lokiloo asked: I know this really personal BUTTT um, I'm in my second year of college and I haven't even been on a date once. When did you first start going out with people???
Ahaha, so first of all: NEVER WORRY ABOUT ASKING ME A DATING OR SEX QUESTION THAT IS TOO PERSONAL. i don’t really have a filter or a bar with that kind of thing. honestly, part of the reason i’ve been able to talk about stuff like my rape/abuse experiences on this blog is because i flatly refuse to feel shitty about, embarrassed by, or ashamed of anything that has to do with the physical history of my body and the choices i’ve made (or haven’t made) with it. everybody does the sex thing differently, or not at all, and the idea that we have to judge ourselves against a constantly moving and inconclusive bar of what is or isn’t “normal” is shit that came DIRECTLY out of the back of a bull. i am always up for sex and dating questions :D
SO. the answer to your question is going to be long, because technically i started dating when i was eleven, lmfao. i wrote a note to a dude in my sixth grade class that said, “i think you are cute, would you like to be my boyfriend?” that weekend, his dad took me, him, and a friend of his to a minor-league baseball game, and we held hands awkwardly. three days after that i wrote him another note that said “i do not think we should be girlfriend and boyfriend anymore.” sixth grade me was heavily reliant on note communication, and actually last i heard that dude was in jail, so, uh. there’s that.
my first “serious” boyfriend was in eighth grade, but i use “serious” lightly because mostly he felt me up in movie theaters, undoubtedly horrifying the people around us, and we made out sloppily on other people’s couches. after that i dated on and off until i lost my v-card at 17 as a high school senior, and again at 18 as a college freshman. (the first time was with a chick, the second time was with a dude. some bi folk wouldn’t consider them both ~virginity losses~; i do, because the experience was both brand new and mentally/emotionally transformative both times. to each their own!) while i don’t regret a single one of the physical encounters i’ve had willingly over the years, i do think that pieces of my romantic history were probably at least partially influenced by the fact that i encountered sex/sexuality considerably younger than i was supposed to? that kind of thing has far-reaching effects on the brain, and creates an awareness that wouldn’t be there otherwise if it goes down before you hit a certain age, and i think i may have gone looking for a certain kind of fulfillment younger than i otherwise would have as a result of that awareness. on the other hand, i really have no way to know what that history would look like if i’d led a different life, and, again, i don’t regret a single sexual or romantic encounter i had of my own volition, so to a certain degree it’s a moot point.
BUT. the reason i tell you all that is to tell you this: everybody has a different story behind how many people they have or haven’t dated, how much sex they have or haven’t had, or how much of that stuff they have or haven’t wanted. sometimes they’re stories that are kind of spotty and horrible in some places, and sometimes they’re stories that are neither spotty nor horrible in any places, and sometimes they’re unexpected stories, and sometimes they’re stories that are embarrassing to the person in question, and sometimes they’re private stories, and sometimes they’re public stories, and sometimes they’re stories that only make sense if you were there. but everybody’s got them. everybody takes their own personal path to their own personal conclusions about what does or doesn’t work for them romantically, sexually, or both (or, in the case of some folks, the realization that nothing works for them romantically, sexually, or both, and that that’s okay). my point is, it is TOTALLY OKAY AND FINE if you have not dated yet. if you want to date, you will, at some point, date (and as a side note, my dating advice in general is to be straight up and honest with whoever it is you want to go out with, and drop that shit like it is extremely boiling lava hot if you do not get honesty in return)! there’s no age cut-off on sharing a coffee with someone while making The Googly Eyes, or on putting your body up against another person’s body and seeing if the good feelings occur. the idea that there’s a “normal” here is a lie, because, seriously, for real, there is not one. you will do what you want to do when you are comfortable doing it, when that comfort matches up with another person’s comfort, and WHENEVER THAT IS will be normal. <3
