It has been said that when a woman reaches her forties, her sex drive increases. Without getting into details, I’ve found it to be true, but I don’t know if it’s a biological thing or a psychological shift.
Sex just wasn’t fun for me when I was younger. It was serious business. I had extraordinarily high moral expectations. It was all about love and feelings. It was supposed to be magical and mean something.
Gag.
In reality, it was all awkward and embarrassing. I was a chubby girl with an insane fascination for bad boy musicians. Do you see the conflict here? Instead of settling for the math geeks who wanted to date me, I stood my ground, insisting on a bad boy with long hair—preferably in a band—with a sexy snarl, who wrote music that would sing to my soul.
You can stop laughing now.
I was deep. A fat girl with standards. A rare breed.
I spent all my high school years waiting for them to realize that the skinny, easy girls couldn’t satisfy them emotionally like I could. You can see how my judgement was a bit flawed.
My second year of college I lost weight. Suddenly, bad boys were everywhere, including one I’d had a crush on for months. I gave it the old college try, but found that my heart just wasn’t in it. I was still caught up in feelings and it bugged me to know that he was only dating me because I was skinnier.
And that’s how I pretty much looked at every guy from then on. The problem was that my judgment still didn’t match my morals. I was still attracted to the wrong guys. The difference was, now they were attracted to me. Be careful what you wish for.
Somehow I always thought I was going to find that diamond in the rough, but time after time I would always end up thinking, “Would this guy be with me if I was thirty pounds heavier?”
The answer, of course, was a firm NO! And that’s why I was never good at the one night stand. (Which probably pleases my mother to pieces.) But DAMN! Why did I have to think so much? I didn’t want to be that way. I wanted to let loose and have lots of sexual experiences, but somehow my standards always got in the way of all the fun I was sure I was missing.
Of course, the guys didn’t make it any easier. One time I ran into a guy I’d actually met the year before, but because of circumstances our 'alone time' had been interrupted. This time, when alone again, he looked at me all sweet and sexy and delivered the same EXACT line he had said to me the year before. WORD FOR WORD. Of course, being who I was, I had to point it out to him. This led to him making a big girly scene, which totally proved I was right, and single-handedly set my head straight.
I met Homer not long after.
Now I’m so grateful to be older, wiser, and not so intense. My body issues are still there, but they’re my issues and have nothing to do with my relationship—except when I eat something bad and then complain for hours. So not sexy.
I’m at ease in my relationship, and that makes sex better. I still have high expectations, but Homer ignores me and it all works out.
I have my regrets about not being more promiscuous, but not enough to tell my daughter to have at it when she’s ready. Sex is for the experienced, not for immature heads filled with deceptive fairy tales of what a relationship should be.
Did I mention Homer’s a drummer? Just sayin'.
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