HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY

MEET HIM AT a party during your first semester of college, one you hadn’t planned on going to. Order your gin and tonic, lean against the bar, catch a glimpse of him across the room. He stands next to a neon sign, a beer in his hand, glowing, orange. Don’t expect anything. You never expect anything. There are girls everywhere. Hotter, sluttier, better. You haven’t even had your first kiss, held hands, been a prospect to anyone. You’re here to get drunk, stagger home at 3am, go to Spanish the next morning. It’s not the goal but it’s fine, you’ll have dealt with enough disappointment by now to have accepted that. Besides, you don’t even know what you’d do if anything happened, with your hands, your mouth. It would be an absolute fiasco. He is nice looking, though, so you keep staring. The specifics don’t matter. His name will be Austin, or Chris, or Luke, and he will have great, wavy hair, the kind coiffed just casually enough that you forget he’s just an Austin, Chris, or Luke. Keep your expectations low, or at least try to. He will talk to a girl, someone taller and more confident, but she will end up in the corner with another guy, and his eyes will land on you again. You’ll get one drink, make small talk. He’ll be from somewhere unimportant, like Texas, or Maryland, or North Carolina. He’s a freshman too, at a college nearby. He wants to be a screenwriter. He wants to take you home. You’ll go outside with him and ask him what he wants to do, to which he’ll respond with a question about where you live. That’s not what you expected, but you won’t want to lose him now, so you’ll tell him and then you’ll wait for the bus together. On the bus you will have a conversation peppered with silences. To fill them, you will say things like, “Wow, the bus is never this empty,” and “How about that rain today?” You will realize he’s actually pretty boring. When you first saw him, you might have, against your better judgement, began to hope that you could have an actual relationship with him. But the silences and the harsh fluorescent of the bus will make you realize this might be a mistake. You won’t want to inconvenience him, though, so you’ll steel yourself and ask him about his classes. You can hate