out from both sides, which is to say that I would really like to walk away with an admission from him that I was right -- which is going to hurt like hell -- or something concrete and believable I can hold onto without always and forever finding myself wondering what he really feels behind the polite lies he feeds me regularly.

An end to the guesswork. That pretty well sums it up, I suppose. It's exhausting trying to excavate a truth I can live with from the depths of Shawn's evasive nature. When he sees me coming at him with my truth shovel, the man is a marvel at throwing up smoke screens, putting up detours, and camouflaging himself instantly in a Gilly suit made of disaster, all aimed at keeping the status quo in place without having to deal with any repercussions his true feelings might inspire.

I understand why he doesn't want this to come to a head. As he's learned, there is a steady stream of support and generosity that flows one way toward him day and night from me to him, and that might continue unabated for quite a while, as long as nothing upsets the flow. Allowing me to wrest a hurty truth from his chamber of secrets would jeopardize that equilibrium, so he tries his best to mitigate the risk by omitting truths, bending them, or just flat out lying to me in a way he thinks is for the greater good. Bullshit.

Now that I've put all my cards on the table regarding the frustration and heartache I've felt pretty much consistently since he moved here from Yakima, I can't settle for any of those tactics or let him skirt the issue with one kind of distraction or another. I'm half tempted to tie him to a chair and get my answers forcibly, but that could prove counterproductive to say the least. No, what I need is to assure him that nothing he says is going to hurt me so badly that we can't recover from it. I'm 90% sure that's true. 

I fully expect to be disappointed and hurt and embarrassed beyond belief when he finally coughs it up, so there's that 10% chance I could run for the hills and hide my head in the sand for a while. But if that's what it takes, it's what has to happen. I can't keep this act up any longer. There needs to be a meeting of the minds, at least, even if our hearts might be on completely different paths.

All Cards On The Table

Here is the text message I sent tonight. <sigh>

"One subtle point that I think maybe you haven't considered is how, when you and I met in Yakima, I was mostly clueless about the real behind the scenes drama at play with you and Corey. I won't say completely clueless, because you had alluded to there being an in house separation and tension along with it. But from my perspective, there wasn't any "off limits" area into which whatever might happen to grow between us couldn't grow. You get what I mean?"

"I was operating under the simple assumption that I'd met a guy that shared chemistry with me, who I found incredibly attractive, and whom I began to really look forward to seeing more and more of as time and distance allowed. So when you moved here and added me into the shuffle of so many other guys, I was a bit stung. Then, when you admitted that you were purposefully pushing back on my advances out of fear that we might become too much like a romantic pairing, I was devastated."

"Until then, I hadn't realized that line was there, or that you weren't as open to our growing into whatever we wanted as I had been all along. You may remember how I struggled with that information, trying hard to reconcile the feelings I'd already developed with this new limited role I was left with if I wanted to keep any role at all in your life. I doubted everything you'd said, about how you found me attractive, how you hadn't had to force yourself to have sex with me on the few occasions we did, and lots more."

"I couldn't figure out how any of those things could be true if you were so easily putting a stop to further advancement toward dating, because I felt those things about you, and it was all I could do not to throw myself at you and kiss you every time I saw you. That you clearly didn't have those same strong urges was proof to me that you never had, and so I had to withdraw and simplify us to the point where further humiliation was no longer a risk."

"Then my birthday happened, and the agonizing back and forth and stop and start all culminating in that super hot frottage session made me wonder for a moment if maybe you'd reached that tipping point and had gone ahead and let yourself feel that way for me. Maybe by making you hump me through our underwear, I'd found the magic recipe that finally made you want me."

"Nope. I got immediate indications and testimony that that was absolutely not what had happened, and that it had been something akin to a birthday present to me. A one-time annual charity that wasn't to be construed as an open door for more of the same."

"I saw and heard how eager you were to get back out of your seven-day post-gonorrhea quarantine and back in circulation, and it crushed me. As I saw it, you had a living, willing partner right there at your disposal -- one who wanted nothing more than to give you pleasure and to be the happy recipient of all that pent up sexual energy -- and you didn't even consider it. It didn't even cross your mind. When I finally put those observations together and saw the picture they painted, I was devastated."

"I hid as much as I could of the explosion that was happening in my heart that morning, while you drove me back to my place. It was not my best performance by a long shot. That's when I determined that I needed pharmaceutical help to get past that much pain. So I self-medicated as soon as I got home and doubled my daily dose of crazy pills to help shut it down completely."

