Our Relationship

  Now that Lori and I were dating, our relationship was different, but yet the same. There are pros and cons with being friends first. We knew that we got along well, but because we skipped over that whole courtship part, there was very little passion in our relationship. We just moved comfortably into the longtime couple role.

  With the exception of having sex for the first time, which was truly a ‘first’ for her, nothing was new. Taking her virginity was actually a lot of pressure for me. It had been quite a while from the last time I actually had sex with a girl by this time. I felt extreme anxiety because I was sure I would be rusty.

  We made love in her bedroom to “Enya” and that is pretty much all I remember. I don’t remember the night leading up to it or how long it was or anything.

  Our relationship lacked that ‘spark’. I couldn’t even go and pick her up for dates because we lived together. The closest we had was getting ready in our own bathrooms. On top of that, we were both frugal so we hardly went anywhere nice. Trying to get out of debt was my number one concern so I hated spending money on anything. If I had money and didn’t want to spend it on the girl I was dating is a terrible precedent to set in my world and I was forced to do it out of necessity. Lori was fine with it because she was a weird hybrid ‘high maintenance-low maintenance’ kind of girl. Some things could easily set her off and she can be needy, but she never needed to be spoiled.

   Growing up, her family always struggled. Her father worked, but her mom always had low wage jobs when she worked. Her older sister dropped out of High School and was a single mom with two children and never held down a steady job. In this environment, Lori learned how to ‘do without’. She also showed me the value of thrift store shopping. Most of our home décor was thanks to thrift stores.

  Once a year, when I got my tax return money would I splurge on something new. That first year was a new television. I am grateful to Alan for giving us his old TV, but it was terrible. Color-wise the picture was green and the picture was a bit wavy. It literally looked like we were using an antenna even though we paid for cable. The new television was bigger and we were extremely happy. The following year I bought an entertainment shelf that made the television look small. 

  If Lori and my relationship could be summed up in one or two words it would be ‘comfortable routine’. Dates consisted of going to the ‘Dollar’ movie theater down the street ($0.50 of Tuesdays.), going to thrift shops or taking her niece and nephew out for some fun.

  Sexually, there was little there as well. I found that I would rather masturbate by myself or to Internet porn than have intercourse. It was more my issue than hers. She wasn’t unattractive, but it just seemed to be more effort than it was worth. I think what it came down to was I felt a passion or spark in other relationships before and although I tried and hoped it would come with Lori but it just never did. We had moments, but overall we just felt like old friends.

  The problem was that because we were good friends, neither one of us wanted to hurt each other, so we would continue to date for over the next two years. At least officially.