9 Leti
Leti
I’m desperate to be wrong—to shake myself out of this dating rut before it begins.
Which is why I dressed to kill on Friday night in a pair of fitted black jeans and a red lace crop top that shows more skin than I’m normally comfortable with.
I need to shake things up a bit. This time, I matched with a gorgeous girl who works in finance and has the most arresting green eyes I’ve ever seen.
Then again, it could just be good lighting. Or Photoshop.
But I don’t care. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?
Twenty minutes later, I arrive outside the Italian restaurant we agreed to meet at. Erica Fuller is standing by the door, and she looks like her profile picture. We’re off to a fantastic start already.
“Hi, Leti.” She pulls me into her arms for a hug. “So nice to meet you.”
“You too.” I duck my head shyly. She opens the door for me, and I step inside the restaurant. A host leads us to a table right away.
We hit it off immediately. The way we fall into conversation is like we’ve been doing this for years.
We spend the next twenty minutes talking about the recent movies we’ve seen.
When she excuses herself to go to the restroom, I finally let myself smile the giddiest, dorkiest smile and do a little shimmy in my seat.
It isn’t until I look up that I spot Julian, seated a mere table away. His eyes are already locked on me.
Instantly, I freeze. He tilts his head, as if he can’t quite believe it either. His eyes narrow ever so slightly, mouth agape. Then, as if this moment couldn’t get any more awkward, he asks, “Are you on a date?”
“So what if I am?” I pick up the menu and feign perusing the entrées. I already know what I’m ordering, but he doesn’t have to know that. “That’s allowed.”
“Never said it wasn’t.” I sneak a glance at him above the laminated menu. He’s the only person seated, table clear except for a single place setting directly in front of him.
“Are you here alone?” I don’t know why I’m asking. It’s not as if I care.
“Yep.” He sits back in his chair, arms crossing behind his head. I ignore the way his lean arm muscles bulge from the strain. “That’s allowed too.”
Before I can think of a reply, Erica returns to the table. “All right, where were we?”
We pick up the conversation right where we left off, smoothly transitioning from one topic to another until somehow we’ve stumbled onto the subject of last relationships.
A bead of sweat forms on my forehead when she asks me why I’m still single, and then why my last relationship ended. I shrug and give a nonanswer.
“Um, we weren’t a good fit, I guess.” Dating is hard enough without figuring out your sexuality at the same time.
I knew that I liked Steven. No one had ever asked me out first, and I liked that he took the initiative.
Before him, I’d felt invisible when it came to romantic prospects.
I liked holding hands while walking to class and how he’d put his arm around my shoulders and pull me into him when we watched movies at his dorm.
It was clear he wanted a physical relationship, and I could never quite figure out how to want what he wanted.
People in college were having sex all the time, or at least it seemed that way back then.
He didn’t mean to pressure me, but despite him saying on multiple occasions that we could wait until I was ready, I put that pressure on my shoulders just the same.
There wasn’t anything easily explainable that was preventing me from having sex with him.
Sure, I didn’t like his need to not put a label on our relationship or that he acted super weird the one time I picked up his phone while he was in the bathroom when his mom called.
We’d often get into arguments about his level of commitment, but that’s not what was holding me back from sleeping with him.
I’d later learn that despite being romantically attracted to Steven, I wasn’t sexually attracted to him.
While I had a sex drive, what I lacked was a drive to have sex with him specifically, which wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t mine either. On top of being a virgin who had no idea what to expect when it came to sex outside of what I’d seen in movies or read in romance books, I had no idea what the ace spectrum was, let alone where I fell on it.
Four years later, I know a lot more about myself than I did back then.
I’m still a virgin, but I’ve decided that I don’t necessarily need to be sexually attracted to a partner to have sex if it’s important to them and we’ve built a foundation of trust and open communication.
There might be an adjustment period, but as long as I have a partner who’s willing to adjust with me, we should be fine.
“Sorry, I know that doesn’t tell you much,” I say when Erica doesn’t respond. “I guess you could say we had communication problems? Eventually, we imploded and I took some time to figure things out before dating again.”
“Oh, wow.” She leans forward in interest. “So is this your first date after him?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I went on one really bad date directly after him before swearing off dating for…um, a few years.” Behind her, Julian’s silverware clatters to the floor.
He pushes his chair back, and then his head disappears from view under the table.
“I was on another date last weekend too. So, no pressure.” I try to laugh, but it comes out more as a wheeze.
I leave out that both dates were with the same guy and that that very man is seated right behind her.
“Well, you’re still putting yourself out there after all that, which is admirable,” she says, smiling. “Dating can be the worst.”
“What about you?” I ask suddenly, forcing my eyes away from Julian as his head comes back into view. “What was your last relationship like?”
“Ugh,” Erica groans. “I’ll take the cake on this one for sure. It was bad.”
“Really?” I lean forward. “What happened?”
“Don’t even get me started.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, he had literally no dating or sexual experience. Like, I’m pretty sure I was his first kiss. And he was twenty-five! Who the hell makes it to twenty-five without learning how to kiss properly?”
I cringe as soon as the words are out of her mouth.
The last person I kissed was Steven, and that was four years ago. Can you forget how to kiss if you don’t do it for long enough? It’s not as if I feel like I’m missing out on anything. From what I can remember of it, kissing was nice but nothing to lose my mind over.
“But if you liked him enough, why does that matter?” I swallow past the dry lump in my throat, then take a sip of water when that doesn’t help. “I mean, is it really that big of a deal?”
“I didn’t think it was at first,” she says.
“It wasn’t until I realized I was having to teach him how to be in a relationship that it became frustrating.