"And it worked! For the most part. I can still identify the hurt, like, feel where it resides within my body, you know? But I don't have to access it with my heart, and that is a huge win, because I don't want to access it that way. Not yet."

"Obviously it's a temporary fix to a problem we need to find a way to adult our way through. And I'd like to try doing that sooner rather than later. But today, probably tomorrow and the next day, I'm able to cope with the realization that I came home from Yakima all those months ago feeling a certain way about you.  But you didn't walk away from that room feeling the same way. It's embarrassing. It's disappointing. And I feel like I didn't get a fair chance at having whatever it was we might have had. But I'll get over it."

"We'll talk. And Shawn, I need for us to really talk, all cards on the table, no trying to protect me from the truth, no trying to say something by not saying another - just the facts, so that I can eventually look you in the eye without feeling a cramp of sickening loss quake in my heart. I think that's a reasonable thing to ask."

"So, if it's cool with you, I'd appreciate it if we could have a sit down very soon."

Okay - it took 3 messages to send all of it. But it's sent. Lordt! It's sent.

Wanted

In my quest of self-discovery, I've managed to finally define one of the core drivers of my behavior. It's not just a lack of love or companionship that make me feel lonely. In fact, loneliness is probably the wrong word to describe what it is I'm really feeling most of the time. A more accurate description of my resting state would be "unwanted". That's what's missing, and it's what is lifted for a few minutes during and after really good sex. During those fleeting moments, I feel completely and utterly wanted. It's amazing. It feels like everything about me, all the flaws and frustrations, it all adds up to something that's actually cared about and desired. And then in a flash, it's gone.

I am always the first to admit that, in a lot of ways, I'm still very emotionally immature. Strange, considering how many emotions I feel at any given moment, right? But the fact of the matter is that I never learned much about those emotions that are directly tied to sex and intimacy. I spent too much time avoiding sex or if having it, retreating into myself to observe and judge how poorly at it I performed. I never just let myself be in the moment and enjoy it. So on those rare occasions when I do feel like an equal partner in the act of having sex, it always comes as a bit of a shock to me when those kinds of unique emotions bubble up to the surface. I don't even think I have words for them, much less the ability to categorize them or explain how they feel compared to other emotions I'm more accustomed to having.

The closest I can come to describing them would be "contentedness" and "belonging". Feeling both of those things at once is so rare in my life that the combination of them at once is like a drug, one that I never want to come clean from. When those emotions take center stage, I can do anything. My inhibitions are gone. My self-doubt is eradicated. For a few minutes, I'm all Shannon, bold and unafraid. I'm like the me I could be if I hadn't been so badly damaged and made to feel so unsure of everything I say or do. That guy is hot. I want to be him when I grow up.

This year, for my birthday, I got to be him for a brief moment, after hours of circling and dodging and evading and questioning. My submissive nature is going to be the death of my sex life if I'm not careful. But that's a rant for a different day. Today I'm gloating, because for my birthday, I was given the feeling that I was wanted, and it's the best gift I ever got.

Fearing A Friendship Lost

Okay, whoever might be on the other end of this blog, soaking up the depressive stories I'm forever writing here without ever making your presence known, I have a challenge for you. I want you to imagine, for just a moment, that there is a guy (or a girl, if that's what you're into <shudder>) with whom you've become somewhat smitten over several months' time spent really getting to know one another. You have incredible sex with him, but not often. You have in depth conversations about everything under the sun with him. You and he share enough common interests in music, movies, books, and art to be kindred, and have just enough differences of opinion in each of those categories to create that necessary spark for debate. For all intents and purposes, you're as close as two people can be without it having to crumble under the weight of some confining, hetero-normative label that wouldn't accurately describe it anyway.

Now imagine that every time things reach a high point, he says that he has to be careful not to allow himself to get carried away or too drawn in for fear that he'll immediately start to resent himself for allowing such a relationship to have formed, and that such self-resentment will soon thereafter translate into resentment of you, which will only serve to create deep chasms and secrecy and distrust between you, ruining the perfectly happy and functional friendship that you started out with. When you try to press for clarity as to why there would be so much resentment right out of the gate, he tells you in a crisscrossing stream of words and sentiments that this hypothetical romance could only be defined as a rebound, which he has allowed himself to indulge in on more than one occasion in the past, only to destroy the friendship he once had with the object of said romantic rebound, and in most cases, erase them from his life altogether.

