Finding Love with HIV
My experience - Fred Adegboye

Everyone desires love. Why should our case be different? Why should HIV/AIDS be a barrier to finding love? Why is there a condition attached to love? Why should love be exclusive to those who are not HIV positive? Having done everything to me, one thing that my HIV positive status failed to do is stop me from being human. It has failed to kill that human faculty that seeks love and which loves.

In retrospect however, had I kept my status to myself I would have found love in abundance. Several women would have desired to be mine, especially as I am an expired bachelor. Why has it proved difficult to find a woman who would love me despite the fact that I am HIV positive? Why should my health condition be the ground and condition to define my desires?

Is it not self-stigmatization if I choose to jettison love on the ground of my HIV status? Don't I have the right to be happy with a person my heart desire and long for? Must I on the contrary be forced to choose a mate I do not really want on the grounds of my health condition?

Come to think of it, someone who has Diabetes doesn't have to go through similar heartaches finding love. Yet, this is not to say that Diabetes is less of a serious health condition.

The fact that there are discordant couples living happily ever after is my only consolation that some day, someone will see the futility of denying me love just because I am positive.

An openly positive person is an asset rather than a danger to public health. After all, the real danger lies in the hordes of people who, unaware of their HIV status, engage in unprotected sexual relationships.

I remain resolutely determined to finding love, not on the basis of my being HIV positive, but for being me, for being Fredrick Ibikunle Adegboye, and I know that one day love will come.