I am not one of those women who has stories about men coming after me the instant I hit puberty. I know it happens – it happened to my sister – but it did not happen to me, for whatever reason. It’s kind of perverse that I used that as a reason to have poor self-esteem when I was young, as though this is a normal thing that should happen to young women and that it not happening meant I was ugly.
I had a boyfriend in high school but we were both pretty Puritanical about sex so he never displayed any amount of “wanting me” and although we kissed, I can’t say I felt super desired in that relationship. Which is fine, because I didn’t want to go there yet.
It wasn’t until college at my 3:1 male:female school that I finally got that sort of attention, and I was so inexperienced with it that I handled it very poorly and I have a lot of regrets surrounding that whole experience. I guess you have to have a first time though, and at least I got the fuck ups out of the way with people who now have no bearing on my life.