Nine years ago today, my hymen died. Well, it probably died a few years earlier when I got kicked in the pool at summer camp, but nine years ago today I lost my virginity. It’s weird to think that it was so long ago, because there’s a story from it that I tell all the time. A “fan favorite” I call it. My ex says he tells it all the time too, for the same reason. But there are other parts of that night that I had mostly forgotten about, until I realized that today was the anniversary.
I had been dating my boyfriend a little over a month, and he told me later that he hadn’t given much thought to whether or not he was “ready,” but was more focused on the fact that a girl wanted to let him do that. So yeah, I was the one who suggested it. Begged for it, really. I thought being a virgin was lame, and that I was kind of old at sixteen (and a half) to still be one. Knowing what I know now, it would have been better if we’d waited a little longer, but I’m glad it was him.
We decided the weekend before that it would be that next weekend, and it turned out we hung out on a Saturday. I wore jeans, a black shirt with tiny sleeves and lace at the top, and black lace undies. I guess 10 Things I Hate About You had a bigger impact on me than I thought. So anyway, he brings me up to his room, and after he locks the door I turn around and see a bunch of tea lights aflame on his night stand. I’ve always been a nervous person, and fire makes me really nervous. He was trying to be romantic, but I made him put them out.
I mentioned to him before that I wanted music to be playing, and as someone who had pretty much only been exposed to pop, sadly I pictured N Sync or something. I know, I know, how did the classic rock my parents listened to not get through to me? I don’t have a good answer for that. He obviously didn’t own an N Sync CD, and before he out on the one he chose, he turned to me and said, “Oh sorry, you wanted nice music, didn’t you?” Not exactly what a girl wants to hear, but I kind of wanted to get the show on the road, so I said, “I don’t care. What did you pick anyway?”
“Symphony X,” he said. I don’t remember any of the songs, but I’m 90% sure he put on the self-titled album. What girl doesn’t want her first time to be have a prog metal score? Like I said, it ultimately didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was finally going to get rid of something that embarrassed me, and that I thought I shouldn’t have.
I remember he didn’t want me to watch him put on a condom. He later admitted this wasn’t smart, when he had to show me how to put one on another time and wasn’t feeling patient. After that, countless attempts were made, and finally the show was on the road. The painful, ripping-feeling show. I thought this was supposed to be good? When was the feeling good going to happen? Part of that is what happens to everyone, but part of it is on me. I didn’t know my own body, so my body didn’t know how to react to anything. (“But you dated a girl,” you say. “Didn’t she teach you anything?” No. This girl knew things and held out on me, and after I learned how much I had not known with her, I felt stupid for thinking I had any idea what I was doing then.)
So after a while of not feeling good, and everyone asking how everyone was and everyone saying something along the lines of, “ok,” we decided to switch. Since we were super experienced people, both of us (it was his first time, too), we decided we didn’t need to disengage before switching places. This is the “fan favorite” part of the story. So we try to flip over, both of us forgetting that his bed has tiny wheels on it. The bed goes one way, and we go the other, crashing to the floor. With the blanket tangled up with us, since in late October it’s too dang cold to lose your virginity without a blanket. I start laughing, because this is a funny situation, and in between fits of giggles I say, “There’s no way we’re going to be able to get it back in, we should just call it a night.”
He says nothing. I look. He groans. “I hit my head on the radiator,” he says. “I think I’m gonna pass out.” All humor was gone from the situation.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, and I can feel my blood baking my face from the inside. “Are you sure? Can I do something for you?” No way in hell am I going downstairs to tell his parents that their son is passed out naked on the floor of his bedroom with a condom on his penis. Because the condom part was the worst part, for sure. No way they would have been able to figure out what we were doing otherwise. Bare penis = anything may have happened, condomed penis = SEX! I sat, partially on the blanket, partially on the floor, and stared at him.
He shook his head. “I think I’m ok,” he said. “But you’re right, there’s no way it’s going back in tonight.” We got dressed and cleaned up the bed, and I don’t remember what we did after that. I went home, but I don’t remember if it was his parents or mine that took me. The funniest thing about that night, though, was that I got my driver’s license that morning, so everyone was congratulating me, and not for anything specific, because what else could have happened that day?
“Congratulations,” they said. “You’re all grown up now,” they said. “How does it feel?” They said. “Was it hard?” they said. It was all I could do to contain my laughter.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
First Post Ever
It makes sense, I think, to talk about Fall in my first post, since it is Fall. Three of the five important romantic relationships in my life started in the Fall, which has to do with school. And here end the conversation about Fall specifically. I think.
I love Meat Loaf, and I did when I was fifteen, too. The boy I started dating did not like Meat Loaf, and I should have known then that I was making a mistake. Haha, just kidding...no, really. I’m not kidding at all. It sounds silly, but who doesn’t like Meat Loaf? This kid, that’s who. I don’t speak to him, or know anyone who speaks to him, so I’ll tell you his first name: Paul.
