As everyone is painfully aware, I'm a pretty sexy guy nowadays. We ugly nerd ducklings tend to blossom into full sexiness when approaching middle age, and I'm no exception. Hundreds of busty young women actually buy Facebook ad space to inquire as to my whereabouts. My wife has resorted to keeping dirty coffee cups in every room to throw at any busty young woman bold enough to attempt to break in through the windows of our third-floor apartment. I greatly appreciate this, of course: I may be a sexy reverend, but I'm only human, and I can't hold off the feminine throngs like I used to.
Of course, my studliness quotient was an entirely different number 20 years ago. I was hopeless as a teenager; I could creep out a girl merely by bumping into her in a crowded hallway. If this occurred, the afflicted young lady would immediately run to the girls' bathroom, where she would hang the freak-tainted clothing on a hook, take out a 50-pound can of hair spray and a hot pink cigarette lighter from her purse, and incinerate the garment with an Aquanet flamethrower while muttering a prayer to Saint Cyndi, the patron saint of electric blue eye shadow.
The irony of all this was that the girls didn't have anything to worry about. Before I went to college, I was something of an antisocial freak-nerd hybrid, but when it came to the fair sex, I was hopelessly shy. I couldn't ask a girl out to save my life. (In fact, the only time I did ask a girl out was for senior prom, which I had no desire to attend. The only reason I bothered to ask the lucky 12 girls out was to convince my schoolmates I was at least interested in girls. I didn't expect an affirmative answer, and those expectations were thankfully rewarded.)
And actual sex? With, you know, genitals and stuff? That was merely legend, an activity so far from possibility that I never considered it, outside of teenage erotic fantasies with hot '80s chicks like Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles and the porn my cousin hid under his mattress. The problem was, I was under considerable peer pressure to score with an actual girl, those "peers" being my parents. My mom and dad, sexually active during most of their own adolescences, scratched their heads at my seeming lack of interest in bouncing the ol' boxspring. My mother would begin many a phone call (I lived with my father at the time) with "Gotten laid yet?" while my father would only half-jokingly suggest that a hooker would make a perfect birthday present for his son. Being Italian didn't help matters; we young Italian guys are taught from an early age to be mega-virile, banging at anything that moved. I'm surprised my dad didn't point to a random young lady at our local A&P and yell, "You're going to fuck her and you're going to fuck her RIGHT NOW, young man!"
I would occasionally tutor students at home in my attic bedroom, and if that student happened to be female, my father would light up with hope. He would be shattered, however, that my virginity was still stuck to me while the girl improved her math grade. I would occasionally attempt to go through the motions: I'd have the young lass on my bed with me, and I'd edge closer to her, only to explain the cosine. My poor dad: he had this Italian boy who didn't care about cars, the New York Islanders, or - seemingly - girls.
I was interested in girls, but only the concept of girls. Real girls - girls at school who lived nearby and were therefore technically attainable - I believed were so out of my league that my teenage lust switch simply shut off the moment I walked through the school doors. I had my share of crushes, mind you, but they were puppy-dog, gee-I'd-sure-like-to-kiss-you crushes. My first genuinely sexual crush on an actual girl - in one of my classes - didn't occur until my final year in high school. (Note to my fellow high school classmates who might read this blog entry: no, it's not you. As far as I know, she doesn't have a Facebook account.) I wanted to lust for them, really I did, but my brain was too rational for its own good: if I didn't have a chance of screwing them, why lust for them? Susanna Hoffs was just as attainable as they were, and she always smiled at me. As it turned out, I didn't have my first sexual experience until my first month in college, and the big V didn't fall until late my sophomore year. (Also as it turned out, both moments were the product of unbelievably bad judgment on my part. And how seldom is that?)
Now, of course, I've got this sex thing licked. I've attained the apex of True Studliness, and I can get laid anytime I want with the lady I love. We only need to find some time between our work schedules, pop some Advil for my back, kick the cats out of the bedroom, take my blood pressure medication, kick the cats out of the bedroom AGAIN...
