If I would have waited until I was ready to have sex, emotionally mature enough to deal with what I was going to feel after having sex, I would have been 24 years old. Unfortunately, I felt compelled, by an imaginary milestone chart I had created in my mind, and that chart told me, at 17 years old, I had been a virgin long enough. I always had a plan and sometimes they were pretty fucking stupid.

One night after a party my senior year of high school, I found my drunken self in an abandoned house with my best friend and two guys I had never met before. We paired off and found separate rooms in the house. She made out with a guy in one room, while I was busy experiencing an array of new hormonal and emotional bonds with a complete stranger in another.

My first sexual experience set the tone for all subsequent sexual encounters I would ever have. There have been very few instances where I haven’t had sex with a potential partner too soon into our relationship. I always see this in retrospect but continue to do so. The reason is twofold. The first reason being the simplest… I love sex. The second is an act of desperation. It is an all-consuming desire to “connect” with a prospective soul mate.

I really enjoy having sex. I think about and talk about sex more than a 16 year old boy. I am not promiscuous and haven’t had a slew of partners. The reason I haven’t slept with more men is I have an issue with physical contact. I grew up in family that didn’t show a lot of physical affection and father who was physically violent. So although I desire physical contact I struggle with being physically intimate. It is a paradox I struggle with. But I do love sex and like to have it regularly once I have selected a candidate.

I think, because I struggle with the act of physical intimacy and I have become far more discerning about who I will sleep with, once I find a person I am willing to engage, I am far to too eager to do so with a false sense of urgency. I typically sleep with men I am attracted to within the first month of interacting with them and most of the time without expressing my feelings or my desire to find a long term mate. I want to connect emotionally and expect rather than inform my sexual partners of my desired outcome. This behavior has yet yield positive results.

I am slowly, as become older and wiser, attempting to modify the way I enter into physical relationships but still have trouble speaking openly about how I feel and what I ultimately want. My reckless actions in the past have only left me bitter and leery of men and even more timid about being physically intimate. I have become increasingly more shy and awkward around men and exceedingly more passive when I realize that I am not going to achieve my ultimate goal. I have become my own worst enemy.

I have engaged in many a casual, aimless relationship. I have no one to blame for my current status but myself. I can be articulate but not honest in intimate situations. It isn’t just about physical intimacy or hormonal bonds. It is about being truthful about what you want and bowing out if you know you aren’t going to get it spending intimate time with someone.

I am trying to find a balance between being honest and still protecting my heart. Since the night I lost my virginity, I have never had sex with someone I didn’t feel a connection to. These relationships still failed but didn’t fail because I was being objectified or used. I allowed myself to tolerate those situations in the hopes that my sexual partners would have some epiphany about what my goal was rather than seeing me as a woman who was just willing to have sex with them casually.

By the time I am fed up with partners’ inability to read my mind, it is too late. I become consumed by my frustration and blame them for the crumbling of my pseudo-relationship. I am hurt and angry, and my partners are confused. It is no one’s fault but my own that I allowed bad relationships to continue. (Did I mention I really like sex?) I present myself, from the start, in a way that is antithetical to my purpose. I am afraid of opening up. I am afraid that I will be rejected. I am afraid that I may never truly value myself enough to modify this behavior.