I'm single.
There. I've said it.
At thirty, being single isn't exactly unusual. There are millions of us wandering the planet, swiping left, swiping right, pretending we know what we're looking for whilst occasionally wondering whether the person in the photograph even looks like that anymore.
Being single isn't the interesting part.
The interesting part is what happens when I meet someone I actually like.
Because somewhere between the first drink, the nervous laughter, the accidental eye contact that lasts half a second too long, and the possibility that this person might become something more, there is a conversation waiting for me.
Eventually, I have to tell them.
I have HIV.
And suddenly, dating becomes something rather more complicated than whether we both like the same restaurants.
The Question Nobody Wants to Ask
HIV is one of those words that carries history with it.
Say it, and people don't necessarily hear the same thing I mean.
Some hear the 1980s.
Some hear AIDS.
Some hear fear.
Some hear death.
Some hear promiscuity, recklessness, or a hundred other assumptions that have been attached to the virus over decades.
And I understand why.
For a long time, HIV was a terrifying diagnosis. The world remembers the images, the funerals, the fear, the people who became isolated because of something they had contracted.
But medicine moved forward.
Society, in some respects, did not move quite as quickly.
Today, HIV can be treated effectively. With treatment and ongoing care, people living with HIV can live long and healthy lives. And when someone is on effective treatment and maintains an undetectable viral load, they do not sexually transmit HIV.
Undetectable means untransmittable.
U=U.
The science is extraordinarily reassuring.
The human response can be rather more complicated.
Dating With HIV
Dating is vulnerable enough without having a secret sitting quietly in the room.
You meet someone.
You laugh.
You wonder if they like you.
You start imagining what might happen.
And then, somewhere in the back of your mind, there it is.
The conversation.
When do I tell them?
How do I tell them?
Will they understand?
Will they ask questions?
Will they Google it?
Will they believe me?
Will they look at me differently afterwards?
Will they leave?
You can tell yourself that you shouldn't care.
You can remind yourself that anyone who rejects you because of HIV isn't the person for you.
You can repeat every sensible sentence you've ever heard.
And still, when you're sitting opposite someone you genuinely like, you care.
Of course you care.
That's the peculiar cruelty of vulnerability.
The very thing that makes love possible is the thing that makes rejection hurt.
The Moment I Have to Tell Them
I've rehearsed the conversation in my head more times than I'd care to admit.
There are different versions.
Some are casual.
Some are serious.
Some are almost clinical.
Sometimes I've imagined saying it immediately.
Sometimes I've imagined waiting until we've built enough trust that the information won't feel like a grenade dropped between us.
There is no perfect moment.
That's perhaps the hardest part.
You can prepare the words.
You cannot prepare the other person.
And so you sit there, heart quietly pounding, waiting to discover whether the person sitting opposite you sees a diagnosis or a human being.
Thus doth the heart become an actor upon a stage it never asked to tread; smiling beneath the light whilst backstage, fear rehearseth every possible ending.
I don't think people understand how strange that feeling can be.
You're not asking them to accept some terrible secret.
You're asking them to understand a part of your life.
But because HIV still carries so much stigma, disclosure can feel like handing someone a weapon and trusting them not to use it against you.
Sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they simply walk away.
The Science Says One Thing. Fear Says Another.
This is where the modern reality of HIV becomes so important.
If a person living with HIV takes effective antiretroviral treatment and maintains an undetectable viral load, they will not sexually transmit HIV to their partner. That is U=U, and it is supported by extensive evidence and reflected in current public-health guidance.
It is one of the most important developments in the history of HIV.
And yet knowledge and emotion are not always the same thing.
Someone can understand U=U and still feel nervous.
Someone can know the science and still decide that dating someone living with HIV isn't for them.
I don't particularly like that.
But I understand that people are entitled to make their own choices.
What hurts is when those choices are based on fear rather than knowledge.
There is a difference.
A very important one.
Some people have simply never been taught how HIV works today.
They may think a hug is dangerous.
They may think kissing is dangerous.
They may believe that HIV is still the death sentence it once was.
It isn't.
HIV is a manageable chronic health condition for people who have access to effective treatment and care.
Yet stigma remains.
And stigma has consequences far beyond an awkward dating conversation. The World Health Organization continues to identify HIV-related stigma and discrimination as significant barriers to health and wellbeing.
Sometimes People Say No
This is the part I don't want to romanticise.
Some people will reject you.
Some will disappear.
Some will tell you they aren't comfortable.
Some will ask questions that make you realise how little they know.
Some will make you feel as though you've done something wrong simply by being honest.
And yes, it hurts.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or has discovered some extraordinary level of enlightenment that I certainly haven't.
Rejection is rejection.
It doesn't become painless simply because you understand why it happened.
But then something strange happens.
Some people stay.
Some people listen.
Some people ask questions.
Some people go away, read, learn, and come back.
Some people understand that a medical diagnosis is not a character reference.
And those people remind you that perhaps the world is not quite as frightening as your imagination suggested.
Am I Single Because of HIV?
Maybe.
Sometimes.
But I don't think it's the whole answer.
Being thirty and single has considerably more causes than one diagnosis.
Maybe I'm picky.
Maybe I'm difficult.
Maybe I've made terrible decisions.
Maybe I've made some good ones at the wrong time.
Maybe I work too much.
Maybe I think too much.
Maybe I haven't met the right person.
Maybe the right person has already walked past me and I was too busy looking at my phone.
Maybe I've been afraid.
Maybe I've been brave.
Maybe I've simply been living.
It would be very easy to blame everything on HIV.
I'm not going to.
Because that would give HIV far more power over my life than it deserves.
