At The Precipice Once More

 LOOK OUT FOR THAT FIRST STEP. IT'S A LULU!

I'm really trying hard to have a more positive outlook. Truly! But I can't seem to stop tripping over huge reminders that taking two steps forward will ultimately land you three steps back. It's like just when one awful thing resolves itself, there's no time to even celebrate that small win before its mutant cousin pops up with a chip on its shoulder looking to double the awful you just finished tidying up. 

A major development in my ongoing saga of the mysterious "investigation" that has haunted me for the last two-and-a-half years finally came to fruition this past
weekend, and there are two ways of looking at it. Either these nosey nellies calling themselves "investigators" finally did some elementary investigating and uncovered the truth, which, surprisingly, they shared with a certain former friend whose raison d'etre for the last couple years has been to shout "Shannon's a murderer!" from the mountain tops. The alternative view, and the one I'm actually inclined to believe, is that he and his gal pals got creative and put on one of their now famous scripted performances wherein the former friend gives a stellar performance as a decent human being just long enough for me to swallow the act and buy into the ruse. 

Not this time! Fool me thrice, and . . . well, shove it where the sun don't shine, I guess. Trust is a resource I now guard more tightly than China on rare earths. He killed off my former default setting, which was to trust people completely until they give you a reason not to. Ah, but it's for the best really. There are just way too many people around who look for simps like that and suck 'em dry before they use up that free trust and then bounce. I'm done with those guys. 

Either way, it represents a milestone for me, and it felt like a huge weight was about to be lifted. I could actually feel myself ready to rise, to lift off and glide toward a better future. Nah-ah! No, sir. Get your fat ass back down here in the dirt! Pigs don't fly, big boy! 

Because this troupe of assholes, er. um, actors playing at investigating are incapable of talking to one another at a volume lower than 120 decibels, especially when the whole gang is on speaker phone or Zoom, I got to hear the universe winding up for the next kick to my nuts. I might have been cleared by these jokers of having ever been a murderer or a terrorist, but because they have been invading my privacy for going on three years now, they've managed to make a list of lesser gripes that the Head Cunt in Charge seems intent on pinning on me with a warrant, even though this bitch and her chums are personally responsible for irreparable damage to my life and for the loss of what was a very important relationship for me. 

Bitch has zero empathy and no sense of shame at all. A decent person, upon learning they were completely wrong about something so terrible would reflect on their actions and the impact they had on their target during the course of their mishandled blunder of an investigation and think, "Hmm. I fucked up, and this guy was really hurt in the process. That's on me, and I'm gonna leave this dude the fuck alone. He's earned a break, surviving me and my around-the-clock surveillance as well as he did." And then they would tuck their tail between their legs and shuffle off quietly into the sunset. 

Not HCiC. She see's her errors as inconsequential and focuses on saving face instead of giving grace. Her priority is to find something, anything that will justify the HUGE expense she's racked up with her fruitless and baseless three-year crusade to catch a killer that never existed. What a fucking bitch. 

Even her fellow investigators were taken aback by her gall. One dude, who I actually think is pretty cool, stood up to the twat for a good many hours yesterday, arguing from a place of accountability and sympathy that there was no way in hell there should even be a discussion about sending me to jail after what they did to my life. He's right! 

I just started my work study job last week, and the drama going on all around me is putting me in very real danger of losing my financial aid. I'm taking three classes this quarter, and I'm on a collision course with utter failure in at least two of them, because I've been so consumed trying to figure out if and when these assholes are going to come for me. If I fail even one, my financial aid gets pulled for next quarter, which means I can't attend school or work study. If I don't attend school, I have to start repaying student loans, without which I can't pay rent. Without school, I no longer qualify for SNAP food benefits. Without those, I don't eat. It's like I said, two steps forward. . .here they come.

But, nah. Fuck them. I gave my friend all my support, my love, my loyalty, and in return I earned his betrayal, his lies, and his crusade to punish me for embarrassing him. I did everything I could to protect him, and he wants me in jail for failing to do that. It's so fucked up! He wants an apology I have not been given an opportunity to give him, and because it's so late coming his way, he's beyond angry. He's nuclear. He's lost all reason. There is no getting through his wall of hatred to his gooey Tootsie-roll center. He's lost to me, and in becoming so lost, has become a danger to me. 

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.

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.