Well, that doesn't sound at all like what you want to happen, does it? As much as you care for him and enjoy being with him, the last thing you want is to feel resented by him much less risk him removing himself from your life completely! No, that wouldn't do at all. So you settle for calling what you have a friendship and leave the semantics out of it. I mean, that's what he's so hung up on after all, isn't it? The words that other people would use to define you? If all it takes to keep this guy in your life is to call him one thing while he's portraying something else, then call that apple and orange and keep quiet, right?

That's what I thought, too. But then the thought occurred to me as he told me once again how easily he could find himself loving me for all the wrong reasons, that this recital of his completely removes my feelings and my agency from the equation. Nowhere in this rhetoric of his do I have a say in matters. At no point does he ask how easy or difficult it would be for me to openly express the love I feel for him, with or without a label to classify it under. What if I prove to be someone he is incapable of resenting? What about the magic I bring to the table? Couldn't I somehow sway this ill ending prophecy of his through some minor redirection or some major cathartic endeavor? Doesn't my involvement in this cautionary tale afford me a say in how doomed we are or are not?

What say you, phantom reader? Would you accept an end before your beginning, where this conundrum yours to unravel? Or would you insist the next time he brings up how easily he could anything that he put up or shut up and leave the future to be written the way futures tend to be written -- not by the hands of those wrapped up in it, but mysteriously and with no clear path or plan or promises?

I'm not giving him such an easy way out next time. I plan to put a stop to the senseless soothsaying he uses to write us off, and instead write myself into this theme as an equal partner whose feelings have just as much a chance of making things work as his do of making them not. I'm not giving away the chance laid before me simply because he's too afraid of taking a chance on me. Where he's been afraid I will have to be more brave, and in this way we weave our wonders and our woes.

Give Till It Hurts

How Being Raised in the Old Homesteader Traditions Has Failed Me in a World Without Values.

I've always had a special appreciation for the old saying, "Give until it hurts." For some reason, it evokes a welcome memory of my grandmother when she was in her early 50's buzzing around her house preparing for one of many backwoods social calls from some great great uncle or third cousins or step-grand-niece and her new husband. That woman knew how to put out a spread. She cooked so well and so often that people came from miles around to share Sunday supper or a mid-week cup of coffee with home baked bread or biscuits or cookies. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that to her food was love, but she definitely loved feeding people, and I absolutely loved eating all of it.

My grandmother had a huge influence on me during the years after my parents divorced and I went to live with her and my grandfather for about 4 years of grade school. She worked full-time for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Pineville, LA as a secretary, and there wasn't a day that woman didn't dress to the nines for work. She thrived on the attention her designer suits and high heels won her from the men at the office, though, like a dutiful wife many years beyond the expiration date of love, she came home at 6:00 on the dot five days a week and had dinner on the table by 7:00.

She taught me much about how people ought to behave and how they should treat others, whether they were family, neighbors, or strangers off the street. Everyone deserved a friendly smile, a kind word, and a hot meal if one was ready. While our little rural town wasn't much for diversity among its population nor its congregation, to those who stopped by or passed through, my grandmother was known high and low as a great gal who could cook like the devil. I wanted to be as well liked and appreciated as she was by those men and women in that community. I watched everything she did from the hours long night time ritual of her bath, moisturizers, and expert level upkeep regimen, to the precise and perfect way she ironed and folded load after load of laundry. Everything she touched was a perfection worthy of a fancy Southern magazine.

We were a poor family, I learned much later on. We didn't have much, and what we did have, we plucked from the earth or pulled from the streams. I treasure my childhood experience of growing up on a farm that fed my grandparents and me along with neighbors and extended family anytime they decided to drop by around supper time. In exchange for a free meal now and then, our family and neighbors would repay the kindness in great little ways like an evening of live fiddle and guitar right there in our living room, or a weekend's worth of babysitting to give my grandparents some time off from me while I got free swimming lessons. Even when the crops were light thanks to bugs or frost or when the fish weren't biting and the chickens weren't laying, we made due, and not a person who needed anything was ever turned away from my grandmother's doorstep. She literally gave until it hurt, and then a bit more on top of that.

I like to think I've made her proud while she was living. I hope she saw how much of her there is in me, and that she was flattered by my unwavering generosity to those around me in my life or just passing through it. I definitely feel the hurty part of giving more often than she ever had to endure, but regardless of the lack of reciprocation these days, I can't seem to stop giving of myself in whatever capacity I can when someone is in need of help. Even after being taken advantage of by ungrateful guys that survive by taking and taking, my heart won't let me not provide comfort or shelter or support however I can to those people again and again.

Sometimes I wonder if she would have continued had she ever been so unfortunate as to have encountered young gay junkies who are dope sick, gay for pay homeless hustlers trying to swindle a few bucks for diapers for their babies, and myriad other varieties of ne'er-do-well and miscreant out to take whatever they can from anyone who's kind enough, dumb enough, or weak enough to provide it in some form or another. Something tells me she would, though not without the wagging of a finger and a stern life lesson to go along with whatever generosity she bestowed upon them. Wisdom would be a part of that gift, and they'd be fools not to take and cherish it. Yet I would warn her how disrespectful and opportunistic the world has become hoping to shield her from the kind of treatment I've received myself while emulating her good spirit and kind heart.

It's a shame to see how different the world is today from the simple, friendly, neighborly one I remember growing up in for those few short years with my grandparents. Nowadays, folks don't have the same kind of understanding that goes without saying about how to repay kindness with kindness or how respect is always afforded to everyone until perhaps they prove themselves not deserving of it. A smile and a nod at a passerby on the sidewalk these days could just as easily win you a middle finger as it could a smile and a "Mornin'!". People have lost their kindness. They don't connect with one another in the same ways, and they are suspicious of those throwbacks like myself who insist on carrying on such antiquated traditions. My forthright conversation and my hospitable nature puts people ill at ease when all I want is to look after their comfort and make sure their time in my company is as pleasant and memorable as I can make it.

I don't know how to live in this world. Too often turned away, and almost never sought out for company, I have given till it hurts and have gotten more hurt as repayment. At some point, of course, it's got to become a case of "Shame on me.", because it doesn't make sense to keep on emptying my reserves of time, money, patience, and care on people who don't want it, don't like it, don't respect it, and won't appreciate it. I think I'd almost rather have a crafty hustler pull the wool over my eyes and feign some attraction and intimacy for an hour than to have my kindness repaid with name-calling or willful silence and utter ignorance of my person. At least if they lie to me, it perhaps costs them something in doing so. That's sort of a barter I suppose. It hurts, nonetheless. So I guess it's worth giving.

It's Not Him, It's Me

Lately I've had a rotten string of luck with guys flaking on me, cancelling dates at the last minute, or just flat out ghosting me. It's beginning to feel like I'm cursed or afflicted with some kind of reverse dick magnetism. It's weighing heavily on my feels to be honest. 

I try not to let the behavior of others dictate how I am feeling about myself or what I will or won't do with my evening, but when the disappointments come at me one after the other for several days in a row, it's hard not to take it personally. Luckily, I have made a good friend recently with whom I've been able to share the news of each heavy hit as it rolls in, and that has made it somewhat bearable because he encourages and consoles me when I am ready to throw in the towel. 

We have been hanging out quite a bit, this friend and I, and there have been some awkward conversations between us as we figure out what kind of friendship each of us wants from the other. I won't lie -- those talks give me great relief, because as awkward as they may feel, he's pretty receptive to what I'm feeling and always tries to be forthcoming about how he's feeling as well. I dig it. 

The sex we have, when we have it*, is fantastic. From the first time we met, we seem to have found a pretty great rhythm that curls my toes and empties his balls very effectively. For the most part, he's been accepting of the fact that we are serodiscordant, choosing to wear condoms in addition to my taking antiretroviral therapy medication to maintain an undetectable viral load. 

We've talked several times about it, as I am wont to do so that I'm certain there isn't any confusion or misunderstandings whatsoever about my HIV status. He's got a pretty good attitude about it, though he could benefit from a bit more education and discussion on the subject, so I try not to let his choice to use barrier protection with me make me feel like he's afraid or judgmental of me.

When asked if he always uses condoms with the (many) other guys he sleeps with, he says that for the most part he does, admitting that on occasion he's foregone a rubber if he knows the person well or if things get too heated to stop and there are none available. And that's both fine with me and also absolutely none of my business. His choices about protecting himself are his, and I completely respect that. 

