The second episode in a series following my formative sex & relationship experiences. This episode sees me through first year university as I dabble with identity & encounter my first “adult” dating experience.

In this series:

Start with Ep 14 :: Seeding disenchantment

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

The ultimate vest in my collection: The Rider Strong / “Freak Magnet” vest. Not sure who wore it better…

Audio Transcript

This is Divine Interruption. I'm Sarah Hildreth Rankin. Hi, welcome.

Let's talk more about fundamental, formative relationships. I started this conversation on Episode 14, Seeding Disenchantment.

If you want to go back and you haven't heard that one, it provides a little backstory to where I am starting today, but it's not necessary.

These are all standalone episodes, but my biggest interest is just seeing how they build on each other, and how we experience ourselves in relationship, especially from a young age, and what we learn, how we shift and change, why we do the things we

do, and how we end up in certain situations, with certain people doing certain things. That is such a big point of interest for me, and something obviously that I'm working through right now.

I wouldn't be called to talk about this or to share these stories if it wasn't providing me with some kind of catharsis or healing. I've noticed that, and that's with all of this.

I find the stories get really loud, and I realize they're stored in my body, and they want to be talked about. And to be honest, a lot of this would be so much easier if I didn't have to talk about it. And I've thought about that a lot, too.

These moments where I'm like, ugh, do I have to share this? And is it right to share it? Is it too personal?

Is it too graphic? Whatever it is. And then it always comes back to I'm like, yeah, I do.

And I've pushed down a lot of these stories for years.

Honestly, I probably needed to talk about them so much more when they happened, and needed more expression around them so that I could process what had happened, or how I felt, or have more of like a sounding board to realize who I was in that

situation. But, you know, hindsight, right? And I think so many of us do this. We're living our life.

And when we are young, we don't know how to do all of this. So I'm, you know, really actually grateful to be here and to just be able to share this. And I hope, too, that whoever is listening, whoever you are, that you can relate to some of this.

I truly think a lot of these experiences are very relatable. They may be different and have different players and different storylines, but there's going to be parts in there where it's like, oh yeah, I did that too.

Or something, I hope, that can be relatable at some level. So I'm going to pick up today, essentially a little bit after where I left off in episode 14. So I had just broken up with my first boyfriend.

I was entering university. I was 18 years old, and essentially had left that relationship initially thinking I was going to be empowered, thinking I'm going to break up with this person. I'm so brave, and I'm so into my own self.

I know who I am, and this isn't for me. I'm better than this. This isn't what I thought it was going to be.

And really taking charge and thinking that was going to be an empowering experience for me. And it turned out that, you know, it was really painful, and it was really confusing, and this person I just broke up with didn't like me anymore. Like, what?

I was not expecting that, and things changed, and my dynamics with my other friends changed. And I was entering into this whole new world at that time by going to university.

And to be fair, it wasn't entirely new, because I grew up right across the street from campus. So I went to U of A, and our house was across the street, like literally across the street, so I could walk there in about 15 seconds.

So I had grown up on campus. I played on campus. I learned how to ride a bike.

I learned how to drive a car there. I caught the bus there every day for years and years. So staying at home, staying in Edmonton, which is where I was at at the time, and choosing to go to U of A wasn't a big leap.

It was just something that seemed like, oh yeah, I'll just do this. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but so many of my friends were going there, and I lived across the street. It just seemed like the natural thing to do.

But that ended up just making the experience different than what I had envisioned.

I remember my mom telling me for years how amazing university was, and she would talk about how it really opened her up, and it was this grand experience, and she met all these people and learned all these new things.

And I had just assumed, oh yeah, that's what university is, not thinking that maybe it was going to be different for me.

So I was entering this time in my life, starting off with breaking up with my high school boyfriend the first week of school, having had my wisdom teeth out. And I was living at home with my parents.

I still had a lot of the same friends, but everyone was kind of fracturing off and meeting new friends or doing new things, being a part of this new world of university. And I found university really hard. Like, I wasn't expecting to struggle.

I thought it was just going to be like a continuation on from high school. And I thought because I was taking courses that were maybe more aligned for me, I was like, oh, I get to choose.

I wanted to get into the arts of some kind, probably visual arts or performing arts, but obviously had to take a lot of these prerequisites just like everyone else, just like you do.

