Wednesday, February 11, 2015 // The Statement

7B

Personal Statement: What I don’t know

by Natalie Gadbois, Deputy Statement Editor

I

t was a middle school slumber party. Exhausted from
Dance Dance Revolution, licking coarse Dorito salt
from our fingers, we laid down in our spoke-and-wheel

sleeping bag circle, and we talked about sex.

Jade, the party’s host and wild card of the group, was the

first to make it personal: “I want to have sex for the first time
when I’m a junior in high school, with someone really cute
like Jason.” There were giggles and gasps, and I blushed,
because for years I had quietly, earnestly had a crush on cute
Jason.

Another girl, goofy and Catholic-bred like me, responded

in shock. “I am waiting until I get married. I only want to
have sex with one person ever.” Later she would go on to
date the school dreamboat, and their do-they-or-don’t-they
sex life was a sad constant of teenage gossip.

My turn. In typical rational, middle-of-the-line, oh what

a nice girl fashion, I said that I wanted it to happen in col-
lege. That I didn’t need to be in love, but it had to be with
someone I cared about. That it needed to be special, but not
rose-petals-dripped-on-the-bed, sexy-silk-teddy special. At
age 12 sex terrified me, with the burgeoning body parts and
whispered talk that it hurt really, really bad. But I felt no
shame imagining the future. Someday I was going to have
sex, and I was really going to like it.

Eight years later, I lie on my couch watching “Jane the

Virgin” with my best friend. I had been skeptical of the
show’s premise — a 23-year-old woman who has never had
sex becomes mistakenly artificially inseminated with her
ex’s sperm. But watching it, the similarities between Jane
and me soon became strangely apparent: we were both
grilled cheese aficionados, insecure writers, harborers of
Catholic guilt and modern world sensibilities, warmhearted
and practical in equal measure. And then there’s the whole
premise, the final nail in the coffin that links Jane and I: that
eponymous virginity.

To the consternation of seventh-grade-me, it hasn’t hap-

pened yet. I could falsely chalk it up to the lingering rem-
nants of my Catholicism but that would oversimplify it. Or I

could be the “chill girl” I’ve never been, say it really doesn’t
matter to me, that it will happen when it happens. Or I could
lie — as I have admittedly done before, during ill-advised
games of Would You Rather in low-ceilinged basements —
and vaguely pretend like it has happened, that I’m experi-
enced and jaded like so many others. But that would really
be a disservice to the fragile, complex, so, so frustrating rela-
tionship I have with my sexuality. I’m a virgin, and some-
times I feel weird about it.

Reading “Pride and Prejudice” as a kid, I would joyfully

imagine that someday when I was older and smarter and
more beautiful — the act of falling in love and being fallen
in love with. I’ve always been a pragmatist, independent and
rational, but a small part of me bled for those love stories.
Even then I didn’t equate love and sex, nor did I imagine a
rose-colored world in which I would meet the one man of
my dreams at the right time and the right place and the story
would end there, happily.

I wanted love, the kind Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had, but

I also wanted intimate passion, like the kind Lloyd Dobbler
and Diane had in “Say Anything.” I knew finding true inti-
macy was difficult, so I was patient. Waiting through high
school, I watched my friends fall in love with the wrong
people — have sex and call it painful, awkward, or the worst,
“not as exciting as everyone says it is.” I naively thought it
would come easily in college. I thought it would help define
me as I grew older — I equated my patience with maturity,
rather than fear of disappointment or rejection.

But then college came and with it dark Crystal Palace par-

ties and putting on sexy underwear because we’re in college
and you never know and guys trying to take my pants off in
dark corners while I drunkenly laughed and said, “I’m not
having sex with you.” Though I loved the energy and I never
stopped myself from having fun, I knew that wasn’t how I
wanted it to go down. I so desperately wanted to not care,
wanted to be able to have a one-night stand and wave a big
flag out my window the next morning saying, “I fucking did
it everyone!” And to be frank, I knew that as an 18-year-old

with a vagina, I could get it if I wanted it. Access wasn’t the
issue. Emotional attachment, mutual respect, and real, gen-
uine attraction were, and still are, the tricky parts.

For a while in high school I entertained the idea of becom-

ing a writer. I agonized, because the advice I got from teach-
ers and other writers was always, “Write what you know.”
But what did I know, beyond the fictional experiences from
books and TV that I reveled in? Sure, I was nice. I was smart.
But I did not feel exciting, nor did I live an exciting life. I
wasn’t the girl things happened to; I was the best friend or
the older sister or the daughter or the classmate who was
there to support, laugh at, or cheer on the people that more
exciting things did happen to.

“I’ve experienced nothing!” I would cry with ironic melo-

drama. “I know nothing!”

And while I no longer really feel that way — I’ve carved a

path of experiences, met fascinating people and lived a life
I’m happy to lead — it’s still a fear I carry today, even though
I’ve abandoned the idea of becoming the next Jane Austen.

This fear becomes tangled up in all my insecurities and

inadequacies. Maybe if I was bolder and brasher and braver I
could meet someone that excited me. Maybe I’m just not that
interesting, or at least not in an intriguing, sexy way. And
the most insidious doubt, the one I hate myself for thinking
but that’s always lurking in the pit of my stomach: maybe if
I was just a bit prettier, the good guys — the Lloyd Dobblers
of the world — would start forming a line. I know this type
of thinking isn’t healthy, and I force myself to self-affirm —
“You is kind, you is smart, you is important.” — but it’s hard
to validate myself when I feel like I have grown stagnant,
still that earnest seventh grader dreaming of the someday.

I know I am kind, and smart, and important, but I can’t

help think that I crave sex in the same way I crave that elu-
sive “experience.” On some level, I’m afraid if it doesn’t hap-
pen, it means I’m less of a person, that I’m doing something
wrong.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND