Boys Boys Everywhere, But Not a Man to Keep

Chapter 5 of the "Trial Offer" Chronicles has officially begun and will be coming to a close soon. This one has been quite perfect, actually; he has broken the mold of other potential buyers but intevitably the sale will not go through, as predicted. The man himself is sweet, affectionate, intelligent, and sexy to the point of ridiculousness, but yet again I align myself with someone carrying about seven carry-ons of girlfriend baggage. Unfortunate.

But it got me thinking: can we practice for heartbreak? Does my track record of being the
"trial offer" (Test her out for 30 days with satisfaction guraranteed or your money back, and they always want their money back) prepare me for the inevitable "you're fantastic, I just can't be with anyone right now"? I used to think I was just slowly dying inside, each month-long relationship extinguishing any hope I had for the male sex and increasing my self-reliance for all emotional matters. I thought that by being more self-reliant I was more apt to appreciate myself and create an aura of confidence and peace, as opposed to coming off bitter and off-putting (which he assures me I'm not. haha.) and that the rest would come naturally. Of course, all that came with it were the men who read my independence as a get-out-of-jail free card and an excuse to hook up without any intention of committment. Which I happily accepted.
So when I was lying in bed with this man, (we'll call him Andrew) and he expressed worry about my being "attached" which he just couldn't be at this point (due to a long term relationship that ended less than a month ago...I know, I did this to myself, I got it) I stopped hearing him and just started hearing a looping track of everything I had heard before.
--Sidenote: what the FUCK is it with men assuming all women are attached to them? Why is it that everything needs to mean committment and marriage and devotion when really we enjoy sex and attention just as much as they do? I resent the assumption that just because I like being with someone I am now "attached," especially as it carries a connotation of clinginess at best and obsession at worst. Word to the wise man: don't assume ANYTHING about her. Ask her what you want to know; she WANTS to talk about it.

Back on track. I stopped hearing him and just felt the fuzziness of the familiar hit me like a bug on a windshield; messy, but kept at a safe distance. I was prepared for this, wasn't I? I knew this was coming, I knew everything he would say weeks before he said it. What I couldn't figure out was this: have I become hopeless or just more realistic about the inevitable end of relationships in my life? That is to say, have I just been practicing for years in order to protect myself from heartbreak or am I really just incapable of trusting someone enough to let them break my heart? After building walls for so long, I should be a goddamn emotional contractor; I could build the fucking Taj Mahal of romantic barriers. Andrew is wonderful, the timing is off, and I am seeking out something that I know will end in a matter of weeks, if even that long.

But then again, its an adventure. Until now my life was dominated by a stale pain left over from someone I barely knew and the illusion of crushes that I created simply to have something to be excited about. Now I actually get excited thinking about Andrew, but am strangely at peace with the idea of walking away from our little romantic liason. He has been a breath of fresh air from the shit storm that is my love life, and even if there is no long-term future with him, it has been pretty worth it just to have someone look at me and say, for once, "my god, you're beautiful."

Maybe I just need the adventure and the excitement, which can only last a short while. Maybe instead of feeling DOOMED about my short-term love affairs, I should appreciate them for the rush I get from the compressed passion bursting out of a relationship working on a time limit. Eventually, I'll sing a different tune and find someone who shares my love for Paul Newman, coffee at 9:00pm, my addiction to kissing, and become my permanent partner for games of Trivial Pursuit. Until then, I guess my heart has been training for a long time, and Andrew is giving it a good workout. When I can rest my head, I'll probably start to worry, but until then I think I'm pretty prepared for my own misadventures.

Oh Crash, you do make speeches.

The Virgin Complex

When did you lose your virginity? I don’t mean how old you were when you had sex; I mean the exact moment when you realized you had outgrown your safety net and learned that the world isn’t divided simply into good and evil. The preconceptions we have about others are natural; we are raised to generate opinions to comfort ourselves amidst confusion, and generally use those opinions to assign personas to people we will probably never really know. We’ve all used the phrase, “that was before I knew her,” and we know that our opinions are infallible until, of course, they’re proven completely wrong. We place entirely too much importance on our primitive categorization of other people in our general knowledge of the world, convincing ourselves that everyone is good or bad, smart or stupid, happy or sad. We spend so much time dividing everyone into either/or rather than both/and categories that eventually we forget that human beings are brilliantly complex and contradictory organisms; we would much rather just call them a virgin or a whore.
This brings me to my question: when did you lose your virginity? When did you go from being a naive child with scabbed knees and popsicle-stained mouth to an adult complete with a university sweatshirt and a copy of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis tucked under your arm? Was it really the moment you slipped on a condom and got tangled up in the XL-Twin sheets? Sex is a basic part of humanity; we need it, we want it, we enjoy it, and we are scared shitless by it. Above all this, we define ourselves by it; whoever hasn’t had sex is a prude, whoever has probably has syphilis. It wouldn’t be a regular Saturday morning without a parade of smeared makeup and broken heels shamefully tip-toeing through the streets like decorated soldiers trudging back from the battleground with fresh scars. It wouldn’t be a typical morning-after without high-fiving frat boys congratulating each other on another successful display of raw testosterone with the fervor of a primate beating on his chest to shout to the rest of the animal kingdom that he totally got laid last night.
And what about “losing” your virginity? I’m quite sure most of us know exactly where it went. By saying we “lose” that part of ourselves, we confirm that we don’t have any control over our bodies, and probably have even less control over our lives. I highly doubt that there are girls crawling around searching frantically under couches for their hymens; you lose car keys and earrings, not your virginity. Instead of saying “lose,” we should just call it like it is: our first time. We don’t lose anything by moving on with our sexual development. Instead we should be aware that a feeling of loss signifies more important issues of emotional maturity or unhealthy perceptions of sexuality. By knowing that you have chosen to have sex, you understand that you and your partner are on equal footing, gaining from the experience together. Saying you “lost it” sounds more like game of monopoly with the stakes set much higher than purple dollar bills.
What about this culture of sex makes us adults? Does knowing what “Reverse-Cowgirl” is make you more likely to score well on your MCAT? The truth is that you probably gave up your virginity, your naiveté, long before or long after the first time you had sex. It is a general process of figuring out that you aren’t the only person in the world, that your decisions actually have consequences, and that you are not what your third grade self expected you to be by now. Having sex is part of that process, but it isn’t the complete culmination; by placing the entirety of your growing-up process on one event, you’ve successfully proven that you probably know nothing about yourself and have a long way to go before you actually grow up. Its quite possible (and sometimes likely) that most of us have had several sexual partners before we ever get past our virginity. In short, being ready to have sex doesn’t make you a mature person; being a mature person makes you ready to have sex, and you can choose when, where, and if you have it.
Virginity is an out-dated concept; does having been in love with someone somehow make us impure? Am I visibly scarred because I have been heartbroken? Are you a whore for falling asleep in someone’s arms? I accept that I can’t change much about other people; the best I can do is breathe in what I admire, love, despise, want, and fear, and calmly exhale, knowing that I haven’t been a virgin for ages. I find all the comfort I need in knowing that I still deserve to wear white.