Like any story entered in media res, there is a long and convoluted backstory. Because I'm no Virgil, I'm going to take the easy way and try to knock out the main plot points in what I intended to be a few short paragraphs, but what now seems to be a slightly longer affair. Grab on.
I was born in a small town on the opposite coast from where I now live. I was tall, I was awkward, I was always the smartest kid in my class, and my family was one of the wealthier and better known in town. I realized I was gay early on, and despite floating in a sea of Christian conservatism, I had well-travelled, liberal parents who never terrorized me with threats of hellfire and damnation, so I escaped some of the self loathing that plagues many gay kids. Some.
I eventually grew into my body and gained a small dose of self confidence in myself and my sexuality, and came out to friends and family in my senior year of high school. There was crying (in the family), feigned shock (friends), and apathy (the general world). From what I understand, experience was atypical, and I feel lucky for that.
After high school, I took a year off to travel, then went to a mildly prestigious college. Up until I left home, I'd had lots of sex from the point of view of your average 18 year old straight kid, but not tons, especially looking back now at what was to come.
I had the tendency to fall in love easily, and dropping my shorts was even easier. At the time I thought that I was living the bohemian ideal: freedom through unbridled experience, but with the perspective of a little time, I see that I just really loved fucking.
Arriving at college gave me a new big city which I could plunder all sorts of men: young, old, white, black, you get the picture. But along with this non-stop boinking, the panic attacks and dark moods that I had experienced very infrequently throughout my life were becoming more common. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.
None of that stopped me from screwing and loving my way across campus and the city. But through the rear view mirror, I can tell that my mental health impacted my choice of partners more than I could have imagined at the time. I was drawn to the guys who were the opposite of me: working class, uneducated, substance abusers, rough, sleazy.
Not all of the men I met and loved fit this description, but the one who is most important to this story did. We'll call him John.
John was a working class man about eight years older than me (19 and 27). John was sexy, and screwed up, with a propensity towards uppers. I was instantly smitten. We met online, and he asked me out on a date. We went to dinner, he made me laugh. He fucked me four times that night, and in that department, he was epic. I didn't want to leave in the morning.
We began "seriously" dating soon after. Several months in, we decided to stop having safe sex. We both went to our respective doctors, got tested, came back all clear, and celebrated by going out dancing, where he encouraged me to try crystal meth for my first (and only) time. In the ensuing two days of being awake, we fucked (or rather, tried to) countless times, but I felt happy. I hated meth. He loved it.
Several more months go by, a few seasons change, and now it's the summer between freshman and sophomore years. I've got a boyfriend who drives me crazy-- he's erratic, we get in monster arguments, and he's doing nothing that any sane person would consider trust-inspiring. He shows up late (or not at all) and he disappears for days at a time, but he always apologizes and then the physical chemistry takes over and I feel powerless to stop. Why it never occurred that he was cheating on me is a question I can't answer even today.
Late that summer, I got the worst flu I've ever had in my life. My fever was high, and I had the strangest feeling of a blade in my throat -- whenever I swallowed, it felt like the front of my larynx was being sliced open from the inside. This had lasted for days when I went to my doctor, who ordered an HIV antibody and RNA test.
Obviously, you know the result, but even more than eight years later, I can't explain how I felt. I'm sure I was hurt, but more than that I had the feeling of being surprised by not being at all surprised. There was only one potential vector, and he had received the same diagnosis within a few days.
I don't want to dig into mine and John's history after that moment. As a show of how much work I had to do with my own mental health, John was actually able to make me feel immediately sorry for him, and to consider not ending the relationship. I eventually came to my sense. We never spoke again after that summer, and other than a birthday email the following year, I've neither heard from nor seen him since.
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