The first time a boy asked me to sleep with him, I lied and said I was on my period. He didn’t speak to me after, but I was told that’s usually how it goes.
From then on, I was wearier—and even more caught-up. Boys were like puzzles with certain pieces misplaced. I could understand girls: their language was my own. But boys, I didn’t understand a thing about them. The less I talked to them, the more they liked me. The more I liked them, the less they talked to me. Some only wanted sex, others just wanted a chase. And it was almost always a game.
Interactions between straight males and females are typically over-complicated, but that’s the art of relationships in general: they’re messy. We don’t feel with our logic; we feel with something else entirely. I envy those who decide not to preoccupy themselves with romantic relationships (or something like it). I envy, even more, those who are hyper-focused on their ambitions and aspirations: goals with more permanent results. They recognize that permanence can never be a person. Often people swing in and out of our lives and we have no say about it. Though my dreams have always been ahead of finding love, I can’t say I don’t worry about the latter.
My friend and I discuss our skeptic towards romantic relationships. We imagine our thirties tucked into our lonely Manhattan apartments with only our newly purchased designer handbags to keep us warm at night. We recognize that this image is flawed (money can't buy you love, but it certainly can buy you a Chanel). However, finding a “soulmate” isn’t the only thing we dream of—a person doesn’t guarantee perpetual happiness, but perhaps something else will (I’m not referring to the Chanel, heads-up).
That’s not to say we don’t wish to get married and have a family at some point down the road, it’s just that our bigger concern is to find contentment in a life that seems to fly by quicker each day. We must seek out the passions that give us purpose or make us feel a different type of alive. Young women are conditioned by the media, society, family/friends, the damn fairytale stories we read at five, to believe that finding the man of your dreams is the only way to find purpose and happiness in life. Like finding romantic love will suddenly give our lives profound meaning. And that fucks us up, doesn't it?
So yes I am caught up in boys—oh so much. They are way more important to me than they should be. And considering the amount of times things haven't worked out, leaving me hurt and feeling down-right stupid, you would think I wouldn’t bother with the next guy. But I do. And perhaps it’s innate—biologically speaking, I am wired to want to find a partner and mate.
Yet in strange moments, I’ll feel an electricity I had never felt before. I’ll be out in the city somewhere surrounded by sweaty people, club lights blinding my eyes, and a throbbing beat crashing over me. I am alone but I am not. And in this sea of dancing bodies, without someone's hand slipped in mine, I feel entirety rush through me.
