My Truth Doesn't Belong to You

For years, I let someone else write my story.

I sat in a 210-square-foot apartment that felt more like a cell — my whole world reduced to four walls and a window I was afraid to look out of — and I let the lies someone was telling about me become the only version of me that existed. I didn't fight back. I didn't correct the record. I just... shrank. I became smaller and smaller until I nearly disappeared altogether.

The man who did this to me was someone I loved. Not casually — deeply. When he was about to lose his housing, I gave him my bedroom and slept on my own couch. When he was hungry, I fed him. When he needed money, I gave him what I had, even when I couldn't afford to. I didn't do those things to earn something from him. I did them because that's who I am. That's what I do for the people I love.

And when he decided I was his enemy — based on assumptions he never gave me the chance to address, conclusions he reached without ever asking me a single question — he didn't just walk away. He burned the ground behind him. He told people things about me that were so far from the truth they barely qualified as fiction. He painted me as something monstrous, and he did it so convincingly that every friend I had introduced him to chose his side overnight. My phone went quiet. My social circle evaporated. My name became something people whispered about with disgust.

I will not catalog his specific lies here. They are documented, and they will be addressed in their proper venue. What I will say is this: the things he accused me of are not just false — they are the opposite of who I am. And he would have known that if he had spent thirty seconds asking me instead of spending three years telling everyone else.

The isolation nearly killed me. I don't say that for dramatic effect. I mean it literally. There were nights in that apartment when I sat with the mathematics of my own disappearance and found the numbers persuasive. The only reason I'm writing this today is that something in me — some stubborn, defiant thread that refused to be cut — held on long enough for me to get help. I did get help. I am still getting help. And I am still here.

For a long time, I grieved him the way you grieve someone who has died. Because the man I thought I knew — the one who laughed with me, leaned on me, trusted me — that man is gone. Maybe he never existed. Maybe I loved a version of him that he couldn't sustain. I don't know. What I do know is that I spent months — years — aching for him to learn the truth. Believing that if he just knew, if someone just showed him the evidence, he would understand. He would come back. He would apologize. The wound would close.

And then one day, sitting in that same small apartment, I realized something that changed everything:

My truth doesn't belong to him.

It never did. I know what I did and what I didn't do. I know the care I gave. I know the records that prove my innocence. I know the settings on the server. I know what the lab results say. I know what the FBI's response says. I have always known. And his belief or disbelief doesn't change a single one of those facts.

His opinion of me is not my biography. His delusion is not my identity.

That revelation didn't erase the pain. But it rearranged it. It took the grief I'd been carrying for the loss of my best friend and turned it into something else — something closer to clarity.

Because here is what I see now, with clear eyes:

A real friend would have asked. A real friend, upon stumbling across something that concerned him, would have come to me — the man who had given him everything I had to give — and said, "Shannon, I need to talk to you about something." Thirty seconds. That's all it would have taken. And I would have shown him. I would have explained. I would have put every fear to rest, because the truth was always on my side and I was never hiding it from him.

He didn't ask. He chose to believe the worst possible version of me without giving me a single chance to speak. And then he chose to spread that version to everyone who would listen.

That is not the behavior of a friend. That is not even the behavior of a fair adversary. That is the behavior of someone who needed a villain more than he needed the truth.

I've stopped waiting for his apology. I've stopped rehearsing the conversation in which he finally sees what he did. I've stopped scanning for his name in my periphery, hoping and dreading in equal measure. That chapter is closed — not because the story resolved, but because I finally understood that resolution doesn't require his participation.

I feel something for him now that surprises me. It's not anger, though the anger still visits. It's not hatred — I don't think I'm built for that. It's closer to sorrow.

Because I know something he doesn't know yet.

He lost me.

Not the monster he invented. Not the villain in the story he's been telling. Me. The real one. The one who would have driven across the city at 2:00 a.m. if he'd called. The one who gave him the last of his savings without being asked to. The one who loved him with the kind of loyalty that doesn't come with conditions or expiration dates.

That person is still here. Still generous. Still capable of that kind of love. Still offering it to the world — just not to him. Never again to him.

And one day — maybe not soon, maybe not for years — he will look back on what happened between us with something other than the righteous certainty he carries now. The lies will get harder to maintain as the years pile on top of them. The story will stop making sense, the way all false stories eventually do. And when that moment comes — when the scaffolding finally gives way and he has to sit with the bare, undecorated truth of what he did to someone who loved him — I hope he finds it survivable.

I did.

I'm still here. And my life is no longer his to write.

