I feel like I’m not the most openly sexual person; in fact, I think I’m relatively prudish when it comes to having sex. I do believe in individual rights of promiscuity and I do believe that a person is entitled to lay besides whomever they desire. Yet, I cannot help feeling inadequatebecause of my sexlessness. It has become the trend to lose one’s virginity in high school and I have yet to date anyone. I have yet to hold hands with a person whom I like and I feel as if every girl for whom I catch feelings never feels the same towards me. I am relegated to being “the friend” and I feel as if my life will be without romance entirely.

Yet I always retract, take a deep breath and remember I’m in high school, the epicenter of hormonal misconduct. I don’t want to have sex, but I just want to have someone close by that I can tell the workings of my mind to without being judged or shunned. Sure, friends count, but there’s only so much a friend can know.

I’d like to have romantic conversations about my ideals of love, or exchange futures, superimposing images of a beloved into my own in order to have something to look forward to.

But the majority embark in relationships for one thing and one thing only; sex.