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I am getting some blowback admitting my virginity
For this anonymous letter I am Calvin and my girlfriend is Susie. Like the real Calvin and Susie from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, Susie and I have always lived in the same neighborhood. Unlike the cartoon Calvin, I have always liked girls and had a crush on my Susie. Unfortunately, Susie was a little older and out of my league. We hung out growing up with each other as neighborhood friends. We are now 14 and 16 and I am finally taller. I had asked her out many times before (with several epic fails that will not be shared in this message). Finally, she was sweet but said not until I was in high school (to put me off for a while). But, true to her word, eight months ago just before school started she let me take her on date. It went pretty good and I guess it was not a fail because to our own amazement we have become a steady couple.
It has been an epic eight months. I personally know for sure in my bones I am really really really (three really’s) in love with her and I think she sort of may be falling in love with me now that she finally gave me a chance. She could be dating anyone in our school. She is that hot. We are talking hot as lava on fire (which is hot). But the main thing is how she makes me feel so awesome inside. She introduces me everywhere as her “boyfriend” which makes me feel like a stud. She comes to all my basketball games and even does her homework in the bleachers during a lot of practices. I always have to run extra suicides each time the coach catches me looking in her direction instead of paying attention. It is worth it even thought I end up a total exhausted mess after practice. She offered not to come to practices but it means so much to me she is there. My brothers are all grown and don’t live nearby, my dad works insane hours for our family, and my mom has bad health – so no one can come to my games or practices, but Susie is always there. She also takes videos with her iphone of the parts of games where I get to play and shows them to my mom later and even texts them to my dad. She is also good about editing out the epic goof-ups. How awesome is that?
I try to be a good boyfriend. I go to the mall whenever she wants as long as she wants and I just chill even if we spend hours there and she never actually buys anything. I even try on clothes I would never wear just cause she has fun making me wear random stuff. I am her year-round greenhouse slave every weekend helping her work at her parents business. The dad feels bad for not paying me because I work harder and do better work than their paid people (he said it to the mom who repeated it to Susie who told me), but I am too young to be on the payroll or whatever. The success of her family’s business is important to her, so it is important to me (and it does not hurt to make her dad like me). Plus they are nice people too and have known me my whole life. Unofficially, I get paid in kisses from Susie (usually on the cheek) plus winks and smiles from Susie (which I freaking live for). The dad accused me of “sucking up” to them with free work and I admitted that was totally true. Plus I get to show off and do “he-man” chores in front of Susie (that is what she calls them). Plus I get to learn a lot of Spanish just hanging around. Susie and her family are Cuban-American and I am plain old boring white American (mix of like 10 random white European things I don’t even know). But that is not really important to anything, except to say she is muy bonita.
What I need help with is dealing with the whole virgin thing. Even before we dated I knew Susie was a hard core Catholic and she did not do premarital sex. Her dad has had some embarrassing talks with me where I was told to keep my hands to myself blah blah and how the lust of the flesh or something is inside me because of original sin and my hormones but I can resist temptation blah blah and he was taking a chance on me. I told him Susie was a good girl and even though I had lust in my heart like he said she would not put up with me if I was not a good boy so I planned on being good. He laughed and said “Bueno.” So he liked that I was in. Susie and I had the official talk when we started dating and I am super clear we are not going all the way (or even very far down the road). I can look down the road and think about the road and what could be at the end or even on the way, but we are not going there. LOL She and I will both remain virgins as long as we are dating (unless she marries me). She knows I cannot help wanting to have sex, but I promised I will respect her wishes 100 percent and not pressure her on that. She is very affectionate (ohh man), but she has very specific and definite boundaries and I am cool with that (no matter how I feel in the moment, she is worth it). In fact, it makes her even hotter in some way that she is so desirable but I have to be good anyway. I don’t know how to explain. I get turned on just holding her hand and smiling at each other. It is a little wacky Do I get horny and frustrated? All the freaking time! But she is totally worth it. And I am not just saying that. After all, I don’t know you people and this is anonymous. I can say anything I really think, right?
