My Journey With HIV Positive

1. My Journey With HIV Positive I was living in New York with a boyfriend I'll call Watt when I was diagnosed with HIV. I was 32 and he had just turned 40. It was my first long-term, stable relationship and we did what I thought was the 'big?' things Like throwing soccer parties on Sundays or fighting at Home Depot over what color to paint the accent wall in our living room. We had elaborate weeknight dinners to distract ourselves from the fact that we were both pretty bored. Of course, it wasn't really a big deal, since I wasn't even tested for HIV at my annual checkup at Planned Parenthood, where I went for primary care. Taking care of your health is more like an adult than playing house with a boyfriend, but even though I was tested for STIs, I never considered getting tested for HIV. But one day, I randomly added the rapid HIV test to my list of things to do before taking him to my Pap smear appointment. I thought it was a procedure I would eventually have to take care of.

2. The positive result was hardly calculated at first. What does that mean? I kept asking the nurse who took me upstairs to the Margaret Sanger Center in the East Village to do a second blood test to confirm the rapid test result. Was I in shock that I simply slept with probably close to a hundred men during my 20s? in college, in Rome, Italy, where I lived for five years, in New York after my return? and not being strict with condom use can have such serious consequences. I grew up during the HIV/AIDS crisis and should have known better, but as a straight woman, I equated safe sex with not getting pregnant with anything other than an STI, let alone HIV. I know how that sounds. It's embarrassing to admit it now, but I really, ignorantly, thought sex was all fun and games. For me, ?dates? it was basically a euphemism for casual sex. There was no guy, no goal, really, and a bad one-night stand was just as much fun as one that turned into a mini-romance. I naively thought that I was invincible, that one day a relationship would lead me to true love in the style of a princess, and I never imagined that HIV virus would have anything to do with my life. After my HIV Diagnosis, watt and I stopped eating dinner together, talking to each other, and sleeping in the same bed. (It was negative and tested for life.) We broke up within a year. There was a positive side to my HIV, although I didn't know it at the time. It woke me up and made me realize what I need and want in a partner. watt was never a good match for me, really; my diagnosis only highlighted this. The only bad thing about breaking up with watt was that I realized I would have to start dating again. But when you're the type of person who equates Dating with HIV dinner, drinks and casual sex, HIV can diminish all of that.