My Sex Story, and How I Discovered I was Good Enough: A Guest Post

I recently received a comment from a new reader, Carolynn. Apparently we both met our significant others via okcupid. After some emailing back and forth, she volunteered to write a guest post for me! Her timing was perfect since I needed some guest writers while I'm on vacation and without wifi this week. Carolynn is owner and designer behind Silver Moon Creations, and blogs at Kitty Adventures about sewing, crochet, knitting, and sometimes marriage. She loves God, biking with her husband, braiding hair, and is hopelessly addicted to instagram. 

Wearing my kitty ears!

So, I'm not a virgin. I lost my virginity at 18 to a guy named Tim one night at his house. We were dating, and we had been for a year. I loved him.
 

Well, maybe we should back up even more. I'd been raised all my life to wait until marriage to have sex. My mom married my dad because she was pregnant with me. Now, don't think my mom was indoctrinating me with the “you-must-be-a-virgin-or-shame-will-cover-you” speech. No, she was real. She told me about her mistakes, and opened her heart to me, and really explained that sex creates a bond (and babies), and should not be taken lightly, explaining that it means something. She was a really great mom, who wasn't afraid to share her life with me. I listened and made my own choice, one that yes, I do regret, for the complicated reasons below.
 

Well, so Tim. We had sex, and I'll be honest, I didn't really like it much. It hurt. A lot. But he seemed to enjoy it, and I could tell he loved me. But then he broke up with me, and we haven't spoken since.
 

Two years into our relationship, I was raped. I was raped by a really good guy friend of mine. It's a very complicated story, that involves lies (I had told Tim I would never be alone with another guy, and obviously, I was) and pain, and broken trust (I had kissed this guy and made out with him—nothing further, a handful of times—while dating Tim). But one day, as we were kissing in his car, he moved from his seat to sit on top of me. He put his hands under my shirt. I said stop. He didn't. I said please. He didn't stop. I closed my eyes; I went limp. After it was over, I sat there completely numb, scared. But because I had kissed him, because we were alone and good friends, because he told me I wanted it--I blamed myself. And Tim said to me, after I told him the truth, "If you hadn't been alone with him..."
 

Anyway, the rapist, who doesn't even deserve a pseudonym, thought he loved me. He would e-mail me and text me and AIM me, until I blocked him. I did go to the hospital, but I didn't press charges. Strangely, I felt sorry for him. I didn't even understand my own feelings. This made it harder to talk about my rape, harder to not blame myself. One day I unblocked him, and he messaged me right away. He said he felt bad for hurting me. He was sorry. So I told him via AIM that I was okay. I told him I felt like it was my fault. He took all our AIMs from the previous year up to this point and showed them to Tim, who, of course, couldn't understand why I felt sorry for a man who had hurt me. Some of the messages from when we had first met, honestly, were very flirtatious (I like your smile; you looked cute today—nothing dirty).
 

Tim called me a whore and never spoke to me again. And I hated myself.

They love me! They Really Love Me!

This is my second time being nominated for a Leibster Award! This time, Aukele of 91 Dash nominated me.

The award is pretty simple, given to bloggers by bloggers. It's a way to acknowledge your fellow bloggers' inherent awesomeness, even if they don't have a lot of readers. In fact, it's only for bloggers with less than 200 followers!

 

The Rules:

• Acknowledge the blog that nominated you in a post.
• Share 11 facts about yourself. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger created.
• Nominate 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you believe deserve some recognition.
• Post 11 questions for them to answer.
• Notify all the bloggers selected that they have been nominated.
• And finally, you can't nominate the blog who nominated you.

My First Kiss with My Boyfriend

Us at Rose and Landon's wedding

My first date with Beau was dinner. It was a wonderful date, and I thought about kissing him, but the situation just wasn't right for a first kiss. So I hugged him good-night, and that was that.

Our second date was to the zoo and to dinner, followed by a leisurely ride in his convertible with the top down. I spent most of the date thinking about kissing him and wondering when to do it or how to do it. At this point, I had initiated a first kiss with two other men, so, ya know, I was pretty experienced and all that jazz. Also, Beau had told me he didn't pick up on signals AT ALL, and I pretty much needed to hit him over the head with a frying pan to let him know I liked him.

At the end of the night, Beau took me back to my apartment. He didn't turn off his car, but he did put it in park. I thanked him for a wonderful evening, and he told me he had enjoyed it too. He told me he hoped to see me again before I left (this was at the end of my internship), and I said I would do my best to work him into my crazy schedule. 

I was plotting during this whole conversation on exactly how to kiss him.

I unbuckled my seatbelt, turned around in my seat so I had a better angle towards Beau, reached out my right hand to gently pull his head towards mine (and help me angle my lips towards him), and kissed him. After just a few seconds, his right hand was at the nape of my neck, fingers entangled in my hair. We progressed to French-kissing really fast, and no, I don't remember who initiated that.

There weren't fireworks per se, or wedding bells ringing, but that kiss was magical. I had kissed four women and fourteen men at that point, and some of those had been pretty special. Some of those had been really hot! But nothing was anything close to that first kiss with Beau. Up until that moment, I was interested in dating several other guys I was talking to on okcupid (hell, I'd had a first date with a different guy the night before... and I'd kissed him too). But suddenly, with that one date and that one kiss, I was willing to bend over backwards to see Beau as much as possible before I left town. I was still willing to see other guys, but I wasn't interested in finding creative ways to fit them into my schedule.

I'm not going to lie and say that in that moment, I knew Beau was the one. At that point, I was still interested in flirting with any man I met, and I still intended to try dating women once I moved to New York. But that date, and that kiss, they set a new bar for how I wanted to feel while dating. It was more than just intellectual compatibility, or chemistry, or a good time. It was like hanging out with a longtime best friend for the first time in years, but one I wanted to kiss, desperately. 

