COMMENTARY : In Sickness and Health !!

Building Loving Relationships When One Partner Has H.I.V....James E. Miles Jr. has just about everything that George Bellinger Jr. looks for in a companion. Not only the stuff of romance and resumes; he even shares Mr. Bellinger's passion for collecting g

But Mr. Bellinger and Mr. Miles, like many other gay men, have assimilated H.I.V. into their personal landscapes; it does not paralyze them. AIDS has become a fact of life, not an impasse, even as it forces them to confront mortality at a soberingly early moment in dating.

Moreover, the virus is so widespread that it would be virtually impossible -- and, some say, unreasonably arbitrary -- for gay men who are H.I.V.-negative to lead social lives that excluded those who are sero-positive.

Although there is no way to calculate the number precisely, experience suggests to Frank Carbone, executive director of Body Positive, a service organization for people with AIDS and H.I.V., that "to be a gay man in New York City and dating means you probably have a 40- to 60-percent chance of meeting someone who's positive."

Whatever the percentage, it can often seem in gay circles that sero-positive men are in the majority. And their ranks certainly include some of the most attractive, interesting, worthwhile bachelors in town -- not a group that can be easily spurned by a gay man looking for a partner.

As a result, there are so many relationships in which one partner is H.I.V.-positive and one partner H.I.V.-negative that the phenomenon has earned its own neologism: "sero-discordant" couples.

This development reflects the fact that in some gay circles at least, the world does not cleave into "us versus them," said Jeffrey W. Karaban, an administrator at Body Positive.

"The more H.I.V.-savvy gay man understands that everyone who is positive was once negative and everyone who is negative has the potential to be positive, so there's a continuum," Mr. Karaban said.

That is not to say that sero-discordant relationships are easy.

The partner who is H.I.V.-negative faces the prospect of ministering to a sick companion and then losing him, as well as the chance of becoming infected himself. And the partner with the virus lives with the fear of being abandoned in illness, of saddling his companion with grief or of transmitting the virus.

"It's not all that I am," Mr. Miles said about his H.I.V. status, "but it's still an important part of who I am -- important enough that I want to know whether you can deal with it, whether or not you're going to have a problem."

Mr. Bellinger did have a problem with it -- at first. In his job, he directs advocacy and education for the Women and AIDS Resource Network in Brooklyn. Last fall, when he met Mr. Miles, Mr. Bellinger was also caring for his best friend, who was close to death from AIDS. The prospect of emotional attachment to someone else with H.I.V. was scary.

But his resistance was overcome by the growing sense that Mr. Miles, known familiarly as Miles, had too much to recommend him. He doted on his nephews and nieces. He adored the church where Mr. Bellinger worshiped. He celebrated Christmas and the African-American festival of Kwanzaa.

"I've been waiting to settle down for a while," said Mr. Bellinger, who is 39. "Miles came along and all the pieces fell into place. He's very healthy now. He knows how to take care of himself. And he loves me. My friends said, 'George, you deserve this.' "

Without understating the specter of death, sero-discordant couples are more likely to dwell on long-term survival. It is increasingly apparent that someone with H.I.V. can have many years -- sometimes more than a decade -- of undiminished vitality. And that is more time than is guaranteed many serious relationships, marriage included.

Terry Anderson, a political organizer, tested positive for H.I.V. shortly after he moved to San Francisco to join Armistead Maupin, the author of "Tales of the City." He offered his lover a chance to bail out, but Mr. Maupin chose to cultivate the relationship instead.

The two have been together almost 10 years now.

John Juska, 37, who lives in Chelsea and is H.I.V.-negative, is nearing the second anniversary of a relationship with a man whose positive status he knew before they began dating.

"This is a day and age when H.I.V. is not a death sentence," Mr. Juska said. "If you take actions and meet it head on, it can be manageable."

On the other hand, unfathomable gulfs may be revealed by questions that merely perplex other couples, like whether to splurge on a vacation or sign a mortgage or -- more fundamentally -- whether to have sex.

"I was always afraid the condom would break," said Jon Read, a 29-year-old West Village resident, who tested positive in 1991, when he was involved with a man who did not have the virus. "The longer I was with him, the more I was in love with him. Consequently, the more I was afraid I was going to kill him." They broke up over other matters.

After he lost a partner to AIDS in September 1992, Paul G., a 38-year-old Upper West Sider, resolved that he would never again get involved with a man who had H.I.V. He agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity.

Eight months later, on the AIDS Walk New York fund-raising marathon, Paul met Stephen R., 33, a Hell's Kitchen resident who tested positive five years ago.

When Stephen told him that over dinner on their first date, Paul almost shuddered. But he also felt his resolution dissolve in the face of growing attraction to Stephen.

Then, too, Stephen had no symptoms of AIDS. "It was observably clear that he was absolutely fine," Paul said. "This could mean many, many years of health; even a bridge to stabilization or a cure."

Tim N., whose first lover died of AIDS, found himself making the same choice last year, as he began a relationship with James J. Mangia, who has the virus.

"I could never make people's H.I.V. status a condition of whether they were worth getting to know," Tim said. "It didn't seem to have much to do at all with what we could build together or create."

Many other men apparently feel the same way.

Indeed, they may be attracted to those with the virus. "In some ways, guys who are H.I.V.-positive are seen as leading life more intensely," said Richard Elovich, a program director at Gay Men's Health Crisis. "They are more self-actualized. There's a fierceness. Activism is sexy."

Mr. Miles, 34, who lives in Pittsburgh and has known for five years that he has the virus, said, "I haven't had anyone run away."

"I tell almost anybody who will listen," he said. "I've disclosed my status as a way of discouraging unwanted advances and it's backfired. They've told me it doesn't matter."

Last Thanksgiving, not long after they met at a national conference in Atlanta, Mr. Miles and Mr. Bellinger traveled to a nursing home on Staten Island to visit Mr. Bellinger's sick friend.

Afterward, as they drove to the home of Mr. Bellinger's parents in Jamaica, Queens, Mr. Miles asked, "Could you be there like that for me?"

Mr. Bellinger, who was at the wheel, did not reply at first. Even though he kept his eyes on the road, he said, he could feel Mr. Miles looking at him.

"If I start planning your death now, I can't have a relationship," Mr. Bellinger finally said. "It's about us living our lives together."

Today, Mr. Miles is getting ready to move to New York, join Mr. Bellinger and work as a community outreach trainer at Gay Men's Health Crisis. "I'm not about to be caught up with the what-if's," he said.

"Hell," he added, "I may wind up outliving him."

Ref ;Newyorktimes