HIV & Depression

 How Long-Term HIV Survival and Depressive Episodes Go Hand-In-Hand

Living with HIV for decades turns time into something strange. The urgency of the early years eventually fades, but the virus doesn’t. It just settles in, like a roommate you never invited and can’t evict. The crisis slowly becomes routine, and routine becomes its own kind of prison. That little pill that keeps me alive is both my miracle and my mirror—every morning it reflects back the part of me I’d most like to erase. I swallow it with water and a wince, a daily ritual of gratitude and resentment in the same breath.

What people don’t always see is that long-term survival comes with a quiet, grinding grief. I outlived the panic-era headlines, the funerals, the whispered “Did you hear…?” phone calls—but survival has a body count, and sometimes I feel like I’m standing on top of it. Survivor’s guilt isn’t just a dramatic phrase; it’s the heaviness you feel when you realize you’re still here while faces you loved live only in old photos and half-faded memories. You start to wonder why you were spared—what cosmic math decided you get to grow older with this virus while others never had the chance. The world moved on to new scandals and new crises, but my body never got to move on from this one.

Then there’s the stigma that doesn’t die, it just evolves. It lives in the awkward pause when I disclose my status. In the way some people say “Oh… thank you for telling me,” like I just handed them a ticking bomb instead of a piece of my truth. It’s in the dating apps where you either brand yourself with three letters—HIV—or play this exhausting game of timing and disclosure and risk. Even in 2025, with PrEP and U=U and all the science in the world, there are still looks, still questions, still people who treat you as a walking warning label instead of a whole person.

Sex, for me, isn’t a minefield of disclosure anymore; I took that part out of the equation a long time ago. My status is right there on every profile, in plain sight, so anyone who can’t handle it can quietly move along before we ever exchange a word. It’s a kind of harm reduction for the heart: I don’t have to brace for the awkward pause, the panicked unmatch, the “sorry, I didn’t realize…” message. But there’s a quieter cost to that system too. I never see the rejections—I just feel the absence. Fewer messages, fewer replies, conversations that die on the vine. You can’t prove it’s because of those three letters, but you feel it anyway. It becomes easy to see yourself less as a person who happens to have HIV and more as a filter people are silently passing or failing before they ever bother to meet you.

Over time, that kind of invisible sorting seeps into the bedroom, even when I’m with someone who does show up, who does understand U=U, who doesn’t flinch at my status. My body still remembers years of being treated like a risk instead of a partner. Desire gets tangled up with self-consciousness, with side effects, with the sense that I’m a “safer choice” only because I’ve turned my sex life into a disclaimer-first operation. It’s not that I’m afraid to be honest; it’s that honesty has taught me exactly how conditional other people’s desire can be — and some days my libido responds by just shutting the whole system down.

Depression doesn’t just drain my mood; it interferes with the one thing that’s literally keeping me alive. When I fall deep into an episode, basic tasks turn into impossible mountains. Getting out of bed feels like a negotiation. Feeding myself, brushing my teeth, taking a shower—those start to feel optional. The pill bottle on the nightstand stops looking like hope and starts looking like a judgmental little witness. On the worst days, I just roll over and let the hours pass, doses slipping by untouched. It’s not always a dramatic “I want to die.” Sometimes it’s just a quiet “I don’t care what happens to me right now,” and that indifference is its own kind of danger.

That’s what scares me when I finally surface: how easily survival can start to unravel in those stretches. If I miss meds for long enough, HIV stops behaving like a managed chronic condition and starts becoming a real threat again. The virus I work so hard to keep caged gets a chance to wake back up. Then the shame hits: You know better. How could you let this slide? That shame folds right back into the depression, which makes it even harder to pick the pill up the next day. It becomes a loop—virus, pill, depression, avoidance, more risk—and it’s terrifying to realize how quickly that loop could become deadly if it goes unchecked.

From the outside, it just looks like I’m “having a rough week” or “in a funk.” Nobody sees the small, lethal math happening in my bedroom: missed pills, skipped meals, a body quietly absorbing every choice I’m too numb to make. Long-term survival is sold as lab numbers and adherence charts, but for me it’s also this constant fight not to let the darkness talk me out of basic self-care. The same daily pill that gave me a future back can become the first thing I stop reaching for when the future feels too heavy to hold.

And yet, here I am. Still taking the pill. Still doing the laundry. Still paying bills, going to work, flirting on good days, hiding on the bad ones. That’s the darker side of survival no one prepared me for: not the drama of dying, but the discipline of living. Waking up again and again to the same virus, the same bottle, the same history, and choosing—sometimes reluctantly, sometimes angrily—to keep going. It isn’t inspirational. It isn’t neat. It’s just real.

Buy My New Book - The Wall Between Us

 My Book, The Wall Between Us, Available on Amazon

Based on real events first revealed here on this blog, The Wall Between Us tells the tragic story of Cody and Sean, an unlikely pair of friends whose bond forms quickly only to be ripped apart way too early. Dive into the emotionally raw and unflinching look at how trauma can shape our lives in unexpected ways and how addiction and insecurity can destroy connection from within. Available now on Amazon.com in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle e-book formats. Get your copy of The Wall Between Us by Oscar Silvestre today!

I Wish I Never Met You

 

What Is The Point Of Being Good?

 The way I was raised by my grandparents was to live by the golden rule. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It seemed a pretty good way of living back then, where a small rural community stayed closely knit through family ties or church. I saw that rule pay off many times, too. My grandfather would help our neighbors pick their beans. In exchange, they would give us a bushel or two to take home. My grandmother was famous for her pies, which we distributed around the community now and then. In exchange for a chocolate silk pie, there was a lady who'd sit and shell those bushels of beans with her shelling machine and send us home with a few jars of her fig preserves as a bonus. People looked out for each other, and when we found ourselves in need, there was no shortage of help we could reach out for from our friends and neighbors. 

I have tried my best to follow that rule my whole life. When I've met someone in need of help, I've given it. If a new friend found himself down on his luck and facing homelessness, I gave him my bed instead, rent-free. I've fed the hungry. I've housed those without homes. I've always tried to put as much kindness and generosity out into the world around me, and there have always been people who've taken any and all support I had to offer. It made me feel good knowing that I was able to make someone's life a little easier, a little happier, or at least a little less sad. 

But there comes a point when I have to ask myself why I keep doing this for people who never seem willing or able to return the favor. In fact, there have been a couple who I poured so much love and support into that it left me reeling, yet when I needed some of that kindness or care or patience back, they called me needy. They pushed me away. They turned their backs on me. The most recent one even filed for a protective order because I wouldn't stop asking him to repay me over $1100 in loans and a down payment that he had agreed to repay to me but never did. 

For the last year, I've been unemployed. For the last 6 months, I haven't been receiving unemployment benefits. I'm unable to afford the basics, like rent, phone, or internet, and I'm fearful of stepping outside my apartment door for fear of running into him and being arrested because he is so very eager to see that happen. 

I think my grandparents prepared me to live in a world that no longer exists. They imbued me with values and beliefs that do not serve me well in this day and age. I give and give while these people take and take, and yet never does the good deed come back around. I've wasted 51 years being other people's door mat. I've helped everyone but myself. And now I'm too old to do much of anything about it. It's just pathetic how I've given my life away to people who couldn't care less if I live or die. I've wasted a life. This was all a huge waste. 

In the end, all I can say is that I was a good person. I don't think that actually wins me anything. I can't buy toilet paper or cat food with my good person badge. But it still feels important to me to be able to say that earnestly. I wish I'd chosen better people on whom to shower my love. And I wish that my love was enough to win me theirs in return. But I didn't and it wasn't, so fuck it. What a waste.

An Unexpected Reunion

How My Ex Best Friend Came To Be Asleep In My Living Room On His Birthday

It may come as a great surprise to learn that for the last two and a half days, my apartment has become stuffed with an ex bestie who recently did some fucked up shit to me, half of his belongings, and his cat. But it's true. Not only is my head spinning from the 180° turn of events, but my heart has not yet understood what exactly the fuck is going on. It knows it wants to rage, to burst into a fiery ball of molten pain and sear the flesh right off of his stupid face, but it doesn't quite comprehend how to reflexively cause more pain to someone who is clearly already in a bad position.

Nearly 2 weeks ago just as I was finishing work at around 7:00 PM, I received a DM on Sniffies from a profile I'd never seen before except for saying hello to it maybe half an hour earlier. The DM contained a screenshot of a profile that featured a 10-year old photo of me with an untrimmed beard and about 50 extra pounds of weight, and the name on the profile was "N.A.M.B.L.A.?", implying that I am an overweight, shaggy pedophile. It also contained my full name and private cell phone number, which was captioned in red ink with the words, "Sub-Human Toilet. Shit in my mouth. I have a rim chair.", scrawled across the top of the photo.

I immediately knew it as Shawn's handiwork. He had shown up on the apps just 75 feet away from my apartment a while earlier but refused to answer my messages asking him what he wanted here. It was supremely creepy. And then, to follow that up with the bold proclamation that the greater Tacoma/Pierce County area and beyond now had visibility to my private contact information, even the long list of men I've blocked over the course of the 3-and-a-half years that I have lived here.

