I just finished reading your advice to the person with HIV who was considering dating only HIV positive men. Normally I find your advice to be informative and right on, unfortunately I cannot agree with you this time.

Your advice to this man, suggested that an HIV negative man who decides not to date an HIV-positive man is ignorant. Sometimes it is the wealth of information that leads one to refrain from dating a positive man. I am HIV-negative and dated a man who was HIV-positive. It was a very stressful situation for me. The need to act as caretaker and to continuously monitor sexual boundaries is a very stressful situation, to say the least.

I dealt with his lethargy, sickness, forgetting to take his medication and all the side effects associated with the illness. While our relationship did not end due to his illness, it was definitely a learning experience. As with any other medical condition, there are questions that the healthier of the two must address.

It is difficult to enter a relationship knowing that the person is struggling with something that can terminate their life within a short period of time. Even with the advances in cancer research, would you date a man who was undergoing chemotherapy? Sure, we can look at the positives of being able to give such love, but it is more painful to watch than you alluded to in your advice. I thought that it didn't matter. That was until I had to deal with it everyday.

Whether it is AIDS, HIV, Cancer or some other medical condition, it is difficult to enter a relationship with the issues already in place. New relationships are hard enough without medicine and doctor visits mixed between candlelit dinners. I don't know if I will date another positive man.

The answer will probably rest more with the individual that I meet than on some generic statement that I can make. However, please understand that it is my, and all negative men's right to choose. Sometimes, it is experience and education that we are using to base our decisions, not ignorance.

Dear Negatively Informed,

Glad to hear you have your health. Not all of us are so lucky. That doesn't mean we are too much of a hassle to love. There are brave people living courageously against all types of odds and disabilities. People with Diabetes, Herpes, Epstien Barr virus, chronic Hepatitis, Multiple Sclerosis, Down's syndrome, Heart disease, and even AIDS are very much alive and capable of love.

Like all people, some of us are good at it, and some of us are not. I'm sorry that your one experience with a Poz guy, was an unpleasant one. From what I can read, the information you've gained from that single experience, has left you with the idea that, "disability and disease" equals "hassle and death"--that for you to give love, you had better receive a pain-free life full of romantic dinners.

I think your real reasons for not dating us are fear-based; fear that you will lose your lover, fear that you will have to endure some disability oriented difficulties, fear that you yourself will become sick. A good, well rounded, education would put those fears to rest.

My experience has been that, if I give love unconditionally, I will be loved unconditionally in return, and that pain is inevitable but surmountable when you face your fears. In trying to avoid them, you may very well miss out on some of life's most rewarding and loving experiences and people. But, like you said, that most definitely is your right.

I wanted to respond to the letter from the HIV positive guy who feels he should only look to HIV positive guys as potential suitors. I'm 36, HIV negative, but fell in love with a man who has been positive for 12 years. He's just turned 37, and we're going to conduct our holy union next spring.

He is a wonderful man, and the fact that he has had aids for many years is not an issue. Of course, we only have safe sex. To be perfectly honest, it's the best I've had. The person inside is what's important. Do you think a straight couple would separate, or give it all up, just because of a disease? We as a community need to open our eyes, so to speak, about relationships. There are wonderful, caring men out there, and I thank God I found one.

Dear Dreamboat David,

I applaud your educated decision to live a life based on love, not fear. You, my friend, are proof that sero-divergent relationships are not destined for failure. It sounds to me like your, wonderful, caring man has found one for himself in you.

I just turned 35 and tested positive for the HIV virus in December of 1995. It's been a hard 4 years and I feel like there's no hope in sight! You probably get letters like this every day, but what do you do when you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel? I'm ready to throw in the towel and let this disease take it's course, my hope is fading fast and I don't know what else to do.

Dear Look for the Light,

My friend, it's time to make your own light. All you need is a bit of inspiration. I know how long that tunnel can seem at times. With or without HIV, we all have our dark days, sometimes even years, but that light is down there somewhere.

In the meantime we have to learn not to fear the dark. There is an element to my existence that wasn't very much a part of my life before HIV. That element is faith. Faith that everything happens for a reason, and where there is bad, there is also good.

Living with AIDS has taught me how to try to replace fear with love, dark with light, and has helped me to embrace spirituality. It's taught me to have faith in the power of love, to have a God in any form, to turn inward and count my blessings and accept love from wherever it may come.

After two bouts of PCP my "blessing" was the ability to breathe, and my inspiration came, not just from my family and friends, but from a loving hospital maintenance worker named Jesse. She would keep track of my word search books when I nodded off on IVs and check in on me while I slept.

A woman I didn't know brightened my light in tiny loving ways. We all have Jesse's we haven't met yet, people to inspire us with their unconditional love. A positive perspective and the ability to love unconditionally, are the most powerful tools in any situation. It has been said that, "Happiness is a journey, not a destination". Take a breath, count your blessings and be open to inspiration. Give love and it will be returned.

I know all to well how tricky it can be to find a positive perspective feeling like you do, but I'm here to tell you the search can be both enlightening and exhilarating. So pick that towel back up and enjoy the journey. I wish you health and happiness, and of course, your very own bright light.

It is difficult for me to read your column. I find it so unrealistic. I don't where you are, but, I find that most gay men want nothing to do with someone that is HIV. It makes me feel like a leper. Gay men don't talk about HIV. It is taboo. In my few sexual encounters, when I told my partner that we needed to play safe because I was HIV+, some walked away. In fact, no one ever brought up the subject with me. If I had not mentioned HIV, it would have never been discussed. Get Real.

Dear Not Much of an Optimist,

Thanks for taking the time to write. You bring up a few problems many of us Poz folk face on a daily basis. "Disclosure and Rejection" is AIDS 101. I live in New York City. A big, well educated city right? Not! My situation has been very similar to yours. Ignorance and AIDS just don't mix no matter where you live.

The reality is that both exist everywhere, and we, all of us, have to deal with it. That's why I think it needs to be discussed openly and optimistically. All I ever mean to do in writing the column is accentuate the positive. I suspect there may be more to your dissatisfaction than just my peachy outlook.

What concerns me about your letter is the fact that you feel like a leper. I am so sorry you feel that way, it's awful. I know from personal experience, and the mail I receive that many of us have been there at one time or another. I don't think I am being unrealistic, however, when I say that there are loving people in this world.

Like it's counterpart, love is real and all around us. I choose a reality that includes love because it seems the happier one and optimism is just as real as pessimism. I also think that there is so much more to life than just dating. I hope that you aren't letting this one aspect of your life, screw up the Big Picture.