I do not need help knowing how to behave with her. I can handle that part. The issue I have is about what other people know. Susie knew I did not necessarily want to be labeled an inexperienced virgin (especially around other athletes in high school). She also did not want to be labeled something bad as someone sleeping around (a word I will not say even though this is anonymous). So, by agreement, we were just vague with our friends saying that was “private” and not something we wanted to discuss. The problem was, that still left a cloud of gossipy doubt over her reputation like we were being evasive or something (like a criminal taking the fifth). She mentioned this before but I kind of blew it off because I was to into people thinking I might be a stud. But I realized she was right when I came back into the gym after showering (cause I am always last because of the suicides) and some of the upper classmen were talking to her and peppering her with questions about whether I was still a virgin and was I any good in bed and crap like that. She was obviously trying to be vague like we planned, but it was way awkward and she was obviously upset at being questioned and there being some question at her virtue versus my rep. After watching this for like 20 seconds from across the court (yeah I waited that long and she noticed it but not going to focus on that), I manned up and just said, “Dude, some people are worth waiting for.” It was like an epic rom com moment. There should have been music. She started crying because I basically outed myself as a virgin for her. I told them to “f--- off” and hugged her. I got a detention for cursing from the coach, who heard us because I was sort of loud in my big moment, but he gave me a smile and told me she was always welcome at practice. Thankfully, the seniors did not beat the crap out of me which they easily could have, but they did spread the story so now everyone knows I am a virgin and is talking about it. It is major social blowback. Some people are positive and giving her credit for keeping me in line (which she deserves). Some people are making comments I will not repeat. I can handle it I guess, but Susie says she feels guilty I am being teased and she is taking it worse than me. But I figure it would be worse if the rumor was the other way around and hurting her. I don’t know what she said to her parents but they came to several of my games with her after that and I was like trying not to cry when I saw them there supporting me. They are such good parents and I am glad they seem to like me. It was like another epic rom com moment.
So, here is the big question though since this not a rom com movie and life goes on. How do you fight back against ignorant people who want to make you feel like a loser because you have not had sex even though you have a long term partner? Why does having moral values to wait on sex for religious or any reason or just respecting your girlfriend’s feelings on sex have to be like such a BFD? The interesting thing is we have gotten definite support from the people at our school who are seriously religious (I am not but I appreciate them) and the openly gay people (who kind of take the view you should not be shamed for anything). That was kind of an interesting thing and made me a little less phobic about the religious people and the gay people both, which is a good thing. It is like a weird alliance against jerks. I think we will be fine though because we have each other and the whole thing made us even closer. I would love any cool ideas though to make Susie feel good and know I have no regrets and to keep me from getting detention punching out people who make stupid comments (or getting beat up for that matter if I have to punch someone bigger or someone with a bunch of jerk friends).
Thank you from both Calvin and Susie (but mostly me because she did not want anything to do with random stranger advice columns).
P.S.: She thinks I was dumb to write this but is curious what you say so it can be advice for her too. She did make me edit out a lot of random stuff and told me this is still too long but I had fun typing this. She said to say I was worth “waiting for” too but I think she was just boosting me cause she is nice that way. Okay, now she said to say I am just like Justin Bieber except no tatoos, no cool haircut, no singing talent, and no billion dollars. See, she is hilarious too. I personally think I am way buffer than Justin. She also admitted she liked me when I was dorky neighbor kid, but said I was too stalkerish then and too short. I am pretty sure she is kidding, but who knows with girls.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Work/School Relationships?
The answer to what to do...Nothing. Ignore them. H.S. students know very little about relationships anyways, and are only starting now even if they became active before H.S. It is like taking a class you don't have the prerequisite for. I remember those. Your prerequisite is the relationship learning you and Susie are going through right now and even when adults, there will be more to learn during marriage. I know its hard but its not their fault for being stupid about it. It will be if they don't study and learn about relationships, communication, the emotional and cognitive differences between males and females like in a well known book 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus'. I read up on anything about relationships as the info comes to my attention. I wish I knew this all when just a bit older than you but I did not know to find and study the
info on my own and learn. It is good you both feel the other is worth waiting for. So, your basic question is answered, do nothing. It would be the same thing if lets say you are ridiculed for believing the world is round while they tease you for not believing the world is flat. Hang in there, this is just a silly example but you know the world is round. It isn't your job to convince them the world is round instead of flat so it would be a waste of time explaining anything or punching them to get them to leave you alone or change their views. You can't fix stupid. Someday hopefully, they will grow up and learn the truth about sex and relationships and right now, they aren't worth explaining to, just interacting with verbally as instructed by a teacher in class, but otherwise, no...ignore them.
