The UB Post

Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: Columns

Earlier this year, I was scheduled to meet
my current squeeze for a weekend getaway
or, rather, a coming-together. Although
this long-distance romance had consisted
of e-mailing and texting in November, seeing
each other in December, and marathon
phone conversations in January, it was the
first time the possibility of sex between us
arose…but we didn't mention it. Not
that in many relationships sex is usually discussed
before the act is already done, but in
a relationship based on writing and talking,
much more is usually revealed before the
clothes come off.

OK, so we'd tried the phone sex thing. It
didn't go over that well because…who
really does that? When I first discovered
phone sex, I was in my early teens. I awkwardly
did what I could only assume one
would do while having "phone sex": I regurgitated
all the Harlequin romance garbage
I'd read secretly while I was supposed to be
taking a nap at Grandma's.

This strategy doesn't work once you're
no longer a teenager. Mostly, because you
now know that sex is not always a hot, passionate,
raw and mind-blowing experience.
Also, since you've probably had a physical
sexual experience by now, you know it usually
involves emotional attachment that the
heroine, who falls in love in a day, could
never feel.

For the first time in a long time, I was
faced with a sexual conundrum: not only
could the situation become physically awkward,
it could also reveal how much I care
about this e-mail pal, this phone friend.
This is exactly what meaningless, short-lived
relationships are for: to prevent the caring
and awkward side of sex! I was approaching
unfamiliar territory, and the destination was
getting closer by the hour.

But there was no backing out
now—we'd already made the arrangements.
Without thinking about the specifics
or implications, we'd reserved the one-bed
hotel room. We were driving, in our individual
vehicles, toward each other. As the
first and second hours on the road passed,
I caught the tail of a thought that had been
swimming in my subconscious for a long
time: it didn't matter. It wasn't important
that I was out of practice, somewhat out of
shape and a little older than the Harlequin
heroines—he was too. What mattered
was that we'd been able to talk about sex in
general, laugh at our attempts over the phone
and still turn each other on with the effort.

As I finished the eight-hour drive to
meet him, I discovered that, more than
jumping his bones, I just wanted to talk to
him, laugh with him, and hug and be near
him. We could do it or not and it wouldn't
change things.

I lugged my bags out of the trunk to the
front desk and asked for my key. The other, I
said, would be picked up when he got there.
In the hotel room, as I watched for him to
pull into the parking lot, I withdrew from my
bags all the books, magazines and pictures I
wanted to share with him. Strange that sex
had been so important before, and now
it wasn't! Strange that I cared more about
seeing his face and earning his smile than I
did about showing off my prowess. Strange
that I still took a shower and changed my
underwear…just in case.

Tess, graduate student and contributing writer for
The UB Post, can be reached at ubpost@
ubalt.edu.

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