I’m Sorry For Our One Night Stand

I’m sorry I took you home and had sex with you. It’d been a long time since I’d been with a woman and I thought your hair looked amazing. I also liked your eyes and that black button-up shirt you were wearing, and (although I’m sure you hear this all the time) you have really nice teeth.

The reason I’m sorry I took you home and had sex with you is the reason I wouldn’t sleep with this kid named Zach junior year of college. After a school dance one night Zach and I walked to the park, smoked a joint, and then came back to my dorm room. He told me he’d never smoked weed before. I asked if he liked it, and he said yes. Then said he’d never been kissed. I think inviting someone to your dorm room at 2 AM is a pretty blatant gesture, so I back-peddled as fast as possible. I stood up said I’d made a mistake since I wasn’t looking for anything to do with emotions. “Your first kiss should be special,” I said, staring into his bleary eyes. “And not with someone like me.”

That’s why I’m sorry I slept with you. I shouldn’t have taken you home because I bought you tequila shots from bills I’d stashed in my bra and because we had to hitch a ride double-buckled in my friend’s haggard Volvo. I was looking for a night on the town, not romance. I was drunk and you wanted to prove something and we were both acting selfish and hungry.

If anything, I should’ve picked you up at your place a week later. I should’ve poured myself into a tight black dress with a really low neckline and met you at the door. I should’ve put on red lipstick and big hoop earrings and black high heels with silver studs. I should’ve wait on the couch while you finished getting ready, introduced myself to all your roommates, and told you how beautiful you are, how your hair looks great and you teeth look perfect, before touching the small of your back and guiding you out the door.

I didn’t call you after we had sex because it felt like you just wanted to see if you could stomach being with a woman; you laughed nervously when I pushed into you, and neither of us was anything besides a notch on the bedpost for the other.

There will be sex under every attempt at romance.

But my point is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t treat you like a lady. I’m sorry I didn’t schmooze you, because schmoozing women is my favorite part about being with them. I think I could’ve impressed you. I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up at you door with flowers, pay for dinner, and not kiss you until the second date because you were a straight girl at a gay bar who wanted to sleep with a woman, but you could’ve been a straight girl at a gay bar who wasn’t ready to admit how unsure of herself she was.

And I think I could’ve made you squirm, not just naked, but with all your clothes on, and that’s what attraction is, not sex.

If I could do it over, I’d ask you about your family in Seattle. I’d ask you about the rain there, and say, isn’t it funny that we named something just to watch it fall? And, isn’t it strange that the word rain is singular? Why do we talk about rain as if it’s one thing—like we call an ocean one thing, or a river one thing, or straight one thing, or gay one thing—when it’s actually a million individual unique things?

If I could do it over, I wouldn’t one night stand you. I would take it easy, hold your hand, and kiss you slowly. And I’m sorry.