It was 12:58 when I got back to my dorm and finally checked the time. I had finished work at midnight, driven to a guy’s place, had sex for the first time, and come home. There were still two minutes left in the hour.
This was eight years ago, during my freshman year of college. I had decided I was ready to have sex, so I went on a dating app and found a guy I thought was attractive. He attended the same college. A friend sitting with me recognized him and supplied what sounded like a promising reference: he was a ladies’ man. Women apparently raved about him.
I was interested, he was interested, and we made plans. I worked at the campus fitness center and had the closing shift that night, so I wouldn’t be free until midnight. That was the one scheduling complication. As it turned out, scheduling was an area in which this encounter performed exceptionally well.
When my shift ended, I went straight to my car and changed out of my work uniform there. His place was about ten minutes away. By roughly 12:15, I had arrived, he had let me in, and we had gone straight to his room.
I hadn’t gone there expecting a relationship. I also hadn’t expected my first time to be some grand romantic production. But I had chosen someone I found attractive, with the added encouragement of a very favorable reputation. I was curious to find out what everyone was so enthusiastic about.
The sex did not clear that up. I barely felt anything, and he made no effort to pleasure me in another way. This wasn’t about requiring a particular body type. Enthusiasm, attention, some awareness that there were two people involved—any of those would have been welcome. He finished, and that was apparently the end of the shared agenda.
We lay there briefly before he explained that he would be fine with me staying, but he had baseball at five in the morning, so it would probably be best if I left. Fine by me. I hadn’t been counting on an overnight stay, and there wasn’t much tempting me to extend the visit.
Only once I was back in my dorm did I notice the time. Fifty-eight minutes covered my change of clothes, both drives, the visit, and my return. The actual encounter had occupied only part of that. I was less troubled by the lack of a romantic farewell than baffled by the reviews. This was the guy women were raving about?
He was nice enough. I didn’t leave hating him, and I don’t look back on it with ill will. But later, when he told me how great it had been for him and invited me to let him know if I wanted to do it again, at least one part of the evening finally made sense. He had enjoyed himself.
We never went again.
