World AIDS Yesterday

Well, two days ago, yes, but you may have noticed my conspicuous lack of comment on that date. If you've seen me around, you won't have seen me wearing a red ribbon and you won't have seen me at the fundraisers or vigils. Partly this is because I was never that involved with that whole process before diagnosis, so I'm not quite certain why it is that I should change over, but I'm aware that I kind of feel as though it's a bit stupid for me to be wearing a ribbon saying I'm AIDS aware, when clearly, I wasn't quite aware enough to stop me from catching it.

Maybe when I'm not sweating at night, maybe when my metabolism has calmed down, maybe when I feel like I can be responsible and adult about not placing other people are risks they may not realise or when I'm celibate and wrapped up in so much armour I will never bleed or even sneeze again, then I might feel like I can say I'm AIDS aware again. At the moment, sure, I can talk about reinfection, I can bore you to death about standard rates of CD4 degradation, I can sound very convincing when I tell you about relative risk levels and I can tell you again and again how it's not the death sentence it once was, but, really, I know nothing.

You don't ask a drug addict for diet advice, so why ask an HIV+ man for safe sex advice? Clearly I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but perhaps the critical difference now is that I'm aware of how little I knew. I don't think I was quite a part of the generation who grew up thinking AIDS was something that only happened to old men who go to the King's Arms and that anyone positive is a skull-faced crystal zombie; I'd have always said I was more aware than that, but in the end I wasn't. I was so righteous about my knowledge of HIV prevention that I'd make a point of not serosorting and still having sex with someone knowing that they were positive just so I didn't look like I'm being prejudiced, but really, if you know someone's got measles, you don't kiss them, so why fuck positive guys?

No-one has yet turned me down for my status when I've told them of it, and most of the time they turn out to be positive too, but I'm not sure that's the happy miracle I hope it is, but I wonder if it just means that sooner or later, I'm going to infect someone, cost the state about £1m in a lifetime of medical costs and be accountable for someone going through the strange re-evaluatory period I'm just coming out of when I know I'm emotionally tough. And, even though I know it's not my fault entirely, I still dread the thought I might have unknowingly passed it on in the past before my diagnosis.

It's not in the forefront of my mind nearly as much as this blog suggests, though, bear in mind that a single-issue blog is always going to give a skewed perspective on the person behind the issue. There's still so many other things that worry me more, make me happy, engage my mind, but for the sake of exploring the issue, it's what I talk about on here, rather than tell you about what I've had for breakfast, but perhaps once I've been to the dietician, I might just have to start doing that, too.