The lonely codependent

STD anxiety

I always feel a bit angry when someone wants to have an ons or a friends with benefits relationship with me. One of the reasons for this is that it's easier to to get infected with sexually transmitted diseases this way. I know the safest thing I could ever do would be being in a long-term relationship, but let me not write a half-a-book-long complaint about this yet again.

Thank God most STD-s can be cured, at least in my country. However, HIV is not among them so people often panic they might have got it after sleeping with risky-looking partners. I'm no exception so however scared I was, I thought it was time to get tested (even though I was hoping the result would not change my plans for tonight).

If you ever end up in the same situation, I recommend you to watch Jennifer Vaughan's videos. They helped me a lot to mitigate my anxiety - because the examination is not scary at all, what scares people is thinking about what will happen if the result is positive. But being scared for 10 minutes is better than constantly being afraid that you might be doing harm to your partner and that I definitely didn't want.

This was a place where they specialize in doing rapid HIV tests (they pin your finger with a needle - which doesn't hurt, I couldn't even feel it - and put the blood on something that looks like a pregnancy test, then in 10 minutes they will give you your result). You don't need to give them your real name even if you make an appointment online. The place had changed a lot since I last went there due to Covid restrictions. Which is interesting because back then a guy would ask me some questions before taking my blood but this time they only asked my birth year and absolutely nothing about my partners or possible symptoms.

I was more nervous before the test than during it but probably because deep inside I knew all along that everything was gonna be OK. It is, I am negative and very happy. An experience like this can also be very motivating to try to recover from my codependency even harder. I've already made the resolution that I'll no longer do random hookups. This time it will be someone I already know which is still not ideal, in any case it's important that you should always use protection if you don't want to panic later. Anyway it's really hard to get this disease if you are heterosexual. I've had several partners from several countries and don't have it, moreover at least 4-5 people also got their negative results during the 15 minutes I spent in the surgery.

I hope this helps someone, knowing something for sure is always better than making assumptions because we can never know how much damage we are doing to others or ourselves.

People promote STD testing and taking responsibility, that's very nice and I agree with it. But I wish I could promote long-lasting relationships instead of today's hookup culture. That would be a great way in many cases to avoid both physical and mental harm.