I am one of those young women who, at the age of sixteen, began to feel that virginity was a burden that needed to be shed. I was tired of reading about sex in all those great paperbacks of the seventies while simultaneously diddling around with my boyfriend while he diddled with me. When were we going to DO IT?
Honestly, I think I was pretty happy with all that deep kissing and sweet caressing. It did go on for hours, after all, and I never remember feeling all that deprived. But all that changed pretty quickly after my boyfriend left mid-winter to do a three-month service project, and I was left alone with that pulsing libido.
But leave me he did, however well-intended we were on reuniting in the late spring, and meanwhile, a new fella slipped onstage. Literally. He was my co-star on the big stage of our high school musical, my Dolly Levi’s Horace Vandergelder. How terribly convenient. A real Broadway cliché.
This guy knew I had a serious boyfriend of nearly two years, but he moved in anyway. And he was cool – ran with a group of seniors (I was a junior) that smoked a lot of pot and had deep philosophical discussions that I could barely grab onto. There was Andy and his girlfriend Shelly, and Leslie, who had the longest hair I’d ever seen and was the daughter of the assistant headmaster (this was a New Jersey private school, after all), and a handful of other hippie intellectuals, mostly males. They were definitely the freaks and not the geeks (which the school had plenty of). Lots of talk about the band “Little Feat” and weird movies that I’d never watched. And after a month plus of absence, my boyfriend still hadn’t written to me. At all. I was pissed and horny. So, when this guy started to pursue me in earnest, I figured, why not? And he was cute, with his long hair that was cut to his shoulders with precision.
We’d lie on the couch making out, and I remember him whispering in my ear, “We really should sleep together.” His words didn’t so much excite me as challenge me: could I? Should I? Would I? And I knew what he meant by “sleep”! At least that didn’t confuse me.
He let this question worm its way through my head for a few weeks, repeating it maybe twice. Meanwhile, the idea was forming. Why not? Why the heck not? (I was and still am a pretty good Presbyterian.)
So, I thought about it. For a little while, though not too long. The opportunity soon presented itself. My seducer actually lived within walking distance to the school, and this was long before things like security guards and other forces that keep students within the walls of school if they don’t want to be there, so all I had to do was skip (!) over to his house during my study hall. How long would it take, for real? It was time! I was done with this virginity thing! LET’S DO THIS!
So we did. He knew I was a virgin, and he used a condom. He wasn’t unkind, but it was mostly underwhelming, as I believe it is for a lot of young women basically brought up on the idea that sex was going to be the most sky-rocketing, mind-blowing, transformative thing you could do in this lifetime. Meh. Of course, it was my first time, so I imagined I had a lot of road ahead, and who knows what I might learn along the way, right? So, bottom line: did it, done, and moving on! I now had my teenage “lover” and I was interested in where all this might lead. More sex? Better sex? Maybe even, love??
This was not a boy who “gave love to get sex,” but I was probably a girl who believed I could give sex to get love.” It just didn’t actually work out like that.
After that fateful afternoon, we carried on, only we didn’t have any more sex. I didn’t know why, and I was too awkward to know how to ask. What happened? We still hung out together, mostly with his friends, but sometimes just the two of us (I think?). Nothing had really changed, but something was off, something was different. Did I do something? Did he not like me anymore? Maybe my greatest fear: Was I that bad “a lay”??
I remember his bedroom was in the basement, and one day about a month or so after my “deflowering,” I was down there looking around. I was alone for the moment, and I don’t remember where he was, but I had a moment when I looked over at this large wall calendar he had hung on the back of his door. I noticed he had made some notes on the calendar, some markers of specific dates, so I thought to check out the date we had “done it.” And there it was! Marked on his calendar with my initials. Ah, how sweet! And next to my initials was a symbol: it was a small circle with a perfect X/Y axis through the middle. Basically, the same thing you see when you look through a scope to set aim on your target. A crosshair. Well, I had a pretty good idea what THAT meant, didn’t I?
Then I zoomed out of that particular date and swept my eyes over the days, weeks, and months both before and after that occasion. And I saw that symbol again, only this time there were different initials. I knew pretty quickly who they stood for: it was Shelly, and it was Leslie. And it was more than once, way more than once, for both of them.
But wait a minute! Shelly had a boyfriend! Andrew! And Leslie was just a friend, not his girlfriend! What the fuck (now I’m getting upset) is going on? Did I really need it spelled out to me? Shelly was actually a friend of mine by now, or so I thought. So I called her (not him, of course) and asked if we could meet so we could talk.
To her credit, she didn’t even try to lie. Yes, they were sleeping together. It was just for fun, it didn’t mean anything, and Andrew didn’t know or care, I can’t remember which. And Leslie was just a “free spirit” and they did it when they were bored. It was all very “The Group” or “Peyton Place” – all very enlightened and free and no hang-ups, ya know? No baggage, no expectations, just plain old fun between the sheets. I didn’t need to be upset about it, after all.
