I Think, Therefore I Am....Lasagna

So My Therapist Says, "You're like lasagna."
"I was thinking more along the lines of a Kit-Kat," I said.

I had coughed up the truth a couple of weeks back that the "journal" was, indeed, a blog. So he read it...all of it. Or so he says. He said some nice things. He found it "interesting", which is also what you say about a person with a third eye or a hump on her back. But he pronounced himself "gratified" and said any therapist would be to know that their $110 per hour project went home and pondered things to the extent I seem to do.

He commented upon how many layers I seem to have. I declined nomination to the ranks of "unique" or "special" or anything else. I don't believe that. I think everyone is probably covered in many layers from the ordinary events of a lifetime. Education, life, death, sickness, sadness, victory, and the iron-sharpens-iron influence of like minds all contribute. One of my favorite biblical passages talks about being "tried in the fire seven times" - a reference to the refining of silver, which casts off its dross with each test in the fire to reveal an ever brighter metal. I don't know how many times I've been tried in the fire. I know it's a few. But everyone has been.

We talked about how some people's lack of depth is only revealed over time while others appear more complete - if not complex - over the same time. I'm not a person who is easily explained in sound bites or polite dinner conversation over a few minutes' time, he noted. But it is nice to hear that I make sense, in the totality of things. If I were given to wallowing, I'd say it's a pity so few love interests have stuck around for - or been interested in - the "Big Reveal", as they say in reality T.V.

I admitted that I enjoy managed conflict in my personal relationships - not for conflict's sake, but as a harbinger of independence. I detest sycophants. I have attracted a few - not because I am remarkable in any way - but because there are some people so devoid or ignorant of who they are that identifying with ANYONE who will let them is their goal. I don't appreciate The Mirror People who always look and sound like me after 15 minutes of being together. I get plenty of me. If I pick a gratuitous argument - not violent, just spirited - with a love interest, it's to see if we can cope with mutual independence while culturing interdependence. Can I still be me and be with you (and vice-versa)? Can you live with the notion that I will never change my thoughts just to align with your opinions? And can I live with the opinions you hold that grate at my core? That's why I engage those topics early and often. Many men I've met flee those opportunities as indicative of a simply combative personality. I understand that. All I really wanted to know, though, is how they would react the first time we didn't have a harmonic convergence of thought.
Better to walk away than stay under false pretenses, I think.

So I'm Lasagna - layered, he says. Meaty, cheesy, saucy, salty and hard around the edges where I've been burned, I thought. He's pretty good. He could do therapy on the Food Channel. He wasn't buying the sweet Kit-Kat bit. I should have known better. I'd have thrown up in my mouth a little if anyone had said that about me. I'm just not that sweet.

We seguéd from Lasagna to Sex. We talked about serosorting and its implications. And we talked about the finer details of man-on-man copulation. We discussed condoms, the upside and downside of fellatio, and the ethos or pathos (take your pick) of barebackers and bugchasers. I don't know if I'll document that conversation for posterity. Those who have needed to know already know that stuff.

And some things are better left to discovery and mystery anyway. But I will write more later about this bon mot that was left hanging in the air toward the end of that careening session: "...got your self into this situation..."
"Got myself into WHAT situation?"
"Being HIV-positive."

I took off my bifocals, leaned forward, and...