But thinking that I was going to really enjoy these courses and then slowly realizing that they were a lot harder than I thought, and that it required a lot more studying and a lot more attention to detail, and I couldn't just get away with doing a

bunch of fun projects, which is what I would do before. And I struggled. It was really hard. I found it hard to focus.

I found it hard to stay motivated. And that's kind of where I was at. So everything felt the same.

So it wasn't really different enough to be exciting, but then it was different in like a not good way. Like it just felt hard. It didn't feel fun.

And I felt really out of myself. And then I started kind of experimenting with other versions of myself. I'm like, oh, so this is really boring and it feels really itchy.

So maybe I should try some new things.

And that's when I started drinking a little bit, like not a lot at all, but with friends that I already had, you know, we'd be going out to bars and just kind of trying out what that felt like, you know, getting really wasted.

And it was kind of fun, but also I was like, I don't really know. Like, I just didn't find a mesh with anything. Nothing was sticking.

I remember going to a goth dance club one night and having my friend dress me up and put makeup on. And I was like, maybe this is my thing.

And then I go and I'm like, oh, you know, dancing to Ramstein, but with a lot of leather and a lot of chains and a lot of really high platform boots, realizing, oh no, this isn't my thing either.

Like I was willing to try all sorts of different versions of myself on to see what fit.

And everything at this time is flavored by the bleakness of the Edmonton winter, like an Albertan winter, which is cold, it is dark, and, you know, someone's sensitive to all sorts of things.

Like it just, it has this layer of like sadness, just this tint of gray to everything, is what winter can feel like because it is so dark and so cold.

So I'll start this story with, I think it was around December, so almost Christmas time, I was almost done my first term at university, and I'd gone with my friend to study at a coffee shop.

And I also had this weird thing, which really held me back, to be honest, very psychological, kind of an obsessive, an obsessive tendency, I guess, where I couldn't study in the same place twice, which really, really screwed me up.

So I was going all sorts of different places each night or each day to study for things or to write notes because I couldn't stay in my room at home.

I was like, I would just feel trapped, trapped in my skin, trapped in my space, trapped in my surroundings. So I would drive out, you know, sometimes for like half an hour, 45 minutes to go to a different coffee shop.

And then once I'd studied there, I was like, I can't go there again because it's going to feel the same. I'm going to be trapped.

So then I'd be driving across town to go to a different library, like this really weird obsessive thing that I was doing. So, yay, so fun. And this time I'd met up with a friend, and I think we had studied at one coffee shop and had lunch.

And then we've gone to 7-Eleven, and I drank like a whole Slurpee. And I hadn't done that in a while. And I had all this sugar in my system.

And then we went to a different coffee shop, and I ordered like a vanilla bean latte. This is all documented, of course. I will be reading today from my journals in person, because I have documented so much of this with keen detail.

But yeah, so I had all this sugar in my system, and we're sitting at the front of this coffee shop trying. Like, we're not actually studying. We're trying to study.

And I'm wearing a vest. Surprise, surprise. A very special vest that was like denim with some like checkered flannel.

I call it my Rider Strong vest. If anyone knows who Rider Strong is. And it was kind of badass, but also a little bit insane.

Anyway, I'm wearing this vest. We're studying. And I keep seeing this guy.

He's sitting at the back of the coffee shop. He's just kind of like staring at me, looking up. He's got a newspaper, and he's like peeking over the top of the newspaper.

And I'm like, am I going crazy? Like, is this person looking at me? Do I know this person?

And because I was so hopped up on sugar, I'm like, no, no, I'm just being crazy. So we're just laughing and having a good time and trying to study.

And this guy gets up, and he walks over to our table and actually says, oh, I couldn't help but notice you from over there. Do you think I could get your number? And I was so shocked, so confused.

I was like, what is happening? This doesn't happen to me. This doesn't happen in real life.

Up until this point, I'd never received any sort of attention from anyone, like in that way. And in my past, it had a lot of experiences being made fun of, especially for the way I looked. So this was really confronting and confusing.

And I was like, is this a joke? Like I kept thinking, is this a joke? I don't know.

I give him my number. We mumble a couple of things, and he's like, I'll call you, and then left. And then I had like a weird freak out.

I was like, what is happening? And really, I just wanted to understand why he had approached me. So let's see.

I will quote from my journal here. In the words of 18-year-old Sarah, it just seems so strange. How did he notice me?

What exactly did he notice? My freak magnet vest? I don't know.

It's really flattering, and I'm glad I did give him my number, because I need to experience new things, and maybe this is the way things work in the adult world. It's not as though I met him at a strip club or anything, so that must be okay.

