Friday, December 19, 2003
Relief
I've been a little out of it for the last couple of weeks. You might have noticed. You might not have. It's hard to tell with me, I've figured out.
Anyway, it all started when I saw this goddamn movie. Which gave me a serious cognitive dissonance. See, the main character of the movie has HIV and runs around having sex with as many people as he can. That's bad. I also have a serious issue with HIV/AIDS. It freaks me the fuck out, basically. And there I was, confronted with it for an entire movie.
Exactly why it gives me cognitive dissonance, I cannot say. The textbook definition of cognitive dissonance is when the brain believes two contradictory things. For example, "I love America" and "America is going into an unjust war!" don't work together. Dissonance gets resolved by one of the two options completely destroying the other and getting stronger, but while it lasts, it causes extreme discomfort. So our patriotic example may decide to love America even longer, and anyone who brings up the dissonant opposite will be shouted down, becuase they may cause more dissonance.
So I'm unsure exactly why HIV/AIDS gives/gave me such trouble. It's probably a combination of things. Like, sex=good contrasting with sex=VERY DANGEROUS. Or sex=joy contrasting with sex=death. Or, "good kids don't get HIV/AIDS" against "I think I'm a good kid, but I don't knooooowwwww."
The end result was that watching that movie made me very sex-negative for a few weeks, until I could deal with my dissonance. Fortunately, this dissonance is easily dealt with. I found where a free clinic was, waited a painfully nervous week and managed to find if my hypochondria was warranted.
Obviously, I was negative. You think I'd have the courage to write this if not?
Please.
Following that, I did an amazing job of Christmas shopping. Because why not spend money to celebrate! Especially when it's half as much as you should have spent.
I've been a little out of it for the last couple of weeks. You might have noticed. You might not have. It's hard to tell with me, I've figured out.
Anyway, it all started when I saw this goddamn movie. Which gave me a serious cognitive dissonance. See, the main character of the movie has HIV and runs around having sex with as many people as he can. That's bad. I also have a serious issue with HIV/AIDS. It freaks me the fuck out, basically. And there I was, confronted with it for an entire movie.
Exactly why it gives me cognitive dissonance, I cannot say. The textbook definition of cognitive dissonance is when the brain believes two contradictory things. For example, "I love America" and "America is going into an unjust war!" don't work together. Dissonance gets resolved by one of the two options completely destroying the other and getting stronger, but while it lasts, it causes extreme discomfort. So our patriotic example may decide to love America even longer, and anyone who brings up the dissonant opposite will be shouted down, becuase they may cause more dissonance.
So I'm unsure exactly why HIV/AIDS gives/gave me such trouble. It's probably a combination of things. Like, sex=good contrasting with sex=VERY DANGEROUS. Or sex=joy contrasting with sex=death. Or, "good kids don't get HIV/AIDS" against "I think I'm a good kid, but I don't knooooowwwww."
The end result was that watching that movie made me very sex-negative for a few weeks, until I could deal with my dissonance. Fortunately, this dissonance is easily dealt with. I found where a free clinic was, waited a painfully nervous week and managed to find if my hypochondria was warranted.
Obviously, I was negative. You think I'd have the courage to write this if not?
Please.
Following that, I did an amazing job of Christmas shopping. Because why not spend money to celebrate! Especially when it's half as much as you should have spent.