Life of a Sophie

Last year, whilst I was still with my ex-boyfriend my neighbour tried to ask me out. I was flattered but I was in a relationship so I left things. During the last couple of months of my relationship, when things were pretty bad, the neighbour contacted me again. I told him I was still in a relationship, but I didn’t exactly discourage him from contacting me. Just before I broke up with my ex, I felt bad for messaging the neghbour whilst I had a boyfriend and I felt bad leading him on, so I told him he shouldn’t like me and I deleted all of his messages so I wouldn’t be tempted to contact him. 

The neighbour didn’t contact me again until last week. I thought I was finally in a good place and as I am now single I decided to accept his invitation for a date. I knew he was 45 (I’m 23) but I liked the way he made me feel so I told myself it wasn’t an issue, age is just a number etc. etc. 

About an hour into the date I was seriously regretting my decision. He was driving me in his van to some random cafe and we still weren’t there. I was wishing I’d done more than left a note at my house with his name, address, and our date location and time on it! He also looked a lot older than I remembered and I just felt super awkward and stupid. Once we got to the cafe, everything got better, I felt less awkward and we were just chatting and it was fine. I actually started to enjoy myself. The journey home went by a lot faster and when he dropped me off he kissed me on my cheek (he wanted a proper kiss, but that’s all he got). 

In the first hour after the date I was happy and considering going on another date with him but then I started thinking (maybe overthinking) and now I feel like crap. I think the age gap is a major issue for me. I just didn’t feel like we were equal. He was paying for everything, even though I tried to offer, but as a poor student it’s kind of hard for me to insist! Also, he was the one driving me around, he was the one who knew where we were going, he knew all about the places around us, and I knew nothing. I didn’t like not feeling like I had any control. Also, my self-esteem is pretty low. I’d agreed to go on the date because he made me feel interesting and attractive. But afterwards, I was questioning his motives. Does he actually like me for who I am, or because of my age? I’ve been told I look young for my age, so I’m questioning why someone of his age would be interested in me unless that wasn’t part of the appeal?

Part of the reason I ended things with my ex, was because I felt like he wasn’t interested in me as a person. I felt like he only cared about me when I was willing to have sex with him. I’m worried that this guy is the same. Only interested in me for my age and my looks, not my personality. 

Update: He messaged me this evening and I replied with no emojis or kisses and I think he got the message, said he’d leave me alone and wished me luck with my future. That was easier than I was expecting. 

I broke up with my boyfriend last week. I finally decided that I couldn’t continue in the relationship. For the past few months I have hated myself for not loving him the way he wanted me to and it had started to affect both my mental and physical health. Last week he was trying to make plans for my birthday and wanted to know what to get me for Christmas and I couldn’t go on pretending everything was fine anymore. 

Things have been bad since he returned from working abroad. At first, I thought it was just because we were together 24/7 and I’d idolised him whilst he was away and forgotten all the annoying things he does. I almost broke up with him then, in June, but when I saw how upset he was, I realised I still cared for him and I didn’t want to just give up when I’d waited 10 months for him to come back home. We’d also had a lot of good times together and I wanted things to go back to when things were good. 

We rented a flat together in September and things were okay at first. Things weren’t amazing like they used to be, but they weren’t bad. But even at the beginning I was worried about the fact that he only had to spend 2 days in university and had no other friends in the city apart from me. I tried to encourage him to go to social events, apply for jobs, and try out new societies or hobbies but he went to one social event and applied for a couple of jobs and that was it.

This meant that there was a lot of pressure on me to be the main source of his happiness. But I have placement every single day, I have other friends and I’m part of a few societies. I didn’t want to feel obliged to entertain him as soon as I got home. I didn’t want to feel like I constantly needed to let him stroke my face, pat me on the knee, or hold my hand in order to stop his feelings from being hurt. I didn’t want to feel guilty for not having sex with him, even though he did nothing to try and look attractive and sex was always about him and what he wanted. 

