Sitting in a local coffee shop on Saturday morning last week, I overheard a group of young girls discuss everything that you would expect them to talk about. Such as cute boys, the latest “Gossip Girl” episode and which jeans do not make their asses look fat. There was one topic, however, that took me a little by surprise. It was the idea that if you were to use a condom when having intercourse, that it technically did not count as sex and if you somehow happened to mess that detail up, then all you had to do was abstain from intercourse for seven years to have your “virgin” status reinstated. Apparently, during that period of celibacy, the hymen reattached itself (magically perhaps?).
After I chocked on my skinny vanilla soy latte, I had a thought—Wouldn’t it be great if we could all apply those rules to other aspects of our lives. Sort of like a cosmic do-over concept. For me, I would start driving without my shoes and the next time I get pulled over for speeding, I would confidently look the officer square in the eyes and say, “Sir, you can just rip that ticket right up, because today, my lead foot isn’t wearing shoes…and after all, speeding doesn’t count if you’re not wearing shoes.”
I especially love the idea of regaining your virgin status via a waiting game. This is the anatomical by-law that somehow supersedes the normally mundane rules of life. Gravity, space-time and physics be damned, The Rule of the Waiting Game trumps mere logic and I, for one am in favor of such a clause. I am a serial dater and for all attempts and purposes, have not had a real relationship in seven years. Does this make me a “relationship re-virgin?”
There is something appealing about waking up and starting fresh. Before that first break-up, you were braver, more willing to take chances. Before the first time someone made you cry, you pursued every relationship with reckless abandon. Before that first broken heart, you saw every opportunity as an infinite amount of possibilities. The world was brighter, the colors were electric and the glass was always half-full.
The colors seemed to fade with every heartbreak and you become more fearful, less trusting and more guarded. Dating became an effort and sometimes a Saturday evening spent in your pajamas beside your faithful schnauzer was far more preferable to a dinner and movie spent with a stranger.
With every broken heart, every morning that you woke up on a tear-stained pillow, you also gained experience. You gained wisdom. If in fact, we are the sum of all our experiences, those experiences not only make us who we are, but give us the opportunity to learn what we are looking for in someone else. Heartbreak is a tightrope that you walk and it can be awful difficult not to allow yourself to become jaded while you’re gaining that experience through those tears.
Listening carefully to those girls at the coffee shop, I wanted to give them some piece of advice to take out the door with them into the cold harshness that awaits them. Having no desire for a full conversation debunking sexual myths and untruths, I would leave them with this: Once your heart gets broken the first time, it can never be unbroken. It will heal, but there will always be a scar to remind us of that experience and urge us to garner the wisdom so that we will never be so reckless with something so precious.
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