‘I threw up in a Sainsbury’s bag’: The worst morning after stories

You’ll keep doing it. Getting drunk and getting off with someone and waking up and giving them an awkward kiss goodbye and walking to the bus stop and looking at your phone and noting that its dead, unresponsive surface is like a literal mirror, but more bleakly, it is a figurative reflection of the state of your soul.

It’s alright though because everyone does it.

Sam

There was a big party in London. I didn’t live there, so had planned to couch-surf with the last person standing. All was going to plan: a friend and I pulled two American girls who were in the UK on holiday, so the four of us went back to his where we took some low-grade Mandy and paired off for sex. In the morning, I needed to leave, and so did the two girls. So I ended up walking around Hampstead with them, trying to find the Tube or a McDonald’s. As it turns out, there’s a McDonald’s next to the Tube, so the three of us sat having breakfast and the girl my friend had slept with told us all sorts of gory details about what he was like in bed (not great, basically). Very aware that similar stories about me would likely start the second I left, the Tube journey together was pretty awkward – especially as I couldn’t figure out a smooth way to say goodbye when crammed into a carriage with lots of other passengers.

In the end, I lied, said I was heading the same way as them, and ended up walking as far as their hostel where I tried to simultaneously kiss, hug and shake the hand of the girl I’d been with. I walked off my hangover by walking most of the way across London, ensuring I was headed vaguely in the direction of the Gherkin until I could get on a train home and go to sleep.

Liv

I’d been to a crap university party that was, unoriginally, “back to school” themed. I was dressed up in a slaggy gymslip, very high heels, bare legs, the usual. At some point in the night, I’d been stamped in red stamp across my breasts, which were quite exposed, in a very open shirt from which I had pulled most of the buttons. Of course I had.

Anyway, we went home together and while our relationship ended up ultimately enduring three and a half years, at this point we’d barely spoken and there was – obviously – no suggestion of breakfast, or even tea, or a jumper to cover my “costume”. He’d given me a massive lovebite which I’d like to think was some kind of immature sexual nod to the party’s “back to school” theme. I got out of there fast. It was a fifteen-minute walk back to mine; should have been quite safe. Took my shoes off, kept my head down. Bumped – literally – into my tutor outside my faculty. We had a sort of uncomfortable relationship anyway, but in one of those moments where your head is screaming WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, I started having a conversation with her about my dissertation draft. She was focusing really, really hard on my face to try and pretend that I wasn’t bruised on the neck, half-naked, barefoot and a complete disgrace.

Alex

She insisted she knew me. Apparently, we’d met before and she took this as permission to make me hers for the evening, leading me from a dark club corner to her bedroom. It was at this point she told me she had a boyfriend and she had to get up early to get a train to go visit him tomorrow. Not wanting to be the “bad guy” I said I should probably just leave, but she insisted I stay while making it very clear that nothing was going to happen.

The morning after, she made me breakfast and then we walked to the train station (holding hands!). I helped her with her bags onto the train and waved her off. I’m not entirely sure why I did any of this. Eventually I ended up being the bad guy, and it wasn’t fun. 

James

My worst morning after story starts in the very early hours of the morning. I’ve gone back with a first year to my old flat (a very odd coincidence) and have left her room wearing only my boxers to use the loo. Getting back to her bedroom door, I realise I’ve forgotten that the doors lock automatically behind you. I knock, expecting she’ll hear me as I’ve been gone barely a minute but nothing. I knock louder. Still nothing. I’m stood in the corridor of my old flat in just my boxers, absolutely shit-faced, with nowhere to go. For the next four hours, I sit by the door hoping she’ll eventually hear my increasingly louder knocks. At one point I resort to sitting on the floor and kicking the door with my feet. All of her flat come out to see what the hell is going on and still she doesn’t open her door. At one point I genuinely considered walking the 30 minute journey home in just my boxers. Eventually I’m discovered at 8am by a flatmate cuddled up under a tea towel in the corridor trying to keep warm. She laughs, comes over and knocks on the door in the softest manner possible while whispering the girl’s name. As if she’s spoken the magic word, the door is flung open almost instantly. Starved of my dignity, I scramble across the carpet, clutch my trousers, shirt and shoes and make my way home, tired, sore, ill and humiliated.