He's been trying for a couple of weeks now to get me out more, nudging me a little harder each time to loosen up some and enjoy a more adventurous sex life like his. He's asked me to accompany him to the bath house multiple times, but I always decline. He convinced me a couple of weeks ago to go with him to be with 2 guys, 1 of whom he has been flirting with on the apps for a while, and the whole thing went sideways from the moment we walked into the place and found that 2 people were actually 4, none of whom seemed very impressed that he had brought me along to their orgy. We left, pseudo-gracefully.

Last night, after I'd faced yet another heart-twisting cancellation (this one after getting on the bus and travelling up to Seattle to meet a guy who cancelled on me the moment I arrived), my friend came to my rescue and collected me from the stoop of a friend's place after he got off work. I was pretty down and deflated as I stood outside waiting for him to arrive so I could just get home, let out some of the feels that were stabby and scratchy in the sensitive chest place, and call it a night.

Despite my obvious woe, he was very animated and clearly motivated when he asked me if I wanted to go with him to one of his friends' dungeon parties, telling me his buddy had at least two versatile guys over there right then, and that they would not be the same kind of guys who had only recently made me feel so ugly and out of place. He explained that he'd told his friend he would like to go, but that he had a friend with him, and that it would be up to me - no pressure there. 

I didn't. I mean, I ended up going, yes, but not because I wanted to. I just couldn't bring myself to tell him no, because that would be the second time he was cock blocked from a big group scene because of me. I swallowed down a Molly capsule along with some of my still hurty feelers to make room for the ones that came next.

We arrived. It was as strange as I'd imagined. There was a young guy getting fisted in a sling by another young guy and an older bear walking around in a leather jockstrap bringing them bigger and bigger things to shove into each other. I took a deep breath and undressed, making my way onto the bed while everyone else gravitated toward the sling. And that's where I stayed most of the night, watching from across the room while my friend dove in and barebacked both boys over the course of a few hours.

I get it. He doesn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me the truth about his fear regarding HIV. He's certainly not alone in that. And I know that it didn't even occur to him that seeing that would flip a switch in me that might one way or another change the course of our friendship going forward, but that's what he did. 

I'm so torn up that I can't stand it. It opened the oldest, most hurtful scar I've tried to stitch back up over and over for 26 years. I'm a veritable pool of pure sadness, and I can't fucking show it to him because I'll crack into a million tears, and I won't be able to stop myself from lashing out. 

So I'm trying my best to focus on the facts, which are these:

1. He had never met either of those boys before we walked into that basement.
2. He didn't ask either of those boys about their sexual health.
3. Neither of those boys disclosed any information about their sexual health.
4. He fucked them both long and hard and he came in both of their sloppy, stretched out assholes.
5. I watched my friend reveal his lie in stunned silence.

I'm gonna crack soon. There's no more room in me for this kind of shit. I'm broken, yes, but a man can keep breaking or break again after being partially repaired, right? That's what's happening right now. I'm breaking so hard that I can't see a way past the hurt. Not addressing it is going to lead to a bigger, more eruptive episode down the road for sure. But doing it now, or at least as soon after the event took place as possible, requires my being able to hold my shit together long enough to have a conversation with him that isn't accusatory or filled with weaponized emotions made lethal by the sense of betrayal I feel at this moment. 

Wish me luck. He's probably coming back here tonight. I suppose I'll play it by ear. But there won't ever be another last night. Not ever. There may never been any us time again after we talk. I guess we'll find out. 

UPDATE: Per usual, I'm a drama queen, and the world didn't end just because I had an uncomfortable conversation. We're as close as we have always been, and the more we talk about these bits of discomfort the closer we become. I need to remember that the next time my heart is breaking and I think the worst will come of it. I should really remember to give him a little credit for his part of our relationship. Will I ever move beyond an 8th Grade level of sexual maturity?

*He's been afraid that we're approaching something more than friends, perhaps on both sides, and he has been intentionally withdrawing from my advances or ignoring them in an effort to stop that from happening. He says he doesn't want to ruin our relationship by allowing it to morph into a rebound thing, and I have to agree. But now I also have to ask myself, in light of this newest development, how much of his hesitance is from that, and how much might be more honestly attributable to his fear of catching the virus from me. It's valid, to be sure. 

I don't remember what it feels like to live in fear of HIV because I've pretty much always had HIV, but I imagine it's pretty consuming of the faculties when approaching a situation where you are forced to confront it head on. I just wish it didn't make me feel like a tainted piece of undeserving trash who could kill anyone who sleeps with me.