Do you have to tell someone you got tested?

"Do I have to tell him I got tested?"

You asked the group chat at 11pm and got three different answers and a voice note. Here's the actual one.

No. You don't have to tell anyone you got tested. Ever. It's your body, your finger prick, your wee in a cup. Nobody is owed a copy.

But there are a couple of situations where you'll want to, and one where you really should. Let's go through them.

Telling him you tested: not required, but it's your best opener

You don't owe him the information. But think about what saying it does for you.

"I got tested last month, all clear." Seven words. You've not asked him a single thing. You've not accused him of anything. You've just mentioned a fact about your own week, the way you'd mention the dentist.

And now he has to respond. He'll either match you ("oh nice, yeah, I did mine in June") or he'll go quiet and change the subject, and either way you've learned what you needed without ever having to ask the question that everyone finds so hard to ask.

Telling him you've been tested isn't oversharing. It's the least awkward way to find out if he has.

It's the same trick as saying you're seeing someone else. You put the information down on the table and see whether he picks it up.

Telling your mum, your flatmate, your GP: completely optional

Nothing goes anywhere unless you send it there.

A postal kit arrives in a plain envelope. Results come by text. The clinic keeps its own notes, separate from your GP's, and nothing reaches your doctor unless you ask for it to. Your mum will not receive a letter. Your flatmate will not get a notification. Nobody's checking.

If you want to tell people, tell people. Loads of us do, because it's a mildly boring adult errand and boring adult errands are what group chats are for. But it's not a confession. You're not announcing anything except that you've got your life together.

Telling him if it's positive: yes, but not necessarily you

This is the one where the answer changes.

If a result comes back positive, anyone you've slept with recently needs to know so they can get tested and treated. Most of the common infections have no symptoms at all, so the only way he finds out is if someone tells him.

The good news is that "someone" doesn't have to be you.

Every clinic, and the big postal services too, will contact people on your behalf. It's got an official name that sounds like something that happens to a spreadsheet, but in practice it's a text or a call that says "someone you've been in contact with has tested positive for X, please get tested" and nothing else. Not your name. Not the date. Not which one of you it was.

You give them a number, they do the rest, and you never have to sit through the conversation.

If you'd rather do it yourself, keep it short and boring. "Heads up, I tested positive for chlamydia, you should get tested. It's a week of tablets, it's fine." Then stop typing. You're not apologising and you're not owed an apology. It's an infection, not a character reference.

The bit that's actually a rule

Here's where "you don't have to" stops.

Knowing you've got something, saying nothing, and going ahead anyway is a different thing from a positive result. It's the one situation where the law has, occasionally, got involved. People have been prosecuted in the UK for knowingly passing things on without a word. Rare, and for the serious stuff, but real.

So: you don't have to tell anyone you tested. If it's positive, they need to know, and the clinic will handle it. And if you know, you tell. That's the whole of it.

What happens if it's positive and you use the app

Nothing. Genuinely nothing.

A positive result never gets shown to anyone. There's no red cross, no warning, no "tested: not clean". Anyone who types in your number sees the exact same blank they'd see if you'd never heard of us. You get treated, you retest, your tick comes back. Nobody sees the gap.

Which makes the app, oddly, the most private way to tell everyone. Your clean test is visible only to people who've got their own clean test and think to type in your number. Everyone else sees nothing. You told the world and nobody heard.

The short version

Do you have to tell him you got tested? No.

Should you? Probably. It's the easiest opener you've got.

Do you have to tell him if it's positive? He needs to know. The clinic will do it anonymously if you'd rather not.

And if you'd like a way to show you've tested without saying a word, that's roughly what the green tick is for.

Get your green tick, and let the tick do the talking.