The reason I'm picking 40 as the age at which gay men tend to give up and say life isn't worth living is because studies in San Francisco particularly showed that 40 was the age at which gay men became invisible in their community.  They were no longer considered sexy, good sex partners, hot, hunks.  They were suddenly old queens.  But I remembered in the clubs I ran that the older men tended not to be on the dance floor but on the fringes of the dance floor.  They would sort of skulk around the edges because they felt they weren't really part of the main action. And 40 ... there's a very famous English music hall song called "No One Loves a Fairy When She's Fat and Forty" and there's this, either it's an urban myth or urban truth that after 40 you're no longer wanted, you're no longer fresh meat, you're dead meat.  I passed 40 twenty years ago so I know what I'm talking about.  I mean I never bought that because my experience doesn't come out of the Western experience. My experience comes out of the Eastern experience where age is revered and you know we have elders who we respect and learn from and treasure to the extent to where Shinto is ancestor worship. The greatest teachers I've had have always been either my peers or my elders.  But because we have no peers or elders from whom we can learn in the gay communities, when we hit 40s suddenly we can't do the things we used to do with any great expectation of success that we will get the same result.  And generally you can't because every year a new generation a new wave comes along.  There's thousands of new young gay men at 16 entering the circuit and you're pushed out at the other end.  This wave comes in and your wave goes out.  So 16 comes in, 40 goes out. Next year another lot of 16 comes in, that 40 goes out.  So you're constantly being thrown over the precipice into invisibility.  Which is why so many gay men who are over 40 now are being infected.  It's like fuck it. Life isn't really worth living.  Because if your life revolves around sex and being buffed and being toned and being a sex god and suddenly you're not on the stage any more, you're in the wings, life is certainly not worth living if that's all you've got.  I'm living proof and my friends are living proof that not only is there a life beyond 40 but believe me, it gets better.  But there are things you have to do, it's not automatically better.  You need to box clever.  There's thing you have to do to make it so and things you can do.  I can't go into all the things you need to do but believe me there is life after 40 and it's a better life than you had before you were 40 if you're HIV positive.  But you need to investigate and break it down into segments.  You need to maybe get back into education, get back into learning, get back into reading, get back into doing your own research.  I mean the Internet is a great tool for that.  It's not just for getting your next sex partner from.  It's a great educational tool.  All the libraries of the world are on line. Do your research.  Get a ... not a life but several lives. There are so many options there.  But generally gay men as we grow older we contract, we don't expand, we actually contract into some sort of dead meat.  But there's a life out there that's beyond being gay, beyond being HIV positive. But you need to work out all your options, because what works for me may not work for you.  But there are plenty of options out there for you.