But it's just so out of the blue, something that would never happen to me kind of thing, that makes me want him to call and see what it's all about. I'm thinking he probably won't.

I don't know if he heard me freak out when he was walking away, or maybe I was gross up close. Who knows? I'd like to see about him, and I can't stop thinking about it, but I really don't want to get too into the whole thing or get my hopes up.

I also want to be safe and make sure he's not a creep or anything. But it just shows you life isn't planned. Things just happen when you least expect it, and that's why it's exciting.

So yes, that is from December of 2003. So the next day, I think to myself, maybe I'll go back to that coffee shop. I don't know, maybe he'll just be there.

And it was a crazy thought. I'm like, nobody does that. That doesn't happen.

But I remember trying to look just a little extra polished or nice, and I'm like, I'll go study there again, which I normally wouldn't do, like two days in a row in the same place, like never.

But I just had this vision that he would just walk through the door, and we'd just talk, and I'd get to see him again. So the next day, I go back to the coffee shop, and I'm studying, and I keep looking at the door.

Like I'm staring at the door, I'm so distracted, I'm like, oh, maybe he'll come in, maybe he'll come in, and he doesn't. So I get to studying, and then I look up, and he's there. He is actually there.

He's like holding a cream cheese bagel, and he sees me, and I'm like, this is not happening. Like this does not happen, right, in real life. But again, I'm like, maybe a little bit of clairvoyant stuff there, right?

Like sometimes we're able to see our future. But yeah, I ran into him less than 24 hours later, and I will pick up in my other churnel I have here. And I quote, So we talked for a long time, about two hours.

He's really cute, and nice, and funny, and obviously smart. You know, like petroleum engineering's smart at that. Oh my gosh, I don't even know.

He's not creepy or gross, and he's interesting. He lives in Sherwood Park with his dad, and his mom and sister live in Mill Woods, and are both hairdressers. We talked about all sorts of stuff.

He plays hockey and golf, and has broken both his wrists, his collarbone, and tons of his fingers. He's been to Mazatlan.

Let me just stop and say, I thought Mazatlan was like some obscure island in Indonesia or something, or I thought it was something like Madagascar. So I was like blown away. I was like, wow, he's world traveler.

He's been to Mazatlan. I didn't know this was like a resort town in Mexico. Anyway, this Christmas, he's working for an oil company where he'll put cement in these drilled holes.

Confusing, he tried to explain it, but I'm still a little uncertain. And he's finished on December 27th, the day I get back from Montreal.

We talked about the movie Elf, which he thought was awesome, good taste, and about skateboarding, claymation, snowboarding, pets. Sorry, this is too much. The creepiness of downtown, school, food, holidays, weather.

And in brackets, I say, he likes sun and rain and sun and snow. But we never mentioned our ages. I know he must be almost in his last year or his last year.

I just feel like such a baby, but man, he was easy to talk to and really listened. He smiled and laughed a lot and has really nice teeth. He had on this backwards fox racing cap that looked really good.

He has brown hair that kind of looks like Adam's hair. Adam is my brother, by the way. Kind of curly, but not like sick curly.

Oh, how mean and judgmental I am about curly hair apparently. He has green blue eyes like me and freckles. And he had on a couple hoodies, jeans, and a jean jacket from his work.

His fingernails were so clean and his shoes were good. Kind of like mountain boots, but like not like mountain boots. I can't describe it.

Just really good. So we obviously had a riveting to our conversation about the weather. I really liked his hair.

So after that, he called me. I waited and I wasn't so sure. And I was like, is he going to call?

Is he not going to call? And I didn't want to get too involved. Like as I read through my journals again, it brought back a lot of memories.

And I was like, oh, the theme is, I don't want to really like him, because if I like him, then that's me putting myself out there. That's me being vulnerable. It's almost like I knew that that gave him power over me.

Like I already felt that way from the start. It was like this power dynamic that I had already felt and experienced and read into, that if I like him too much, then he's the one who's now controlling the narrative, or he can hurt me, right?

I'd been hurt in the past, or I had witnessed hurt in some way, and I knew that by being vulnerable, that could open me up to being disappointed and being hurt.

So he did call, and then over the next two months, we went on a series of dates, like a bunch of dates. On the first date, we went to another coffee shop. I remember he picked me up in his, what was it, a 1990s black Ford Thunderbird.

So I thought that was very cool.

