Like, not too long ago, I was texting someone I liked, and I noticed that every text message seemed very important: the space between “haha” and “ha” meant a difference in He asked me out or not. I compose messages on my Notes app and copy and paste them, and the stress of it has me throwing my phone across the room, only to crawl seconds later on my hands and lap to see if he replied.
I stopped talking to him, not because I wanted to, but as a way of protecting myself – to end it before he had a chance.
I did it again shortly afterwards with another guy I liked.
And then there’s the boy I dated recently. The one I told you about – the one where I felt so vulnerable after sex, I wanted to climb up the underside of his t-shirt and poke my head out the other side.
Had this feeling that during sex, I gave up something that I shouldn’t have, I lost some power. It’s stupid because I love having sex with him; I should feel like I’m winning too. But that’s how sex is positioned in our society, as something that men take from women.
It’s funny because losing power was somehow the reason I had sex with him in the first place. He wanted me so badly to come back to him. He said he would make me a Negroni with the heat on and he would have breakfast in the morning. I wanted to have sex with him because I knew I would love it, but also because a part of me felt like I was wasting his time and I owed him that time. This is the third date, and people usually have sex on this day.
Isn’t it strange that we set rules for ourselves like this? As I was trying to figure out why this was happening, I was reminded of a special night out at a bar with some friends not long ago. I was chatting with this guy and we were having a really interesting conversation about dads on vacation and why they are always standing in the sand with their hands behind their backs. He asked if I wanted a drink and I said yes. I realized he might have been accosting me so I did that you’re like “…my bf” thing because I did have one at the time and seconds later he was leaning over the table and picking up the glass He just bought the booze from me because I’m obviously not worth eight pounds if I’m not a sex object. Then I remembered another friend of mine recently dated a guy she’d known from art school. He walks her home, and when she doesn’t invite him in, he says, “That’s not going to work for me,” and walks away. So many of us have been told so many times that our only value is sex that we start to believe it a little bit.
