I write these little essays, or stories, or confessions, or
whatever you want to call them, in an effort to exorcise some of my demons. I hope in the process I entertain some people
with my foolishness and quirky ways and maybe even let people who have had
similar experiences know they are not alone.
That premise, though, supposes that all those quirks and hang-ups are ultimately
bad. If I didn't need 100% certainty
before making a move I may have had a girlfriend in junior high or I may have
become more confident in everything I do.
If I wasn't so shy and socially awkward maybe I would have picked up a
girl or two at a hockey game. The thing
is, sometimes it’s those hang-ups that make everything work; sometimes it’s
those things that we are most embarrassed about that makes others like us so
much.
With a
little help from my friends I had found the courage to ask Sara out, but that
was really just the first hurdle I needed to get by. Just because I was validated in my feelings
didn’t mean that all doubt had been removed from my mind. There was still many an issue to be resolved
or addressed that required a bit of confidence on my part and Betty wasn’t
going to able to coach me through any of them like she did with asking Sara out. I may have pulled in my first girlfriend but
I still hadn’t had my first kiss, let alone any type of sexual experience, and
the thought of trying terrified me. Not
in an “I’m scared of having sex” type of way, I had dreamed of getting laid
since I was in middle school, but in an “I don’t want to force myself on
someone unwilling” type of way.
This is
going to sound horrible and, no matter how the story ends, is pretty
embarrassing to admit, but Sara and I were dating a full month before I built
up enough courage to get that first kiss.
Now, in my defense I was 16, we only saw each other once or twice a
week, and did things solely with the rest of the group. In that month there was
very little, if any, chance for us to build any kind of physical
relationship. But still, a month is a
long time to be “dating” someone and not getting a kiss, and I realized that. I felt like it needed to be the perfect moment,
that it needed to be like some scene in a romantic movie where the world stops
and the music kicks in, and the pressure of that moment paralyzed me for weeks.
Like most
things in life that we build to huge proportions, there was really nothing
memorable about the actual event. I
remember where it happened and that my first thought was something to the
effect of “that’s what I was worried about” but that’s it. It didn’t change my life. The world didn’t
stop. I couldn’t even tell you what was playing on the radio. And you’d think that realization would have
helped me, that it would have put my mind at ease, that obviously things were
worse in my head then they were in real life, but no, that was just the
beginning.
Now that
the first kiss was off the table, it was on to bigger things, namely sex. I wanted nothing more in life then to get
laid. At this point in life I really
didn’t see much point in being with a girl if I wasn’t going to have sex with
her. I wasn’t sure what else they had to offer.
Sara had a much different stance on things and was very verbal about the
fact that she wanted to wait until marriage.
This caused me all kinds of issues.
I don’t think of myself as a nervous person, I feel like it takes a lot
to make me jittery and apprehensive, but suddenly, after that first kiss, I ran
into an interesting problem. Every time
I was alone with Sara, and we started to make out, and things started to get real
hot, I would get so stressed out about how far to take things, should I reach
under her shirt, should I make a move for the bra clasp, should I try to
unbutton her pants, that I would get nauseous and have to run to the bathroom
to throw up.
We never
talked about this but she had to know, it happened every week and she had to
hear me vomiting. Writing it now makes
me appreciate how amazing the whole situation was. I mean, if you’re dating a guy and he has to
throw up every time you guys make out, how long before you dump his ass? She put up with it for almost 8 months, never
said a word, never complained, just excepted it for what it was. It got so bad that I couldn’t even really eat
around her because I would think about what was going to happen later and
stress about stressing about making out and start to feel the meal creeping its
way up during dinner. I even
asked my pediatrician if he knew what was wrong with me and what I could do to
fix it. At the time I seriously didn’t
understand totally why it was happening and was scared that this was going to
be my life; getting sick every time I kissed a girl.
After 8
long months of pushing things further one slow step at a time, the inevitable
happened and the two of us lost our virginity.
Unlike the kiss, I can remember almost every detail of that night. It was my birthday, which seems kind of hokey
now but felt special at 17. My parents
were out of town for some reason, which was odd because they never went
anywhere. Sara had some band event she
had to be at, but was going to have the group drop her off at my house, which
was even odder because we normally would have just all went to hang out
together after something like that. When
she got dropped off we started into our normal make out routine in the living
room and things were getting pretty heavy when she suggested that we head up to
my room. It was obvious what that meant
and the rest was history. I have never thrown
up making out with a girl since.
It’s silly now to think how much
pressure I put on myself over that one kiss and all those months leading up to
the sex, but in the grand scheme of things it was one of the best things that
could have happened. As the years went
by and Sara and I became more open with each other about our true feelings, we
started filling in the gaps about our pasts and those early months
together. This was how I learned about Gary
knowing Sara liked me the whole time he was convincing me she didn’t. It was also how I learned that one of the
guys Sara had dated before me had treated in ways nobody should have to deal
with, let alone at the age of 14. He
demeaned and belittled her and tired to force her to do things she didn’t want
to and, when she didn’t, called her frigged.
When she tried to get out of the relationship he used her guilt and low
self-esteem to keep her around. She
carried this experience into our relationship.
She told me I won her undying gratitude by not even trying to kiss her
for so long, that nothing could have been more special to her then the fact
that I made anything that happened physically between us her choice.
I
guess the moral is, there’s someone for everyone. Certain behaviors that seem odd to most might
be exactly what someone else needs and is looking for. Sometimes the problem is just having the
patience to find that person. For those
of us who aren’t filled with confidence and tend to be consumed by social anxieties,
that search tends to be lonelier then for those who are gregarious and
outgoing, but it’s still the same search.
Sara and I didn’t end up together in the end, that’s a whole other
story, but our relationship is still one I can keep close to my heart as proof
that I can be valued, that the personality traits that some may find peculiar
and distancing are exactly what others will find endearing. So, I got that going for me.
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