I was making him unhappy by not being able to fulfil his needs, and he was making me unhappy. It has been 6 months since he came back to the UK, and instead of things getting better, they were getting worse. So last Wednesday, I texted him on my way home asking if we could talk, so that I wouldn’t chicken out, and then after sitting in an awkward silence for what seemed like hours I finally managed to tell him I didn’t want to be with him anymore. 

At first he got angry and he threw the birthday present he’d got me across the room. Then he got upset and cried a lot and I felt awful. Then he finally seemed to accept things and told me he thought it was for the best and that he wanted to be friends. He decided to go home to his parents that night which was understandable and told me he’d be back this week for his lectures. 

I was so upset for the first couple of days. I hated myself for hurting him and kept replaying the things he’d said to me when he’d been upset. My mum came to visit at the weekend and I talked things through with her and I convinced myself that everything would be fine. He’d be upset at first but then we’d be friends and we’d be able to sort something out and everything would be okay. 

But last night he came back to the flat. He stormed into the room, cried for a bit, and then told me he wanted to talk. I thought he might have questions so I was ready to reassure him that none of it was his fault, that we’d just changed as people, and I still wanted to be friends etc. Instead, he told me he hated me and then asked me where I was going to move to. For the next half an hour or so, he fluctuated between saying mean things to me, telling me how upset he was so that I would feel guilty, and demanding to know what I’d been up to at the weekend. I was so confused and so upset. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say, and the more I cried, the happier he seemed to get. 

I understand that he’s upset and angry, but I have feelings too. I might be the one who ended things, but that doesn’t make him perfect and without any blame. I ended up walking out of the flat last night and cried on the phone to my mum for an hour whilst sat in the hallway. 

I guess I was too optimistic when I was hoping that we would mutually decide that being together wasn’t good for either of us and continue being friends who could live together. 

As I’ve mentioned before, my boyfriend put on a lot of weight during the year we spent apart. This has meant that I have been feeling less attracted to him. 

A couple of weeks ago he went to the doctor about being tired all the time and had a load of blood tests done. I was pretty sure that a good doctor would talk to him about his weight even if the blood tests came back normal. I was fed up of always telling him that what he was eating was unhealthy and that maybe he should exercise more. I just felt like I was nagging all the time and had basically  given up trying because all he did was come up with excuses. 

He got his blood tests back yesterday and as well as being vitamin D deficient he also had high cholesterol and abnormal liver tests. The doctor calculated his BMI and he was almost in the obese range and he might also have high blood pressure. When he told me his results, he said: “ I need to lose weight, basically”. I thought this meant that he had finally realised that something needed to change. 

When I got home, as it was my turn to cook, I asked him what he wanted with his burger (homemade by me, so not full of fat and salt), expecting him to say salad or peas or something... he wanted potato wedges. At first I was jokingly like “I thought you were going on a diet” to try and make him realise that potato wedges are not a healthy choice. But he didn’t get it. I literally had to say to him “Look, you’ve got high cholesterol and you’re only 22, you’ve possibly also got high blood pressure and you’ve just told me you’re almost obese. These are all risk factors for having a heart attack in the future. If you go on like you are right now, you’ll be having a heart attack by the age of 45″. He finally agreed to have peas and salad with his burger...

I’m 100% sure that even if he loses loads of weight, I will still want to break up with him, but I still feel like I care more about his physical health than he does and he is just too lazy to do anything about it. We’ve become very different people and I spend more time annoyed with him than I am happy. I used to think that maybe if he lost weight I’d be attracted to him again and everything would be fine, but I cannot stay with someone as lazy as him. The most important thing to him is his playstation and I just don’t want him in my future. I was originally going to wait until June to break up with him, but I don’t think I can wait that long. 

