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Dear Breakup Girl,

It's taken me ten minutes just to find a way to start this letter, so I'll just blurt out my question, okay? Why does sex tend to ruin a relationship? Allow me to explain: I am a twenty-something male and a virgin. I guess you could say I'm "saving" myself for the woman I'm going to marry or at least love completely. I've been involved with several women and have had relationships that have lasted up to a year, but as soon as some of my ex-girlfriends realized that I was sincere about my virginity, it became a problem and eventually broke us up. I am totally open about my virginity, even to my friends. I'm very comfortable talking about my sexuality (or lack of, depending on how you look at it), so my ex-girlfriends knew my feelings before we became involved. Actually only two of the relationships I've had broke up due to "lack" of sex, but I think that's two too many. I was attentive and giving in the relationships and understood their desires to become physically intimate, but why couldn't they understand my desire to wait? Instead, they acted as though they were the ones who were going to "take" my virginity, and they couldn't wait to do it.

Every time I tell female friends of mine my predicament, they'll say that it's incredible (in a good way) that I'm "waiting" and wishes that more guys would do the same, yet as soon as they know of my virginity, they treat me totally the opposite of how they did before they knew, like I am a fragile person or something, not to be played with anymore. Please explain to this non-understanding man, why it seems as though being a man and being a virgin is insane to people; I sincerely don't understand it.

–Ken

Dear Ken,

Lest you think you're the Last Male American Virgin, a recent Men's Fitness survey showed that one in 10 men doesn't go past third base until age 21 to 25. Okay, yay, but I know that doesn't mean all of this is easy to handle. People, being people, may very well treat you weirdly. Right: what's wrong with him? What's wrong with me? Oh, isn't that adorable and admirable … for someone else's boyfriend!

But see, that's just it: what you might need to do first of all is recognize that respecting your desire to wait — vs. wanting to wait with you — are two very different things. Yes, in one ideal sense, someone "should" love you enough to be willing to go everywhere but with you until you carry her over the threshhold. But I think that you may often simply be coming up against two perfectly legitimate — but, in practice, often opposite — notions of sex: sex as an essential part of a relationship, vs. sex as part of the relationship. The only relationship.

Let's back up. I have told people many times: To enter a relationship, your standards must be this tall [photo of Chrysler building]. But "tall," as in "high," does not mean "all," as in every last thing. Your perfect partner will be imperfect; s/he will not have everything on the checklist, and mostly, you won't care. That is what makes that person your perfect partner.

That said, there are other things up with which people are entitled not to want to put. If one partner wants kids more than anything, while the other couldn't want anything less, it might be appropriate for the the first partner to leave. And go where s/he can get kids. Same goes for vows of marriage.

And the same, my friend, could go for sex. If sex is, for someone, an essential part of a relationship — before the marriage part of a relationship — that person is entitled to be in a relationship where s/he can get it. Now.

You, likewise, are entitled to look for partners in places where people are likely to be looking for partners like you. I'm not saying you have to give up on just happening upon someone like that; but you might do well to save yourself a little first-step or later-base frustration. Your conviction might not have to do with religion, but you could troll — online or IRL — a community likely to share it. You could specify your status in a personal ad, blatant and labelly though that is, but hey, that's what personals are for! (I know it could also be a weirdo magnet, but then again, what isn't? That's why they're weirdos. Just trust your gut when you meet.). In other words, doing the practical work of narrowing the field could save you some of the spiritual willies that go with this, um, virgin territory. And really truly could find you the girl who's dying to be your first, on your terms.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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