A College Story

When I was in college, I lost my virginity to a girl named Emily. The act occurred in my dorm, and after it was over, I walked Emily back to hers. It was a snowy night in February, and right before I gave Emily a parting kiss, she said to me, “OK, now don’t get all weird on me because we did that.” I told her I wouldn’t.

The next time I saw Emily was a few weeks later in the college’s dining hall. I was sitting at one of the tables with a couple of friends and Emily sat down with four or five of her friends at an adjoining table. Emily and I said hi to each other tepidly. When I finished eating, I gave Emily a small, cold goodbye and she did to me, too. As I was disposing of my tray, my roommate at the time, Jake, said, “Well, that was awkward.”

Then, a few weeks after that, Emily IM’d me. (Back in the day, IM was the preferred method of communication among college kids.) She and I began chatting often, which ultimately led to our dating more. We went out to parties together, hung out at her dorm room and probably ate together sometimes, too. During this time, I began to fall for Emily.

In the early spring of that year—it was 2001—Emily asked me if I would like to go home with her, to a very small town in Central New York, to meet her parents. I agreed and she and I headed there. Two things stand out very much in my mind from the stay: one, there was tons of snow in her area. In fact, the banks of snow along the side of some of the roads were five, six, even seven feet high. Another thing I remember is that she and I watched her high school’s production of “The Wiz.”

In April/May, Emily and I started to drift apart. In fact, I had heard that she began dating a guy named Matt. Matt looked a lot different from me. He was a big guy, over six feet, and really strong. He might have even been one of the college's football players. I remember feeling hurt and jealous when I learned that Emily was dating someone else.

I can’t remember the exact timeline of things, but I do remember at some point having asked Emily, “What’s going on with us?” and her saying this: She said that during that visit to her parents’ house, her mother had asked her, “So what’s up with this guy Chad?” to which she had replied, “I’m not sure . . . We’re dating, I guess." Her mother then asked her if she saw a future with me, and when she said no, her mother said: “So why are you with him? You should cut him loose if you don’t see a future with him.”

During the summer, I came home from college and worked at a job in an office. I dated one or two girls, but I thought a lot about Emily. I guess I thought more about her than I am letting on here because I can remember a vivid scene, involving Emily, that occurred in the fall of 2001, when college again commenced.

It was the first or second weekend back at school and I saw Emily at a house party. She was there with Matt. I remember I didn’t say anything to her after I saw her. Instead, I left the party, walked to a side street, and in the bushes of someone’s front yard, vomited.