"We were in bed watching 'MASH' ...and he said to me, 'I have no patience for you any longer. I want you to leave.'I had my own apartment, but I had been living with him for years, and I left. ...I had to pull off because I was hyperventilating. I was beside myself with self flagellation and self pity, and it was awful."
"And one of the things that he told me that night was that he'd been sleeping with just about everything that walked by, and I had been loyal and faithful to him. He was the only person I'd ever been with. And this is the advent of AIDS. It's 1982. The self pity then turned to completely unbridled anger because I thought he may have given me a death sentence."
A 72-year-old former Project Runway mentor has lived in New York for 42 years and has been celibate for 43 years. A nine-year relationship in Washington, DC ended when the partner demanded he leave and revealed infidelity and promiscuity. The breakup occurred in 1982 during the advent of AIDS, prompting fear of possible HIV exposure and testing every six months for ten years that returned negative results. The betrayal produced intense self-pity followed by unbridled anger and recurring trauma that removed desire for serious relationships. Living alone after the breakup was an adjustment that ultimately became a preferred way of life.
Read at Queerty
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