Paul was one of the first examples of the group-incest my friends and I would engage in throughout high school. Sure, there was the example of my best friend and I dating for a minute there, and then her starting to date the kid I had a crush on, but seriously, there was some strong incest going on. I went to an all-girls high school, and there were a bunch of girls who had all gone to middle school together, and who were friends with boys from said middle school. All these boys went to an all-boys high school, and it seemed like we all just dated each other. Opposite sex dating, with the exception of my friend and I. Paul and I were one of the first of these couples, and that relationship caused me so much grief.
How, you ask, could young love be grief-inducing? Well. One of my friends had a crush on Paul, and I decided I should IM him (on AIM...God I feel old) to see if he was good enough for her. He seemed to be, and we became friends. I forget exactly how, but we told each other we liked each other, and we started going out. I wanted to just not tell my friend, because she wasn’t outgoing and the fact that she liked someone was a big deal, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Paul would have none of it, and very unceremoniously told my friend we were dating. Thus began the bullying.
She got most of my friends to stop talking to me. What I did wasn’t nice, but I didn’t think then and I don’t think now that it was that bad. I mean, who has lifelong relationships that begin at fifteen? Not anyone I know. So I’m now eating lunch with the least favorite of my friends, the only one who will still talk to me. Including the girl I dated. They all just blindly followed this other girl. For a little while, it was just them ignoring me. Then it morphed into this girl convincing another girl to “accidentally” spill chocolate milk on me at lunch. Yes, folks, even the unpopular girls can do awful things like pretend to make up with you and ask you to sit with them at lunch so they can do awful things to you in a public place. This of course was on my uniform, of which I only had one skirt and one sweater, so I had to go home and clean them. If this had only happened once, it would have been bad enough. Without skipping a beat, this girl “spilled” milk on me every day that week, even when I wasn’t sitting at her table. And let me tell you, back milk is no picnic. I probably overreacted a bit, starting to get migraines the period before lunch in anticipation of getting chocolate milk spilled on me. That happened for a week or two before it suddenly stopped, and never happened again. They still didn’t speak to me though.
It seemed like a price worth paying though, because Paul was great. I honestly don’t remember what was great about him, but I know we talked on the phone and IM’ed a lot, and we hung out most Saturdays. And it just hit me that this was happening a whole ten years ago - and now I really feel old, because in my head I’m about eighteen or nineteen, not twenty-five.
Our relationship ambled along, with the requisite frenzied make-out sessions and the raging erections on his part that never got any attention from me. Hey, it’s not my fault, I didn’t know what to do, and it’s not like he was giving me any advice.
We had decided to lose our virginity to each other - and I thank the stars every day that it didn’t happen. We picked a day, the day when the length record of my previous relationship (in which no touching of any sort happened, and I was thirteen years old) would be broken. We hadn’t gotten around to planning where this would take place, and thinking back there is nowhere it could have taken place, because we were never alone and had no way to be alone. Anyhow, in the middle of March, after not seeing him for two-ish weeks because of snow, I think, we have a snow day and I go to IM him only to have him break up with me. On IM. Classy, eh? We can argue about the classiness of some of my romantic decisions later, but this was a low blow to me. I was devastated. Because oh – I can’t believe I forgot to mention this – we were engaged. I got a cute little silver ring with teeny purple and white stones in it for Christmas, but it was super secret from everyone. (And it turns out he got it at Macy's, and hadn't exactly paid for it, so that speaks to its quality.) You know it’s a solid relationship when you can’t tell anyone you’re engaged. My friends, the few who spoke to me, figured it out, though. I mean, who wears a ring on that finger “just cuz” when they have no other rings on any other fingers? So anyway, he broke up with me over IM, and I was shattered because we were supposed to get married.
On the plus side though, the girl who liked him at the beginning of the year apologized to me, and we were civil to each other again. By that point, I kind of wished she was dead, but it was nice to have all my other friends talk to me again. In an amazing show of balls on my part (because I was even more of a doormat then than I am now), I point blank asked my best friend why she felt the need to go along with not talking to me when I had done nothing to her, and she said she got caught up in the “mob mentality.” Lame excuse. Things between she and I would head south later, but that’s a different story.
For a while, I was a real mess, or as much of a mess as I had ever been in my young life, and I felt like I had failed at life. I mean, I had it all in my hands, a plan for the future, a love for the future, and it was gone with no explanation. I still have no explanation, but I’m past the point of caring and I’m just happy that him leaving opened up new paths for me. Despite my sadness over losing him, I was all patched up by the time school started the next Fall, and I happened upon someone who did like Meat Loaf. He and I lived out enough stories for about a thousand posts, so I’ll save that for later.