No sooner had I realized that than the messages started rolling in. The first guy texting me from an unknown number asked, "Hi, Shannon. I got a huge dump for you. Hungry, baby?" I blocked him. A second message arrived only minutes later, also from a number I didn't recognize. It asked, "Hey, Shannon Murdock! What's the youngest you've ever been with? Mine was 11." I blocked him, too, and hurriedly deleted both conversations. I felt sick at my stomach as dozens more similarly disgusting text messages and voicemails streamed in over the next 24 hours.

My every instinct begged to hurt him, to lash out blindly but explosively and to eradicate Shawn Schneider from the face of the planet for what he'd done to me. Of all the people in the world, he knew better than anyone how things whispered behind my back about me were my Achilles heel. There wasn't any assault he could have made on me that would have done more damage, and I felt him revel in it. 

It took every atom and inkling of restraint in my being to refrain from enacting his utter annihilation right then and there. Images of me on the northbound express bus flashed in my mind, followed by a street altercation and blood, so much blood everywhere that my mind's eye saw only in crimson tones. Instead, I took several deep breaths, put my phone away, and slowed my racing heart to something more closely resembling a seated human male in his forties. I messaged him back, thanking him for the attention he'd brought me and letting him know how surprised I was at receiving such a gift from him - all these attractive men contacting me for sex? Yowsers! Gracias, pendejo.

But the truth was I was horrified. Even now, two weeks later, I'm afraid to go out in public for fear that one of those perverts could be anywhere around me. Was the barista the one who had molested that 11-year-old? Was the bus driver the guy who'd offered me his shit? Does the cashier at the convenience store think I am a pedophile? I've stayed inside even more than when I was strictly adhering to the coronavirus quarantine. 

Then, out of nowhere, my doorbell rang at 5:55AM this Monday morning. I looked through the peephole and saw a tall, lanky figure dressed in a hoodie and wearing a hat that hid his face from the light. I didn't recognize the person, but assumed it must be one of my friends who frequently come over to visit, so I opened the door and invited the mysterious figure in. My eyes searched his face for some recognizable feature just as he turned to me and said, "We need to talk.". In that moment I knew exactly who had just invaded my personal space, and he was every kind of unwelcome there is.

Yet I still held back the instinctive scream that threatened to rush out of my mouth
and shred him with a thousand tiny blades, each honed by my rage and my hurt. "Yeah. We really do.", I said, closing the door and ushering him into the sitting area. "Thanks for the flattering profiles you left for me and everyone around town last week.", I added bitterly.

"Oh, you saw that, huh?", he grinned, not even trying to disguise his smirk. "Yeah, that wasn't me. I'm sorry. I mean that was ME, but it wasn't the me I want to be. You know what I mean?"

"What exactly are you sorry for, Shawn? For body shaming me with that 300-pound photo of me and saying I weighed 350? Or is it that you published my name and my phone number to every psycho and pervert in a hundred miles, who have all, I might add, been blowing up my phone with the sickest shit you can imagine until I finally changed my number."

"Both.", he said flatly, almost sullen in his sudden shame. "I didn't know you'd changed your number.", he said. "That's why you didn't get any of my texts this morning. I've been sitting outside in my truck at the end of the alley for nearly an hour debating what I was going to do when I got to your door, and I texted you all these messages challenging you to come outside and face me. I said, 'I know you're reading these, Murdock. Don't be a coward.', and a bunch of other stuff you didn't reply to. So I finally called you about fifteen minutes ago, and that's when I got the message saying your number was no longer in service or whatever."

"Of course I had to change it. What did you think was going to happen when you made that information public, Shawn? My phone blew up." I stared across the living room at him, sunken into the chair, eyes wide and almost confused, his clothes hanging off of him like rags on a wire hanger. He looked exhausted and a little crazy.

"And what do you mean 'deciding what I was going to do'? What did you decide, exactly?", I asked, remembering the threat I'd detected in that sentence before and fearing a snap was coming any second. I straightened and glanced left and right looking around for anything I could grab to protect myself if he lunged. My eye settled on the heavy glass ashtray in front of me on the coffee table, then met is again to monitor his movements.

"Nothing. Talk. Just talk.", he said with a telling crack in his voice like puberty was making a second house call just as he started to speak. "I haven't slept in days, and I'm paranoid as fuck right now. Somebody, I'm not saying you, but somebody has been putting up profiles everywhere chasing me all over the country saying shit about me and throwing shit in my face everywhere I go." He paused for half a beat, then continued, "If it is you, stop it. Please. Just stop."

