Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / March 2007

Hi, everyone. I can't really think of a great way to open, so I will
just start by telling my story.

I am a fairly attractive 19 year old male who has never had sex, or
even so much as kissed a girl. For the longest time, and even now, I
am very shy. A lot of women are interested in me, but I am only
interested in one person.

In my freshman year of high school, I met a girl who appeared to show
great interest in dating me. She was beautiful, clever, and we just
had so many things in common. At this point I was too young to
understand my feelings, and appeared very distant and confused to her.
At this point she practically told me point blank that she wanted to
have sex with me. We started spending some time together and we would
talk upwards of five hours each day on various instant messaging
programs. We became best friends. I have heard that friendship easily
blossoms into love, and is also the best foundation for a
relationship, and so, after some time, I began to seek physical
attention from this girl.

Unfortunately, around the same time I began to consider her as
something more than a friend, I found that she already had a
boyfriend; someone she had met over the internet who lives in New
York, and now Louisiana (I live in Memphis, Tennessee, by the way).
She tried to hide this from me, and I figured that there was no way
that she could hold what appeared to me as shallow long distance
relationship, and also, that because she wanted to hide it from me,
she felt something deeper with me, so I continued to pursue her.

Two years of talking and hanging out together pass, and the girl
remains faithful to her boyfriend, never seeming to show any physical
interest in me, aside from the initial buzz from when we first met. At
this point, I am absolutely overcome by frustration and regret,
wishing that I could've made a move when she was being so forward with
me.

Eventually, after I had made it very obvious that I had feelings for
her, she confessed to me about her boyfriend, and told me that she
really did love him, and that she was sorry for not telling me
earlier. She told me that she only liked me as a friend, and had no
romantic interest in me, and probably never would. This was
devastating to me, but I stayed with her, because by this time, what I
felt for her could only be described as love, and just being her
friend was enough for me.

Throughout the majority of high school, the way we would spend time
together is to bring along a third person to wherever we were going,
essentially to stop me (or her?) from making a move. Up until our
junior year, that third person had been someone neither of us
particularly cared for, male or female, the only real requirement for
being that third person was body heat. During the summer of our
sophomore year, we went to the movies with a third wheel, and the girl
ended up driving me home by herself (she is a few months older than
me, and thusly was able to drive before me). We had had a wonderful
time that night; I was especially fun and clever, and she stayed right
with me, never missing a beat the entire time. She got out of the car
with me, and gave me a hug on the way to my door. I am desperately in
love with her by this time, although we hardly ever touch, and having
her initiate contact for the first time in what felt like ages felt
amazing to me. I looked down into her eyes, and stared for a moment,
and she stared back. I leaned over and kissed her. My first kiss. It
was sloppy. I tried to push my tongue into her mouth, but she wouldn't
let me. At the time of the kiss, I actually believed that she was the
one who kissed me. It really felt like that. I kissed her on complete
accident. After the kiss, she hurried off, feeling as what I would
later recognize as distress, and I fell to the ground in euphoria. I
lay there in the grass, smiling, and looking up at the stars.

The next time I spoke to her online, though, she was very distant,
which was very confusing to me, because I thought that just days
before that she was telling me that she returned my love through
physical action. Things became more awkward after this.

In eleventh grade, she met a guy in a study hall who she became
friends with, and began to bring along with us on our pseudo-dates.
Although it doesn't really show in this essay of sorts, I am normally
a very funny person. I am also very soft spoken, as compared to this
guy, who had no trouble walking all over me. I began to feel like the
third wheel; that I was being replaced by this guy.

One day, I had had enough. She felt like I was being too clingy, and
told me this, so I told her that if she wanted to talk to me, or spend
time with me, she would have to take the initiative. I then blocked
her from my instant messaging, and began dodging my entire friend
group at school. I continued to do this for an entire semester; the
last semester of high school. People who were once my friends became
afraid of me, or worse, laughed at me for doing this to myself over a
girl. I didn't care though. I didn't like any of them. I only spent
time with them because the girl liked them.

I didn't go to prom. I didn't go to graduation. I just sulked. She
never tried to talk to me. My shyness was amplified, and perverted. I
began to hate everyone, including myself.

The next year, I began attending college near my hometown, taking up
an undecided major. My first semester was uneventful, and without
purpose. I brought back mostly A's, but still felt empty. The girl was
going to a college away from home, and I figured I would never see her
again.

I wish I could end the story here and call it a sad ending, but
unfortunately it gets a lot worse.

