On Being A Liar, 19, And A Virgin

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Who better to write a relationship article than someone who has never had sex or actually been in a relationship? Probably a lot of people.

But those people do write articles on love, life, and sex, a seemingly endless supply if you know where to look. And yet, all that relationship advice, articles on what it’s like to be in love, or quizzes made to superficially judge you on whether or not ‘you’re good in bed’ miss an entire audience of readers who, whether by chance or choice, haven’t had those experiences yet.

It seems only fair to share my own love (or maybe lack there of) story, especially because when it comes down to it nobody, save for possibly my Mother, actually knows it.

For starters, I hadn’t kissed a boy until I was 17. And I did so drunkenly, perhaps begrudgingly, because having never kissed a boy was starting to get to me. Little did I know a lot of people hadn’t kissed a boy by 17…or 18 or 19. Age, so it turns out, has very little to do with it.

Liar.

I had excuses sure and I was embarrassed by it. So the lies started. By the time you get to college, you rarely see or hangout with your friends from high school. College gives everybody a brand new chance to start over again; no one there knows anything about you or your past (Your new college BFF would kill you if they found out you never actually went skinny dipping in the Pacific ocean with that cute island local you met when you were 18).

And sex, as it turns out, is a pretty big deal to college students and they feel the need to remind you of that any chance they get. Whether by asking you straight out, “How many people have you had sex with?” or disguising it in a game of ‘Never Have I Ever’, eventually you’re going to have to talk about it. I’ve found that the first question comes up most often because people just assume I have had sex. There’s this weird assumption that seemingly every non-virgin has and that is if you’re normal, social, attractive, and have male friends, then there’s no way you could possibly still be a virgin. Which is obviously not true.

A lot more people are virgins than one might realize. We just don’t talk about it or, unfortunately like me, we lie about it. I wish there was an anonymous poll given out at universities just so people could see how normal they actually are!

But within my own experience, if you tell them the truth, certain people will change how they see you. And at 18 or 19, as shitty as it is, you still care about what (douchebags) people think about you.

19.

Within the past two years since I have had my first kiss, I travelled across the world and met some truly amazing people. I’m excelling in university, trying new things, and loving myself more and more everyday. Life at the moment is leaving me thankful and happy.

Although apparently that’s a lot less interesting than that cute guy from art class who texted me once or twice. Am I going to sleep with him? Probably not. But that’s what everyone wants to talk about.

Virgin.

Has society constructed this façade that having sex will change your very nature? My character is not based on how many penis’ I’ve encountered but rather the things I have learned, the places I have been, and the friends I have made.

If I don’t want to have sex drunk or a one-night stand or with someone I don’t care about, than I wont. And there are people in my life, close friends at that, who think that it’s wrong that I care and so I tell them that it’s wrong to care so much about my sex life. Sex is a personal choice, if you want to sleep with a hundred men for whatever reason, than do it. And it won’t change a thing about you. But if you don’t want to sleep with any, than call me up and we’ll hangout and watch Netflix.

So I lie about having sex or how many people I’ve slept with or even how many boyfriends I have had in the past. I don’t want to, if I could be a hundred percent honest with everyone in my life that would be freeing. But it would cost me the trust of certain people and the respect of others. If the contemporary sex culture is telling me I am less than my peers because I am a virgin, than I’ll break the rules because I am not less than.