I love him and I don’t want to hurt him, but I am not physically attracted to him at all.  I can chat to him and have a fun time when I’m with him, as long as he’s not trying to touch me. I can just about cope with him holding my hand, but when he tries to hug me or kiss me or when he wants to have sex with me I literally recoil from him. Obviously this isn’t great. He gets upset and cries and I feel like an awful person. I managed to go 5 weeks without having sex with him, but last night I gave in. I was feeling sexually frustrated and really wanted sex so figured it wouldn’t be too bad, plus I thought it would keep him happy for at least a week. It wasn’t great. I spent most of the time with my eyes closed imagining he didn’t have a massive belly or a double chin and got frustrated by how long he was taking. All morning I have just felt sick. 

I’ve been hoping things would get better and my old attraction to him would come back, but it hasn’t so far. He hasn’t exactly helped though. I come back from placement and he’s always sat in exactly the same place on the sofa playing video games. He has only 2 days at university per week which he finds super exhausting and then spends the rest of his days “reading” and playing video games. He’s also meant to be going swimming 2-3 times a week and eating healthily, but he goes swimming maybe 1-2 times a week, does no other exercise and is still eating a pack of biscuits and a big bag of crisps per week, plus dessert every evening. He spends nearly £50 on food every week and I spend around £20 on average. I feel like I make an effort to look nice each day and he just doesn’t do anything. Yet he still expects me to have sex with him and cries when I say no.

In an ideal world, I’d break up with him and we’d continue being friends. But I know that if I bring up what I’ve been feeling he’ll cry and get upset and want to move out. We definitely would not stay friends. We’re currently living together and I can barely afford my half of the rent as it is. If he does move out or wants me to move out then I won’t be able to afford it. But if we do somehow manage to continue living together in a one bedroom apartment it would be super awkward and we’d spend all our time trying to avoid each other.

 I’ve therefore told myself that I need to keep things going until June at least. I graduate in July and should have a job in August so things wouldn’t be so bad then. In the meantime I’m trying to be a nice person all the time and not upset him, but it’s really really hard. I feel like an awful person all the time. I fantasise about being single and seeing other people, yet I’m pretending that everything’s fine just so I don’t end up homeless. 

Last year, he was working in another country, so we were in a long distance relationship for about 10 months. We then met up with each other in Asia to go travelling for about a month. During our travelling, I gradually got more and more annoyed with him. I hated how messy he was, how long he took in the bathroom, how sweaty he got, how judgmental he could be. He’d also put on a fair bit of weight during the time we’d been away. He wasn’t skinny when we met, but I would never have said he was unhealthy. But now he’s officially in the overweight BMI category and I’m concerned about his health.

About 3 weeks into travelling, we’d had sex only a couple of times and I was being a horrible person, always snapping at him and being extra sarcastic. I knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I think the main reason I was being like that was because I’d idolised him whilst he was away. Being with him 24/7 was making me notice all the non-great things I’d forgotten about, and the bad habits he’d gained. I was therefore focusing on all the negative things about him and found it difficult to remember why I loved him. I felt uncomfortable every time he talked about the future or tried to touch me, even if he was just wanting to hold my hand. It was bad. He wanted to jump straight into how things had been before he’d gone away, but I think I needed longer to adjust. I was therefore getting frustrated with him for always wanting to touch me or kiss me. They were just normal things that a normal boyfriend would do, but I’d managed without him for so long that I just felt like he was suffocating me and I needed to keep him at arms length. Maybe I resented him for leaving, or maybe I have intimacy issues. I just know I didn’t like it and I was taking this out on him. 

I ended up spending about 4 or 5 days thinking about how much better everything would be without him. I knew I wasn’t acting normal during this time and even though I tried to act normal, I couldn’t. But then, I was laying in bed one night and I honestly thought about what it would be like to break up with him, and I cried silently as he slept next to me. I’m crying now as I write this. How would I ever find someone who loved me as much as he loved me. And what would happen next year. We’re meant to be moving in together next year. I didn’t know what to do. However, I did know that the idea of breaking up with him made me cry. A lot. So I decided to try making an effort, to try and make things be like they were before he went away. 