And we went to another coffee shop, and I remember when he went to the bathroom, he had left his wallet on the counter, and it was open, and I peeked at his driver's license, and I was like, oh my God, the one thing no one is talking about is like,

how old is he? Like, is he older than me? Are we the same age? And I saw that he was 24, and I was 18.

And honestly, that's not really a big age difference, but I remember feeling quite out of my depth.

I was young, I was naive, and I knew it, and I felt it, and I had never been with anyone who I had felt, I don't know, like a little intimidated by, and that age did make me feel intimidated.

And my age did show up in many ways on our second date, he took me to a bar. And again, I hadn't been to that many bars.

And when I was going, I was going with my group of friends, the friends that I had already knew from high school, and there would be a group of us, and we would be kind of experiencing these things for the first time together.

So it felt safe, it felt kind of crazy, it felt fun. Now with him, I was like, oh my God, I'm on a date with this guy. He's six years older than me.

He's almost done university. I don't know him. And he took me to this bar in the middle of nowhere.

I'd never even been to this part of town. And he's like, oh, let's go play some pool. And I was like, oh yeah, totally cool.

I remember just trying to kind of try on confidence because I didn't really know how to be. And so we go to this bar, and he's like, what do you want to drink? This moment will forever be burned in my memory.

And I kind of look up at the board, and I'm so overwhelmed. I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what to drink.

And so I'm like, oh, I'll have one large high balls, please. You know, not knowing what that was. And it's just like shockingly embarrassing.

But yes, I think they gave me like a rum and coke, and they're like, oh my God. I remember thinking, I was like, oh no, did I get something wrong? Like, I don't know what I'm talking about.

But, you know, we went along with it. And to this day, whenever I see highballs on special, I'm like, oh, I will have one highballs, please.

So at the end of that date, I remember he's driving me home, and he pulls into like some parking lot off campus. And we start kissing or like making out. I'm like, whoa, this is really real.

Like I'm making out with this guy. I don't know him. It's really exciting.

It feels kind of dangerous. And at some point, I look down, and I'm like, oh my God, oh my God. His face is like covered in blood.

Like my eyes had kind of been closed and they were open, and there's just like blood all over his face. I'm like, oh my God, oh my God. And then I realized I had had a nosebleed, and I had bled all over his face, all over his shirt.

Super embarrassing. So, you know, we're just like adding to the moments where I feel so young, so out of my depth, and thinking like, oh my God, he's probably done this five million times. Like, why is he even like on a date with me?

I don't even know. But, you know, after that, we continued to go on dates. Like he continued to call me.

He continued to take me out. We continued hanging out. And, you know, he obviously lived, when I said Sherwood Park, it's like out of town, like from where I lived, away from campus.

So I was living at home with my parents. My parents were there. He, I guess, was living with his dad.

So there was like no privacy. There was nowhere to go. We would like kind of make out in his car, and then he would drop me off or whatever.

And we kept going on dates. He let me drive his car once. He's like, do you want to learn how to drive standard?

I'm like, sure. Again, like basically almost wrecked his car. And more coffee dates.

I remember him showing me pictures of him, like at a rig doing his engineering job and me being like, wow, you know, this is amazing. You're so smart. So smart.

He took me to dinner once, and I had burnt my mouth earlier on like a cup of hot chocolate, so I couldn't taste anything. And I was like eating this taco chip salad. The music was really loud.

We couldn't hear each other. And he got sick and I needed to give him Pepto-Bismol when he dropped me off at my house. Just a series of random events that when I looked back on, I was like, oh, but you know what?

I started to like him more. And he seemed to like me more, like he wanted to keep seeing me. And in the back of my head, I kept thinking, well, this is gonna end because this is what's gonna happen, right?

Like, it's gonna end. I don't want to be disappointed, but kept happening. There was even one evening, I was out with my friends.

And when I came home, it was like a Friday night, and my mom told me, she's like, oh my God, earlier, I was sitting in the living room, I was watching TV, and I saw a face poke up in the windows of the front of our house, and then on the side of our

house. And she's like, I screamed so loud, she freaked out. She's like, there's someone peering in our windows at night. And it turned out that it was him, and he was trying to see if I was home.

And so my mom actually met him, because eventually he like came to the door or whatever. So I was like, okay, he keeps coming around. I'm kind of again, trying to hold back a little bit.