The second semester began, and I walked into my first class of the
year to see that girl sitting in my seat. She had transferred to my
school, into my class, into my seat. I couldn't believe it. I didn't
know what to think. That first class was, of course, incredibly
awkward, but afterwards she contacted me through the boy who turned me
into the third wheel. I took her off of my block list, and acted like
a complete a.s, typing in all caps, and shouting incoherently at her.
I have the conversation saved, if anyone is really interested in
seeing it, but basically it ended with me blocking her again. But, to
my amazement, when we were talking, she opened up a direct connection,
and upon blocking her, she was able to talk to me through the block,
which is actually, as nerdy as it may sound, how we used to talk to
each other late into the night; we'd make a direct connection, then
sign off, so no one else could talk to us. I thought to myself that
this had to be some kind of sign, there must be a God, that this
simply couldn't be coincidence, and from this point we worked through
our differences, and she decided not to drop the class.

She showed tremendous affection towards me after this point. She
wanted to spend practically every moment with me, but was worried that
I would get sick of her. I felt like I was in heaven; this was
wonderful, this was fantastic, this was great. She'd stay in my dorm
room until the wee hours of the night just talking to me, and it was
always painful for us when she knew she had to go. She tried to get me
into bed twice; once at her place, and once at mine. But I was too
stupid and confused to act, so she got frustrated and left. Well, when
I was at her place, she just wanted me to sleep over, and I stayed
awake on her couch, hoping to God that she would come to me in the
night, which is silly, because she stayed awake in her bed, hoping
that I would come to her in the night. I know all of this because she
confessed it to me at a later date.

She told me that things weren't really working out with her boyfriend,
that she wanted to talk about getting engaged, but he didn't seem all
that interested, and how he was going abroad for a year, and how she
didn't think she could be faithful during that time. She told me how
she hated his friends, and even had trouble with his personality at
times. Her boyfriend is almost my polar opposite. He is the kind of
person that the girl and I would've made fun of in high school. Their
relationship had always baffled me; I didn't think it would last. And
so finally, my hopes seemed to be realized.

I invited the girl to a party with me, where I planned to get very
drunk after being pressured slightly by the girl. I had never been
drunk before, simply because I had never felt like drinking. I drank
five or six shots of some kind of whiskey, and very quickly began to
feel very retarded. Most of my memory is blank, but I do remember
acting like a little kid, and eventually puking everywhere. I
apparently kept apologizing to the girl and telling her how cute I
thought she was, and how cool I thought she was. This apparently
turned her off big time.

She became more distant, and I became very, very confused, because
only a few days earlier, she was telling me how badly she wanted to
sleep with me. I remember her specifically saying "I want to get under
your covers, and make you feel good!" and feeling butterflies explode
in my stomach. But now she was much less physical, though happy to
talk to me, as always. My birthday was coming up, and I figured that
she was probably just waiting to make a move on my birthday, so maybe
our first time would be more special. But my birthday came and passed.
She baked a cake for me, which was nice, I guess. The day after my
birthday, I went to class with her like normal, and after class we
went down to the cafeteria, just like normal, and when I left to go to
my next class, I hugged her while she was sitting down. It was an
awkward hug, reminiscent of our first kiss, but I had to let her know
how I felt somehow.

Later that day, she messaged me online, which led to a very long and
painful conversation. She told me that everything she wanted with me
was purely physical, she still loved her boyfriend. She then explained
to me that the reason their relationship works is because he is very
distant towards her; they only have sex when she initiates it. She
said that she showers him with affection, but rarely gets a response,
which is what keeps her in the game. He doesn't get clingy or
emotional over her, he doesn't indulge her when she is being whiny or
overemotional. That is usually what I am for. I can always cheer her
up and empathize with her.

The reason she was attracted physically to me is because when we were
first getting back together, I was very distant and detached. Seeing
me drunk made her realize that I felt very deeply for her, so the
sport was gone.

During the year that we weren't speaking, her relationship with her
boyfriend was weakest. I think that is because she needs me
emotionally, but needs him physically.

And this brings me to the present.

Is their relationship going to last? Should I wait it out? Should I
pretend to be distant again in attempt to get her to fall for me? Is
it her concept of love that is twisted, or is it mine? Should I just
try to get rid of her? Should I try to start a relationship with
another girl? I have tried that; I keep comparing whoever I'm dating
to the girl I love, and they just never are enough. The girl's room
mate has offered very forwardly to have sex with me. She is a
stripper, and kind of a slut in general. Should I sleep with this
stripper girl to build my confidence and maybe help me learn not to be
so emotional over sex?

I love this girl. I really do.

Someone please help.