We were getting to know each other and then he disappeared for a couple of months “to. focus on his health.” Weird, but ok. We started talking again.

We met up one night and the condom broke and he started acting extremely weird. He couldn’t go to sleep and kept talking about STD testing and that he’d caught STD’s before. His heart was pounding, I could feel it. He said, ‘You could get HIV…’

I was kind of freaked out by it but I went home and didn’t think about it. But I woke up in the middle of the night with the sentence burned in my brain. ‘You could get HIV…’ I immediately knew what he was telling me.

I started researching at 3am and found out there is something like a morning-after pill to prevent HIV infection. That morning I got a babysitter and went to the clinic. They interviewed me and said because he didn’t outright tell me he had HIV and was unmedicated, they were choosing not to start me on the medication. I said I was extremely scared, and they said it was very unlikely I would get infected.

Then he started constantly texting me. Sending me negative STD results from 2 years ago with the message “I’m clean, so if you have anything, you gave it to ME…”

I just blocked him. I will test asap and that’s all I need to focus on.

It’s been three weeks and for the past few days I have been nauseous, achy, had a bad sore throat, and all my glands have come up. I can’t swallow anything. I was in the hospital last week for a random infection that didn’t respond to antibiotics.

I can’t tell anyone. I have to take care of my kids like nothing is wrong. I am TERRIFIED. I still have two weeks to test (they said I had to wait 5 weeks for accuracy).

I can’t believe this is happening. This isn’t my life. I can’t sleep. I’m so scared.

Well then he wanted to touch my hair and I was so… idk.. surprised? by that I actually said okay… and while I didn’t like it.. I felt like maybe that’s the end of it or maybe he actually cuts hair for a living. (He doesn’t, I asked.)

Then he wanted to know if he was bothering me and again I said no ( I was starting to be a little panicked and hoping it was over) at which point he asked if he could ask me a more personal question. oh boy.

He wanted to know if it was shaved down there. When I said I preferred not to answer he was like why not?

I said I prefer not to answer. He said the correct answer is ‘yes.’ At which point we came to an intersection and he said he was going one way and I said I was going another. I hate to think he had gotten his jollies and was running for home at that point. And now I’m at home thinking about how he knows where I get my haircut and feeling gross.

Reading this I see many things I could have done differently, but specifically, I need help with getting the courage to act differently.

My whole life I’ve been afraid of not being liked by others when I need to get out of a potentially unsafe situation, my instinct is politeness.

I work as an assistant in a clinic.

The bottom part of my hair is the auburn red, top is my natural dirty blonde color and in the middle is a lighter blonde because the red color i got after mine was discontinued apparently had lightener in it and somewhat bleached my hair… hence why ive been afraid to try other colors… so its kinda a mess, i know this. I walk into the patient room and the first thing this guy says is “Your hair is half blonde and half red” so I said, with a laugh, “Yea I’m behind on coloring thanks for pointing it out.”

He then proceeds to say I hope you don’t take offence to this, but I think women are more attractive with their natural hair color. I said that people have always said my natural hair color looks less natural on me than the red does so that’s funny you think that.

He said that my husband probably like my natural color better, and I said actually he prefers the red.

And he said that my husband probably just doesn’t want to tell me that he likes my natural color better. At this point it went from a light conversation to I felt he was getting too personal. I really just tried to end the topic and carry on with what I needed to do so I could leave the room.

But he kind of continued with the I don’t want you to be offended. I had kept my tone cheerful the whole time and assured him I wasn’t offended because I really just wanted him to stop. What makes anyone think they have the right to talk to someone this way? So rude… just wanted to vent.

Also, sorry if there are any spelling mistakes or anything in here because I haven’t proofread it, I just need to let this out.

I love women, I think women are great. Nothing I talk about is my opinion of how women truly are, it’s about all the stereotypes and expectations that come with being a girl. I know it’s all essentially complete fucking bullshit but that doesn’t change how badly it all affects me.

Every single day I wish I was born a boy. I’m not trans — I don’t have gender dysphoria and I don’t feel like I am or should be a boy. In actuality, my gender identity is close to being some form of non binary, but I call myself a girl anyway because the way I experience my life is as a girl and as a feminine presenting person I will never be seen by others as anything but a girl.