I don't fully know what's going to happen, because I'm like, this is an adult. Before I've only dated someone, like I was actually older than my high school boyfriend by like, I don't know, a month, but it felt like a big deal.

And now I'm like, I'm with an adult. This is the adult world. What happens?

And so over Christmas, I had gone to Montreal to visit a friend, and my parents came out as well to visit my brother, and I was going to fly home early. So I was going to be at home alone for something like three days.

And I was like, oh my god, this is the first time I'm going to have my own space. So he's going to come over. Like, that's what's going to happen.

This is the next step. Because I know what I was thinking, and I just wanted to keep going and see what was going to happen, but I was also really nervous. He came over later at night, and I remember wanting to like create an experience.

I was like, oh, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this, and we're going to do this, because I was still in my own world, and I still wanted to just get to know this person.

I wanted to get to know his energy, and I wanted to go at this pace that felt comfortable. I was still even nervous with the pace it was going, and all we'd done is made out.

I don't fully remember, but I think we'd just been like kissing and stuff, and that was exciting, and I was like into that. But I remember thinking this was taking a risk, so I wanted to create an experience.

I was like, oh, we'll watch this movie, and then, I don't know, maybe I'll make him a fancy drink, and we'll tell each other stories or something. And so he does come over.

We're watching The Shining because I was like, oh, I want to watch The Shining with you. And then The Shining ends, and I remember he's basically lying on me on the couch. And the feeling I'm having is I just need to procrastinate.

I need to push this longer because I don't know what's gonna happen. We have to go to sleep at some point in time, and I'm kind of scared because I don't know what to do.

So I remember showing him these creative projects I'd made while I was in Montreal with my brother, like these weird videos that we'd made together. And I'm just thinking, like, what is he even thinking?

Like, I was proudly like, oh, look at my creative projects. Let's watch this, and now let's watch this, and thinking of these things that we could do. And I'm like, oh, let's go get some candy, and let's do this, and I'm just keep putting it off.

And I'm like, oh, all he wants to do is, like, make out with me. And I can't let that happen, because it might go too far. So eventually we make it downstairs to my room.

It's essentially like time to go to sleep. And I remember holding a laundry basket, being like, hey, oh, can you help me put my laundry away?

And so I've like had the laundry basket in between me and him, essentially just like keeping him away from me, because I'm too scared. And I'm confused, and I don't want to look dumb, but I don't know.

I had no voice, and that is something that I have forgotten as I've gotten older and gotten more comfortable in certain ways, but I had no voice.

Like I was unable to tell him, I'm nervous, I'm scared, I don't know what to do, or I've never done this before. I really didn't know how to speak up. I didn't know how to voice my concerns or my needs or anything.

It was like I just wanted to be cool. I wanted him to like me back. And I had no tools.

Like I really had no tools to express any of that. And he didn't ask me. It was kind of like just this confusing, intuitive dance, this interpersonal connection where it's like, we're not saying things, but we should just know what's happening.

And I very much couldn't speak what was on my mind. So I was doing all these silly little things to kind of just put space in between me and him.

And so as far as I remember, and I have read, we get into bed together, you know, spend a bunch of time making out. I think at one point my shirt comes off, which was like a really big deal.

And again, I remember being very self-conscious, very nervous of like having someone see me like this and like just really unsure of what he was going to think about me. It's like, oh, he's going to judge me. He's going to say something.

What is he going to think? And he may have taken his shirt off. I think he did.

And I remember seeing this like necklace that he had, like a black cord necklace with like a maple leaf on it. I just remember it being really awkward. Like pants didn't come off.

And I remember being like, I don't know what to do if he takes his pants off. Like, I don't know what to do. I don't want to touch him.

Like I didn't want to. And I didn't want to because I didn't know what to do. It felt terrifying.

And it was like he wasn't going to show me how this worked. I'm like, how do we navigate that? I guess there has to be just a first for everything.

And so he was respectful. Like nothing really went beyond that. We ended up falling asleep.

And I thought that was just amazing. And we didn't have sex. We didn't even take our pants off.

Nothing happened, but it got like a little bit further than it had before. And after that, and I just had this feeling like I disappointed him in some way, or there was some form of like disappointment. And I felt like I just needed time.

I felt this pressure to show up more, to be available to him more, to be sexual with him. And yet I didn't know how to get a handle on that. I was just this one person.

I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. I didn't have anyone older that I could ask. Or I'm like, what do I do?

But I remember thinking, okay, I just need some time to figure this out. Because up until that point too, I was like, if we actually had sex, I might get pregnant. Like that will not happen.

