The 'V' Word
You probably don’t want to hear about my love life.
But you’re probably even less keen on hearing about my lack of a love life.
Today, I was asked the question: ‘are you single?’ This seems to be a question that is perfectly normal, culturally and socially, to ask - so I answered it truthfully. What else was I to do? To discuss one’s love life is, despite my first assertion, considered a relatively safe topic of conversation. But then came the question that turned the whole social situation on its head, plunging us into the very depths of awkwardness.
How long have you been single for?
This is a question that strikes fear into my heart. It makes it dives for cover in my stomach, causing my gut to plummet down to my feet, which in turn diverts all the blood from my brain and drains my body of heat. It terrifies me.
Because I can’t lie. I have to be honest.
Forever.
This is guaranteed to send every situation spiralling into an awkward silence; the news is digested, mulled over…they try to work out whether I’m being hyperbolic, whether it’s a metaphor…they laugh, say ‘no, but really’…and then they see my unsmiling face, my diverted eyes and my sudden fascination with my nervously twisting fingers…and they have to accept what they don’t want to accept.
Forget the ‘F’ word. Forget the ‘S’ word. Forget all of that. People would rather discuss mad orgies, nymphomaniac glee and the most mindfucking of fetishes than consider the fact that a nineteen-nearly-twenty-year-old could possibly still be on close terms with the ‘V’ word.
Do I have to spell it out?
I’m not going to.
Why not? I shouldn’t be ashamed of that; of using that word, of using it to describe what is, to be fair, accurate. But it’s a word that, in my experience, is steeped in shame.
As much as people make an obvious effort to reassure me that it’s okay - 'lot’s of people wait, there’s no problem with it, it’s not weird at all' - I can see it in their eyes. It’s the fucking pity that I can’t stand. That and the offers to ‘help me’. These looks and words crawl all over my skin: it makes me feel like I’m ill in some way...as though I’ve caught something dreadful...like my inexperience is some kind of disability that they need to help me overcome.
That, or they assume than I’m a prude with romanticised notions about relationships.
Either way, it’s not something I like to tell people. Luckily…or unluckily…people make assumptions. They see me, my age, my general self, and they assume that I’ve been there, done that and got the T-Shirt. I respond with a nod and a smile - I’m not lying, and if they’re going to make those assumptions then surely there is no harm in keeping my mouth shut?
But that’s part of the problem. The assumptions make me feel, inside, like I’m abnormal in someway. Like I’m failing. Like I’ve missed some sort of rite of passage.
I genuinely find it easier to tell people about my bisexuality than to tell them about this. Because this makes me out as a fraud in some way - it negates my bisexuality, shoves it to the side and renders it infallible. It negates me as a sexual being. It makes me feel as though I have failed people, that I have defrauded people, and that I don’t truly belong with the people I am surrounded by.
The simple fact of the matter is that I’m shy. You hear me? I’m fucking shy. I’m so shy sometimes I want to curl up in my own skin and die. My opinion of myself is as low as you can possibly imagine - probably as low as you possibly imagine if someone has then taken a spade and dug down another mile from that. If people flirt with me in anything other than a jokey way, I deflate inwards, I shield myself, I put up the defences.
To be honest, it doesn’t happen very often - the flirting, I mean. I’ve as good as convinced myself that I am an unattractive human being who is never going to find anyone who wants me. People who I’m close to tell me differently…but surely they’re too biased to judge that? They can tell me I’m attractive, or pretty, or nice, or fun, or interesting till the cows come home - I still ain’t got any fucking offers. So how in the living fuck do you explain that?
I was going to be mature or reasoned about this; I wanted to write a post that meant something, that was analytical, perhaps, that explored some kind of cultural attitude from ‘the other side’. It seems, however, as if this was always destined to be some kind of linguistic, technological counselling session.
So I’ll tell you that I lie in bed and cry. I’ll tell you that sometimes I’m so torn up with self-hatred that it physically hurts to get up in the morning. I’ll tell you that behind 85% of my smiles is a silent scream of are you that thick that you can’t see through this? I’ll tell you that I’m lonely, that I want to loved, I'll also tell you that I've as good as convinced myself that this isn’t going to happen.
The ‘V’ word. Virginity.
It's something people laugh at. Giggles and titters and laughter. It’s hilarious. The prude, the geek, the nerd, the sci-fi fan, the forty year old virgin, the old cat woman, the spinster. Ha. Poor things.
It’s not just about the sex…it’s the experience, the closeness, the affection, the tactility, the fucking love. It’s about feeling like you don’t have that in your life. It’s about feeling like nobody wants you. It’s about feeling like freak. It’s about feeling like a fraud. It’s about people’s unwanted pity. It’s about feeling like you are not and never ever will be good enough.
Yeah. It’s fucking hilarious.