Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

What etiquette deals with happening to be in the same town as one's mother when she goes to give blood, and thereby informs one that one is going too. At which point should one mention that one hasn't so far been to give blood because A. It's scary and all. B. They won't take mine. C. There might a reason for B.

Because I wasn't sure, but possibly mid-afternoon in a supermarket car park is not really the best place for coming out.

"When did you last give blood?"
"I haven't"
"Why not? Come now, you haven't anything wrong with you, you haven't been aboard recently, you haven't got AIDS, and you haven't had sex with men, have you?"
[Pause while the question registers and I fail to decide how to deal with it] "Mother!"

While carefully not confirming or denying the last clause, my reply does nothing to improve the long term situation.

She thinks I'm offended she even had to ask, I think I'm offended because of the way she asked, and her presumption that it was not anything a reasonable, sane, normal person, such as either of her children, would even consider doing. Possibly I'm worried because in the back of my mind I assume my parents almost know as they always have done. Yeah, I know there are comments about inevitable children, but that's just the same part of her as believes that because she was taught to ride as a child then so were her children.

I can't believe she doesn't at least suspect enough not to press it. She isn't an idiot yet is firm in her conviction that it's not an option. How? How can she know so little? I'm a useless liar and for a fair while I've been trying not to lie outright. I know they have suspected; my father was paranoid about it in the past, enough to have quiet words with my mother about me (hey, you guys, sound travels) which led to me being firmly discouraged for doing certain things (I just liked the way it moved).

I think what really scares me is I don't even know which of them will cope and which won't. My mother likes to think she's the younger, modern one, but reads the Telegraph, quotes from it, thinks the world is a complete write-off nowadays, has far too many faded blondes for friends all of whom seem to be a mix of Puritan, Victorian and Daily Mail (and none of them would even consider attempting actual thought any longer; HRT apparently exempts them). I'm worried she'll use the existence of her gay/bi/no-noticeable-girlfriends-yet/look-it's-all-a-bit-a-continuum-anyway son to prove her tolerant, liberal credentials and thereby make her immune to charges of Fascism, using non-sequitorial logic along the lines of "he can't be racist; he's black". Either that or use it as a mark of martyrdom; see how she has suffered, the poor woman, with such Job like trials in her life. You nearly died of cancer? Pah, that's nothing; she's got a gay son. Oh, my poor dear, how awful for you.

I do worry that she won't see anything wrong in either of those two roles, that she won't realise how damaging, how caustic either of them are, just how much they let people confirm ludicrous opinions and actions.

And what did I do? Be a complete coward. Work out certainties and probabilities. Deny everything. Intentionally misread. Negate. Lie.

How the hell am I supposed to deal with reading the warnings on the importance of honesty and the guarantees of privacy and complete confidentiality throughout the process when my mother is telling me to what to put and reminding of operations I had when I was six?

And why the hell is there a blanket ban on oral sex between males even with protection? Is the advice of every sexual health resource I've ever come across completely misleading? There are risk factors, but am I really more at risk than anyone on a university rugby or hockey team (who of course revel in sleeping with every member of every other sports team)? It's not even as if I could leak the news to a nurse while having the first check, as I'd already seen them come out of the completely unsoundproofed, not very well screened areas and mime the reasons for rejection to other staff across the room. Data protection apparently extends to not telling the donor about the broadcast.

Never have I hoped more fervently to be anaemic.

But no, my blood sank and with it everything else. Out to sit and wait, then get called. Onto the bed, swabbed for the statutory thirty seconds, arm pumped and patted, then yet another little prick (would doing lewd innuendo here be unbecoming? And would it cast doubt on that earlier slash in the safe, blue, normal 'No' column?). Except it wasn't a little prick; it was clenched bungee snap of pain. I'm told that the slight stinging is the alcohol. And of course not wanting to draw any more attention to me than necessary I tried not to let on that it was more than a slight sting.

Looking the other way, she lessens the pressure on the cuff and tells me to open and close my hand. And she's still standing with her groin about an inch from the end of my palm, fingers near enough to reach inside her, too afraid to uncoil properly (is this a test? Do I have to prove I'm straight by groping her?). I'm trying to do it, when there's bong from some machine. She gives the pressure band an extra squeeze and hands me something to twiddle in my hand, telling me to move it with my thumb. Which would be fine, if only I could keep my face from spasming with pain each time I pull my thumb back. I try to carry on, the machine apparently chiming the hour, one hand trying move without pulling the needle sideways through the other tissues, while the other arm is clamped deep against my side, trying to halt the heat shedding and incipient shivering.

Eventually at about seventeen o'clock and she decides that the rhythmically contorted face is actually me putting a brave face on it and as no more blood is forthcoming she'd better give up.

And then I'm given a little pad to hold on the hole, while she puts my donation, which was about the same as the milk rations we used to get for break in school (and thus left rather a lot of air in the bag) into a little plastic box, which is a different colour to every else's (to presumably be 'filed'). She leaves my lying, suppressing shivers, before coming back with a timer and giving me the proscribed ten minutes of staring at the ceiling (but what about the time I was lying down before you started timing?).

