In 10th grade I was sitting in possibly the most useful class I took in high school. Typing. Turns out there’s a right way to type and if you learn how then you can type incredibly fast. I don’t know if they even teach that anymore. I barely apply anything else I learned in high school.
Anyway, in class I see this blonde girl. A Norwegian cheerleader. There weren’t a lot of Norwegians in my school, so she stood out. Big blue eyes. She was in 8th grade. I thought she was beautiful. I stared at her all the time.
I got in trouble a lot in high school. I was in detention almost every week, sometimes every day and was occasionally suspended. I usually got in trouble for joking around, distracting everyone or talking back to teachers. One time I got suspended for demanding a math teacher tell me how what she taught was applicable in the real world. I was a pain in the ass.
Back to the story. Her name is Arianna, and I hope she reads this, because I will always care about her. I went out of my way to get her attention. I know how to get attention, both good and bad. I knew when girls in class laughed at what I was doing, and when they would roll their eyes. With Arianna I made sure it was always good attention. I wanted her to know that I existed, I wanted her to think about me after class.
I don’t remember how I talked to her the first time, but I did, and I eventually made her my girlfriend. I loved making her happy. Her parents were recently divorced and her mom was going through a rough time. Her father left her out of nowhere for another woman, left them both behind with just a note. Her mom eventually went crazy and started dating a heroin addict. She came onto me often and criticized Arianna viciously — a terrible mother.
I used to love showing up at Arianna’s house on the weekend with a breakfast sandwich. We’d eat, take a walk, hold hands, just be in love. Keep in mind, she was 13 and I was 15. There wasn’t much “going out” going on. I didn’t even have a fake ID yet.
One night I came over and we watched The Notebook. It’s a very romantic movie. We started making out passionately afterwards and wanted to have sex but her mom was home. We decided to wait until the next day after school when her mom wasn’t around because we both were virgins and wanted it to be special.
Her mom usually worked until 6pm, so after school we’d go back to her house and hang out until she left. We’d joke around, listen to music, watch movies and fool around. But today was different. We walked to her house knowing we were both about to have sex for the first time. I remember being very aware of how she was feeling. I didn’t want to hurt her, I wanted her to feel good. I had no idea how to make a woman feel good during sex, but I knew that's what I was supposed to do.
Let me step back for a bit and tell you a different story. I have a cousin who is like an older sister to me. We’re very close. She’s very pretty. Extremely smart and successful, and funny. And cool. She doesn’t take shit. She’s kind of like Elaine Benes but less goofy and more sophisticated. Her boyfriends in high school and college were always cool guys, I looked up to them. When I was 12, she broke up with her boyfriend of 5 years. Brian. I liked Brian. I asked “What happened to Brian?” She took me outside and said “Med, I’m going to tell you something. This is something you should know. Brian just didn’t do it for me in the bedroom. If I’m going to marry a guy, he has to make me feel amazing in the bedroom. And he didn’t. We tried and it didn’t work. Brian’s a good guy, but he isn’t the right guy for me.”
Needless to say, that advice stuck with me.
Back to the story. I payed close attention to Arianna and made sure I wasn’t hurting her. I noticed she was feeling good. So I kept doing what I was doing. I was feeling good, so I was enjoying it. And now we were having sex. For the first time. And we loved each other. It was beautiful. It couldn’t have been any better. I’m extremely lucky I had such an amazing experience losing my virginity.
But things between Arianna and I did not stay beautiful. We dated the rest of my time in high school. Then I went to college, she was a junior in high school. Arianna was now a girl from a broken home, so she started to hang out with other girls from broken homes. They drank a lot and did some hard drugs. I didn’t mind that part, but I did mind that she was going to parties with guys older than me. I didn’t like that group of guys. They were hippies and I hated hippies.
Anyway, that whole period brought out an ugly side of me. I became jealous. Possessive, and not in a good way. I was threatened. I was scared. What if one of those guys had a bigger dick than me? What if they were cooler than me? Funnier? What if they have something I don’t have? I became insecure. I had no idea who I was. So I took it out on her. I accused her of cheating on me. I accused her of “liking” other guys. Freaking out if she didn’t text me back quickly enough. It was ugly. Eventually she became turned off by me and did, indeed, cheat. In hindsight, I deserved it, though I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know anything. My heart was broken. My first love fucked some guy in med school.
I went through a pretty rough period. I became angry. I hated women. I hated the world. I wasn’t pleasant to be around. I spent a lot of time alone. I blamed everyone but myself.
Back to my cousin. She eventually married the guy she’s still with today. He’s a man’s man. An idol to me in a lot of ways. They have two athletic and well-behaved kids. They both make a lot of money. They still have sex — I know that because they hit on each other in front of everyone. They’re shameless. They joke around with each other. I’m lucky to know at least one marriage where the couple is truly happy, because most I see today aren’t, regardless of what they post on Instagram. In my parent’s case, they “stayed together for the kids” for too long. I remember being 7 and yelling at them as they fought: “You two should just get a divorce!”
Anyway, one day I’m at my cousin’s house sitting next to her husband. I noticed his manliness. He had a presence, he was not the type of guy to take shit from anybody. He had my cousin wrapped around his finger. She respected him and did what he asked, went out of his way to help him. I realized why my cousin, who I looked up to greatly, chose him as her husband over Brian. And I realized the confidence I thought I had was only built on sand, not rock. I realized how easily the rug could be pulled out from underneath me.
From that moment, I realized I was not yet a man, and I had a very long journey to become one. It took me a long time before I could call myself one, but that journey never ends.
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