I tried to make conversation, ask him questions, comment on what we were seeing and doing. Sometimes I would feel like I was making all the effort, or he’d do something that would annoy me, and I’d snap at him again. Other times, I felt like we were back to normal, chatting and joking and having fun. 

It obviously wasn’t enough though. I still wasn’t being normal. On the way back to the hotel a couple of nights later, he asked me if I was looking forward to visiting the next city. In what was meant to be a jokey way, I said “honestly I’m just looking forward to going to sleep right now”. He did not take it as a joke and refused to speak to me for the rest of the way back to the hotel. I knew he was going to confront me about how weird I was being. I was hoping to avoid it. Hoping that everything would be fine and go back to normal before he’d had enough of me and say something. But I knew I couldn’t keep lying to him. 

That night, he started crying and he started to tell me how he felt he’d messed everything up by going away and how he felt like I didn’t love him anymore. I stayed silent, I didn’t know what to say. He then asked me if I loved him and I answered truthfully, I said “I don’t know”. It was awful, he cried even more, and he was trying to get away from me even though we were in a tiny hotel room. My heart broke seeing him like that and I knew then that I did love him. I hated hurting him, I just didn’t know how to explain how I was feeling. I told him how I wished I felt like I did before he went away but I just didn’t. Once he calmed down a bit, he was amazing. He told me that if I ever wanted to break up then I should just tell him and that the time he’s spent with me is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He was so understanding, I hated myself. I’d been awful to him and he was so nice to me.

I hated how much I’d hurt him, but after our emotional chat, things started to get better. The conversation had shown me how much I cared for him and how much I loved him and everything almost went back to normal. I was happier and he was happier and we were both getting on really well. Everything was good again. This continued for the rest of the trip and also when he came to visit me at university, and when I went to visit him at his home.

I thought things were back to normal, until he came to visit me. We’d been texting a lot whilst we were apart and he’d been telling me how often he’d been swimming so I guess I was hoping to see some progress in the weight loss department.  I was a bit disappointed. He’d told me whilst we were travelling that he was going to try and lose weight when he got back to England. If anything, I thought he looked bigger and whilst he was visiting me he made absolutely no effort to eat healthily. He was eating chips and sweets and crisps all the time and it was a real turn off. 

Because of this (and also getting my period midweek which just made me bloated and nauseous the whole week) we didn’t have sex at all. I was never in the mood, and none of his efforts were doing anything to help with that. I didn’t mind about this. I sometimes go through periods of time where I have absolutely no sexual feelings at all and I just figured it was one of those weeks. No big deal. I love him, he loves me, and sex isn’t that important, right? 

Apparently not. After the fourth of fifth day of me saying I didn’t want to, he starts crying again. I’m a bit confused. Why is he upset? What have I done now? I thought about how I’d been acting the past week and I didn’t think I’d been overly sarcastic or anything. I’d actually been really nice. Bit quiet and grumpy when my stomach cramps were annoying me, but that was it. I thought we’d been having fun. 

But, me not wanting to have sex with him apparently means I don’t love him. He brings up the night when I told him I didn’t know if I loved him. He knows how upset I get about it so then I got upset too. I feel really sorry for him and try to reassure him that I do love him. I don’t know whether he then said anything in particular, or whether I just started thinking more into it. But I got angry. Is it just the lack of sex that upsets him? I’ve spent most of the week feeling ill and not eating a lot, yet have still made the effort to go out and do fun activities with him (boat rides, beach walks, paddleboarding) but he’s upset because I didn’t want to have sex with him? Did nothing else matter?

Then I started thinking about how when I’m upset he’s always convinced it’s him I’m upset with. Like he must be the reason I’m crying. I’m not great at talking about my feelings. But as soon as I’ve reassured him it’s not him that’s upset me, he doesn’t seem to care. As long as I still love him then everything’s fine. Why, is it that when I’m upset about something, I have to be the one reassuring him. 

