I’ve always been into women, and I thought about them a lot. I never thought that I would ever sleep with one. I met my current best friend and, on a brave night, my lover. When I met Brittney I wasn’t expecting it to go anywhere. I wasn’t looking for anything, nor did I want anything. When we met I would have never in a million years thought it would develop what it had turned into. Although we have just decided to be friends, she did change my life.

I ran into her with a group of friend. We didn’t talk, and all we said to each other was “Hello”, nothing more, nothing less. We only were around each other because we had the same group of friends. She, by far, was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. This is another reason why I didn’t think she was into girls, and why I thought I was out of her league. She stood about 5’ 6” and was full figured, but in the right way. She had the most beautiful face. I say face because I can’t just pick one thing about her I like more, but I have to say it’s a tie between her lips and her eyes. She had full lips and gray eyes. We paid each other no mind for the longest time.

Finally, she spoke to me. We were sitting around, and she came to me and was like “This is like the tenth time we’ve seen each other, but we’ve never said more than five words to each other.” I had to inform her that I’m not really the talkative type. I just don’t talk to people. I want for them to talk to me. If they never talk to me, then we never meet. I know it isn’t the way things go, but that’s just how I am. Her coming up and talking to me changed my life.

From then on, we talked and talked. Over the next five months we became the best of friends. I was surprised at how fast we became friends. I told her some of my deepest secrets, and she told me hers. We never talked about sexuality, but it wasn’t far from there. One night when drinking, we were telling each other secrets. We have this thing where we would say “Tell me something”. That meant sharing a secret, and it had to be something we didn’t already know about each other. She came to me and said “Tell me something”. I guess because we were drinking, I spilled my second biggest secret. That would have to be that I’m bisexual, and I’ve always wanted to sleep with a women. She did laugh at me, but she thought I was joking. I guessed by my face she noticed I wasn’t. All she said was “Wow, really?” I don’t know why, but that hurt a lot. Just getting a simplistic answer like that.

For the next few days, I kind of avoided her. I didn’t answer her calls, and almost acted like she didn’t even live. My boyfriend didn’t understand why I was acting like this, but then I just broke down and told him everything. He told me that I shouldn’t treat her like that, and I should answer her calls. My boyfriend is an odd one. He supports me being with a woman. So when I told him that I was attracted to her he basically called me a baby, and told me to make a move.

I avoided her for about two weeks. Yea, I know that is a bit of time. What got me talking to her was a text she sent saying “What did I do? Whatever I did, I’m sorry.” I then realized, I was doing more harm than anything. I ended up texting her back, and we talked through text for about a day. She came to my house and we decided to talk. After talking for a couple of hours, she asked if I wanted to hear a secret. I told her yes. She then told me that she also was attracted to women but never acted on it because she was scared of what people thought. That and she had never had a friend that was also into women. I learned that night that she was also feeling what I had been feeling. She told me that when I told her, all she could get out was “wow”, because it just surprised her that I would even tell her.

Two nights after that we did take things further. She stayed the night at my house on a night that my boyfriend was at his mom’s. It was like we both almost knew that it was going to happen without ever REALLY talking about it. That night she came over, and we did have a couple of shots to relax the both of us, but not enough where we weren’t in control.

We went from taking a couple of shots of Gray Goose to kissing. For a moment everything felt surreal. It felt like a dream. We were both nervous, and we were jumping into something we both knew NOTHING about. I didn’t want that night to end. I became obsessed with the way her body felt, and the way she moaned, and the change in her breathing. It was something that I don’t think I could ever put into words. We took our time, and I learned the ins and outs of her body, and she mine. We fell asleep. When we woke up I could tell she was confused, and I was just as confused. I will never say I was in love with her, but I can say I was in extreme lust. I couldn’t tell you how she felt about me, but that night we treated it as if it was just she and I.

