(Photo from postsecret)
Today I received a text from an internet friend. “Send me a picture,” it read. I sent her a picture.
“You’re so gay! LOL” she wrote back.
I called her to see how she’s doing and she sounded a little down. See, this internet friend, well, I met her late last year. She had started reading my writing and reached out to me. When she said she needed to talk I called her and the first thing she said was, “I was diagnosed with HIV when I was born. My mother passed it to me.”
After I listened to her story I was quiet.
“What are you thinking?” She asked. “You can say it.”
“Well, what I have to say you may not believe so I’m going to let you speak with a friend of mine and hopefully she can answer all of your questions.”
I called my friend and connected them and listened as they went back and forth. This is the same conversation that I had with her when she first told me about her revelation. This friend of mine knows how to turn a positive HIV result into a negative one and has directed a significant number of people in seeing this “miracle.”
So my internet friend, who resisted at first, decided to give it a try. She has been following all of the instructions and is feeling confident about her choice. Today she complained that she has not been eating well.
“I’m in school all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I don’t have time to go buy something. I can’t stand going to the cafeteria,” she explained.
“Why can’t you go to the cafeteria?” I asked.
“I don’t want to deal with that- those stupid people.”
“What stupid people?”
“The ones at school.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t like how they act.”
Hmm. “Well, when I go to my school cafeteria everyone stares at me. I feel like a star.”
“What? They don’t laugh? Lucky you,” she said.
My eyebrows wrinkled. “You are in college. You’re adults. Why would they laugh at you?”
“Oh. They say I’m hideous. They call me ugly. Most people say that.”
My heart began to hurt. “They call you hideous?” I immediately crafted a plan to fly up there and go to her cafeteria and cuss everyone out.
“Yeah. When most people look at me, they laugh and make fun. I look different.”
I wanted to cry. I know that I couldn’t tell her that I understood because I don’t.
“Well, you can look at it like this,” I told her. “At least you know who the jerks are up front. Imagine ME, having to walk around all day with both men and women approaching me and not knowing who to let into my life because they all pretend they’re nice at first but then end up being jerks to me.”
“I’d still rather look like you,” she said.
Hmmm…
I remember back in undergrad I took this humanities class. Its like a rite of passage for UF students and everyone has their own story about it. One of the assignments in class was that on a certain day everyone had to choose an outfit that made them look ridiculous and walk around all day like that. We also had to make a sign to wear around our necks that read: I AM DIFFERENT.
All day long people laughed at us and stared at us and pointed at us. It was an eye opening experience. The point was to experience what it feels like to be DIFFERENT. I’ll never forget that feeling. That was the only time in my life I was made fun of because of my looks.
But this girl goes through this everyday and I can not change anything.
I can not do anything but be her friend and listen when she wants to talk.