Love and Shit

“The shit that happens when you’re heartbroken”

I have zero intention in telling anyone what love is. If you’re looking for the definition of love, go find it. 
I personally don’t think you’ll find in a book, or a movie or a quirky tagline you see on a billboard.

I believe that love is subjective, it is in the eye of the beholder. My love for someone, or something can be completely different than the next. 

When I was little I believed in true love. In destiny. In fate. And I continued, for many years I believed that I was part of a puzzle and my matching piece was somewhere around the corner.

It will sound depressing no matter how I dress it up that I don’t believe in true love anymore. I don’t think love at first sight will happen to me. I don’t know if it will happen to someone else, but I don’t know if it exists for me. 
Basically I am an Agnostic when it comes to True Love.

There is approximately 7.4 billion people on this planet. When I only count the people I have any chance in meeting and the people who share my sexuality that still leaves a lot of options. I may not believe in destiny but I do believe in psychology. I doubt that there isn’t anyone on this planet that just fits with me.The puzzle piece matches up. It’s not a happily ever after, but it’s good. And it can be great some days and a trial the next. But it’s something that I can call mine. And they can call theirs.

It wasn’t until recently that I was alerted that there would be no interest in getting back together with the first man I ever really loved. It wasn’t as hard to hear as I thought it was going to be. The months following that I thought about what it meant to be in Love. How I could look at the man that I loved so deeply but now only see a stranger. An unwelcome memory of something that was once so beautiful. 
That reaction was what prompted this piece to be written.

That’s as much of that story I can bear to bore you with so, for now, let’s let sleeping dogs lie. 

I am not unlucky in the affairs of the heart.

It might be more accurate to say that I am not unlucky in the affairs of the skin, but that needs more explanation than I am comfortable giving.

Basically determination brews confidence and confidence is something I have in aspects of my livelihood.

But confidence attracts a certain crowd.

I have received the compliment, “you’re unlike the others, you’re real, you’re different” more times that I'd like.
(For the record, such a bullshit "compliment". I'm not unlike other women. I cry at cute puppies, I get horrible cramps, I will be annoyed if a guy I'm with tries to make me jealous.)

The point is, I became increasingly aware of how easy it was to get a man into my bed after I broke up with someone that I loved.

Before I go any further, I’m stating for the record, I am a virgin.

Now I think society places an overwhelming and shuddering concern on a female’s virginity but for the sake of this story and its accuracy, I’ll continue feeding the monster.

I am a virgin in the sense that I have not interacted with sexual intercourse. The actual act. The big do. The home run. Whatever kids call it nowadays.

I am embarrassed, not because I am ashamed, but because society tells me that I should have lost my virginity to whoever I was with at the age of 16.

Now I am one in thousands of women who feel pressured to lose it, so that we can enter the status quo.

I get the same question each time.

“Are you saving yourself for marriage?”

To think that the reason I haven’t had sex yet is because I am “saving myself for the man I marry” annoys me on more than one level.

I have no grievances with those who choose to wait till marriage however the assumption that is placed upon me in the ideal that there is no other reason for me to still be a virgin bugs me.

I haven’t had sex because I have yet to feel comfortable with someone I have a committed and loving relationship. If that happens before I get married, then whatever happens is nobody’s business but mine and the partner I choose to share it with.

When I stated before, “I became increasingly aware of how easy it was to get a man into my bed after I broke up with someone that I loved.” I wasn’t exaggerating.

I make it clear to every male that I am with romantically that I am not going to have sex with them. -Sex as in the male genitalia entering the female genitalia-

If they’re OK with that, which they usually are, we continue being together.
I've only had one person take issue with this and try to literally force the issue, and his body, onto me. 

Unfortunately for him I was completely sober and have a six years of martial arts training.

Overall however most men don't care and are OK with my Hookups Lite, a term first coined by my best friend. 
 

“But how does that work?” The follow up question reads. 

If you didn’t know that men and women can enjoy themselves sexually and climax without actually engaging in sexual intercourse, you have not fully enjoyed the pleasure of foreplay or the other bases and for that I am truly sorry.

This is not a love story. I really hope that I don’t end up on a bridge walking towards the sunset with a sheepish grin on my face. This won't have a beginning and a middle or an end. It might flow and then it might stop immediately with no warning.

I’m not actively looking for pity, rather I am actively looking for a reaction. A positive one or a negative one, whether that’s pity, confusion, or enjoyment I really have no say in the matter.

The reaction that I will receive is in your hands.