And for all my plans to hang out with those other guys from okcupid, and to date women in New York? They all fell apart, by both choice and circumstance. Beau ended up being the last person I ever kissed and ever will kiss, I ever dated and ever will date, and I couldn't be happier about that.

When I'm not on my iPad, I will update this with the "Blog Every Day in May" icon and probably a picture of us.

Belle is Back!

Open a bottle of the bubbly and pass around the cupcakes—my self-imposed hiatus is over!

I’ve been offline just under four weeks, but it feels like I’ve been away four months.

I needed the time to reflect, refocus, read, and just relax for awhile.

I reflected on the direction I want to take my blog and my writing, along with how I plan to get there. I refocused both my writing theme and my design elements. I read many many new blogs and finally decided on a few new ones to follow. I relaxed: I regularly went to bed by 11pm, I caught up on Pretty Little Liars (although now I’m behind again), I spent less time fighting on Jezebel, I enjoyed some spa & salon services, I continued the long but rewarding process of turning my apartment into a home, and I cuddled/enjoyed sexi time with Beau.

I usually watch it on Hulu.

I talked about life changes and blog changes in my first post of 2013, but I didn’t realize at the time how much I needed to step away from my blog in order to change it. Taking it offline for a few weeks has been a great chance to de-stress and tackle all my scattered ideas, one at a time, without worrying about updating regularly while I figured things out.

In summary form, these are all the exciting changes taking place at Finding My Virginity!

My First Date with My Boyfriend

July 29th.

One year.

Wow.

A year ago today, the boyfriend and I had our first date. We had been emailing each other almost daily for several weeks, first via okcupid and then with our gmail accounts.

I wore my new black sundress from Target, a dress that is still one of my favorites. He wore a red golf shirt that I still don't like and jeans.

We met outside a restaurant not far from my apartment. He motioned to shake my hand, but I hugged him instead. He was surprised, and I laughed.

We talked nonstop throughout dinner and for who knows how long afterwards, partly hoping the rain would stop and partly not wanting the date to end.

Unbeknownst to me, the not-yet-boyfriend stared at my cleavage unabashedly while I looked over the menu, but he swears it was my excellent conversational skills that won me a second date.

I wanted to kiss him good-night, but between the rain, and the smokers outside the door, and his to-go box, and my purse... it just didn't feel right. I hugged him again instead.

I was giddy all night.

Back at my apartment, I called my new best friends Hardy* and James* to hang out, since my roomie/bestie Lauren* was gone that weekend. I ended up meeting them at a party with a bunch of their fraternity brothers. I let one guy blatantly hit on me and buy me drinks, and I shamelessly flirted with all the brothers. I gave another guy my number, although, in my defense, I thought he was gay, so I thought he literally just wanted to hang out to practice French.

I obviously did not intend to start anything serious with the not-yet-boyfriend. Yes, we had an amazing first date. Yes, I wanted to see him again. But I was also leaving the Midwest just three weeks later, August 18th, and moving to the Northeast August 28th for ten months. Dating him was just for funsies. I had zero intention of falling in love.

But I did. :) And I've never been so happy in my life.

As you read this post, I'm driving back to the Midwest; back to Lauren, Hardy, and James; back to a fun, open-minded city with tons of young people; and, most importantly, back to the boyfriend.

Me & OKC (Part Three): In Which I Learn a Valuable Lesson About Dating Historians

Confession One: I may be a nerd at heart, and I may be dating a nerd, and I may sometimes exhibit an intellectual elitism, BUT. This story goes to show that intelligence is not everything. Not even close.

Confession Two: I don't have much dating experience. At all. Not including dates with the boyfriend, I have been on three official dates. This story is about my second date.

It wasn't supposed to be a date.

I had agreed to hanging out, not going out. Huge difference in the connotation between those two very similar expressions.

John* was living outside of Paris at the time, doing research at the National Archives. He was a grad student from Yale (working on his Ph.D. in history), skinny, bespectacled—my kind of guy, right? He contacted me on okcupid a week or two before my winter break,** during which I had plans to travel to Toulouse, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Paris, and Saint Germain-en-laye. His opening message referred to my admiration for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and linked to one of Orwell's essays. After a few brief exchanges, John told me that if I were ever in Paris, I should let him know so we could meet up. I was a little paranoid about meeting up with a guy so shortly after initial contact, but I didn't know when I would next be in Paris, so I agreed to meet him during my vacation.

So, I have since deleted our initial exchange that took place via okcupid, but we very quickly moved to gmail. Thus I can share with y'all this little gem.

“Also, there is a marvelous little bookstore right across the Rue des Archives. I'm not suggesting going there, because girls tend to look at me funny when I suggest a bookstore as an appropriate venue for a first date, but a much, much nerdier person than I am might conceivably have visited the one-euro book box on the sidewalk outside every day for the past eight months while trying to gather his courage to confront the slightly terrifying person who runs the place for long enough to find out where the cash register is.”

1) This is when John elevated our meeting to a date. 2) How could I demote our first encounter after he so cutely suggested we visit a bookstore?***

I know at this point he sounds like the man of my dreams. And yet...

Things started off very awkwardly.

I held out my hand to shake hands when we finally met in person... but he took my hand and kissed it. I'm sure some girls would find this very charming, but I did not.

The conversation would have been fine, I guess, if he had been capable of discussing anything other than history. That was it. Maybe a few anecdotes from undergrad or childhood, but otherwise, it was nonstop history the entire time.

My degree is in history. I love history. I want to be an archivist or teach high school/university history. I will talk your ear off about history when given the chance.

But I do not want to spend three or so hours on a first date discussing history.

Like this, but with history. And with one reluctant participant.