I will not allow that. Like I knew there were rules, and I just had to figure out how to get myself to a place where, okay, he wants to have sex with me. I can't tell.

And like, if I hold off any longer, I think that's going to be a problem. So I remember booking an appointment with my doctor, and I had never even booked an appointment for myself. I'd never needed to.

I would just go for like regular checkups or when I was sick. And so this felt like a really big deal, like not telling my parents, and booking with the doctor, and asking for birth control. And I was also scared.

Again, had no voice. I was so embarrassed. Hey, I think I need to go on the birth control pill.

And I don't remember if she needed consent from my parents. I don't think so. I don't think so.

I think I was like of legal age, so it was okay. But I was like, I just need to get this sorted. So after this evening with him, and then after going on birth control, I think this happened within a couple days.

Like I got on it. I was like, okay, I need to be prepared if anything were to happen. Like I think there's a turning point here.

This is where I pick up in my journal. And I say, now I feel like I'm really in to him. I was before totally, but now I have this thing where I feel more connected, and I just want to get lost in it all and not hold back anymore.

What's the point, right? But it can be a drawback because I've been thinking about him all the time, and I can't stop. Yesterday, I went to two chapters bookstores to find Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.

This was my favorite book, still is one of my favorite books. And today, I wrapped it in a Michael Jackson newspaper page with him dangling the baby and drew a speech bubble in Sharpie, saying, Matt, dot, dot, dot.

This was my way of giving him a special gift apparently. Then I drove all the way to Sherwood Park in a snowstorm during my break, and I put it in his mailbox. So then today, when he hadn't called or anything, I started to wonder.

Wonder? What, you loser? That's the thing.

I am really logical, and I understand about not seeing someone all the time, but I want to so bad, and I guess I'm getting self-conscious about him wanting to be around me.

When I saw the pictures of him with all his friends, I wanted to be there with him, and then with his hockey team, and I found out that he's the intramural organizer for U of A in his field, and actually saw his picture on the wall by the gym today.

Man, something about seeing someone in their environment makes them so much more attractive. So, I'm tired of writing now, and still unsure of myself, but all I'm saying is that I don't want to lead myself on or get too into it if it's not mutual.

I think it is, but still who knows? What I'm worried about is what I was like tonight, feeling like he was the one thing I was looking forward to, and I really don't want to start changing myself or overanalyzing everything.

I wasn't before, so why should I now? It's just now, I care so much more. What if he rejects me?

Because I really like him. We'll see. Hopefully, I can learn from this and just stand my ground.

I need to remember myself. That's who he first saw and met. So why should I worry about how I am?

So after this journal entry, and after driving through a snowstorm and having my Volkswagen van completely stall out in two intersections, and dropping this book off at his house that was wrapped in Michael Jackson newspaper clippings, and going on

birth control, and feeling like I really liked him and was ready to figure out this next step, and seeing his picture outside the gym, and realizing that he organized an intramural team sport. After all of this, I never heard from him again.

I did not hear anything. I called multiple times, like left messages, and he just never called me back, which up until this point, I had always been waiting for him to never call me back, but he always did. And now, it was just silence.

I think it was maybe three or four weeks after when I was walking to the gym, and he walked out. We saw each other. He looked straight at me and then looked away, and just walked past me and said nothing, just like stone cold as if I didn't exist.

And that was very traumatizing. I was like, are you kidding me? So I had definitely gotten the feeling that he wanted something from me, or that, you know, the relationship was supposed to progress at this point, and that he wanted to be more sexual.

Like, that definitely seemed like a thing. It's just, I truly was just not ready. Like, I was scared.

And it's not that I wasn't willing to grow and have an experience, but I couldn't put words to what I was feeling. And he didn't make it easy. He never helped me with that or realized maybe that I was so young.

And maybe he realized after. Like, you know, he never approached me again. But it was definitely a big moment for me.

And here's the thing. When I've read back through this, and when I think back on memories, he was friendly. He was thoughtful.

He was polite. He was really decent. Like, he was a very, it felt like a really upstanding guy.

Like, I can't look back and be like, oh, what a jerk. Or he was really rude or gross, or he pressured me. Like, none of that.

It was just the way it ended. I just learned that communicating, like already for me, I really struggled with my voice and with speaking up and with voicing my needs ever since I was young.