He’s also told me before how I’m his bestfriend and how he doesn’t need any friends because he’s got me. Which seems sweet on the surface, but I don’t think I want someone to rely solely on me for happiness. I don’t want to have to pretend that I’m happy all the time just so that my boyfriend doesn’t feel insecure. 

Next year, I’m going to be very busy with university most of the time and will want to spend some time with my friends. He’s going to be starting a masters degree with very few contact hours, in a city where the few friends he did have, have all graduated. I’m worried he’s going to expect me to spend pretty much all of my free time with him. I’m worried that I’m going to feel suffocated again and resent him. I just want to have fun and enjoy being with him. 

I had my implant fitted in January and the doctor who did it was really nice and didn’t make me feel uncomfortable when he was asking me questions about my periods etc. (They like you to be on your period when they insert the implant so that they’re pretty confident you’re not pregnant). He then got me to sit on the chair and put my arm to the side whilst he injected me with local anaesthetic which didn’t hurt much, just like a vaccination really, but less deep! When my arm was numb enough, the nurse started to distract me by asking questions but it still hurt more than I was expecting. However, I was easily distracted from the momentary pain when he got me to feel my arm to show me that it was definitely in there, which I found really interesting (nerdy medical student alert). Then he bandaged my arm up and sent me on my way with a little card that says I have a Nexplanon implant in my left arm. He also told me that I should use additional contraception for the next 7 days to give the implant time for it to start working. 

For the first couple of days it was really annoying having to stick my arm out the shower so I din’t get the bandages wet and I could also feel a bit of pain in my arm every time I moved it. However once the bandages were gone, the pain and the tiny bruise had disappeared within a week and after my 7 days were up, I had no more need for condoms! Woo! 

*Let me just point out here that I am only having sex with my boyfriend and neither of us had had sex before, so STIs are not a big risk for me. However, if for some reason I was no longer with my boyfriend and I decided to have sex with someone else, I would definitely be using a condom alongside the implant, at least until I was sure they were free of STIs!*

So, after the first week of irritation and a bit of pain I thought the implant was wonderful but then I started to experience the ‘irregular bleeding’ I’d been warned about. For two whole weeks I had a weird super light period, less than 28 days after my last normal period. Also during this time I was super hormonal, feeling down every other day and crying at the smallest of things. I seriously considered getting the implant removed but I decided to persevere with it to see if these symptoms stopped. 

Between the weird light period and the end of March I didn’t have anything resembling a period but I did have spotting some days. This was slightly annoying and meant I had to invest in some pantyliners but my mood had gone back to normal and I quickly learnt to deal with this so I no longer wanted to get rid of the implant. Despite the spotting I really couldn’t imagine using any other contraception because condoms weren’t effective enough for me, pills I would definitely forget to take, injections would mean frequent trips to the GP, and coils sound slightly scary and require a doctor to insert it into your uterus. 

Right now I am loving the fact I have the implant. I don’t get spotting or periods anymore, sex feels great and more natural, I feel safe in the knowledge that only 1 in 1000 women get pregnant using it over 3 years, and I don’t even have to think about it until I’m 23! 

Yes, I do think that women can be treated poorly compared to men in some ways but men are also treated poorly compared to women in other ways. I understand why feminists fight for certain things but I don’t believe females are still victimised and oppressed. 

I think it is absolutely horrible that male rape victims and male domestic violence victims are not given the same amount of support as female victims and are instead laughed at or told to ‘man up’. It also annoys me that men are expected to pay for dates and hold doors open and spend lots of money on their girlfriends to be chivalrous, but are also told that they aren’t treating women as their equals if they do these things. I would love it if we had a society where females can be free to express themselves how they want and males can express themselves how they want. i.e. boys aren’t expected to be extremely macho, but being macho is completely acceptable, and girls aren’t expected to be extremely girlie, but being girlie is completely acceptable too. However, this in’t what feminism advocates.

