Page 5 of Confessions of a Virgin on a Dating App
We exchanged another brief, awkward hug. But as I walked out to my car, I felt relief wash over me as soon as I settled into the muggy seat. Now that the sun was setting, the steering wheel wasn’t scalding hot, and I could guide my car out of the parking lot without getting first-degree burns on my palms.
Since the traffic had cleared out, it was only a fifteen-minute drive back to my apartment on the edge of downtown. It was a modest abode – a single-story, two-bedroom townhouse with bright yellow paint and a brown shingle roof that needed replacing. Rows of patchy bushes separated the interconnected townhomes, and I’d stuck a massive potted monstera plant next to our front door to give it some liveliness. It kept the front porch from looking too bare and sterile—from revealing that it was home to two broke twentysomething women who had other priorities than decorating.
I stepped onto the front porch, my eyes scanning the dirt that lined the cracks in the concrete like blood vessels.Maybe I should get a pressure washer,I sighed as I fiddled with the front door lock.Make it look like this place isn’t the women’s equivalent of a bachelor pad.
I smiled as Cassidy’s cheery folk music echoed down the narrow main hallway. I could tell by the sounds and smells coming from the kitchen that she was making dinner.
“Good evening, girlie!” she shouted once I was near the kitchen.
Her auburn hair, which was even curlier than mine, was piled high atop her head, and her black-rimmed glasses framed a small, round face. In one hand was a dirty spatula, which she used as a microphone as she twirled around the kitchen, belting out the lyrics to her favorite songs.
Having a roommate wasn’t ideal, but Cassidy was my best friend, one of the first people I’d met when I movedto Orlando five years earlier. We loved each other to death, but living together often made us fight like sisters. It both strengthened and frayed our relationship at the same time.
“Sooooo?” Cassidy cooed in a singsong voice as she plopped her elbows on the counter. “How’d it go?”
I didn’t reply, but the slight grimace on my face gave her enough of an answer.
She chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
“Well, no.” I plopped down at the dinette, picking at the paint chipping off the back of the antiquated chair. “That’s the thing. It wasjustokay. We have a lot in common, but he’s really quiet. I couldn’t tell if that was just his personality, or if he was nervous.”
“So do you think you’ll go on another date with him?”
I shrugged my shoulders. The old Avery would’ve said yes. I would’ve given it another chance. But six months and half a dozen men into my online dating adventure, my optimism was starting to wear thin.
“Honestly… no. Because I shouldn’t feel wishy-washy about it. If it had been a good date, I would have butterflies in my stomach, giddy at the possibilities. Whether or not I’d go on a second date with him wouldn’t even be a question.”
“Agreed,” Cassidy remarked as she stuck her spatula into the pan of fried rice she was making. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”
I shook my head. “Did you make enough for two?”
Cassidy grinned as she scooped the fried rice into two bowls. “You know I always do.”
We ate our meal at the dinette in silence. I knew Cassidy was tired, as her job as a vet tech kept her away from home and on her feet all day. And I was too busy swimming in my own tangled thoughts to make conversation.
The past five years had consisted of me putting the pieces of my life together after my expulsion from college.I had been caught red-handed by my RA, naked in bed with the man who was supposed to be my whole future.
But everything changed after I left campus. Tyler’s parents were wealthy alumni, and they made a hefty donation to save his son from the same fate. He was suspended for two weeks, but unlike me, he still graduated. He still walked across that podium and accepted his diploma while the woman he had promised to marry was nothing more than an empty chair.
He ghosted me after that. I never heard from him again, and after a few weeks, I stopped sending him desperate text messages. Getting kicked out of college wasn’t the real problem – I could always apply elsewhere to finish my degree. And I knew that wasn’t the reason why Tyler left me.
The real reason, the one that had haunted my love life for the past five years, was my inability to have sex. It seemed cruelly ironic – that my pure, innocent self, one raised by two devoutly religious parents who wanted me to follow in their footsteps, would be incapable of rebelling. Purity was no longer a shield, a symbol of my morality to wear with pride.
It was a punishment.
“Wow, you were hungry,” Cassidy noted, staring at my empty bowl while hers was still two-thirds full.
I frowned. I tended to scarf down food when I was angry. I was no longer alarmingly thin like I was in college, but I would always have a wiry figure with very little body fat, even in places where I wanted it to be.Fast metabolism, my parents had told me. Which made sense, because they were both sticks themselves.
I waited for Cassidy to finish eating her dinner, and then we both scrubbed dishes and wiped down countertops until the kitchen was sparkling clean. Our home was plain, withmismatched, hand-me-down furniture and cheap plastic kitchenware, but we never let it get too dirty.
Cassidy sensed my foul mood and asked if I wanted to watch a movie, but I declined and slunk off to my room. I didn’t feel like socializing that night, even with my best friend. And Cassidy was always understanding of other’s emotions, so she didn’t mind if I became a recluse for the rest of the night.
I settled at my desk and watched my PC monitor blare to life. My room was simple: a twin bed shoved in the corner to allow for more floorspace, an old 32-inch TV with a Kindle Fire stick shoved in its side, and my favorite spot in the whole room – my L-shaped computer desk. At one end was my work laptop, which was hooked up to two monitors that had been supplied by my employer. At the other end was my elaborate gaming PC, whose parts glowed in a variety of rainbow colors within its sleek white case.
I absentmindedly flipped through my gaming library, running into the common scenario of having hundreds of games but no idea which one to play. I eventually settled on a generic-looking platformer I had bought on sale a few weeks earlier. It was optimized for controller play, which meant I could lean back in my plush gaming chair and relax without having to be hunched over my keyboard.
I wrapped a fist around my long, curly brown hair, sweeping it up in a messy bun to keep it out of my face. I scrunched my face up at my reflection in the computer monitor, observing how my freckles twitched as my nose wrinkled. I was a bit odd-looking, having inherited my pale skin and plethora of freckles from my Scotch-Irish father, and my curly dark hair and petite figure from my Greek mother. I was no model, but most people considered me pretty, and I’d never had any trouble getting dates based on my appearance.
