The First

I have plenty of ridiculous dating stories. The situations I put myself in were not normal in any way, shape, or form. Psychologists will tell you we follow a pattern when dating, and this is our normal. My normal was insane.

As I was sitting and thinking of what to type or how to type out these chronicles of my dating life, I felt that it somewhat mimicked Chelsea Handler’s first book. However, her stories are more so one-night stands. Mine are entire relationships. To be honest, I haven’t had too many one-night stands.

So why write? I am sitting here six days into my 30th year of life. This past year, I was in a terrible relationship, but I reflected a lot. 29 was one of the best years of my life. There were so many high and low points. I’d like to thank the Saturn Return (if you are into that sort of thing). Writing this is some form of self reflection; it will be entertaining. Here we go, here are the chronicles of me, a vulnerable, dependent woman, who is also strong and independent.

In no particular order are these stories to be told. I will publish them as I see fit. This will just reflect random moments and times throughout my life, much to include, the terrible men I have dated. Now I will not say they were all terrible; most were great with awful traits. I am no angel; I contributed to the downfall of most of these relationships too. You can be the judge though. I am changing the names of these men to protect their identity, dignity, and sanctity of other relationships they may have had (Don’t judge me just yet!).

I said that these were in no particular order, and most of them will not be, but I will begin the beginning at the beginning. This sets the tone of how the next 15 years of my life will go.

Drew was my first “serious” high school boyfriend. He was a sophomore, and I was a freshman. We were in a theater class together. He was tall and had curly, long, surgery boy hair. His laugh got me. He smelled like Davidoff Cool Water cologne and wore his puka shell necklace and billabong t-shirt. It was 2003, so give the kid a break! His mother was huge into the church so he attended. His group of church friends, the females, were not a fan of me. I do not understand why they didn’t like me either. I wasn’t a frequenter to church, maybe that was it. Because of their aversion to me, this high school love quickly faded.

We were in the same group of friends so we would see each other. Drew and I still flirted, we still had fun together, we just weren’t together. Then things started to go south; we started to argue and just started to plain hate each other. Until, Drew started dating a fellow church-goer that he was keen on. Up to this point in my life, I had not lost my virginity. However, Drew’s new girl was hesitant to even hold hands. Drew, and I had “explored” one another but nothing beyond that, yet.

I am guessing the lack of physical affection had Drew contacting me. He was still dating the same girlfriend, but hey, I liked this dude, so I never discouraged him from texting. One day, several of our mutual friends were at a lake house and Drew and I found ourselves making out in a spare room. It was the summer of 2004; I was about to go into the 10th grade and Drew would be a junior. A little less than a year had passed since we first met. Our heavy making out led to us deciding that this was it; we would lose our virginity. So we did.

Now again, Drew still had a girlfriend, yet we were now hooking up on the regular. My first sexual relationship and I was the other girl. I would see his girlfriend in the halls at school and I didn’t feel guilty, not even once. I didn’t know how their relationship was; I did not know if they were happy or not. To me, he was the one in a relationship, and I was doing nothing wrong. Although we weren’t together, I made him happy. However, he could never give me the full on relationship that I needed the extra emotional connection. This was strictly physical. The relationship that Drew and I had is one that I would see play out again and again in the men I dated for years to come. Talk about needing therapy, right?!

Drew broke up with the girl he was dating, dated many other girls, and even got married. About a year ago, he and I reconnected and started talking on occasion. This leads to other stories I may publish later (stick around if you want some interesting reads). All those years ago and I have a friend in him now; he was my first.