"Look.", I started. "I've already told Corey and Tyler both a hundred times that it's not me. I'm so sick of getting blamed for whatever hell you've brought on yourself, either from one of them or some other poor schmuck that you've pissed off in your dealings. I'm going to say this one more time, and then I am not going to discuss it again. I am not responsible for the fake profiles being placed on Grindr and Sniffies." My voice was steady and stern, making my point as confident and final as I needed it to be. "I even managed to capture a conversation with the asshole in screenshots a couple of weeks ago, and I sent that shit to both your exes as proof that it wasn't me. Did they not show you? Don't tell me you haven't been tied to Corey at the waist for the last two weeks, either."

"No, I'm not speaking to Tyler, because -- uh, whole other kind of crazy -- and Corey and I aren't talking. But okay. If you say you didn't do it, I'll take you at your word. It's just that whoever it was mentioned something in one of the profiles about my Opa this time, and I saw red. It took two people to hold me back or I would have been here last night and this whole thing would have gone down a lot differently."

"What, would you have brought your favorite putter and practiced your swing on me again?", I asked with so much contempt that the snark was practically dripping from the words.

"Something like that.", he admitted and then looked away. "It's driving me crazy. Everywhere I go I'm paranoid that he's watching me. He says shit about who I'm with all the time, and like, it's not always right. Like half the time he's wrong, but half the time he's right. And so it's like he's got eyes on me all the time to the point I can't sleep. I leave town and he follows me. He followed me all the way to Atlanta and fucked with me there. On my flight home, I stopped in Dallas for an hour, and there he was with another profile showing up in DFW. I don't know many people that are smart enough to do that kind of shit with computers. You are probably the smartest person I know. So tell me the truth. Is it you? No threat, no fight. Just tell me."

"I already did. We're done with this subject.", I answered, refusing to back down from my line in the sand. 

"Then it has to be Tyler.", he posited. "I've noticed in some of the profiles there are certain typos and misspellings."

"I don't do typos or misspellings. I'm incapable. You know that."

"I do know that. Which is why I'm pretty sure now that it's got to be Tyler.", Shawn concluded. "He's smart. -Ish. But also dumb. You know what I mean? There are words he always spells wrong in everything, and I've seen them spelled wrong in some of these profiles." 

"Then you should be defaming him up in Des Moines instead of dragging my good name through the mud down here. You did that shit to me for something I didn't even do!" I was livid once more. Tears threatened to erupt from my eyes as I clenched my jaw tightly and held them back with nothing but sheer will. I  had to appear stronger than he remembered me. I needed him to see how hardened my heart had become in the wake of his abandonment of me this spring.

"I know, and I'm sorry.", he admitted quietly, almost whispering. "I'm not proud of that, that's why I took them all down. Well, one of them got taken down and banned as soon as it went up, and then I took the other two down, 'cause I felt bad."

"I only knew about 2 of them, and I reported them both to Sniffies and Grindr. Where was the other?", I inquired urgently. My mind raced, wondering how long the exposure had remained in place without my catching it.

"It was at Tyler's. I did one of the two of you. Two birds one stone kinda thing. But that one was the one that as soon as I finished and posted it it got yanked and banned by Grindr.", he answered. "I'm really sorry. I didn't know it wasn't you, and when it said that stuff about my Opa. . . I only talked to you about him, and I remember you using his name against me as a weapon before at the golf tournament in Federal Way that time. And I never, I don't think I ever talked to Tyler about Opa, so it's just weird that the profile would say, 'Your Opa would be proud.', is all. I believe you, it's just. . ."

"It. Wasn't. ME! I swear to God, Shawn, if I have to say. . ." I was incensed. 

"Okay. Okay. Okay, I know. I believe you.", he interrupted, aware of how close I was to losing my shit if he pushed any further and continued to doubt my honesty. "Hey.", he said, waiting for me to look up and meet his eyes. Holding my gaze he spoke. "I mean it. I'm sorry. I made a mistake, and I regret it. I'm sorry."

It was as if a year's worth of pain, doubt, anger, hurt, confusion, and heartache I'd been paralyzed by was suddenly sucked up by a big invisible hose, clearing my vision and leaving hardly any trace of those heavy, ugly emotions in view. I felt a relief the likes of which I haven't adequate words to describe, something akin to a weight that had permeated my body from head to toe and held me down for so long lifted, and I was able to see him for the scared, broken man he was in that moment and forgive him. 

We talked for over six hours that morning, covering everything from the infamous abandonment at Harborview in March to the robbery by Anthony and the rumor that I'd chased him all over Capitol Hill with a gun, ready to shoot him dead in the streets, which were fabricated by the very same friend who robbed me the following day. I steered the conversation toward some of the unanswered or contradicted questions he'd left me with when he bailed and took up with Tyler over me, and to my surprise, he kind of sorta answered me. Not in any useful way, like, with actual information that fills in a blank where there was no information before, but at least he gave me something instead of deploying his usual smoke screen of words and then running for the hills the second I look away.

