The College Virgin: Reoccurring Love

Remember how I said I dated in high school?  My high school love has played a huge role in my dating life; past and present.

He is someone that I have always had a connection with. Romantically, emotionally, and on a friendship level. With him, it’s the best of both worlds. He is someone who I love greatly; someone who has a piece of my heart forever. He’s someone who I can laugh with and feel comfortable around. There is never a need to put up a front, I call him out when he is playing games, and he supports me in so many ways. He tells me when I am overthinking and builds me up when I need it. It’s always been like this. I had the best of both worlds with him. Makes things easy, right? It does, but it also makes things complicated.

Things are always messy with him, but always worth it.

 

As I continue to open up about my heartbreaks and the extremely vulnerable moments in my life, it might become a little difficult to keep track of things. It is crucial that you don’t mix up who is who with certain experiences, so I’ve come up with an alias for him (it would be rude to reveal their identity as these experiences are theirs too).

Let’s call him… Ben.

Ben and I met during our high school choir years and instantly hit it off. It was something that everyone gossiped about; my friends, his, even our teacher. I remember some of our dates like it was yesterday. My favorite one is the double feature at the drive-in movie theater. This was our first date, and the best one. It was a chilly fall night, but he was well-prepared with blankets. Like a gentleman, he bought me hot chocolate and offered me his hoodie. Cuddled up in the back of his car, we missed a majority of the second movie… I’ll let you guess why.

Like any high school relationship, we did end up breaking up after a few months. With Ben being my best friend and boyfriend all in one I lost everything in one day. So when things ended, I was heartbroken. Our choir class was less like a class, and more like a family, so it made things difficult. I would dread heading to 7th period, because I wanted to avoid him at all costs. He would glance over in my direction and suddenly my eyes were daggers.

The rage didn’t last long because I missed him. I wanted my friend back and that meant having to swallow my pride. We got over our petty break up and went back to being friends.

Our friendship grew stronger and stronger through high school, and my family loved him. He would come over for dinner and even called my mom “mom”. To this day, my family still loves him and he loves them too.

Ben used to give me rides to and from school, and we would always grab a bite to eat together. So you could say that we spent majority of our time with each other.

Somewhere over time things changed. He and I started to get extra friendly with one another, soon progressing to extra flirty. Starting with little comments like, “you look really nice today!” Then moving onto “maybe you should unbutton that a little”. My best friend turned into my best friend with benefits.

The benefits started sweet and innocent, but have grown over the years. Unfortunately, so have my feelings.

Going to college, we said our goodbyes because we were attending different universities in different states. I let go of him (emotionally) but not completely. It was casual small talk for the first months, just catching up on how we were adjusting.

After my first college heartbreak, Ben was there for me. He was one of the first people I reached out to because I knew he would make me feel better. I knew that he would make me smile, and make me feel wanted. Telling me things like “it’s his loss” and “I’m a great girl” and “I could do better.”

He told me that he was glad I didn’t lose my virginity that night because he wanted to be my first.

This promise has stuck with me and is always in the back of mind.

The rest of my freshman year consisted of the roller coaster that Ben and I were. Constantly wanting one another, not wanting to lose the friendship, and suppressing our actual feelings for one another. Someone else would come along for one of us, and we would fall off romantically. Switching instantly back to best friends. This back and forth relationship burns us eventually.

Freshman year was over, and the anticipation had built up as to what the summer would hold. With both of us moving back home, we reconnected.

Not in the way you’re thinking, though. This story would be over if I lost my sacred “V Card” that summer. The details of our encounters that summer are certainly juicy, but are nothing compared to what the future holds.

This reoccurring love with Ben happens every year, in between all the other people we see.

Somehow we always end up in the same place… Single and missing each other.

But each time gets messier and messier.

This reoccurring love and his empty promise does not end here. You’ll hear more of him soon.