This post originally appeared on the website of the AIDS Committee of Guelph (ACG) here.

It must be time to slow down because I just noticed I missed the second anniversary of my first blog debuting on ACG's site way back on August 9th 2010. So this means my second year at PositiveLite.com is coming up March 30th as well. This entry will be my 29th blog posting for ACG and I have written 82 for PositiveLite.com. I didn't realize I had this much to say.

When I started I was as green as you can get, I had no idea what I was doing. I remember there was a book I had read, "If you can talk, you can write" by a guy named Joel Saltzman. I read it, many years ago. I did try to write a few times but gave up. I still don't think I will write the next great novel, but blogging is a form of writing that I can do. It is a lot like talking, so why not write it.

The incentive for me to start was knowing that I had two great mentors/editors in Megan DePutter at ACG and Bob Leahy at PositiveLite.com. They cleaned up my articles so that they read better. I don't know how true it is (Editor's note: It's true!) but they have told me they have had to do less editing as time went by. So if my English in some blogs sounds a little too refined to be me, that’s because it’s Bob's work. I have warned him to be careful doing it because people will expect me to talk like that.

Something else that motivated me to get involved in blogging was having my HIV status go public on the internet. Once it was out there I couldn't hide from it, but I could get involved in helping people better understand HIV and to help end the stigma that I was subjected to that day. I wanted to share my story and put a face to this disease and hopefully reach someone else who could relate. I read many blogs by other writers and I can relate to some of their stories or find out new things I could dor to live a better and healthier life.

I have been able to move away from just writing about myself and offer my opinion on other subjects, like homophobia, stigma, or I'll write about my photography, a movie or television shows I watch. I am aware that I'm living with HIV 24 hours a day but it isn't something I have to worry about every hour of the day. Life goes on, normally! I work, I play and I still do most of the things I used to, just a little slower now.

Now, thanks to social media I am communicating and sharing information with people across the country and around the world. To hear from a young American living in Japan that he was following my blog and was inspired to go on and tell his story, or from an older gentleman in Toronto who wanted to talk to me about going public with his real name; these are some of the best rewards I could receive. (The older gentleman in Toronto, by the way, is now the publisher for PositiveLite.com.)

I have tried to start my own blog site several times, but was frustrating to see that no one was reading it. This is where social media came in. You have to be on Facebook and twitter and a few other places where you can post links to your blog. I like to make fun of learning to use programs on the internet; once I learn how to use them, I tell people, "it is so easy, even I can do it."

There are easier ways of promoting via social media than I was used to. I was introduced to another program recently that makes much of the social media work easier. I was told about it ages ago but fought off having to learn something new. With this new program, I can schedule all the posts on social media and take off for the day.

Now I am doing the Facebook page for PositiveLite.com, plus I'm writing and scheduling the tweets to go up on Twitter. I haven't mastered the "Smart Phone", so I'm not doing any of that while on the run and it helps that I don't have one..........yet! I believe I am being smart in telling myself I don't need one. I think once someone has one of those phones, they really do stop communicating in a human way, and become “app-dicted” as well; an app for this, an app for that. Look around you, you don't even have to leave your home, someone around you right now is clutching their phone and paying little attention to you.

I use social media; social media doesn't use me. I find I spend a lot of time online and less time with the people around me. I do need to work on this part. If I'm out with people, most of the time, I have my phone off or on vibrate and I am present in the moment.

Part of the inspiration to write yet another blog about blogging is because ACG has a call out to anyone who might be interested in getting started. Now that some of us have our feet in the door there is plenty of experience to learn from. Megan Deputter, Olivia Kijewski and myself are all blogging on PositiveLite.com as well as ACG's site. We haven't been able to sit down for our first meeting yet so there is still time to get in on this workshop.

To use one suggestion that was made to me, "it might be a good thing for you". It was for me and it seems I'm well into my third year of blogging, I didn't get bored with it. I didn't stop. I do get writer's block from time to time but a detour out in the real world can be all that I need to get back on track.

Hashtag trends on Twitter are a bit like an episode of Prisoner: a mixture of pathos, camp, genuine emotion and absolute rubbish.

When I saw #WhatHurtsMeTheMost trending in Australia last night, I had to click to see what people were saying.  What interested me was how many times the same themes recurred.  Here are five that stirred something in me.

#WhatHurtsMeTheMost when someone makes you feel so so so special, but turns out they’re like that with everyone else

I was talking with friends over the weekend about the spambots that used to pop up in dating chatrooms and start a conversation with you, managing to get out two or three generic opening sentences before inviting you to some membership site to rip you off.

There are also real-life spambots. People who know how to use their charm and wiles on the vulnerable and make them feel special.  Those of us naïve enough to have been taken in fall very hard when we realise that we weren’t that special after all, but simply were victims of patter.

Of course, that’s where we go wrong, and why we end up falling so hard in the first place.  If you’re placing so much value on someone else making you feel special, then you are in for a difficult road in life.  You have to be able to survive on your own, and as clichéd as it is to say, you have to be able to love yourself.

#WhatHurtsMeTheMost : Seeing the one you love, love someone else.