After watching the programme I wanted to find out out more about the things I’d seen. I read an article on the Futurist called “The Misandry Bubble” which made a lot of sense to me and made me see why some men may be frustrated with feminism. At the beginning, I felt like, as a female, I should feel outraged by what he was saying, but I wasn’t. It made too much sense. Yes, there were views I disagreed with, but when someone expresses all of their opinions about a certain topic, it is unlikely you will agree with everything they say. 

I also watched some of Josh O’Brien’s videos, and again I may disagree with some of the things he says, but he does make a lot of sense. He is a good public speaker and uses logic when giving his points of view. Never did he come across as a misogynist or woman-hater and I feel like he raised some very valid points about society’s view of men. 

One other person shown in the show was Roosh V, who I have found impossible to agree with. He is not just against feminism but is also homophobic, transphobic and a woman-hater. Basically, in his world, you should either be a straight man, or a woman who exists solely for straight men to have sex with them. He has also caused a lot of controversy with some of his articles, particularly one called “How To Stop Rape” which called for legalisation of rape on private property. He tells Reggie Yates it was a satirical piece, but to the majority of people, it does not come across that way. 

I believe that men such as Josh expressed their views against feminism and support mens rights groups due to genuine concerns about how society now views men. Roosh, however, seems to be more concerned about how feminism is going to affect his sex life. Women are no longer going to try as hard to look pretty for him, be submissive to him, and give him sex whenever he wants it, because women now have a choice about whether to do these things. How terrible... 

I must also point out that I tweeted Josh O’Brien asking about his thoughts on Roosh V and he said “I made clear to Reggie in unaired segments, he’s not part of the men’s movement. He’s irrelevant to me, and I don’t like him. Roosh V is not a men’s advocate, he is some idiot who doesn’t represent men or seek anything for men as a whole.” I have to say I was very glad to hear this.

So far, all of the people I have talked about are men. However, there are also a lot of women who do not support feminism either. For example, an interesting site I found on tumblr was womenagainstfeminism, where women express why they don’t need feminism. Again, I agreed with a lot of the views on the website. They made sense and often represented my own views. Of course, there were still opinions expressed on the site which I disagreed with, but as I said before, we are all different and have different views about things so that’s not a  surprise. I also watched a few videos from Girl Writes What and Lauren Southern who speak out about the problems of modern feminism in a logical way without personally attacking people who identify as feminists. 

As the title subtly suggests… I lost my virginity recently. Yes, at the grand old age of 19. I know many people will have lost their virginity a lot earlier than this (which is perfectly fine) and there'll be people out there who are older than me who haven't lost their virginity yet (and that's fine too). There'll be people out there who don't want to have sex at all (and that is also fine!) Personally, I'm glad I waited until now. I had a great experience and do not regret it at all!

I lost my virginity to the boyfriend I talked about in this post and I'm so glad it was with him and I hadn't just decided to have sex with whoever asked me first. We'd been together just over 7 months and had been talking about sex for a while, but we waited until we were both completely ready.

I know lots of people say that their first time was awkward and painful and not that great. I'm not going to lie, my first time was slightly awkward… let’s just say condoms are a nightmare when your only experience of them is a video you saw in Religious Education which was of a middle-aged lady applying one to a banana… And at first, it was a bit uncomfortable, bordering on painful. But overall it was great, amazing even! I felt completely comfortable telling him if something hurt and he kept checking I was okay and was really patient with me. It was only uncomfortable at first, and then after a few minutes, it just felt really reeeeally good and I just couldn't keep quiet…

When we were finished, I just couldn't stop grinning and I totally understood what the big fuss is about sex!

