Dear Friend, I wanted to start by telling you a story….. For months my friend has been telling me about a friend of his that is positive. I have complained for years that I never meet anyone like me, a young, queer, artsy lady, who likes dance parties, crafts and baking like she’s 75. Anyways, I’ve been dreaming for years about sleeping with someone positive. A woman who I could also be friends with would really just take the cake. So my friend finally introduces me to this woman who lives in a different province. I cannot tell you how excited I was to finally meet her. She is really cute. So I quickly write this huge, gushing message telling her all of these things. I invite her to hang out and be part of a discussion with other positive women that I am hosting in a few weeks. It goes on for quite a while and ends with “I’m really glad that we finally got to meet.”
Her response, “I feel bad… there must have been a miscommunication. I am not positive.” It was really heartbreaking. I tried to explain to my negative friends how crushed I felt, but they couldn’t understand. They just responded with, “well we all want to have a special friend that’s like us..” I know that my desire goes much deeper than that. I envy my gay HIV positive friends for having such a large community of people who they can seek out for support, for love and for sex and connections. I find it really hard to find other HIV positive people, men or women to make out with. I dream of a positive utopia, where disclosure wouldn’t be an issue and it wouldn’t matter who we slept with. I’m really excited to be part of your tea party. It reminds me how much I need to be connected with other women living with HIV, because they understand in a way that no one else does. I hope that this network thrives and that it continues to grow and reshape the movement one tea party at a time. Jessica xox
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