Sabotaging Sex

Love can happen at first sight. My parents are a shining example and forty married years later enable this belief in me. Like every other romantic I don’t just want to be in love, I want to be in love in a movie.

Everyone seems to be of the consensus that you can’t choose who you fall in love with. I half agree with this. I do believe love ‘happens’ but I also believe there are people who go through the motions, and either fool themselves into thinking it’s real or find they love the comfort of convenience. Hmm. Maybe these are just other kinds of love, and who am I to judge what works?

Attraction and love are relative things and for me it seems they should follow one another in leading up to sex. So why does it seem to me everyone and their mother is able to separate the two things? Even reverse them? I guess it’s normal to have sex with someone you’re attracted to and not in love with (at least for everyone who isn't me) but how do people have sex with someone they’re not attracted to? Do people really need to have sex that badly? Why don’t I have that drive?

Strangely enough I also believe there is more than one person who could be ‘the one’. It’s all about time and place. And yet, I can’t let myself out to meet even one of them.

I’m not a virgin because I’m saving myself for one special person. If I could find someone I was attracted to, who I felt safe with, and who I felt wouldn’t expect anything of me afterwards (which is kind of a contradiction I know) I think I’d be able to sex it up like no other. Actually, there is one guy who fits one and two, but three? I know he’d want to start a relationship and though he is my friend, I don’t think I could fall in love with him. I’ve tried to imagine it, I’ve even tried to spend time with him thinking of myself as being his better half. He is an amazing man and I'm missing out by not going for him. It's nuts that I know this and still keep my convictions. It's the spark. The goddamn spark. It’s just not there for me. Perhaps I could talk myself into it?

I’ve actually thought about asking him to sleep with me just so I could maybe get over some fears, but I can’t use him like that. He has expressed interest in me in the past and I think I’ve already stomped on his heart. Katie seems to think that if I slept with him and gave things half a chance, I might fall in love with him. Another friend echoes what I said about using him.

I think I’m a virgin because I want to be in the kind of love that makes sex amazing. Also because I’m convinced I’ll be in that 1% that gets pregnant or a STD because my contraception failed. I know there are plenty of people out there who have amazing sex without being in love, but I think the chemicals in my brain would prevent me from experiencing that unfortunately. There is a safety issue that is deep seeded in me I guess. And I’m not just talking physically.

Which leads me to confess that I want to fall in love fast so I can stop sabotaging myself before I even start. I want love to ‘happen’ so I don’t have to think (and overthink) it. I want the feeling of safety I’m just not going to get in the amount of time I want to get it. Or is that just something else I’m telling myself?

So why do I feel so unsafe all the time? Is it legitimate? Why do I worry about pregnancy and STDS and whatever else negative that comes of casual sex? Why do I feel like it is every guy’s expectancy to get laid after dating for a short period of time whether or not he actually likes me? Why can’t I give them, and myself, a chance? What’s the big deal anyway, why can’t I just get over myself and do it?