Relationships, honesty and HIV status. Why silence hurts more than diagnosis

Sometimes it seems to me that talking about HIV is the same test of adulthood as talking about who you are, who you love, what role you prefer in sex. All these are parts of one reality. All this is something that we should be able to pronounce calmly. Without a tremor in his voice. Without trying to hide our eyes to the floor, as if we were doing something criminal.

But it doesn't always work out that way.

In recent years, in Russia and now in Spain, I have seen the same picture: a guy hesitates, avoids looking, tries to gently, almost guiltily, say that he is HIV-positive. And every time - the same feeling. As if he does not report the fact of his health, but confesses to murder. As if he is ashamed that he exists. As if he should apologize for his body. And this is the most destructive.

I remember a guy in a gay club in St. Petersburg – my height, a little embarrassed, but very warm. There is chemistry between us, the one that makes your hands tremble and you want to continue. And at some point he says: "I need to tell you something..." – and freezes. I see how inner fear takes him by the throat. A status that he whispers like a forbidden word. And I stand there and don't understand why he is more afraid of me than of the diagnosis itself.

For me, this has never been a problem. You said – thank you! So I know. So we can be careful. This means that we can make decisions. That's it.

But there are moments that hurt not the status — but The truth.

I recently met a man here in Spain. The first date is just a bar, conversations until night. The second is a night at the hotel. And only then did he say that he had an HIV-positive status and zero load. Yes, zero load is safe. Yes, this is not a threat. But the fact that he said after, not before, stuck in my head more than any medical term.

For me, betrayal is not always treason. Sometimes it is Understatement. Silence is where honesty should be. And I want to understand why a person is silent: is he afraid? ashamed? doesn't trust me? Does he consider me the same as those who condemned him? I'm trying to understand, but forgetting is the hardest thing to do.

There was another case. On my 30th birthday in Moscow, I met a guy. We kissed, exchanged nicknames on Telegram. After a month of online communication (I lived in St. Petersburg), he confessed his status. I said that it was normal, that I was not afraid, that we might be careful.

But he pulled away. Not me, but him. He looked at me as a person who was "better available." He began to think that he was not worthy of a relationship with me. That he is "dangerous". That he can "ruin my life". All these fears lived only in his head. I saw an adult man in front of me, interesting, gentle, attentive. And he saw the diagnosis in the mirror.

And this gap between how a person lives with HIV and how much he hates himself for it really hurts me.

This topic came up again after articles on HIV phobia in the LGBT environment, which I read on Doberman.Media. And I understand how accurate it is. There are many people within our community who are afraid. There are many who stigmatize. There are many who look at a person through the prism of a diagnosis, and not through the prism of personality.

Fortunately, I am not one of them. For me, honesty is more important than status.