It was just something that was very shut down and got shut down more and more over time. So, I really struggled with that. And in this experience, I just learned that, whoa, this is a game.

Like, relationships are really complicating and there is a game here. He was not upfront with me. He never said anything about what he expected or what happened.

And so, I learned that, like there's these undercurrents, and I could feel the undercurrent. Like, I was very good at feeling things and figuring out what was going on. But then, I had no way of communicating.

I learned, too, that what was expected from me was sex. It felt like there was this unspoken, reciprocal code. He stayed over that night.

I didn't provide what he had wanted or expected. And then, it felt like he just abandoned me, like he just left.

Everything else that I had offered up until that point, like getting to know him and building this bond and sharing all this personal information, our lives together, it felt like we were growing together.

Like we learned more about each other every single time we hung out, and it felt like we were on the same page in that way.

And yet, because we didn't have sex or because I didn't show up in a certain way that evening, it really felt like all of that didn't matter anymore. I didn't offer any value to him anymore, now that he realized I wasn't going to have sex with him.

And so what I learned, and what I'm saying learned, it doesn't mean that this was true, right? I have no idea what was going on in his head or in his mind or his experience.

I can guess some of it, but what I took away from it in my own head at that time at that age was, oh, what's going on in the open, like what he's saying to me and what we're talking about, and when we're together, all of that isn't really genuine

because in the background, all he actually wanted was to sleep with me. That's actually what he wanted, and it felt like that was hidden the whole time, and it was this undercurrent in the relationship, this confusing, uncomfortable thing, and he

never asked me out in the open. But what I was, who I was, how I was, if all of that was not good enough, because I wasn't able to have sex with him when he wanted, that's honestly what I took away from that.

And that's almost that feeling I got when he stayed over, and all of a sudden it like clicked. I was like, oh my gosh, I need to get on top of this, because if I don't do this, I'm not worthy. He's not going to stick around.

He doesn't want to be with me. And that's actually what happened, right? So from my perspective, that's what I learned.

And it's interesting, really what struck me with reading through my journals again and kind of remembering was just this feeling that I had expressed over and over again of really not wanting to need him or like really like him.

I really didn't want to actually like him because it felt like that would be giving my power away. Like I had already associated relationships with power dynamics.

Like I already knew that there are these two people and that someone could be holding the power. And if I were to actually like him, he would have something over me. And this was specifically also with men in this scenario.

Like it felt like men held power and I could feel that. And at any moment, if I liked him, he could take that away, right? He would just pull a rug out and be like, I'm gone.

If I don't get what I want. And so I didn't want to fully give myself over to him in anyway. And I wrote that again and again.

I'm like, I really don't want to get lost in this. I don't want to really like him. I need to hold back because he's going to hurt me.

And I'm 18 at this point, and I'm already having this very specific experience. And I was really young and didn't understand the pace of a relationship.

Like, I had started to feel this pressure that I should be farther along, that I should know more, that I should understand how sex worked, that I should want to do it, that I should just be confident.

I put all of that on myself because again, he wasn't voicing any of this. He wasn't helping me with this. Maybe he just expected me to know.

And maybe when he realized that I probably was like, not, not experienced in any way, that also could have been not for him. He's like, oh God, she's actually really young. Like, I don't want to do this.

Could have been any of those things, but we never talked about it. And so I felt like I had to, I should have done what he wanted. I should have changed how I was.

And again, I've written, I don't want to change myself. I don't want to be different. And yet I very much felt in that experience that I should have been.

Like if I just had been different, if I had just done this, if I had just changed the way I was, then he wouldn't have abandoned me. He wouldn't have left. And again, this is over the course of two months, but this was a big deal.

This was some guy who randomly saw me and asked me out, and then we were seeing each other. It was like this felt very adult compared to what I'd experienced before. I was like, this is the real world.

And all of it was scary. It was really, I was very scared, but that also made it exciting. But again, after all of this happened, I just felt empty.

I was like, oh my God, it's true. It's true. Guys don't like me.

There is something inherently wrong with me. And that's something that I had already felt from a very young age. And so this solidified that.

This took me to another high where I experienced the actual dating and being with someone, you know? And then at the end of that, it's like, nope, I don't like you. You're not good enough.

I'm not going to tell you why. I'm just going to leave. So that's kind of where I left things right before, I'd say, my 19th birthday.

So thank you for listening and following along on this exploratory journey. And I will see you in the next episode. Bye.

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Audio Transcript

Sex and the city

Note to self