He stuck to his original story on the subject of my being the one person he didn't want a relationship with. He said then and now that he came here wanting to be alone. He didn't want to be tied to the responsibility of keeping one person happy and not breaking their heart. He wanted to be free of any and all relationships more serious than a friend with benefits. After I'd confessed my feelings to him in late May 2019, he said he kind of freaked out and started trying to find ways to distance himself so that I would maybe lose some of that love. Of course at the time he told me we were totally fine, and that things weren't weird and he wasn't freaked out by my confession. He says he simply couldn't bring himself to say the harsh truth in full because he was afraid it would hurt me so badly that the entire friendship would end, so he tried to maneuver us in a way that only that unwanted love part would die.

As for the part about suddenly going from wanting no relationships at all to being in one up to his heart, he simply claimed that Tyler is a very good salesman and that he'd set his mind on Shawn, so he sold Shawn on the idea of being his boyfriend. In fact, he says that when it started, it wasn't even supposed to be true. He'd been on the phone with Tyler after fighting all day with Corey, who had been accusing Shawn of being in a relationship with Tyler, so Shawn jokingly said to Tyler, "So, did you know that you and me are boyfriends now?". He said Tyler took that to mean that they WERE boyfriends, and that was that. Hmmmph.

I don't know if I believe that, but I wasn't going to push him any further on the subject. He would have clammed up and I would get no more answers to the questions I still had for him. He's stubborn as hell, and he also really thinks that he's sparing me pain and suffering by not telling me his harsh truths, no matter how many times I assure him that's not the case.

By noon, we had come to a sort of uneasy truce; one that neither side had seen coming just hours before when we each had murder on our minds. It was bittersweet, having a slice of our previous friendship pop back to life and start dragging itself around my living room. I almost smiled, despite the soreness still surrounding my heart from all the hurt I'd held onto for so long. He saw that tears had welled up again in my eyes after his apology for how he left me, and he came across to the sofa to sit beside me as the sun shone through the patio window and turned us both into beautiful statues of gold.

When he left that day, I sat in stunned silence for an hour, replaying the morning's conversation over and over again looking for some sign that he'd been scamming me somehow. Had all that toxic animosity between us, all the fearful screening of friends for any signs they'd been in contact with him, all the anger and jealousy, and the pervasive feeling of betrayal all been so trivial that all it took to erase them was one honest conversation and a couple of tight, meaningful hugs? Apparently so. 

I'll tell you the rest in the next installment. I've already given way too many words in this post for most people to tolerate, so I won't push my luck by continuing on with the tale right now. He will be heading to Portland for the weekend, so that will give me time to think through this past week and all the unbelievable twists and turns that it brought into my life again. If you want to find out how he ended up here snoring while his cat kept my two cornered and hissing in the bedroom, check back later. For now, examine that feeling of confusion and curiosity that's swirling around your head right now. That's exactly how I feel now, too. Weird, isn't it?

The Best Conversation Ever

When There's Truth, There's Understanding

A Milestone For The Memoir

After Months of Effort, "A Corpus For Closure" Nears An Important Milestone and a Sneak Peak!

I've mentioned here before that I was combing through texts and emails, even screenshots of memorable arguments or discussions had on Scruff or Grindr, any and all correspondence between me and you-know-who - trying to separate the truth from the fiction. I've been an absolute emotional mess for the duration of this task, because reading and rereading all our most intimate (and our most inane) conversations looking for clues is keeping the wound raw and tender. Every time I reach a point where I think I've decided on an answer that will suffice, some other contradictory memory pops up and sends me back through a year's worth of texts and electronic communication.

Well, no more, I say! Because I'm nearly done. I've struggled with having to learn a lot more HTML5 and CSS3 for Paged Media than I knew before in order to get the look and feel I wanted for the book. It may not be the most creative or inspired looking work, but for me, it represents months of diligence paired with heartache and rage all heavily seasoned with my own secret seasoning, which is 2 parts self-loathing, 2 parts depression, a cup and a half of indignant "I told you so!" aimed at myself, and just a pinch of suicidal thoughts to give it that bitter, metallic taste.

The editing and illustration of the memoir has been very unexpectedly therapeutic, I will admit. It will likely be considered petty, juvenile, and in some cases downright mean, the way I retell our story, but it has my voice in it, my perspective and understanding - often mis-understanding - of what went down between us. I'd hoped that in villainizing him I could somehow trick myself into sour graping him and thinking that it was he and not I who didn't deserve the affection or respect of the other. But even that cold comfort wasn't available to use as a shortcut around the painful, uncomfortable, and psychologically draining processing of our words, my feelings, and the facts that remain despite it all. 

