My Journey With HIV Positive
                     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. 
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.