There’s a heartbreaking song on Pet Shop Boys 2006 album, ‘I Made My Excuses And Left’.  It tells the story of a man at a party, and the hush and awkwardness that falls over the room when his ex walks in with a new man.

Each of you looked up, but no one said a word

I felt I should apologise for what I hadn’t heard…

And clumsy as I felt at stumbling on this theft

to save further embarrassment, I made my excuses and left

Loving someone who doesn’t love you back is hard.  Sometimes you can just get to a point where you think you’re past it, and something will unexpectedly get you – moments like the above.  One from my past involved being out at a function and heading out to look for a friend that I had deep feelings for, only to find him kissing someone else passionately in the corner.

I quietly withdrew into a pit for a while, until I was rescued by some other friends.  I never told them or anyone else what was going on.  It wasn’t the right time, and I was too embarrassed.  Sometimes you want to move on, but an emotional switch in your brain just won’t let you.

#WhatHurtsMeTheMost seeing someone in your family cry

My grandmother on my father’s side of the family died when I was around, maybe, ten years old.  I didn’t quite understand what was going on at first, having thankfully had no experience with such things.

I remember my parents going round to her house mysteriously one morning, and I was aware of there being some vague concerns for her wellbeing.  I was left with my grandparents on mother’s side, who lived next door to us.  The first I heard was the phone ringing, Nana answering, and exclaiming in a shocked voice: “When did she die?”

A few days later we were at the funeral.  We exited the chapel at the end, and I watched my family go to pieces, Mum and Dad included.  It was the first time I’d ever seen them cry, and it wouldn’t be the last.

As a selfish child only could, I remember feeling like I’d been put on a liferaft and pushed out into the ocean. I was confused. Parents aren’t supposed to cry. They’re supposed to fix everything and make it alright.

My Aunty Colleen noticed me and came and hugged me, then I cried. I wasn’t crying because my grandmother had gone. I was crying because I realised I wasn’t alone.

#WhatHurtsMeTheMost I cant go back in time to relive the best moments of my life.

I don’t know whether the person who wrote this was being flippant or serious, but I feel very sorry for them if it’s the latter.  Stephen Fry in his first autobiography “Moab Is My Washpot” talks about feeling suicidal as a teenager and writing the line “my whole life stretched out gloriously behind me”.

We can go through life thinking that our existence is like oil in the ground: that eventually we’ll reach a peak and thereafter the returns will be diminishing.  But we’re not provided with a script, and have no way of knowing what is around the corner.

There are no best moments of your life, only best moments in your life thus far.

As my friend, artist Christophe Jannin, says when asked what his favourite drawing is, the best is the one I have yet to do.

#WhatHurtsMeTheMost standing on a plug

Self-explanatory. Hurts like a bitch. Don’t leave things in such a mess.  It’ll always get you in the end.

This post originally appeared on Christopher’s own blog BiPolar Bear here. 

Spam used to be simple. No-frills emails telling you how to ENLARGE your penis through pharmacology. 

Something has changed in the age of social media, though.  All but the most delusional of us are no longer susceptible to such bluntness.  We’ve accepted our knobs are not going to get any bigger, unless we attach them to that stretching machine they used on Mike Teevee in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

The spammers of the 21st century have more insidious weapons in their arsenal: they fuck with your mind.  Whereas the penispammers of old whacked you in the face with a saucepan, the new breed whispers quietly in your ear while knifing you in the spleen.

Consider this email that arrived in my inbox today, sliding in like a sneaky candy into a Christmas stocking:

From: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Subject:  I’m still in love with you.

Date:   17 October 2012 3:46:41 PM AEDT

I think about you day after day. Usually I even plan out what I’ll say. You have no way to know, just read this card and know I remember the time, I remember the day, I had no idea what I was going to say, so I’m saying it now.

Below was a discreet link for me to claim my private E-card from this genderless Casanova.

Obviously I wasn’t going to click it, but as far as spam to a recently-separated man goes, it was a rather shitty email to receive.  Maybe if I was drunker and sadder I might have clicked it, in the hope of reading more poorly constructed clichés that I could project my life onto.

Another more common one going around is the scourge of Twitter: private messages from your followers (whose accounts have been hacked) telling you that someone is either spreading horrible rumours about you, or posting incriminating videos of you on Facebook.

It’s the sort of thing guaranteed to cause a paranoid reaction.  Where did that shot of my private parts end up?  Has someone created an horrific Photoshop collage involving boudoir pics from Growlr and various farm animals?  I must check, I must!

Not that spammers have ever given a shit about ethics, but with the increasing use of mind games, I’m left wondering where this is going to end up.

Emails telling you that a family member has died or is seriously ill?  There’s enough information publicly available about our lives now that a savvy programmer could create an algorithm to extract detail to personalise such an email and make it convincing enough to snare the vulnerable.  

Direct tweets like this one are not far off:

"um…this profile is making threats against you, they’ve been posting tweets non-stop, just thought I should show you."

The Internet is a scary place sometimes, and the rise of psychological spam does nothing to help those of us who are trying to promote the value of social media as a forum for engagement on mental health issues with an industry of professionals that are still very skeptical about jumping online.

This article first appeared on Christopher’s own blog Bipolar Bear here.