Editor's Note: "Patricia King" is a pen name to protect the writer's anonymity.
Everyone has a different experience losing their virginity: maybe you're waiting until marriage or waiting for "the one," maybe you drunkenly lost it at a house party in the bathroom last Saturday. Whatever your story, many people have the same thought afterward: Was that it?
Most people have sex for the first time by the age of 17, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that advances sexual and reproductive health worldwide through research and public education.
The guy who holds my V-card is the epitome of a tool. I'm bitter, but you would be, too.
Let me explain.
The Tool made his entrance into my life in 10th grade and has been in and out ever since. He's like a pimple that keeps coming back that you just want to pop.
We met in a lifeguarding class at the Y. The first time I saw him, I thought, Who is this gorgeous male and how do I get him to like me? When we were on a break in between laps, I waddled up to him in my one piece and swim cap and said, "You're really cute."
Hook, line and sinker.
We were dating for six months before we decided to do the dirty deed. Both of us were virgins, so you can only imagine how weird/awkward/short it was. It was the night before we were leaving each other for the summer and he tried breaking up with me, but I wouldn't have it. So, I gave him my virginity instead. Bad move.
That summer, he cheated on me. With my good friend. Whom I had known since kindergarten. Whom I had three classes with that year. Whom I sat next to in all three classes. Woof.
Fast forward to the summer after my freshman year of college. He started liking random things on my Facebook before he hit me up, so I knew what he wanted. I was bored and in between boyfriends, so I decided to rekindle the flame. I'd pick him up at his house, drive to the beach to partake in some recreational fun, then go back to his house to have sex on a couch in his basement. I'm classy.
The friendship with benefits lasted until it was time to go back to school. That year, I got myself a brand-new boyfriend, so I no longer had any reason to speak to The Tool. It wasn't until that summer that I decided to speak to him again.
One night, I was at my friend Roth's* house with my group of friends from high school when my best friend came running up and said I had to hear the story Todd* had just told her. So, I went outside and could tell right away that whatever Todd was about to say had something to do with me.
"Do you know about The Tool's tattoo?" Todd asked.
When The Tool and I were hooking up, he once mentioned that he was thinking about getting a tattoo in memory of his mother. Thinking that this was the ink Todd was referring to, I responded, "He made mention of it. He finally got it?" I could tell by Todd's confused expression that we were not on the same page.
Apparently, Todd was with The Tool at a party a few nights before when Tool pulled down his pants to show off a tattoo on his butt: tally marks. They were tally marks of all the women he had slept with, with red tallies for virgins.
As he pointed to the first red tally, Tool excitedly said, "Guess who that one is?"
I texted him that night to call him out on the tattoo. He responded that it was a drunken decision for his 21st birthday. He understood that there was no chance I'd ever have sex with him again, but he hoped we could still be friends. Too bad we were never really friends.
So, whether you lost it to your high school sweetheart or the bartender at your Tuesday night bar, I hope you think back on the person in a positive way, because once you give it up, you're not getting it back. To those of you that feel like I do toward the one that popped your cherry, know that it's not the first person you sleep with that matters the most; it's the last.
Until next time, stay gorgeous.
*Names within this story have been changed.
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