Editoral By one of the Founders of BeOneCity.com

Part of my job at BeOneCity is to think about direction. I am constantly asking myself what our priorities should be and where we should steer this amazing ship. Designing, building and launching BeOneCity has been a wild, stormy, scary, satisfying and never-a-dull-moment adventure. I gave up my day job producing (bad, believe me) television when I became HIV positive. I thought that my life needed to change – that I needed a reassessment and a make-over. I took some time off when I got the diagnosis to think about who I was, who I wanted to be, and what having HIV meant now. I did the kind of soul searching we all seem to do when we get the news that we have joined a club we did not sign up for and had hoped and/or expected to avoid joining. Confronted with our own mortality, by way of a positive diagnosis, things tend to get a little introspective. It was out of that introspection, along with learning about what it meant to have HIV today, that the ideas for BeOneCity were formed.

So I decided to do something I could really believe in and that I knew was missing from my new positive life. I wanted to create a place that treats being positive not from the depressing medical perspective or as if we are all struggling to survive but as a lifestyle that can be embraced, lived wildly, lived well and lived responsibly with pride. I wanted to create a space for those of us with HIV to re-learn how to be proud of ourselves again, hopeful for our futures, clear about how we deserve love and respect as much as anyone else. In short, I wanted to create a place that we feel is ours… where we belong.

So together as a team of like minded people we set out on a course more or less knowing where we were headed, but not exactly sure of the best way to get there or what it would look like once we got there. I realize now that while HIV is around, BeOneCity will be constantly evolving. We must continue to change so that we can stay relevant, feature the best technology, and give our members the best tools for living well with HIV. In a way, there is no “arriving” at the destination - at least not until there is a cure and a vaccine in place. I see in myself how I have grown and evolved with HIV – I have come some distance from those first scary ‘damaged-goods’ feelings and all the acting out that went along with them and I still have a long way to go.

My hope is that together we can improve this community and we can teach each other how to be great people again without stigma or fear. In great part, I believe, it is the fear and the shame that fuels HIV and allows it to thrive and grow despite the great medical advances against it. I look forward to the day when being positive will be no more than a footnote in our amazing lives.

Our intention, when we began the site, was to make BeOneCity something very real, useful and important to gay positive guys. Just as important, we wanted to ensure that the site was fun – a place where you want to hang out, - a place to meet great people, a place to love/date/hook-up and really connect - not just in cyberspace, but also on the ground. And we want to be a forum for thinking, for ideas and for a vision around Outsmarting HIV.

Since you are part of BeOneCity, you are the person who knows best both what BeOneCity embodies and if we are on the right course or not. Please talk to us and let us know what you are thinking, where we can do better, what you really like about the site and what direction you'd like to see us take it. BeOneCity is about partnering – partnering with you and partnering with local, national and international HIV groups so that together we can Outsmart HIV and make great positive lives for ourselves and everyone, everywhere with HIV.

Thanks for joining BeOneCity.

Peter B.
One of the founders

"Your place to hang out, meet great people, love/date/hook-up and really connect - not just in cyberspace."