I felt more like his mom half the time. I hated having to nag at him to communicate with me for the simplest things.
And don’t even get me started on the first time we had sex.
” Her voice lowers. “When I say I was teaching him everything, I mean everything. I can’t do it anymore. It’s too exhausting.”
“Right.” I can’t look at her, not when this strange, nervous energy has filled my body the longer she explains her frustration. I’m guessing it’d be a deal-breaker for her to know on top of not remembering how to kiss “properly,” I’m also the biggest virgin alive.
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I need to be with someone who knows how to be in a relationship,” she continues, oblivious to my inner late-bloomer turmoil.
“This…might not work out the way you want it to, then,” I say, because I at least owe her the truth. We’re both wasting our time here, and yet somehow, I feel like I’m wasting hers more.
She looks at me quizzically before the expression freezes on her face. Then something like pity crosses her features. Her eyes soften as her mouth forms a pitying smile. “Oh, honey.”
I hate the way she says it. Half realization, half patronizing.
I shrink in my seat, skin heating from equal parts anger and shame.
I fight the urge to say I have been kissed, that I’ve made it all the way to second base, in fact, but it wouldn’t do either of us any good.
Despite yearning for it, I have no idea what it’s like to be in a real relationship.
I can’t guarantee she won’t have to teach me on some level how to be with a partner like that.
Besides, my second-base experience only lasted the two seconds it took to remove Steven’s hand from my chest.
Strike two.
My third date better be fan-fucking-tastic.
“You’re right. This probably isn’t going to work out.” She flashes that pitying smile again. “I think we’re looking for two different things. But it was so nice to meet you.”
She stops me when I reach for my purse, making a show of placing her card on the bill.
Maybe the gesture was meant to make me feel better, but it has the opposite effect.
Even worse is when the waiter returns with her card and she stands up to leave.
At the next table over, Julian’s eyes are trained down determinedly on his empty plate.
A new burst of shame burns my chest. He must think I’m beyond pathetic too.
If my brother were here, he’d roast me to hell and back.
I’m expecting the same from Julian, but he surprises me instead.
“She’s an asshole,” he says right as Erica makes it to the door. Her back stiffens, but she doesn’t turn her head as she opens the door and disappears behind it. “Better to know now than to let her waste any more of your time.”
My eyes begin to sting. I don’t dare let myself look at him, even when he leaves his table and seats himself in the chair Erica vacated. He snaps open his to-go container and pushes it toward me. “Breadstick?”
For a moment, all I can do is stare at the box he’s placed in front of me.
He’s being…nice. This isn’t what I expected from him at all.
With nothing left to lose, I reach for a breadstick, reveling in the crunch against my teeth.
I’m usually not a fan of crunchy breadsticks, but these are crispy, buttery amazingness.
Once the initial sting of tears subsides, I allow myself to look at him.
There’s nothing pitying in Julian’s expression, except maybe for the concern lining his furrowed brows.
He doesn’t say a word, just lets me process my feelings in silence.
“I’ve kissed people before,” I tell him, though I’m not sure why it’s important to me that he knows that. Maybe I’m still feeling defensive, waiting for him to make fun of me the way Andrew would have. “Or, one person at least. For the record. It’s…been a while.”
“Like I said, she’s an asshole,” he says.
“There have been statistics done on our generation. We’re dating less, and not nearly as sexually active as our predecessors.
The numbers don’t lie.” He raises an index finger for emphasis.
“Besides, I was a late bloomer. I’m sure I felt that arrow as sharply as you did. ”
“Really?” I ask him. “How old were you when you had your first kiss?”
“Twenty-two,” he says. “You?”
“Twenty-one.” I grin with my teeth. “Ha.”
“So petty.” He shakes his head fondly. “Feel better now?”
“Marginally.” I bite into another breadstick.
I do feel better, actually. “I’ve been on many a bad date in the past. Who am I telling?
You know twice over.” He places a hand on his chest, faux-wounded.
“But as many bad dates as I’ve been on, none have ever left me feeling…
small. I sure know how to pick ’em, don’t I? ”
“It’s not your fault. Dating is harder than ever these days.
” When I push my half-eaten plate toward him, he folds his hands in prayer and bows his head slightly before popping a zucchini fry into his mouth.
“That’s why you have to suss them out early.
Especially if you’re using dating apps.” When all I do is stare at him, he continues.
“Ask them about the stuff that matters to you before meeting in person. Better yet, ask them their most controversial opinion. Trick them into waving their red flags early on.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because there’s a reason I bombed those two first dates with you.” He pops another fry into his mouth. “I’m a lot better at giving dating advice than I am at actually dating anyone.”
“That can’t be true.” I’m not sure why I’m defending him. I don’t even know Julian, and I never planned on doing anything to change that. Not that my plans mean anything, these days.
“Oh, but it is,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh. By the smirk lifting the right side of his mouth, he doesn’t seem to mind much either. “I’d tell you to check my track record, but you kind of are my track record. You and one other person anyway.”
“Well, now I don’t feel so bad about driving Erica away.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it before speaking, an intensity burning in his eyes I don’t recognize.
I can sense he wants to say something but maybe doesn’t know how to broach the topic.
He probably wants to ask me about what I told Erica before the conversation turned around on me.
Inexplicably, my dating hiatus started and ended with this man.
There’s a strange contradiction in that.
I haven’t allowed myself to think on it too much until now.
Instead of voicing whatever’s on his mind, he leans forward and rests a reassuring hand on my shoulder. His smile is tentative. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” It’s not what I’m expecting him to say, but it soothes my roiled nerves the same.
“Thanks.” I mirror his tentative smile. “I hope so too.”