‘UP
YOURS, St VALENTINE!’Valentines Day is coming - run for your fucking lives! It’s the Sickly Season, restaurants crammed to bursting point with simpering couples gazing cow-eyed across the wilting geraniums.
Meanwhile, the single rush home to find that once again, no secret admirer has sent them a card and their only companion for the night is a TV Tikka Masala.
To rediscover the true meaning of Valentines Day let us turn to the uplifting words of William Shakespeare: “Roses are red/So is my knob/So open your mouth and give me a job”.
But love, actually, that’s a different matter. I do sometimes yearn to be the Cruella De Ville of Crystal Palace, heartlessly turning tabby cats into muffs, in love only with my breathtaking collection of fur. But instead I fall in love, have my heart crushed and impaled, and do it all over again. I did that before I became positive and have done it since.
How, if at all, has being HIV positive affected the whole love thing for me?
I cringe to admit that being positive was the main reason I spent two hellish years with a loathsome lazy American - despite the fact that the only thing we had in common was a mutated strain of the virus and an equally virulent antagonism to each other.
After I received my positive diagnosis, just three months into a moribund marriage, I felt trapped there, believing (as he so supportively suggested) that no other man would now want me.
What a crock of shit! My self-esteem was in such meltdown it seemed likely at the time, but has subsequently risen phoenix-like into such monstrous proportions that I now believe everyone wants me (yes, even you, my gay comrades), regardless of my HIV.
Okay, maybe I’m a bit too up myself and not every (gay) man fancies me - but I don’t believe that an HIV positive diagnosis should stop you believing you can have relationships, fall in love and be loved in return. If someone does reject you because you’re HIV positive, chances are it’s because they’re an ignorant wanker and therefore not deserving of your affection.
However rejection is never nice and fear of rejection can be extraordinarily powerful. I spent a year, after I split up from Vile American, avoiding relationships or sex. Being single was at times depressing (like on fucking Valentines Day) but it was much better than being with someone who made me feel like a worthless piece of shit. It gave me the opportunity to put my life back together and ‘spend quality time with myself’ (you don’t have the monopoly on masturbation, boys).
Then I fell frenziedly in love with a gorgeous man. I swooned and floated
around in quivering elation, but did at times feel predestined to failure.
I toyed with the idea of chucking him because I couldn’t face his rejection
when I inevitably had to tell him about my status.
I luckily have a very level-headed best friend who advised me not to be so bloody ridiculous and tell him. I finally disclosed my status to him in a McDonald’s car park in the middle of the night. I suppose the rationale was that if he chucked me, I would have the consolation prize of a Big Mac Meal - however he didn’t, and three years later we’re still together.
Happily ever after, who can tell? I’m still crazy in love with him and fancy him more than any other man I’ve ever met, even more than I fancy myself. He’s kind and sexy and gives me diamonds and pearl necklaces (they can be a bugger to wash out of your hair!). However his truest passion is for his work and he doesn’t always have a great deal of time for me. If his job had an orifice he’d squirt in some lube and shag it.
He also isn’t a great believer in Valentines Day. I think we had a Pot Noodle in front of the telly last year. But in the romantic words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Roses are red/ Hearts are like glass/ Drop your pants and show us your arse”.
