Hurrah! I get the all clear

I don’t have an STD after all. After doing the pee-in-a-pot chlamydia self-test before work and then worrying through a busy day of meetings and Googling on my iPhone to find my nearest GUM clinic – all the while ignoring vitriolic text messages from Jealous Ex – he eventually confessed that he’d made the whole thing up. Although he didn’t exactly say “made up”. He gave the following explanation:

It turns out while I was on holiday he convinced himself that he’d caught something (just like he convinced himself I was cheating on him) and went to get tested, only he was too impatient to wait the two weeks for the results. So he got a friend to prescribe him antibiotics for chlamydia and gonorrhoea (I have no idea who he knows that has access to that kind of shit). His ‘symptoms’ cleared up soon afterwards and when his test results came back from the clinic they were negative. But that didn’t stop him from using his fictional STD as solid evidence that I’d been unfaithful and using it to justify a tirade of abuse against me the other night.

None of this actually matters anymore because right now all I can feel is relief. 1) That I don’t have an STD, and 2) That just at the point where I was starting to question whether breaking up with JE was for the best, he proved to me what an unhinged asshole he is. I texted him “Goodbye” before deleting his number for good and poured myself a large glass of wine to celebrate.

And besides, I have another date with T. to look forward to this weekend ;)

I try to remember how to play it cool

So just when I think I’m going crazy because I haven’t heard from T since spending an amazing weekend with him in London (although as my sister points out, this was only four days ago), I get a text from him on my way home from work. I’m so excited it’s all I can do to keep the car on the road.

“So, what are the chances of persuading you to come down to London, say next weekend? I’m worried there are parts of Brixton you haven’t seen x”

I breathe deep and try to remember how to play it cool (as if I ever knew).

“You mean there’s more to Brixton? I have an excruciating work awards ceremony on Friday [this is true, I can’t get out of it and I’m not even nominated for anything], but if you’d care to show me the sights on Saturday, I’d say your chances were pretty good… x”

“Done,” he says. “Yes there’s tons more stuff in Briston but I’ve changed my mind and I’m not gonna let you see any of it xx”

Two kisses? I can’t stop grinning.

I book a train to London for the following Saturday and text him to let him know what time I’ll be arriving. “Can’t wait,” I type.

Hang on, that’s not playing it cool. That’s playing it keen. I deleted that bit and sign-off with a jokey comment instead about already having seen the highlight of Brixton.

“I’ll meet you at the Tube station,” he texts back. “Can’t wait.”

A close encounter with an old friend

Ladies and gents, I have an announcement to make. I am smitten. The sort of smitten that compels you to re-read your lover’s text messages until you can quote them verbatim and leaves you smiling like a goon at nothing in particular. And like all the best romantic encounters, this one arrived completely out of the blue.

On Friday I was in London for a conference, which turned out to be excruciatingly dull. Afterwards I’d arranged to meet a couple of friends from university in London, where I was a postgrad student three years ago. (I’d invited more people, but I’d forgotten that everyone in the City seems to need at least a month’s notice in order to meet for a few drinks.) So in the end it was just me , H and T, two of the guys I used to hang out a lot with when I was living in London. I’d had a huge crush on T throughout the year we were at uni together, but he had a girlfriend he’d been with forever, or at least five years, which might as well be forever to someone who cant seem to hold a relationship longer than 18 months.

T finished work early and met me at the tube station in Angel with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. He is really tall, 6ft 3″, and I’m only 5ft 3″ so he had to bend down quite a lot to do that. We went to a pub in Angel and even though I hadn’t seen him for more than a year and had been worried that maybe the conversation might dry up, we talked all afternoon. T is very intelligent and very witty but he’s also VERY cute in a slightly goofy, skinny-boy sort of way, with dark hair, hazel eyes and an enormous smile. He also mentioned that he’d broken up with his girlfriend earlier this year. A couple of hours later H arrived and we all went to a Turkish restaurant, then onto a bar. By this time I’d already missed the train that work had booked me onto, but I figured I’d just get the last train home at 10pm. But when 10pm came, we were still having a good time and the whiskey sours were in full flow.
“I don’t want to go!” I said.
“So don’t then,” said H.
“The only way that would work is if I can stay with one of you guys…”
“You can stay with me,” said T, quite quickly.

Even then, I didn’t think anything of it. I have a lot of guy friends and stay over sometimes just as I would at a girl friend’s house. I didn’t think anything of it when we’d said our goodbyes and T and I were on the tube, and he put an arm around my shoulder. Because it was just a friendly arm around the shoulder, right? And then we got back to his and we were both sitting on the bed and for a few moments there was this slightly loaded, slightly awkward silence, which I opted to break by pulling the duvet over his head. And that’s when he kissed me.