So, for anyone out there who is thinking about having sex for the first time, here are my tips for a good  experience:

Make sure you have contraception prepared well in advance. Whether this is a condoms, the pill, the implant, the coil or whatever else is out there. If you're too embarrassed to sort this out, then you’re probably not ready. My boyfriend and I went and bought condoms together which I liked because it showed that we were both concerned about safety. Also be aware that nothing is 100% safe! 

Don't plan way in advance the exact date and time that you're going to do it. This could stress you out and build up too much apprehension and also make you feel pressured into doing it on that night, even if you're not ready. What happened for me was that my boyfriend asked me if I'd like to have sex the next day and I replied with something along the lines of "Yeah, I’d like to, and if we both want to tomorrow, then yeah, we can". This gave me long enough to get prepared and build up some excitement, but not long enough for me to get too nervous. 

Make sure you’re in a location where there are no time pressures, nobody can hear you or walk in on you, and you're comfortable. For example, in you or your partner's room, with the door locked and with nobody else in the house, or due back in the house for at least another hour or two.

Make sure you feel really comfortable with your partner. I'm not saying you have to be in love  with them but I'm pretty sure that if I'd had sex with someone just because they were there it wouldn't have been anywhere near as good an experience as it was. Also, if you’re comfortable with them, it will make it easier for you to speak out if something hurts, or you'd like to try something different. Plus you're a lot less likely to feel self-conscious and will be free to just be yourself and enjoy it. 

Make sure you actually want sex. Do not have sex just because all your friends are doing it, or because your partner has pressured you into it or just because you feel like you should. You won't enjoy it if you don't actually want it. 

Make sure the other person also wants sex. Do not assume that your partner wants sex because they're male or because they're not a virgin, or because they're the one who first mentioned it. Consent is extremely important on both sides. Just because you've decided you want to lose your virginity does not mean that someone has to have sex with you!

Communicate at all times. If you want to stop at any time, then tell your partner straight away. You don't have to give a reason, just tell them to stop. Maybe you just want to pause for a second, or just slow down but let them know. 

Don't expect an orgasm. Sex can feel really great even if you don't orgasm and expecting one during your first time will only make you disappointed if it doesn't happen. Enjoy the experience and if you orgasm, it's just a bonus! Definitely do not fake it. 

Make sure to tell your partner that you had a good time. I'm not saying that you should lie, but if you enjoyed it, then let them know! People can get very insecure about sex so let them know you had fun and it'll get you both more excited for next time.

Up until the beginning of this year I thought that to donate your stem cells they had to literally suck the marrow out of your bones and I didn't really understand what the benefit was of giving someone my bone marrow. What were they going to do with some spongy bone bits?

However, I am more educated now. I now know that to get to your bone marrow stem cells, you usually just take some drugs over a few days which make your bones release more stem cells into your blood. And then it's pretty simple, they take some blood from you over a few hours and they have the stem cells! Only 10% of the time do they actually have to stick a needle into your bone, and if they do, you're under general anaesthetic anyway! Oh, and I also learned in my haematology lectures that bone marrow is where all the different cells found in your blood develop, which explains why they're useful for people with blood cancer!

So, after being educated, I decided that I wanted to join the register, because if I'm a match to someone out there, and can save their life, no one is going to know if there's no record of it! Therefore, at my university’s next donation event, I went along and asked about signing up.

First, they gave me a form to fill in with the usual stuff such as name, date of birth, address etc. and then a few other questions about your height and weight and health conditions, just so they can make sure you're healthy enough to donate and don't have any problems yourself. Then, once the form was all filled in I was handed a plastic tube and told to spit into it up to the line. Now, this might seem simple, but you're not meant to smoke, chew gum, eat, or even drink for half an hour before you give a sample, so it's not that easy. I was stood there for at least 10 minutes trying to summon up enough saliva to fill up this tube which literally only needed about 2mm! But hey, it's worth it if I can save a life! That's all it took, a form and a spit sample, and now I'm on the register.

I've just got to wait between now and the age of 60 to see if I match someone in the world who needs a bone marrow transplant!