Bzzzzzzzzt.
The sound of my mobile vibrating on my bedside table shook me awake.
Or at least, I think it did. I may have been awake already when I received the text. It’s hard to be sure – this happened eight years ago after all.
I do know I was very hungover. I’d spent the night before chinning cider and blackcurrant at the union and I could still taste the bittersweet combination of the two in my mouth the next morning.
And I also remember the text message. It’s kind of the point of the story so it would be a bit disappointing for you if I didn’t.
I remember reading it and realising that chlamydia was a more complex word to spell than I had thought. I then wondered if the textee had had to google the word in order to spell it correctly or if he was used to writing texts to people about chlamydia.
At the time I hoped it was the former. Now I know it was the latter.
I remember panicking and realising that I had to go “get checked” straight away.
I also remember what I wore because it was the same outfit that I’d worn to the beach-themed party at the union the night before. In my panicky, flustered state, I threw on a pair of very short denim shorts, an extremely low-cut blue vest top with a smurf on a surfboard and flip flops. I’d even donned my hot pink bikini underneath instead of underwear. I mean, you never know when a swimming opportunity will present itself.
I ran out of the flat, glad that none of my flatmates were around to ask where I was going and started along the street, ignoring the stares of the families wondering if this bedraggled, half-dressed teenager with makeup down her face was okay.
To be fair, I may have imagined the stares. It was the hottest week in Glasgow that year (25 degrees!), so my clothes, at least, might have seemed a bit less strange.
Anyway, about five minutes into my walk the worst thing possible happened. Or at least the worst thing possible in my narrow-minded 19-year-old brain. The textee was crossing the road towards me, clearly having just come from the place I was going to.
What was I supposed to do? Cross the road with my head down and ignore him? Nope, I had to endure five minutes of a forced conversation that neither of us wanted, accept a cringe-worthy apology and say “don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal”.
I’ve spent my entire life pretending things weren’t a big deal when they were, in fact, the biggest deal possible to me. Sometimes I wonder if I should add it to my CV, under the skills section.
In case you’ve not had this experience before, a sexual health clinic is probably the best place to people watch. The older people (and by older, I mean people in their 20s and 30s) people in their workwear intrigued me the most. I like to think I spotted a few wedding rings but I’m pretty sure I made that up for dramatic effect.
It’s good that I find people watching enjoyable at a sexual health clinic, because you have to wait a while. And I was very hungover and tired and it was hot and my cheap bikini was getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute.
I remember a nurse stopping to say ‘Why do you look so down dear?’ And I was so tempted to retort, ‘Look at where I am – why do you think?’ but she said it with such a genuine smile that I couldn’t help but smile back.
Then when I finally got to my appointment, the nurse asked me to list all my sexual partners over the past six months and cracked the odd joke as I listed them. I laughed with her as she was only trying to make the experience a bit less humiliating.
But the kind words and smiles of nurses didn’t stop me from leaving that day feeling pretty worthless. Actually, I was disgusted with myself then and for a long time after. To this day, I can count on one hand the number of people that I told about this. Even when other people confessed stories of their own STI experiences to me.
So, you are probably asking why, when I had to write a story about the future, did I instead look eight years in the past to when 19-year-old me caught chlamydia?
Is it because social distancing is a great way of reducing the transmission of coronavirus and STIs? No, but do use this opportunity to get checked and treated so you have a clean bill of health for when you’re next allowed a tryst under the sheets.
It’s because when I look back at my life, this is one of the few experiences that I think over and over about. 19-year-old me probably didn’t think that eight years later, I would still be agonising over why we didn’t use a stupid condom, wishing I’d never slept with him in the first place and spending far too much time feeling embarrassed and ashamed about a mistake that was resolved with a short course of antibiotics.
You’re probably thinking that this shows I have led a fairly undramatic life and you would be completely correct. I have led an exceptionally normal life so far with very few complications.
It took me a while to realise I was lucky that this was one of the worst things to have happened to me in 19 years. And that the mistake I’d made was easily resolved thanks to the NHS.
And while you may think the main takeaway from this story is to “let go of past mistakes” or “forgive yourself” or another equally twee message, it is actually much simpler than that.
Just use a stupid condom folks.