7/28/04 - "Phases."

July is an historically slutty month for me.

Follow me on this one--

July 2001 - have my first kiss, and, despite my recent mission-trip-high (Christians know what I'm talking about, you come back feeling so rejuvenated and on-fire for life and God), go a bit farther than kissing, and MUCH farther than a "good girl" should go after knowing a boy for only a few days. To my credit, I said a lot of "no"'s, but unfortunately... actions speak louder than words, and a boy can tell when a verbal no is a physical yes. They need to learn that a physical yes, however, is mostly hormonal and an instinctual reaction, while the verbal no is the mind speaking, and thus what the girl actually wants... bygones.

July 2002 - lose my virginity, when I had been planning on waiting until marriage. And I wasn't fake waiting, I meant it. See above. Though the first time itself involved a verbal yes and a physical no... ironic.

July 2003 - I was (non-exclusively, mind you) dating Anthony, but I accepted Cory's offer to visit him in Maine. While in Maine, I also fool around with BJ and with Jeff. While not in Maine, I have a few encounters with Ben (the last of them, ever, as he's now happily married and living in New York... for Sex and the City fans, Ben is my Big. Except he'll never leave his Natasha.). That's five in a month. September '02 was technically "worse" with six, but I wasn't officially dating, or sleeping with, any of them, so... this ranks higher on the "slutty" scale, I think.

July 2004 - holy fuck. Do you really want to hear this? Sure you do. We begin the month with ____, whom I believe would prefer to remain nameless, so I'll be respectful of that. Then we have Che. Josh. Matthew. A different Ben (parents should really find more creative names, this is the third Ben on my list). Tim Cady. Justin. Soto. Steven. There were overlappings of repeats (Matt between Tim and Justin, Tim between Justin and Soto, you get the idea), but this is the order they happened in. Different Ben and Tim were repeats from months ago, so they didn't re-contribute to the total number. Which is now at 35, for reference. I miscounted this afternoon and told Stephanie it was 34. I miscounted. Augh.

So that's nine this month. A new record, to say the least. There won't be any more additions for a while - I have plans with Steven tomorrow (they were originally for today but got bumped due to a family thing), who I'm sort of developing a crush on (which I'm not allowed to do, he leaves for school in under a month! I refuse to have my heart broken! so I have plans with Justin next week, to "keep things interesting" [read: be non-committal and aloof]). And besides that, there's enough repeat potential in the current cast of characters to keep me satisfied for a while. And besides THAT, the whole thing is striking me as rather distasteful, and the "way to go, hot stuff" mentality is being replaced with a small case of self-loathing. I kept telling people it was just a phase, but they never believed me. So to all you doubting Thomases: the phase is wrapping up.