There will definitely be more from me on the making of, so be sure to check back for a sneak peek at what's in store for release coming soon! I can tell you this much in all honesty - you won't be able to put this down. It's not a story like any you've heard before, and the complex emotional fallout that is examined throughout is good fodder for any grad students looking for a great Psych thesis, that's for sure. I'll be posting some of the illustrations here and on my Instagram (@art_by_shannonm_) shortly, but follow me for details about the pre-release peek at "A Corpus For Closure."

 

Was Everything A Lie?

Saying One Thing, But Proving Another - A Game Of Lie vs. Ty

I'm not sure how to see myself in the mirror's reflection when I'm actually able to tolerate the sight. Am I looking at the sexy, good looking, charming goofball that he told me I was all last year? Or is it the fat, AIDS-ridden, overbearing and unwanted loser whose pathetic need for validation makes him absolutely unattractive to anyone not looking to take something from him or use him in some way? 

I used to have a better picture of my own. Before my world went dark and spun off into cold isolation at the whim of a narcissistic liar, I actually trusted in my own beautiful traits and virtues. All of the pillars upon which right and wrong or up and down were based seem to have been toppled at the realization of his cowardly lies. And the fact that he maintains them as truth keeps them fixed in disarray in this upside down calamity.

Six months ago, I was still under the mistaken impression that Shawn was a good person who simply wasn't wired for the kind of romantic relationship I'd come to want with him. That, in and of itself, would have been regrettable but understandable, had it been true. It was not. We fought and reconciled and tried again a few times throughout August and September, and by October, he'd shut me out once again. His birthday came near the end of the month, and lo and behold, "Holden" had suddenly found a new guy to replace me as his best buddy, and what's more, he was in a relationship with him. A seemingly happy one, at that. Shawn was in love. 

He did have the capacity to love and be loved. He wasn't completely unwilling to be in any romantic relationship with anyone, as he'd repeatedly insisted to me for months. Shawn was perfectly okay having a boyfriend a little on the chunky side who was HIV positive and older than him. He just didn't want me.

And even that truth, hurtful though it might be, would have been an excusable one that I could have accepted had he simply had the balls to say that was the case. Had he simply sat me down and talked it out, explaining what it was about me that was wrong for him in that regard, I could have gotten the lesson I needed from it and moved on. But for him to hide behind a soft lie and let me think he loved me but couldn't handle a new relationship so soon after the dissolution of his 13 years with Corey was an unforgivable bit of laziness and convenience. It excused him from having to say the hard words he was too afraid to watch me hear. Then, when he'd found someone so similar to me in so many ways and became enamored himself, did he finally step up and tell me the truth, cutting me loose with some tears, a bit of heartache, and some closure? No. Not Shawn.Not him.

At first he pretended to let me be back in his orbit, hiding as much of his actual life from me as he could while feeding me lies and making excuses for not seeing me in person. When I grew suspicious of his odd behavior and went to see him unannounced, he was caught off guard and fed me a bullshit story he thought I'd want to hear about how he was simply using this dumb, dumpy rich guy for his car and apartment until he could rebound from his eviction and get back on his feet. 

It excused him from having to say the hard words he was too afraid to watch me hear.

He looked me in the eye and told me that this fuckboy, (who publicly claims to be 36 but is actually 40 years old, and who had to be shamed in front of Shawn into being honest about his HIV status with the men they were fucking) was no more his boyfriend than I had been, and that he still wasn't looking to be in a relationship. He claimed that he was selfishly allowing the new guy to believe what he wanted to believe. That was precisely what he was doing -- to me. The moment I dropped him off at his apartment in the wee hours of the night, he literally fled into the night as if he had escaped some maniac's clutches. Like he was afraid of me. It ripped me apart. What the hell had happened? He was afraid of almost having had to face the lies that he'd amassed. That's why he ran.

He leaves love notes in his boyfriend's car.

That feeling of betrayal eats at my guts like I'm corroding and rotting from the inside. I cry every single day, no matter how hard I try not to think about him, some memory invariably bubbles up to the surface, triggered by some sight or sound or smell. It isn't him that I dwell on, per se, so much as the messy end to our friendship and the lack of identity I am left with as a result of his cowardice. It's unacceptable. My story, more specifically the the part that I shared with him, deserves a just ending. He should have to face me and tell me the truths he hid from me and finally show me the world as it is, not as he would have me believe it.

