The Pros And Cons Of Being A 22 Year-Old Virgin
You didn’t mean for this to happen, yet here you are as a college graduate who never had sex. It’s not like you couldn’t have done it, but it never felt right. Well, at least this is what you tell yourself… But there’s a silver lining to everything, right?
Pros:
1. You maintain a sophisticated, aloof attitude to sex when you talk with people about it (or at least you’re hoping to) because you almost never reveal any details about your hookups. As an added bonus, your active listening skills are top notch!
2. Pregnancy and STDs are more of an abstract concept to you than an actual thing. When the nurse at the doctor’s office asks if there’s any chance you’re pregnant, you get to hilariously joke that if you are, it’s the Immaculate Conception. Note: this joke becomes significantly less funny — for both you and the nurse — once you turn 18.
3. It’s one more thing you have in common with Liz Lemon, and what could be better than that? Granted it’s only a matter of time before you also hold your bra together with tape, but in the meantime your personal mantra is “Ugh, lovers? That word bums me out unless it’s between ‘meat’ and ‘pizza’.”
4. You have another major life milestone to look forward to in between becoming old enough to drink and being able to rent a car. Or at least you hope it will happen at some point during that time period…
5. You have very few regrets about guys you’ve been with, because it never got very far physically. In the meantime, you’ve been able to put all that energy into creating fantastic and solid friendships.
Cons:
1. Your gynecologist raises her eyebrows and says “really?” when you say you’re not sexually active. (You take her disbelief as a compliment.)
2. You are terrified of Never Have I Ever games. You could lie, but that just isn’t in the spirit of the game. Not to mention that if you’re already hammered when you start, things can get messy very quickly. You excuse yourself from the room just in case you accidentally let something slip.
3. You know your little siblings are more experienced than you. Pray that your little sister never asks you for sex advice. When she does, quickly recite what you can remember from a mixture of high school sex-ed and Jezebel articles you’ve read. Hope that you’ve pulled your clever ruse off, because there is nothing quite as bad as the judgment — or, even worse, sympathy — of a more experienced younger sister.
4. You mentally catalogue all of your friends who are in the same boat as you, and you’re sad as that list grows shorter and shorter. This isn’t that bad, but it is most certainly weird.
5. You realize that your GIRLS counterpart is Shoshanna. And then even she gets some before you do.
6. The horror that comes from being in a movie theater when a sex scene begins on screen. Not because the sex itself bothers you, but because the friends with whom you went to see the movie must surely sense your inexperience and secret. Hell, everyone in the theater probably knows. It’s only a matter of time before the stranger six rows ahead of you turns around and shouts for everyone to hear, “hey look, we got us a virgin in the room!” You dread the inevitable jeers and laughter.
7. Every song you’ve ever loved is about sex. Sure, you’ll sing along enthusiastically to Salt-n-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex,” but god forbid you actually need to broach the subject. Your favorite band might be Neutral Milk Hotel, but you don’t really understand what he’s talking about. Nothing, however, compares to the feeling you get when you realize even Beethoven — BEETHOVEN — wrote symphonies because of sex. Do you understand anything about the world?!
8. With every day that passes, you worry a little more that you’re not normal.