There’s a reason I’ve never had a love life (and his name is Murphy)

(no judgment. Please.)

Artiste

You met him in class. You—young, fresh-faced, naïve (dense). He—effeminate, poetic, apparently interested in the same gender. Coming from a nearly convent-like existence, and with a nearly bone-deep wariness of testosterone, you deemed him safe.

Little did you know that your cousin and several other acquaintances fell for the same trick.

It did not go down well when you saw the pictures on his website.

Jock

Your fellow virgins (never-been-touched, never-been-kissed, never0been-out-on-a-date) have certain “types.” One, a friend with Amazon-like proportions, always falls for beautiful boys shorter than her (and the average man). Another likes a touch of “ruggedness”—for her, a leather jacket will suffice. One sister want manly footballers, another erudite pretty men with snobbish, Mr. Darcy airs.

You never thought you’d fall for an athlete. But the very first thing you noticed, about the very first boy you nearly gave your heart to, was not his wit or his poems to another girl (that came later).

His arms were iron.


Gravelly

When you first heard his deep voice in a school meeting, you thought, “Hurrah. Handsome. Intelligent, because he’s in this university. Straight, despite being in this college. Dear girl, there may be hope for you yet.”

Alas, when you shyly confessed your infatuation to your persistent friend, as the object of your affections strides past…

“___? He’s GAY!”

Your track record remains unchanged.


Boss man

In an online conversation, you and your fellow flighty friend (though she doesn’t quite look it) giggle over a man—more out of something to do, though, than any real attraction. You dissect his habits, speculate about his love-life, and cringe (or laugh heartlessly, depending on the girl) about recent events. In one sheer stroke of stupidity, you post it on your online journal.

And forget that he’s as tech-savvy as the two of you.


Asthma

It is the best and worst moment, sexually speaking, of your young life.

In moments like these, and the ones that follow, you wonder if the fates purposely mess with you for their sick amusement.

The bare expanse of flesh. The mutual friend (and his subsequent message). What the mutual friend saw the summer ago.

When you retell the story, a year after, to someone who turns out to be his second cousin, you conclude.

Murphy is a bloody rat bastard.

Jump!

I want to fall in love.

Clichés

I skulk in coffeeshops in vain.

Long walks on the beach

It’s ironic, that despite living in a tropical country, you can’t stand the turf n’ surf.

You look awful in a bathing suit. You always get sunburns on your skin. Sand—and crabs, and bits of broken glass, and polluted flotsam from the sea—stick to your toes. The sandcastles you build always get washed away, in an apt parallelism to dreams and wishes and plans you’ve made.

But when it’s quiet, and the moon sits atop the velvet black like a queen, as you watch the dark waves roll softly…

…Alone, you are content.

Crying in the rain

It’s kind of unfair that when fictional heroines do it, they do it prettily—eyes glimmering with leashed fire, clothing pressed damply to ample curves, skin lustrous because of a strategically placed streetlamp.

You blotch. The moment tears come, a sniffle is sure to follow, and before you know it, you have a full-fledged cold, and maybe, just maybe, an asthma attack.

(Breathe.)

And come to think of it, the rain is probably polluted as well.

Well, damn.

Wedding bells

At this age, Mother says, in another culture, you would have been married already!

You have a moment to think, “Holy cow, we’re allowed to date?” while your sister mouths to you, “Mrs. Bennet?”

So as your mother continues on her diatribe on suitors, the lack thereof, and her three older children’s apparent ineptitude with the other sex—

(She still doesn’t know about the stalkers you’ve had, not in detail, at least)

—you spend the rest of dinner daydreaming about wedding bells, and a possible Darcy.

Guys next door

You hate your village.

When you had to do a survey last year, it took two days (and it rained the entire first morning) before you could finally get enough answers. The only silver lining in that expedition was the two cute men living two blocks away from you.

Alas, it is not that kind of community where bake sales and basketball games let boys meet girls…or maybe it is. You, after all, are the hermit.

But who can blame you? Next-doors were your cousins, and a colonel who spent midnights cursing loudly into the phone.

Not a good combination.

Star-crossed lovers

Romeo and Juliet were idiots. It squicks you to realize Juliet was 13 (Dear God, eight years older, and STILL alone), and Romeo was a filthy little boy (glove upon your hand, indeed).

Tristan and Isolde are forever ruined because of James Franco, and while you adore Hades and Persephone—the Goth shtick works, to a certain degree—you have to wonder about her mother’s hold on her. Unnatural.

Cupid and Psyche. Too classic. Beren and Lúthien. Too eternal. Buffy and Angel. Too dead.

By the time you’ve ran out of pairs to emulate, you hope you’ve met you other, unrequited half soon.