Inexperience

When you're 12, you and your best friend talk about sex in the most ribald of ways.  Because you're both 12 year old virgin girls, and it's honest speculation about a multitude of things neither of you have ever done, but that both of you, thanks to the Internet, have formed an opinion about and have certain thoughts regarding.

It's a little different when you're in your 30s.

In so many ways, I'm still the 12 year old girl.  I remember asking, years ago, "What do you think you would do if a girl hit on you?"  "What makes you think a girl hasn't?"  "So what did you do?"

I don't remember her answer, but I know I still have no idea what that experience might be like.  Actually, I'm not entirely certain I have any idea what it's like for a guy to hit on me.

All of my first physical/sexual experiences occurred in a 5 month period of my life, with the same person, who I eventually married.  After a year, we'd done everything I've ever done up until the point I went on birth control about three years ago and then there was another tiny box to tick.  There aren't a lot of boxes ticked.

That was an intense year and a half or so.  It was a lot of new information and experiences coming in really close succession.  I let it happen.  I trusted him.

And now that it's over, there are things I want to try, things I want to do, but I don't want to try any of them without someone I trust.

"If you're playing chess with Albert Einstein and when the game's over he says, 'hey, what do you say we...?'"
"No."
"No?"
"No way."

And it isn't because he's Albert Einstein.  It's because I don't want to.  For the same reasons I don't want to be drunk.  For the same reasons I don't feel entirely comfortable in my own body.  Control.

My brain doesn't surprise me all that often.  It tells me what it's thinking and I'm OK with that.  We have a pretty good relationship, it follows orders, pretty much keeps everything running and I stay sane and safe.  My body, on the other hand, is way more complicated and has spent years doing things I'm not particularly a fan of.  I call this a total lack of body image problems, because I'm resigned to the relationship if not actually fond of it.  I'm about as indifferent to myself as I am to anyone else- my brain, however, is valuable.

So, of course, the stuff I'm interested in deals with the most intimate thing I can think of, sharing that control.

These days, my friend isn't a 12 year old girl.  He's in his 30s, and he calls me on my bullshit.  "Your brain is not the end of your mind, your body is.  Your perception of the world around you lives in you, and you're smart enough to know that.  Why limit yourself this way?  Your mind is gorgeous,"  A paraphrase, but close enough.

And I'm 12 again.  I don't know what anything is like, or how it works, just an academic understanding of the process.  Except now I'm in a world of people who do know, who know more than I do because they've done things I haven't, and all I know for sure is that I made a huge mistake before, and I'm not convinced I know why.

I think I'm going to be single for a very long time.