Ellie

One wild Friday night we’d started at a lovely bar, but somehow ended up at a less lovely after-party and it was very, very late. We’d ended up there because the guys had promised my friends and I a hot tub. There wasn’t one, obviously, but we carried on with the night anyway, oblivious of how dickish these guys were being. My friend and I had our respective sexual encounters, they were okay, and then we tried to fall asleep, in the respective bedrooms. The boys, however, met each other for a bro chat, and had decided they no longer wanted us in their company – I suspect to avoid the morning after. So they said, “we’ve ordered you an Uber, it’s waiting outside for you”. How kind. We went outside, they locked the door, and lo and behold, there was no Uber. Our respective phones were out of battery and we had no idea where we were. Several rings of the doorbell yielded nothing.

In a stroke of (really embarrassing) fate, a woman drove past – she was worried about our safety and took us home. Fuck you Max and Kieran.

Lucy 

The time he put me in a taxi and I heard him say to his housemate, “thank fuck she’s gone”.

Sophie 

Tale as old as time: got drunk, got drugs, got off with a guy I knew. Ended up back at the guy’s house, took some more drugs, had sex. Woke up. Left. Stopped for food that would make me feel better; inexplicably selected an egg mayo sandwich and shortly afterwards threw up on the Victoria line in a Sainsbury’s bag.

One kind woman did ask if I was alright. I suggested weakly that I must have food poisoning. It was about midday on a Saturday and I was dressed in last night’s clothes and someone else’s sweat. I think it was pretty clear I didn’t have food poisoning. Had to carry the bag all the way home. It dribbled on my leg.

Chloe 

I told an old lady I was pregnant to excuse the fact that I had just thrown up when I got off the bus. Lowest moment of my life. She just kept tutting at me, so eventually I was like, “sorry, I’m pregnant”. And she – obviously – changed her tune straight away and said, “oh, love, are you OK?” When I got home I just lay on the floor like I was dead and the dog kept licking face. It was summer. I think that’s much worse for hangovers.

Cara

Just all the times when you’re on the bus home from someone’s house the next morning, and your phone has run out of battery and your make-up is smeared and you look and feel really dirty and feel really queasy you’re sitting opposite a family – a nice, clean, happy family and you just feel really existentially hollow.

Jack

Imagine the scene: I wake up in my bedroom, sunlight streaming through the curtains, to find there’s a mystery blonde next to me. I have no idea who she is, but I do know that we’re both very naked. She wakes up too, smiles, and says good morning – but obviously she notices the look of confusion on her face because the next thing she says isn’t quite as friendly:

“Do you even remember my name?”

I immediately begin to panic, scanning the room for anything, anything that will tell me what her name is – no such luck. For some reason I decide the best response is to chuckle and say “nope”. That’s when she starts crying. And I don’t mean tearing up, I mean full-on crying. I had absolutely no idea what to do, except for sitting there feeling like a prize dickhead, so in resolving to comfort her I put my arm around her as she’s sitting there sobbing and tell her it’s OK (which it clearly isn’t).

She looks up at me with teary eyes, and I expect a slap. Instead, confusingly, we end up having sex again.

Adam

I was in a squat and I had been for some time. It was full of the kind of art people who live in squats make. You know, mannequins chopped up, covered in glow stick juice and hung from chains inside cages. Pleasant, calming stuff. And to be fair to this squat, other than the terrifying art, it was pretty clean and they had some really good DJs on throughout the night.

It had become increasingly hard to say no to things: drinks, spliffs, lines. By 5.30am it felt as if it was slowing down; I was starting to slow down. As we prepared to leave we ran into another couple. A man (pink hair) and a woman (pink hair). The woman was drooling, so we decided to buy some acid off her. It wasn’t so much the morning after, because the night never ended. I couldn’t sleep: instead I spent a few hours watching my friends back turn into lobsters, alien cockroaches and biomechanical eyes. Tentatively, I told myself I would never do drugs again.