History catches up with you?

[troubleahead?]

Dear all,

First I'd like to say great site.  It's excellent to have a repository of knowledge that you can't really find else where.

So on to the issue:

I'm a bi man with a strong preference towards women (i.e. straight (ish) but I enjoy sex with men).

A few years ago I had a one night stand with a guy.  I'm very anal (pardon the pun - black humour) about ALWAYS using a condom for penatrative sex (especially as I'm the btm).  However on this occasion, unknown to me, the condom broke and he came inside.  He had left by the time I'd realised what had happened and I had no chance to ask him about his status (fairly annonomous scene).

So being young and foolish I decided to ignore what had happened and carry on with life as norma and pretent that everything was okl.  Now I stopped having sex with men a while back, and recently got into a wonderful relationship with a great women.  Now I'd completely forgotten about the incident with the guy when we started seeing each other.  We always use a condom, with the exception of a couple of times when a bit of alcohol was involved.  I have never cum inside her, however I understand the risk pre-cum still carries.

Now we've got to the point where we want to stop using condoms (been together 6 months and are monogomous).  Before we do that, we have both decided to get ourselves tested (wish more people would do that).

This brought memories of that incident flooding back.  We're booking the test for next week from a local health clinic (apparently answers in 15 minutes) and I am out of my mind with terror.  Of course I'm worried about myself, however what's more worrying is that I might have infected her (if it turns out my luck ran out that afternoon).

Now I've read so many stats about "chances are 1 in 32" or "chances are 1 in 1300", and I realise that no matter how big the odds actually are, there's always that one time......I would play the lottery more often if the odds were the same as getting HIV and people still win the lottery............

I'm still going to do the test next week, but I suppose my question is, on a realistic level what are the chances of being infected? 

As a side note 2 years ago (a year after the incident) I was diagnosed with Mono (Glandular fever).  As I got it as an adult, it means I now carry the Eppstein Bar virus (along with 90% of the rest of the adult population).  At first the doctors didn't know what was wrong and I was tested for everything under the sun.  Ironically, it turns out the first doctor I went to was a specialist gay doctor.  He went over my bloodwork quite throughly (as they seem to do here in Germany).  He told me after the test that my blood was quite healthy and that there was no trace of any form of hepatitis.  In the UK where I'm from, normally you have to be told what tests they are running on the blood.  I now live in Germany and he didn't, so I have no idea if he tested for HIV.  Being a gay specialist doctor (his words), I can only hope that he did, but he's since closed down and I have no way to find out.

Basically I'm crapping myself here and would love to hear from anybody with some more informed information!!!

Thanks

[Ann]

Trouble,

Chances are good that you'll be ok after a one-time incident. However, the only way you're ever going to find out is through testing, so it's good that you're booking appointments to do just that with your girlfriend.

Forget the odds - those numbers are essentially meaningless. Just take a deep breath and get on with the testing. You need to know either way.

Ann