But I can't make him do what he should. Nothing I say will change his mind or persuade him to suffer the discomfort that telling the truth sometimes requires. He has moved on to greener pastures having had to feel none of the anguish he left me to suffer. He comforts himself with poorly formed philosophical bullshit about letting go of the past, not fearing the future, and making the best of the present. He detaches and forgives all of his bad behaviors by simply writing off the past as something we just shouldn't dwell on. And as long as he can sidestep any collision with me, he will never have to care what he did by doing nothing. Karma will have to be his justice, and I won't even get the pleasure of seeing that unfold. I'm certain it will be magnificent and terrible in its weaving of his next incarnation's circumstances, and what a sight that would be indeed.

Reconciling His Words With His Actions

Going In Circles Recovering From Abandonment

As much as it pains me to admit it, there has not been one day in the months since I was made irrelevant in the life of my best friend, whom I loved very much, that I have been more than one stray thought away from tears. The smallest trigger can set me off no matter where I am or whom I'm with. All of the pain - every ounce of loss - comes sliding down on top of me, crushing me under its weight and holding me in this hopeless pattern that has prevented me from healing even a little since he threw me away. 

The reason, I think, that I'm so stuck is that my brain can't reconcile all of the things he said to me over and over for months with the eventual 180° about face he made after pushing me out of his day-to-day life. I keep trying to repair my decimated sense of self worth by telling myself all the positive and wonderful traits I know to be true of myself, but they won't stick, because they can't be as true as I though if they weren't good enough to let me be loved back by someone. It makes no sense that he could harbor deep, sincere feelings for me one moment while maintaining a barrier between us and the "boyfriend" label he was so afraid of, and the next moment he is head over heels in giddy schoolboy love with a total bossy bottom bitch of a fuckboy who is a disrespectful liar, a manipulator, a controller, and an all around nasty fucking person.

It's like I'm having to question every little aspect of myself, examining them more closely in search of some clue about which truth applies - am I a good, kind, funny, and lovable person that any man in his right mind would be grateful to call his partner? Or am I a depressing, needy, clingy, impatient, and unattractive old fool whose only true value is in his ability to pay for things and offer emotional support or entertainment? It took me years to finally get past the terrible programming my childhood cursed me with and to begin to believe those better things about me to be true. Those things actually started feeling fully legitimate with the occasional validation he gave me to support their validity. But then he took it all away by willfully shutting me out, intentionally flaunting this new relationship, and spreading lies and rumors about me around a community I already don't feel welcome in from the start. 

An apology would have gone a long way toward helping me heal. Seeing him feel his shame would have made me at least feel like he didn't get to sweep my suffering under a rug and move on to greener gay pastures guilt-free and unburdened by the consequences of his cowardly actions. But he didn't. He just fucking didn't.

He often pleaded with me not to hold on to anger or hate, explaining in his semi-literate way that they were heavy, toxic, burdensome emotions that only served to injure the one carrying them around and doing nothing to the subject of their intent. Truly I've never been one to hold a grudge for very long. Not until now, that is. I was almost able to shut out the hurt and ignore the daily feeling of betrayal that swirled sickeningly in the pit of my abdomen threatening to make me vomit at any moment. But he went and let his fuckboy talk to me like I was a crazy stalker who was making up stories about him in some smear campaign. He let that fuckboy diminish the friendship we shared before fuckboy was ever in the picture. Didn't say a word. Just handed over his phone and let fuckboy go to town on me. I could have forgiven a lot, but that and the fact that to this day he has made not one attempt to apologize to me for that or the greater damage he knows good and well that he caused me in the way he ended things between us. He has not had to suffer any of the loss or anguish I steeped in for three solid months. He moved on and fell in love. And I was left to try and put myself back together without a clue as to which pieces were me and which were parts he had used to prop me up for a while. I have completely lost myself and all sense of identity to this fucker.

I hate him. He deserves retribution, not that I am the one to give it, but there is a mighty big hole in my heart right now that has been screaming out for justice, and I don't think it will stop until either he gets his comeuppance and is left hurting, betrayed, alone, and without hope or anyone to turn to for support or until I die. If I still believed in myself, in even the smallest way, I would hold out hope for his getting what he deserves. But hope and justice and fairness are things only a weak, stupid, worthless old castoff holds onto when the world has shown him over and over again that there is no such thing as fairness. That kind of naivete is dangerous. It leaves one vulnerable to users who play off that sense of right and wrong. No, all that seems to fit anymore is the burning hot hatred that fills me when I see his stupid, happy, giddy fucking face. That's what he left in his wake. That's what I've become.

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.

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.