I love Meat Loaf, and I did when I was fifteen, too. The boy I started dating did not like Meat Loaf, and I should have known then that I was making a mistake. Haha, just kidding...no, really. I’m not kidding at all. It sounds silly, but who doesn’t like Meat Loaf? This kid, that’s who. I don’t speak to him, or know anyone who speaks to him, so I’ll tell you his first name: Paul.
Paul was one of the first examples of the group-incest my friends and I would engage in throughout high school. Sure, there was the example of my best friend and I dating for a minute there, and then her starting to date the kid I had a crush on, but seriously, there was some strong incest going on. I went to an all-girls high school, and there were a bunch of girls who had all gone to middle school together, and who were friends with boys from said middle school. All these boys went to an all-boys high school, and it seemed like we all just dated each other. Opposite sex dating, with the exception of my friend and I. Paul and I were one of the first of these couples, and that relationship caused me so much grief.
How, you ask, could young love be grief-inducing? Well. One of my friends had a crush on Paul, and I decided I should IM him (on AIM...God I feel old) to see if he was good enough for her. He seemed to be, and we became friends. I forget exactly how, but we told each other we liked each other, and we started going out. I wanted to just not tell my friend, because she wasn’t outgoing and the fact that she liked someone was a big deal, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Paul would have none of it, and very unceremoniously told my friend we were dating. Thus began the bullying.
She got most of my friends to stop talking to me. What I did wasn’t nice, but I didn’t think then and I don’t think now that it was that bad. I mean, who has lifelong relationships that begin at fifteen? Not anyone I know. So I’m now eating lunch with the least favorite of my friends, the only one who will still talk to me. Including the girl I dated. They all just blindly followed this other girl. For a little while, it was just them ignoring me. Then it morphed into this girl convincing another girl to “accidentally” spill chocolate milk on me at lunch. Yes, folks, even the unpopular girls can do awful things like pretend to make up with you and ask you to sit with them at lunch so they can do awful things to you in a public place. This of course was on my uniform, of which I only had one skirt and one sweater, so I had to go home and clean them. If this had only happened once, it would have been bad enough. Without skipping a beat, this girl “spilled” milk on me every day that week, even when I wasn’t sitting at her table. And let me tell you, back milk is no picnic. I probably overreacted a bit, starting to get migraines the period before lunch in anticipation of getting chocolate milk spilled on me. That happened for a week or two before it suddenly stopped, and never happened again. They still didn’t speak to me though.
It seemed like a price worth paying though, because Paul was great. I honestly don’t remember what was great about him, but I know we talked on the phone and IM’ed a lot, and we hung out most Saturdays. And it just hit me that this was happening a whole ten years ago - and now I really feel old, because in my head I’m about eighteen or nineteen, not twenty-five.
Our relationship ambled along, with the requisite frenzied make-out sessions and the raging erections on his part that never got any attention from me. Hey, it’s not my fault, I didn’t know what to do, and it’s not like he was giving me any advice.
We had decided to lose our virginity to each other - and I thank the stars every day that it didn’t happen. We picked a day, the day when the length record of my previous relationship (in which no touching of any sort happened, and I was thirteen years old) would be broken. We hadn’t gotten around to planning where this would take place, and thinking back there is nowhere it could have taken place, because we were never alone and had no way to be alone. Anyhow, in the middle of March, after not seeing him for two-ish weeks because of snow, I think, we have a snow day and I go to IM him only to have him break up with me. On IM. Classy, eh? We can argue about the classiness of some of my romantic decisions later, but this was a low blow to me. I was devastated. Because oh – I can’t believe I forgot to mention this – we were engaged. I got a cute little silver ring with teeny purple and white stones in it for Christmas, but it was super secret from everyone. (And it turns out he got it at Macy's, and hadn't exactly paid for it, so that speaks to its quality.) You know it’s a solid relationship when you can’t tell anyone you’re engaged. My friends, the few who spoke to me, figured it out, though. I mean, who wears a ring on that finger “just cuz” when they have no other rings on any other fingers? So anyway, he broke up with me over IM, and I was shattered because we were supposed to get married.
On the plus side though, the girl who liked him at the beginning of the year apologized to me, and we were civil to each other again. By that point, I kind of wished she was dead, but it was nice to have all my other friends talk to me again. In an amazing show of balls on my part (because I was even more of a doormat then than I am now), I point blank asked my best friend why she felt the need to go along with not talking to me when I had done nothing to her, and she said she got caught up in the “mob mentality.” Lame excuse. Things between she and I would head south later, but that’s a different story.
For a while, I was a real mess, or as much of a mess as I had ever been in my young life, and I felt like I had failed at life. I mean, I had it all in my hands, a plan for the future, a love for the future, and it was gone with no explanation. I still have no explanation, but I’m past the point of caring and I’m just happy that him leaving opened up new paths for me. Despite my sadness over losing him, I was all patched up by the time school started the next Fall, and I happened upon someone who did like Meat Loaf. He and I lived out enough stories for about a thousand posts, so I’ll save that for later.
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