i'm lost in translation

To All the Boys I Loved Before.... The College Years

So lets just start this out by letting you know just a couple of things about my growing up. First of all, I was clueless about my body. Frankly, I was just uninformed but that can make all the difference to a young girl. My mother never gave me a clue about major chunks of the "birds and bees" so I kind of drifted through my early adult life kind of knowing what references were about but not quite getting it all. I remember getting my period when I was about 10 or 11 and I had no idea what was going on. I had almost no social contact with boys except for two very close guys friends (more on them later). I didn't date anyone in high school for two reasons 1) my mother forbade it (of course this never stops anyone - just watch enough teen flicks and you know) and 2) I was terrified of boys. My lack of experimentation in high school made me all the more clueless about exploring my body and the bodies of others.

So, when I arrived at my eighteenth birthday - I realized I needed to lose my virginity.

At the time, I hung out with a childhood friend, let's call her Grace. Grace was going to the local community college and met a guy in one of her classes. She thought he sounded like a lot of fun to hang out with and set up a group outing between his group of friends and her group of friends. We all hung out and had a great time. I started dating the guy from Grace's class with a clear goal in mind.

The guy - we'll call him "The Geek".
Description: About 5'9", Blond (he dyed his hair), much thinner than me, high achiever

The Geek was a very sweet guy. He was awkward, nerdy and cute. We didn't court for very long - I was going to London for a month at the end of the summer and he was returning to school in the Midwest. It was a perfect beginner relationship - no pressure, definitely not permanent. I really needed someone "safe" to start out with sexually. The whole thing was really exciting on some levels - sex everywhere we could attempt it, being caught by the local police force in very compromising positions, and learning to be comfortable with my body. On the other hand - I was still very self-conscious and terrified that I would make some kind of sexual faux-paus that would land me to be the main character in some urban legend for the rest of my days. We made no attempts at pretending that we would try a long-distance relationship - I wrote him a couple of times from London. For a while I felt really bad about the whole thing - I felt like I used him for my grand scheme. I found out much later that he has a thing for Asian girls.We vaguely keep in touch - we don't have that much in common. He is a lawyer with long hours and no life. He also has an Asian girlfriend.

posted by Jin @ 6:23 PM