Positive Nation’s new problem page
 photo: nikki kastner |
From next month, Positive Nation will have a new ‘Dear PN...’ page where readers can write in with problems and dilemmas. Increasing numbers of you have been writing to PN recently, and messaging the UKC ‘Positive Voices’ bulletin board, with your stories and requests for help.
PN has never had a problem page where real UK readers are answered by real UK helpers. With the amount of stress and bother out there highlighted by Keith Bishop (see previous article), it’s high time we had one.
Your hosts (“We don’t want to be called an agony aunt and uncle. We’d have to decide which one of us was which!”) are Tokunbo Awonuga and Alfred Hurst.
Tokunbo, 37, is an emotional support worker at the Shaka Project, an African/Caribbean sexual health project in south London set up by the ex-Blackliners’ support team. She has extensive experience working with drug users and also works as a development worker in the drugs field.
“I was HIV negative when last tested a year ago,” she says. “But some of my closest friends have HIV and I have a lot of experience with what it’s like to live with the virus.”
Tokunbo trained as a solicitor, specialising in family law, and got interested in counselling when she came across so much domestic violence. She also volunteered at London Lighthouse in the late 1980s: “That’s what put me in contact with people with HIV,” she says.
Tokunbo lives with “my housemate - my eight-year-old daughter” in south London, “where my chief way of relaxing is cultivating the best garden on my block. I love plucking out the weeds and planting the seeds.”
Alfred, just turned 50, is a keen gardener too, and grows organic vegetables and fruit in his garden in France. In London he works in a number of health and social service organisations as an organisational consultant. He was been involved with PACE, the lesbian and gay counselling organisation, since 1987 and runs personal development groups for gay men as well as groups for people living with HIV.
“I was diagnosed HIV positive in 1997,” he says “and I use my own experience in my work with people living with HIV. I believe that people with HIV are able to give each other a lot of support, but we have to create spaces and opportunities for this to happen.
“I’ve also worked as a social worker and landscape gardener, and lived in South America for three years.”
Both Tokunbo and Alfred have studied, at among other places, London’s Institute of Family Therapy.
‘DEAR T&A, LOOKING FOR A PRINCE, BUT ALL I GET IS FROGS’Dear Tokunbo and Alfred,
I just wanted to express myself about how I feel so humiliated by the small ads "Man looking for Woman". I had thought this was the best place to find love or at least companionship as a positive person with people who understand how it is to be positive. Now I have lost all willpower to find it again.
I have responded to some adverts for men looking for women. With several of them after all the chit-chat, I ended up discovering that they were married and currently living with their family, or had left a wife and kids back in their home country.
I want to be a member of a 'Positive Nation'. I do not want to spread HIV, I want to stick to one partner and be positive with my life, but nope, that's not happening, guys are just looking for someone to f***! I am almost dead in my soul because of the frogs who have been in touch.
I am not going to let somebody use my body, which already is being used by
the virus to spread the wrong message.
Slimali
Dear Slimali,
Thanks for your letter. You have made me think about how hard it is to find a new partner. For everyone there are hurdles to climb and hoops to go through to find the right person, but, yes, this is particularly so for those of us who are HIV positive.
You are clearly a good person who knows what she wants, and it is important to remember that. Even if you keep meeting men who don't seem to share that opinion, that's their opinion, not yours.
It is not wrong to have a clear idea of the type of person that you want and you mustn't doubt yourself and your values if you haven't found Mr Right yet. He is out there, but it takes effort, self-confidence and self-belief to go through this process of finding him.
When you have HIV, the world is much the same as the world in general - you get all sorts! My advice is to try again, and also to look in other places. Are there other ways you can meet a partner? Do you belong to an HIV organisation or a support group? Do you have friends who have (eligible) friends? If the answer is 'no' maybe it's time just to expand your circle of friends first before looking for THE man.
Try not to take the searching too seriously until you find
a person who really, really seems to meet your requirements. Then - go for
it! Good luck,
Alfred
Hello Slimali,
Why not place an ad yourself? You strike me as someone who is clear about what she wants and has found things to value in this 'positive nation'. If you place and ad yourself, you can make that clear.
Think about how you would word an ad to ensure that you have responses from people on the same wavelength as yourself, and who may genuinely want a relationship with you.
Look again at the ads that you responded to in the light of what happened. Was there anything 'beyond the words' that could have predicted what happened later?
Then use that experience to question people a little bit more before you meet. If you do this you can protect yourself physically and emotionally, which can only be a good thing.
There are many 'ships' we embark upon in life. Which do you most want to sail on? Companionship? Friendship? Relationship? Loveship? It is important that you have a sense of what you have to offer the other person - the voyage you are taking through life - as well as what you're seeking.
I wish you the very best in your search for a 'companionship'
but remember in the meantime you can embark on a 'funship', and love the experience!
Treat every encounter as a chance to learn. I sense from your letter that you
will eventually embark on other routes of seeking your companionship.
Tokunbo
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Write in with your problems. And it's great to respond with your answers and suggestions, too. Positive Nation is confident our 'aunty and uncle' are two of the most wise and experienced HIV counsellors around, but we all have life experience, and messages of hope and support for each other. Send letters to: Post: Tokunbo and Alfred, Positive Nation, UKC, 250 Kennington Lane, London
SE11 5RD |
