monotonous firsts

I had my first kiss at a college party. And 24 hours after that, I was in bed with a different boy. So it goes in college.

In Greek myths, Cupid shot arrows into the hearts of young lovers. Today, we take Tequila shots instead. And believe me, the patrons of Patron got a lot further than those of Cupid. Emboldened by jello shots, readings of de Beauvoir, and the pure invincibility of youth, I dove into the age of non-definitions with an abandon that bordered on cliché.

I remember experiencing something like a minor existential crisis after my first kiss. It was with a boy I didn’t know terribly well. Swaying under the doorway, we did the deed under the careful watch of a cohort from the living room. He used too much tongue, I used too little discretion. The best part was only the denouement. No awkward goodbye, just a laugh with the head thrown back, and a skip down the stairs. Whatever my inexperience, I had gotten one thing right. The pretense of ‘casual’. Of ‘whatever’.

A trail of escapades later, I now come face to face with a new kind of peers—those for whom happily-ever-afters exist after all. Tiffany rings and family planning, they threaten to burst into my life. Spearheaded by the annoying tendency of human nature to compare one’s life with others.

The ‘whatever’ I had nailed so perfectly a few years ago, swaying under that doorway, I don't know if I can ever replicate it without pretense. Unlike written drafts, sex, and most other things in life, 'whatever' is best achieved the first time around. After that, the Patron, the swaying under strange roofs, they look hopelessly the same. Fuzzy on the cure, I wake up hungover from the last few years, and find myself yearning not for de Beauvoir, but Greek myths instead.

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