Dating : I Was Madly In Love with Him But Not Our Sex Life

He was the first love I ever had.

We shared that new, young love feeling: all shiny and all-consuming. We could stare at each other for minutes and minutes at a time and just breathe in all the oxytocin.

It’s hard for me to put into words the level of feelings that I had for him.

As a high school girl with raging hormones, I loved him fiercely, like a wildfire. I could not contain it. And I didn’t try.

We didn’t have sex in high school, but we did a lot of foreplay. I remember him pushing me up against the wall outside my parents’ house and kissing me all the way down my body. He was rough. And I liked that.

I couldn’t know until later on that we were better at the lead-up than we were at the main event.

Pushing the boundaries was conflicting for me. I felt dirty and elicit and I lost myself in the passion of it. But also, I felt guilty as fuck.

We were good at this part of it because there was always the threat of being caught. We’d hide out on my parents’ porch, then sneak into his car, always worried we would be found out.

With stakes being high, it made every stolen physical touch even hotter.

Then, in college, we were only left with each other.

By the time we were both in college, we’d worn each other thin from fighting and toxic behaviors.

We clung to each other, still, hoping that we would get back to the initial out-of-our-minds, in-love feeling.

We did not.

Instead, we decided to introduce sex into the picture.

I lost my virginity to him. Before I “went through with it,” he warned me that he was bigger than most guys. He’d had sex with other girls during our breakups, and apparently they couldn’t handle it.

I had nothing to compare him to. I didn’t know what a big penis was or wasn’t. So, I just said we would figure it out.

We had sex for the first time in between classes, during a weekday, after a major fight. Because what solves giant relationship flaws like sex?

It hurt. It wasn’t great. And I don’t think I was very wet at all. But, we practiced, and it got better. We practiced and I thought it was great. We practiced and I thought we were fixed.

It wasn’t until I had sex with other people that I realized how lacking our sex life really was.

I never looked forward to having sex with him. I think I didn’t know that I was supposed to want it. He was big, looking back on it, and neither of us knew how to make me cum.

So, I just didn’t.

Our sex life was a problem. But it was the effect, not the cause.

If we had had sex in high school, I think this story would have ended differently. I think having sex at the peak of our love for each other would have made it better for both of us.

Instead, we used sex as a way to try and find our way back into love. It couldn’t work.

We were too far away from the two teens on the porch that we had once been.

Sex can’t save us. It’s not a solution to a problem that is too rooted in our relationships. Sex can be a band-aid, but it cannot be surgery.

My boyfriend and I had outgrown each other, and that was okay. We were just too invested to let go.

Eventually, we did break up. I went out to sleep with other guys and get better at sex. I realized what it felt like to have sexual chemistry with someone, and I realized sex could be great.

You may be deeply in love with someone and it may just not work sexually. You may barely know someone and have mind-blowing sex with them.

We don’t know from a look or a make-out what sex will be like between two people.

It’s a chance we’re all taking.