I do know it is true that many HS students are sexually active. However a good amount who say they are not virgins, actually are. The guys are usually not nice enough to ask the girl they date if its okay to say as she gets the backlash if they split and a bunch of guys wants to date her cus they think she is easy. So guys will go on a date and then tell anyone who asks that 'we did it', 'she's good in bed' and make up whatever stories seem to satisfy the male gossips and liars. I never had sex until I married. I had three daughters who never had sex in H.S. I had a good talk with them asking them to watch the girls who had bf's and broke up and dated a new person, over and over the same story and see how those things emotionally distracted a person so they couldn't concentrate and their grades fell or they flunked classes. However if for some reason they didn't have just male friends but someone special they became close to, and both wanted to have sex, I told them to let me know cus I'd rather get them on the pill than have them end up pregnant in school while a teen. But my choice was that they wait until they graduate H.S. for that. From what they told me, they didn't have sex until they met someone they really liked a year or two after graduating. Yes, we went to church and they believed in waiting for marriage.
I really have no idea why people still in school have such a hang up about being a virgin versus sexually active. There is nothing wrong with that. Depending on the state, the age of consent to sex varies from 16 to 17 and 18. If you are legal in your state at 16, then your gf being younger is
not legal until reaching the age of consent in your state. This is one reason it is not good for people to have sex while still in H.S. Another is that it distracts you from learning as you well know with the coach calling you out for not paying attention to the game totally. I do believe if no one was around to witness you curse, he likely would have let that go. I think he was impressed with you standing up for your girl and his smile was all he could share to let you know he was not mad at you. He did say she was welcome at practice and made sure you knew that was still the case even though you swore. But he had to follow the school or class rules regarding consequences for using inappropriate words. It would be a bad mark against him if he had done nothing and a student mentioned he did nothing to his boss. It is not the usual response he saw you make. Man, you do stand out from the rest and I agree, it sounded like a script from a rom com.
Sorry to hear Susie is taking it so hard. So Susie, for you I will say do not worry. This is your first love. And for most people, they move on to many other relationships before they find someone who would be worth marrying. You both are young and while you both will change and grow as a person as you get older, I am hoping theres enough in common and a true chemistry for friendship and later in life, the chemistry for sex too. I was married before to a man who went to church, was a home group leader and yet he verbally abused me all our marriage, right from the start. He didn't while dating but I was too young to notice other red flags that I would avoid when older. But I am now married to a good man, someone like you who would wait for sex, and although we were much older adults, he believed if the woman felt desire for him, that he would let her make the first move so she doesn't feel pressured. He and I enjoyed our friendship but I had to make the first move even for just a kiss. Later I had to make the first move also for sex. When I think back to having sex at 20 for the first time, it's really the mechanics of sex, doing the act that people are asking if the sex was good. In comparison now, I can tell you, the man didn't know how to love anyone, even his parents so without being in love with me, the sex was just the motions of sex. With my second husband, the motions are the same but instead of loving just one or two aspects of a person, we find we love each other unconditionally. And that is the love that lasts a lifetime. Unconditional means you won't say to each other once one gains too much weight that, you weigh too much, I want a divorce to look for a slimmer partner, or you lost a leg in an accident and I want someone with two legs so I am discarding you. Those are conditions. We don't have conditions. We know we are getting older and memories are starting to go so we'll forget things but never get mad at each other. We pick up the slack for each other. You two just might have that. If not, each relationship you do have should be better than the last, improving on the things where someone just wasn't what you needed.
I am glad you do have people at school who do support you and understand. If you can find any friends from among those people, then do so. It is okay to have a smaller but true friend group as I had in H.S. Mine was two really close best friends and there were about 3 or 4 more friends at school but not away from school as with the two. I also wanted to mention that you said Susie is a hard core Catholic. That is not always the case when a teen goes to church with parents and parents teach them even in daily life how to live as a Christian. You would think they would be okay with continueing to follow the same believes when they become adults. However people tend to disagree on some points on beliefs so that eventually there were many other religions and beliefs and a young adult may change what church is right for them. Its worse if they are still a teen, but they must embrace what the parents are choosing to teach them. Then once on their own, they can make any changes. I don't know if that will happen but as long as the two of you can agree on something religious or agree to disagree, then it should be fine. Stats for H.S. couples to stay together til marriage is very low, almost none existant at least from what I have heard from people I know. However, just because rare, doesn't mean it cant happen to you. Enjoy what you have right now. And I believe her Dad is happy with you because of what you said, you were honest when agreeing that you did have lust in your heart before you assured him of how things stood. I feel he was impressed that you told the truth. He may not have been so inclined to trust you if you had said you did not feel lust or desire because all young males do feel that. Why lie? So all you have to be concerned about is her Dad continueing to be impressed by you. That is where you focus your attention rather than on the stupid H.S. students who harass you for your choices. Good luck Calvin! And God Bless, Susie!
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