I hate being expected to be nurturing, empathetic and loving. I’m not a bad or mean person, that isn’t what I mean, but I’m in the process of being diagnosed with some form of a disorder related to empathy. I feel so completely different from other women and girls and it makes me feel broken in a way. I see the way they all talk about how much more empathetic and kind they are compared to men and it makes me want to scream because people always put these expectations on women as a whole and I’m so sick of this stereotype. ‘Women are naturally empathetic and loving’ has been shoved down my throat my entire life.

I hate being expected to one day get married and have children. I don’t want to do either. I hate being told women are naturally good with babies or all have motherly instincts. This is another specific area I feel like I’m ‘broken’ in. This is a funny example but it’s just to show how oddly ingrained into me this is: since I was very little I’ve always hated babies which was weird since I’d never ever been around them or experienced one.

I feel a deep sense of disgust towards very little kids (not necessarily a hatred) and I know this is normal because they’re gross, but still. I hate being expected otherwise just for being a girl. I don’t mind older kids but I don’t feel anything positive towards them as a whole. I have absolutely no parental instincts whatsoever and I know I’d never have children of my own. I feel completely awkward and uncomfortable around babies and kids.

I hate being expected to be quiet and docile and not take up space. I hate how growing up I was held to such a higher standard than my brothers. They were allowed to be messy and loud and careless, I wasn’t. I was expected to be mature and logical and tidy. I was never allowed to mess up or act like normal kids like they were. In family photos, they’d be made to laugh and I’d be told to SUCK MY STOMACH IN (I was a skinny kid, by the way, but that isn’t my point).

I’m scared for my future. Every time I think about it I feel sick. I want to work in something involving chemistry but I’ve heard so many horror stories about how women are treated unfairly in STEM careers and it makes me so anxious. I hate that I can’t talk to any of my friends about it because they’re all boys and won’t understand.

I’m scared of not being taken seriously in a workplace with more men than women. And more involving my future, I hate being SCARED TO EVER HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH A MAN in case he’s in the worst case abusive and controlling, or at a lesser extent doesn’t treat me like a equal or expects certain traits from me just for being a girl. I can’t ever vision myself being anything but completely alone my entire life because I don’t know what kind of man would ever want to be with a woman like me who doesn’t want physical intimacy, doesn’t want children, and doesn’t have a single soft bone in her body.

And this one particularly hurts. I feel a complete sense of disconnection from other women and girls and it makes me so genuinely sad. All my friends are guys and I love my friends, they’re all great, but I wish I had just one girlfriend. And PLEASE don’t get this twisted – I’m not one of those ‘guys are less drama, girls are annoying’ people at all. Actually, my guy friends are so much drama. That isn’t what this is about. All I want is to feel included by other girls and be friends with them but I don’t know how. My whole life I’ve been severely bullied by other girls because they see me as different and weird. Not that guys were even nice to me whatsoever, they just didn’t go particularly as hard on me as the girls around me. I’ve never done anything back to anybody and have always completely minded my own business, but from an extremely young age I’ve always just been targeted. All I want is to be friends with other girls. I didn’t even realise how bad this affected me until right now as I’m typing this. I feel so genuinely upset at how alien I feel around other girls and I wish I was just fucking normal. This is probably because of how I was treated growing up but every time I’m in a group with just girls for a class or project or anything I feel so sick because I know they see me as weird compared to them and they treat me like shit. I don’t understand it. I haven’t done anything so why am I a target.I just don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I CAN do. I’m just stuck like this forever.

Hearing this I was upset, concerned, and confused as to how she could have an STD since we have been together for the past 6 years. She assured me that HPV can remain dormant in a person for years and that she’s most like carried it since at least 2014 and points to an abnormal pap smear from then to corroborate her belief.

Now, she and I have two sons, one ours and one from her Ex who was born in 2014. I also know of two guys she dated after her ex and before me: the brother of her former best friend and the fiancé of one of her friends.

Due to this virus’s ability to spread unknowingly and its the possibility to cause cancer, I believe she has a moral obligation to tell these people, but she had stated that she had no intention of telling anyone as her doctor said she was not obligated to by law.

After a LOT of arguing, I managed to convince her to tell her Ex by saying that if she didn’t tell him, she was potentially submitting his future child to the same fate she had suffered; that is, this child’s mother dying of cancer (my (now Ex) girlfriend’s mother died of cancer).