So either I have no blood, or the needle overshoot the vein (hence the pain), or I have really poor circulation which shuts down completely when I'm cold (oh, and I'd been sitting motionless in the unheated hall for an hour and half before disrobing to try to donate beneath a large, ill-fitting, single-glazing window on the coldest day for ages), or some combination of the above. But given the sundry biology undergrad experiments which convinced lecturers the probes must be in the wrong place because no way could someone's core temperature fall that rapidly especially not as the same rate as their peripheral temperature, which they believed until they came to check, started looking rather worried and telling us to abort now. Apparently they'd never seen anyone get as cold as me as quickly as I did.

And should the nails on the fingers on the hand on the arm which is being tapped be blue? Because they were and it wasn't a sign of my declining taste in nail varnish.

But at least I know I am capable of hibernation.

So what did I learn? I don't like not being me, I don't like my mother for being so certain, and there's probably a reason people make comments about my cat-like nature to occupy any space regardless of form and comfort as long as it lets me bask in the warming sun. But most of all I don't like being an outcast, being told I am not good enough, being informed I am so odd I am danger to myself and others.

And for whatever it is worth, I know what I've done and with whom I've done them, and for those with a greater degree of contact I believe I know background and past status. Perhaps it's not one-partner-for-life stuff, but there's a difference between hazard and risk.

I hate my mother for treating me like a child, for her blind assumptions and instructions (I was driving her somewhere earlier in the day and it's like being back learning to drive; she tells me to do things, and start I obeying before realising how idiotic and dangerous they were. The best was telling me to overtake a dangerously incompetent cyclist on a nearly blind bend with the words "nothing coming" as the oncoming, speeding Audi hoves into view).

But more than that, I hate myself for acquiescing, for not challenging her, for not telling the truth, for not being honest, for letting her cling to the failed, flawed vision of her second favourite surviving son, the accidental replacement, rather than letting her know it's not that bad, I'm not that pathetic, I'm not that inept, I'm not that pointless; I hate myself for not daring to be me.

So not terribly surprisingly there was a slight dearth of cute guys, or even remotely good looking men (can they all be gay?), despite the prevalence of not wholly unattractive females (how can the straight guys be missing such a perfect pick-up opportunity? Chat them up while waiting, boosting their confidence, showing yourself to be generous and altruistic, and then meet them again while they feel weak and light-headed, where you can tend to the sweet things, charmingly sharing your custard creams. Yeah, thoroughly sexist, but females largely tend to be quite willing to abandon feminist orthodoxy whenever it suits.
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The update, even though I've kept this post concealed until the results came back. You'll be pleased to know I am not the fifth horseman of the apocalypse the National Blood Service had held me to be (I'm not even the fifth pony-trekker of the scene of mild peril) as the letter contained no "Please contact your local health care provider for further details". You'll probably also be thoroughly unsurprised to hear my blood group is A+. I thought the days of getting results like that in tests were long past, though that's usually because my planning and time management skills, combined with my motivational ability (we won't ask what I should be doing instead of this), usually mean that revision becomes revi...oh hell.

So now I have a red card and a letter inviting me back in May, assuming no further notches. Which is a bit presumptive given the treatment last time would probably have put me off the whole thing anyway, were I not such a tolerant fellow. The best was being assured at the end that if I had an appointment I was guaranteed to be donating within 15 minutes, which given some booked in people were kept hanging around for 3 hours...

In the letter it says only 5% of those who could give blood do. Which as they've already stripped out the red-box-tickers (hmm, suddenly those surprisingly large statistics about men who have experimented with other men come to the fore), makes me wonder who the many are who don't. My brother's one of them, but that's because he fainted impressively and was asked not to come back because it was putting the other donors off. But who else doesn't? I think most of my friends do (well, those not outcast as unclean), stressy jobs and related illnesses permitting. I was about to suggest you lot go in my lieu, before remembering that for the most part the readers of this are red-boxers (and in the wrong country), with the possible exception of one regular, and even then I'm not entirely sure he is true blue.

So in summary, dishonesty crushes something deep within me. I understand the usefulness of classification by risk, but to suddenly be told that I am a danger is profoundly unpleasant. To be treated generically is insulting. In a land of tea and sympathy to be told to take a number and stand out of the way just feels wrong. It's finding oneself torn between the pragmatically rational and suddenly flung into the debarred camp with no further questions. I suppose partly what irks is that I have to tick to be disenfranchised, I have to mark myself out as damaged, I have to complete a form to show just how wrong am must be. And the form leaves no doubt that what I have done, my life, is grossly irresponsible and downright wrong; it's not what anyone sane would do. I must be malignant. Now of course any woman I sleep with now will have to mark herself down as soiled and acceptable and thus be eliminated (assuming she knows; it's the unfairness that the sensible are banished and the forgetfully flagrant are admitted which truly rankles). It's also interesting to note that the NBS questions seem to assume that HIV is time limited. You've not been theoretically exposed for 12 months? You must be fine, come in, welcome to the club, drinks are free, fun and sunshine for everyone.

But I suspect there are too many conflicting aspects for this to be succinctly précised, to be appended 'FIN', and so I should halt the dwelling delve before I find myself once more examining abnegation of the cruellest form.

Anyhoo,