When I, amused, reveal the truth they simply shake their heads (oh, so knowingly! so sure!) and give the age old answers. Just wait, say they, it’ll come in time. You’re young yet, you’re still a kid! Just wait and see, you’ll change your mind. One day you’ll find The (dreaded!) One and then you’ll understand.

Understand.

Understand!

They say I’ll ‘understand’, as if at the moment the concepts of lust and desire are beyond my childish brain; as if I do not realize what lingering gaze might bring two (or more? hah!) together, what kinship might make hearts race and passions flame. Is this such a complicated phenomenon, the act of falling in and out of love, in and out of bed (in and out of each other)?

If this is what they think of my decision (or destiny, fate, proclivity, orientation?) then they’ve misjudged by far. They must not realize we all take ninth grade health, sit through the awkward week of embarrassing diagrams and snickered innuendos. They must not realize the internet exists, or dime-store romance novels, or pathetic teenage poetry.

I understand. I ‘get’ it. I know how the parts fit together and I can imagine what it must be like, this twisted, confusing game of genders and sexes and mixed signals. It’s simple, in fact, especially when one can observe from the outside, be far removed like a clipboard wielding scientist. Simple and, let me say from long experience and many pages of meticulous notes on the subject,

boring.

Forgive me for my judgment, but your little game of cat and mouse (or cat and cat, I do not judge preferences) is as boring as any 1980’s board game with half the pieces missing. I know you spend copious amounts of energy pining over lost loves and unrequited affections, over the boy on the bus and the girl down the street, wondering if you should give chase or play it cool, wondering where it will go (how far, how fast?), and for this I can say I feel little more than disinterest. Your stories of soul mates and long nights of love making, of one-night stands and cheap, dirty sex do nothing for me. You won’t win me over to your side with that famous phrase,

you’ll change your mind!

Friend, let me tell you.

I won’t. (And yes, I’m sure!)

I don’t doubt that sex is great. I’m sure it’s the cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees, just fine and dandy and swell.

It just ain’t for me. So don’t tell me that one day I’ll wake up and find myself blushing at the girl in the cafe or the boy at the library. Don’t tell me I’ll just know (another damnable phrase!), that my lips will curl into a smile and my legs will go weak and I’ll feel ‘that way’. I know I won’t. Boys don’t do it for me (eww, all that thrusting?), girls don’t do it for me (yuck, all that drama?)… Heck, I don’t even do it for me!

And I don’t mind one bit. I don’t need your pity or the shaking of your head. Don’t feel sorry for me, for this; my life’s all the less complicated for it. Go have your petty romances – I’ll be watching TV.