But of course I was. I was devastated. But not just because he had been sleeping with other girls. The part that hurt me the most was that he’d slept with them multiple times, but only done it with me that one time. I took this as an obvious indicator of my bed-worthiness. Clearly, I was subpar, not only not as cool as the other cool girls, but also – clearly – not as sexy. It was a rejection that cut deep.
It took me a while to finally confront him with what I knew. He wasn’t very apologetic. It was one of those “I’m sorry you are upset” kind of things. Like “it’s no big deal.” But I couldn’t get over it. What was I supposed to think? And what about the crosshairs? But we stopped seeing each other, pretty much by mutual agreement, I guess.
Later that summer, we actually went on a school trip together, something we’d planned earlier in the spring, but by the time the trip actually happened, he wasn’t speaking to me anymore. In fact, he avoided me completely the entire time. It was the most miserable two weeks in Europe you could imagine. I remember I just ate bags of candy and stared out the window of the tour bus, wondering what in the world it all meant. I’m still not sure I know.
But I think about those crosshairs. Maybe it was just a mark, not really significant beyond its use as a code for intercourse, but still – I did feel like I had been a target. That he had decided to bed me, and even though I thought I made that decision free and clear, did I really? And how did this experience inform me of what sex meant, or intimacy, or – even – love? Or was I just an idiot?
*because we can’t, even when each day it feels like we’re that guy with the rock (Sisyphus) pushing it up the hill only to have it come crashing down again and again. still, progress is being made, and there is always hope. Happy Spring 🙂
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
Someone I don’t know very well just posted on FB a request that others share how best to meet a potential partner in the Catskills. I didn’t comment, but did laugh out loud reading one response, a divorcee who said the Catskills are a BYOB region, as in Bring Your Own Boo. That’s because – in my opinion – otherwise, you’re on your own, the pickings are that slim, particularly if you’re a college-educated woman, which both she (the OP) and the divorcee are, so, um, good-fucking-luck. You will find any number of married or deeply intertwined with a partner type men who want to stray (including those with children), consequence free, preferably, cake and eat it too dudes, plenty of those around, as is true everywhere, but single men over 30? Not so much. Rural single women will also find that other women, the ones with ‘boos’, do not want your available ass hanging around socially or otherwise.
But is this true in the bulk of rural place and spaces? Maybe. I merely speak from my own limited experience. I did try the on-line rural dating thing, ages ago now; it was depressing, more so in upstate than it was in NYC, but – much the same, as men my age in either area sought women fifteen to twenty years younger than they – than we – are. Yay! In upstate, those same fantasy-prone men exist along with – and this was not a small cohort – ZZ Top-resembling boomer boys living off or semi-off the grid. These men were looking for females who were equally interested in not paying taxes or anything else to ‘the man’ while raising chickens, maybe also a pig or two, getting milk from a neighbor down the road in exchange for cutting wood, mending fences. You know. No, I do not, I’m happy to tell you. These individuals tended to enjoy seasonal hunting and trapping – on their own land, mind you – no license fees to NYS paid here, ma’am. Hobbies are a good thing but living off game? No, thank you.
Still, love is out there, so they say, whoever they are. Those instances when I did go on dates with men I met on line – they’re less comical than sad. One man, two years sober after a twenty-five-year heroin addiction (he’d said he was working in the recovery sphere, not working his recovery) was interested in making an instant connection, the kind I assume you get when you’re shooting up with a fellow addict? He’d brought, he told me over sushi, a change of clothes with the intention of returning to my home for a night of co-ed wrestling. On a first, blind date. Poor guy. He was angry with me for directly saying, um, no, that is not going to happen.
Then there was the guy who asked me to meet him for lunch at a local Speed Way, a common gas station slash snack shop in upstate New York. I got the sense he was working toward a free cup of coffee reward for buying five lunches type deal. I begged off. No, thank you. Or the guy who had abandoned his wife and son twenty-plus years earlier. He was just being up front and honest, and no, he didn’t feel guilt, or any particular responsibility for his having abandoned his family. He’d also never done anything to reach out, not to his son or ex. Boom. Gone, baby, gone. Nuh-uh. People are, of course, entitled to make their own choices, but the consequences might include no one else wants to get or be involved with you, Mr. Upfront-Honest.
Yet I did ultimately have a relationship as a result of one of those on-line meet-ups, although calling it a relationship might be going too far. Let’s call it an arrangement between two consenting adults, one of whom (me) was in the process of burying both parents over a four-year span after a decade of their having circled the drain. I was in need of a break, a treat, a distraction. He was separated from his wife of many years, and very, very angry, but also very smart, fully employed, and ZZ Top beardless. Life is full of compromises. I made one then, and, not long after my dad’s death, I stopped making it.