There is a danger in allowing a diagnosis to become an identity.
I have HIV.
I am not HIV.
There is a difference.
What HIV Has Taught Me About Love
It has taught me that intimacy requires honesty.
Not the comfortable kind.
The difficult kind.
The kind where your voice gets slightly quieter because what you're about to say actually matters.
It has taught me that vulnerability is not weakness.
It is the price of being known.
And perhaps most importantly, it has taught me that rejection is not a measurement of worth.
Someone choosing not to date me doesn't mean I'm unlovable.
It means they made a choice.
Their choice may hurt.
But it does not define me.
For love, if it be worthy of the name, must see beyond the blemish upon the page and read the story entire.
I don't want to be loved despite HIV.
I want to be loved with the knowledge of it.
There is a difference.
I don't want somebody to tolerate me.
I don't want to be someone's exception.
I don't want to spend a relationship wondering whether they're secretly afraid.
I want someone who knows.
Someone who understands.
Someone who asks questions.
Someone who sees the whole person rather than the diagnosis.
I Don't Want Pity
This isn't a tragedy.
I'm not writing this because I want sympathy.
I don't want people reading this and thinking, poor Alex.
Please don't.
I'm writing because I suspect there are other people sitting somewhere tonight, staring at a dating app, wondering whether they should disclose their status.
Wondering whether anyone will want them.
Wondering whether love becomes harder once you've been handed a diagnosis you never asked for.
I don't know the answer for everyone.
But I know this:
HIV doesn't make you unworthy of love.
It doesn't make you dirty.
It doesn't make you dangerous.
And it doesn't make your future smaller unless you allow it to.
The World Has Changed
The strange thing is that HIV has changed dramatically.
The treatments have changed.
The prognosis has changed.
The science has changed.
But sometimes the conversation hasn't.
There are people living ordinary lives with HIV all over the world.
People working.
Travelling.
Falling in love.
Getting married.
Having families.
Growing old.
Arguing over whose turn it is to do the washing up.
Living.
Just living.
And perhaps that's the thing we forget.
A diagnosis can be medically significant without becoming existentially significant.
It can be part of your life without becoming the entirety of your life.
Maybe I'm Not Behind
Turning thirty has made me think about time.
About the imaginary timetable I once had for myself.
By thirty, I thought I would know who I was.
I thought I'd have certain things figured out.
I thought love would perhaps be easier.
Instead, I find myself writing about HIV, dating, regret, uncertainty, and all the other wonderfully inconvenient things that make a human life.
Perhaps I'm not behind.
Perhaps there is no behind.
Maybe we're all simply walking different roads through the same enormous forest.
Some people find love at twenty-two.
Some at thirty-five.
Some at fifty.
Some spend years searching.
Some stumble into it when they weren't looking.
There is no universal timetable.
And if HIV has taught me anything, it is that life rarely asks permission before changing the itinerary.
So, Why Am I Single at Thirty?
I don't entirely know.
Maybe I'm difficult.
Maybe I'm particular.
Maybe I've made mistakes.
Maybe I've been unlucky.
Maybe I've been afraid.
Maybe I haven't met her yet.
Maybe I haven't met the person who will hear the truth about me and think, okay.
Let's keep going.
And yes, perhaps HIV has made the road more complicated.
But complicated is not the same as impossible.
The road may require more honesty.
More courage.
More uncomfortable conversations.
But perhaps that isn't entirely a bad thing.
For what is love worth if it cannot survive the truth?
Perhaps somewhere beneath this vast and indifferent sky there waits another soul who will hear the whole story and not turn away.
Perhaps she will ask questions.
Perhaps she'll understand U=U.
Perhaps she'll simply see me.
Not my status.
Not my diagnosis.
Not the thing I was afraid to tell her.
Me.
Until then, I shall keep dating.
Keep hoping.
Keep telling the truth.
And keep believing that love, like life itself, is not obliged to arrive according to schedule.
I'm thirty.
I'm single.
I have HIV.
And I'm still here.
Still curious.
Still hopeful.
Still looking.
Perhaps that's enough.
For now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can people living with HIV date?
Yes. People living with HIV can date, have relationships, fall in love, marry and build families. Effective HIV treatment can allow people to live long, healthy lives.
Can someone living with HIV have a relationship with someone who does not have HIV?
Yes. Relationships in which one partner has HIV and the other does not are possible. Effective treatment and maintaining an undetectable viral load mean HIV is not sexually transmitted.
What does U=U mean?
U=U means “Undetectable equals Untransmittable.” When a person living with HIV is on effective treatment and maintains an undetectable viral load, they do not sexually transmit HIV to their partner.
Is dating harder when you have HIV?
It can be. The medical reality of HIV has changed enormously, but stigma and misunderstanding remain. The emotional difficulty can come less from the condition itself and more from the uncertainty surrounding disclosure and how another person might respond.
When should you tell someone you're dating that you have HIV?
There isn't one universal moment that works for everyone. Disclosure is personal and can depend on trust, circumstances, safety and local laws. The important thing is to have accurate information about your health and treatment and to approach the conversation honestly and safely.
Can someone with HIV find love?
Absolutely.
That may be the simplest answer in this entire article.
HIV does not remove a person's capacity to love or be loved. It is a medical condition, not a verdict on someone's worth.
Does HIV mean I will always be single?
No.
Being single at thirty has many possible explanations, and HIV is only one circumstance in a person's life. There is no medical rule, social law or cosmic decree stating that people living with HIV cannot find meaningful relationships.
Perhaps the question isn't whether HIV will allow me to find love.
Perhaps the better question is whether I will keep believing that I deserve it.