I know bringing her mother into this was messed up, but I felt out of anyone she should understand what that’s like. Her Ex’s girlfriend subsequently got tested and also tested positive for High-Risk HPV.

At this point the reality that it was no longer a possibility that it was spreading; but that it definitely was, set in.

I felt like more than ever she needed to let these people know but she made it clear she was not going to tell anyone else and shut the conversation down every time I tried to broach it. I couldn’t understand she could possibly sleep at night knowing she could have passed a potentially cancer-causing virus to people who were and are supposed to be her friends and be completely ok with letting them possibly find out thru a cancer screening test.

So, after weeks of fighting with myself over whether my intervening was the right thing to do, and asking a few close friends their thoughts on the matter (I phrased the question hypothetically), I found her former-best friend’s brother, her current friend, and the person her ex dated after her, but before his current girlfriend on Facebook and wrote them a message explaining the situation and that they or any of their partners since 2014 should get tested.

When I told her about this she became incredibly upset and said that I had no right to tell them and that that was personal information, but I stood by my actions saying it was the right thing to do.

Since then she has said that the people I wrote to have told her that I was in the wrong and it was not my place to tell them, which has me questioning whether or not did the right thing.

So, am I wrong for telling on her?

So I am working at a job in a country far away from S’pore for a few months and this is where I met my gf.

My birthday is coming up in September and well I know there is a lot of time left to be thinking about it but I have always thought of celebrating turning 22 at a nearby pub from my home with my friends. We have talked about this, they have been on board when I mentioned it months before I even came here. The thing is, we are all working jobs now so I mentioned it in the groupchat if it would still be cool with them to be onboard with this and they said yes, no problem.

All of them are working from home right now and I’m the only one bus stop away from them and I miss them. I have made friends here as well but it isn’t the same of course.

So I was hanging out with my gf at my home and I just casually mentioned this plan to her for my birthday and asked her if she would want to go with me because I really want her to meet my friends and I would really appreciate her being with me.

Well she sort of gave a half-hearted response of “I will think about it” so I said alright and let it go because really there is a lot of time for that. This was a week ago and she was over my home again last night and then she told me that she wants me to celebrate my birthday with her and she would make it special for me.

I was actually happy with her suggestion initially because I really like her and we love pampering each other in general but on a second thought I was a bit reluctant. My thoughts were that if we go to sg, I could meet my friends and family as it has been months since my mom even saw me and I could introduce my gf to them.

She was kinda upset when I mentioned this to her and said she wanted it to just be us but I replied with we are right now and every other day of the week plus celebrating something with just the two of us should be for an anniversary or something.

She got more upset for some reason and said I don’t appreciate her enough which I tried to counter and she was appeased for a while but then she mentioned she is not sure if she could afford the trip so I offered to pay for her travel expenses and then she got annoyed and argued some more and left. I am confused right now and giving her some space but I feel like I did something wrong? Let me know if something I said or did was out of line, I’d appreciate it.

After that, I started looking for all the law and regulations regarding one of us moving together. She lives in the US and I live in SG so we collectively decided that SG would be the better choice as America is very overpriced and definitely more dangerous. I started thinking over and over, looking at our options to make our 7-year dream of being together true, it was becoming very difficult to make it happen.

Move there(US) for a couple years to make her happy and to genuinely see how it was, get married then move back to SG. At some point I started looking at us: I was scared to go out and drink with my friends in case I did something I shouldn’t whilst drunk and she also got very angry whenever I didn’t text her after a couple of hours, meanwhile all she did with herself as she didn’t go to university because she couldn’t get in, was stay home watch tv, smoke weed and go to work at the diner a few times a week while I was going to work every day to eventually also give her money for food since sometimes she didn’t even have that and she had no friend group to even hang out with whether it be the during the weekend or week.

Eventually, I decided that it was my fault since she spent her whole days texting me without leaving the house unless she had a shift and had no friend group.

I ended up breaking up with her because I thought we’d both be wasting our twenties waiting for each other to get enough money to live together and whilst I have friends over in the SG she never really had any over there and she threw a bunch of stuff in my face when I did end it saying I never appreciated her or did anything for her despite sleeping 5 hours every night so we’d sleep on the phone (2am-7am) and giving her money to either get an uber to work or for food.

A month after she had a new boyfriend.

I guess… we were never meant to be.