I wish my FB friend the best, and happy hunting. She’s a poet, a Buddhist, a lover of obscure Japanese and French films; perhaps she can find love at a local Zen center or within a Buddhist group after attending meditations or readings? These things are out there, somewhere. As may the perfect rural-living man for her. Y’never know. Rural dating. Rural living. Bring your own boo, or – be prepared to grab someone else’s, if you can get close and familiar enough to try, and that’s a big If.
Since the 1980s I have been visiting my mother’s sister, my aunt Betty, in Sun City Center, a planned community for over 55s in central Florida. I love my aunt, and I love seeing her, a woman who has been a part of my life for all of my life, one who is – or was – as full of energy, fun, music, love and zest for life as a 2 month-old puppy. She was a nun, and has buried two husbands since leaving the convent after 18 years inside. She was a nurse, a nurse educator, a hospital administrator, a volunteer for hospice and the SCC ambulance corps, and she has been a force for (mostly) good all of the days of her long life. Her relationship with my mother was complicated (whose wasn’t?); her brothers called her ‘Sarge’ because she was bossy and pushy AF, but now – at almost 93 years old – she isn’t bossing anyone anymore. Aunt Betty is, in fact, struggling with asking for help, with needing help, with allowing herself to be bossed, a little, because she is failing, and failing in a big way.
Yes, I love my aunt, and last week (ish) I was in SCC visiting her for what I believe strongly will be the last time. Who knows; I sure don’t. It’s very possible – her health care proxy agrees – that she is deliberately starving herself, as well as neglecting to take a few of her meds, all of which – her mind is still very sharp – aren’t leading to anywhere other than an end, sooner rather than later. She says she’s ready, but we danced around the subject in conversation. Her quality of life is shite, however; she has fallen four times in the last three months. Deep breaths. I cleaned and cleared her house, so much unopened junk mail left lying around in piles among other piles of stuff, which she asked me to do, but also deeply resented. I took her out to lunch and breakfast as well as joining her in SCC’s independent living dining facility for dinner and breakfast as was required by time, energy, and my ability to tolerate senior dining. This might make me sound like a loving niece and all-around good person, but in truth, it’s the least I can do for this amazing, hilarious, and incredibly annoying woman I will miss very much. Sarge.
But what’s with Never Will I Ever? Well, after forty years of visits – actually after one or two years of visiting Betty there, I determined that never will I ever live in that kind of community, or Florida. Nope, never. Never. Truthfully, I cannot stand Florida. Several gorgeous beaches, lovely seafood, a few charming old-style towns that remain – but their water tastes like shit, which comes through even in the ice cubes, the out of control consumption, development, no-recycling, and repetitive mall of America sameness is simply not to my taste. None of the over-55 communities, and most of the more diverse family-style developments – and there are a lot – allow you to hang out your laundry – in Florida, the sunshine state; solar power panels are allowed but I saw very little solar actually in use/installed, which is criminal, but very ‘un-woke’, which I believe is the point, or part of the point? Ultimately, while I respect and even understand (mostly) why people are attracted to the type of residential living SCC represents, I loathe Sun City Center. Safe, comfy, 99.999% white and straight, and well-heeled. NOPE.
SCC is also very Christian, Catholic especially. One of Sarge’s less attractive qualities is being almost more Catholic than the Pope. She is and always has been unkind to family members who have committed the sin of divorcing. It’s insane, and – she’s dying. Time to give it a rest, Moj. Time to let go, literally and figuratively. My cousin, who lives about 15 minutes away, doesn’t think this is the end. He may be right, but we’re getting there. Her mind is sharp; her body is done. I advised my cousin to think about letting her go, as Betty will hang around for as long as those of us who love her allow their need to hang on outweigh the palpable pain and suffering of her present lived reality. She’s malnourished. She sleeps most of the day. She’s buried not just two husbands but eleven siblings, and so many friends I cannot begin to imagine the depth and breadth of her losses. She lost her parents – both of them – by her sixteenth birthday. Seven of my first cousins have died during her lifetime, the younger generation of her own family going first. None of her in-laws are still living. Speaking as a human being – all of that is a lot.
She has worked and helped and bossed and cared for people since her twenties; having also lost that ability, she is bored and miserable. Each person’s end is individual and wholly their own. Will this fierce and fiercely independent women be able to let go? Will we let her go? Well, we’re going to have to, won’t we. Still – good context for my own end game plans, and again: never will I ever. Good gawd, no. No. Nope.
Photo of the dinner-time row of walkers from SCC Independent living.
*both entitled Hell and Earth – so different, and both – to my mind – lovely and meaningful. the first, by the great poet Mary Oliver, the second by another great poet, WB Yeats. Although, now that I’ve looked numerous time for the Yeats poem on the inter-web, it’s not there under that name… Hmmm.. must have a different name? Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice – when first, second, and third we use or rely on in any way the INTERNET…AHa!!! It’s called When You Are Old and if that isn’t Hell and Earth (being old) I don’t know what is… LOL
Hell and Earth
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
