Revelation and surprise

Just as I was thinking of something to blog about since I haven't updated this for quite sometime now, something came up. Talk about timing.

A friend of mine, who I've known way back 2001 or 2002 and who I had a short-lived romance, suddenly chatted with me in private over at Facebook and asked how I was. Let's call this friend of mine as "D". At first, I thought the conversation was just the usual "hey-how have you been-what's up with you" type of chat. It turned out otherwise.

D asked if I still frequented Morato where an ex of mine co-owns a bar. D and I chanced upon each other in my ex's bar sometime in 2007. I said not anymore, after that former lover and I broke up. The reason he asked me was because he wanted to talk to me and hoped that he and I could meet up. I told D we get to seldom meet and if ever we get to interact, it's through Facebook so I prodded him to tell me what he wanted to say.

Without any hesitation, he told me he was positive and he learned of his status in 2007. His partner, who is a friend of mine as well, is negative. He came out to me because he said he wanted to tell all his exes. Although he and I didn't have sex during our short-lived romance and the most we did was torrid kissing, he said he felt that he still had the obligation to tell me. It was a touching gesture on D's part and in return, I came out to him also. I also told him my partner is negative as well. He took it well and we shared experiences and the travails of being poz.

Anyway, aside from wanting to inform his exes about his status, D also said he came out to me after he met someone from a poz group in my home province and in the course of their conversation, D rattled off names of people he know who are in Manila now but are from my home province. When my name came up, that person reacted "oddly" as D described it. So D asked that person if I was poz. The person only told D to ask me. That person could have flatly said No and instead left doubts on D's mind. Sigh. Of all people who would implicitly reveal my status, it had to be someone from my home province instead of someone from here in Manila. To be honest about it, I already half expect my status to come out in the public sooner or later from someone here who knows about it. Maybe by accident or borne out of revenge.

Need I remind those in the poz community that Republic Act (RA) 8504 contains responsibilities for pozzies that include a prohibition against implicitly or explicitly revealing the HIV status of a person.

I hope to meet D again one day after a long time so we can catch up on each other's lives and perhaps he can remember who was that person who implicitly "outed" me. At the end of our chat, I thanked D for coming out to me and trusting me with his secret as I assured him that it is safe with me.