[There was a video here]

Last night, MTV’s True Life featured two people in their 20's who are HIV positive and dating. The picture was at once bleak and hopeful—both Jonahs, 22, and Lexi, 24, are undetectable and yet face other people’s reservations (if not outright bigotry) regarding their status. And still they persevere. In the clip above Jonahs gets rejected after disclosing his status to a guy he met online.

“I feel like this is a cycle that is never ending,” he says. “Not getting a reply from someone after I disclose my status to him makes me feel almost less than human.”

Depressing along the same lines as that is the reaction of Lexi’s boyfriend, Max, upon learning that he’s contracted ureaplasma from her. Per the show’s framing, he breaks up with her as a result. Lexi, who was born with HIV, tells a friend that Max was the first person who accepted her status and “loved all of me.”

[There was a video here]

The resolution of True Life: I’m Dating With HIV, was relatively upbeat, as it revealed that Jonahs and Lexi are both still dating (and the former is “enjoying the single life”). Their problems with connecting are specifically related to their condition, yet universally relatable in a sense to anyone who’s attempted to forge a connection in these modern times when the internet can give the impression of a seemingly bottomless dating pool, and rejecting someone is as simple as not responding to his or her text message.