We never really talked about that night in great detail, but we did mention it a couple of times. I guess it was a learning experience for both of us. I guess what happened was that we used each other to test the waters. We both went into it with full understanding. I did tell my boyfriend about it, and he asked me how I felt about the whole thing. I told him, that I really enjoyed it. Would I do it again? I told him I would, but I don’t think it would happen anytime soon. It loved that I did get to try it; to see if they were waters that I would travel again. You know guys, being guys. My boyfriend tried to get me to spill the details.

Well, Brittney and I, we are still good friends, and talk every single day, multiple times a day. She’s now dating someone else, but we are surprisingly closer now than we were before. I’m glad that my first time with a woman was with someone I not only knew but was an adult about the whole thing.

Single can take on a lot of meanings. You can have a single room. You can play a singles game of tennis. But it seems the context you hear it in most, is dating. Now, for some reason that escapes me, when you are single, everyone from your grandma to the cashier at the pharmacy wants to give you relationship advice. I know they mean well, and they are trying to help, but somehow the advice usually comes off as offensive and harsh. If you’re going to give advice to the single, (and I implore you not to) please, don’t say any version of these:

“There’s a lot of fish in the sea.”  I’ve heard this. You’ve heard this.  We’ve all heard, this or some other version of this platitude. (“You have to kiss a lot of frogs.” or “Someday you’ll meet the right one.” are popular variations.) But here’s the thing. When you heard this, did it really make you feel any better? No! If there are so many fish out there, why can’t I find a keeper? And what if I don’t want to kiss any more frogs? This is one of those things we say because someone has said it to us before. It feels like the appropriate thing to do, but it’s not. Instead, keep it to yourself and offer your friend a drink, or a high five.

“Maybe you’re being too picky.” Really? I don’t think so. If you’re looking for someone you’re going to hopefully spend the next 30 to 50 years of your life with, day in and day out, with bad hair and bad breath, and maybe a night guard, you want to be darn sure you are going to think they are the cutest darn bad breathed, bad haired, mouth breathing individual you ever saw, or else you just might go crazy. If you can’t be picky about your life mate, what can you be picky about? Now, I’m not saying it’s fair to write someone off for liking Crest over Colgate, but if that’s an absolute deal breaker for you, that’s your prerogative, and no one can tell you otherwise.

“You’re driven, funny, intelligent, fill-in-the-blank amazing attribute! Why are you still single?” This makes me feel like Bridget Jones, where I want to respond with something like, “ Well the hump on my back seems to keep getting in the way.” Just because someone is single does not mean there is something wrong with them, and if you could refrain from implying so, that would be great. Feel free to tell them how great they are and follow it with, “And I am so glad you’re my friend.” instead of adding an insult to what should have been a compliment.

“As soon as you stop looking, someone will come along.” Yes, but if you’re not looking, how will you find someone? Instead of telling someone they’re going about their search all wrong, why not indirectly help them instead? Invite your friend to a dinner party, where there are single people they haven’t met before that they might hit it off with. Or ask them to try a new painting class, or try a new restaurant in your neighborhood. Exposure to new places, people, and things is a great way to be happy, strengthen your friendship, and help them meet people outside their usual circles. It’s not a guarantee and it’s not a set up. It’s an opportunity for serendipity to step in and hopefully make things happen.

I think these are my top four gripes about advice I’ve received when I was single. Avoiding variants of losing/gaining weight, hairstyle, career choice, and biological clock would also be appreciated. If someone is going to love you, they are going to love you exactly as you are, and you won’t need to change anything about yourself to be happy.

I am happily coupled and have been for a while now. But I still have to remind myself that things can change at any time, and that whether it was me who was single, or if I am talking to my single friends, there are things that are better left unsaid.

I’ve never been one of those people that has lots of friends. I’m a loner. I’ve always been a loner. As young as I can remember, I’ve been one of those people that likes to hang out with herself, more than with others. When I was younger, it was a forced loneliness; while now that I’m older, aside from the boyfriend, it’s a chosen loneliness.

To me, a friend is someone who is there to support you when you are having problems. This person enjoys listening to your problems, and you both have a push-pull relationship for needing help and providing help to one another. A friend is someone who enjoys being around you, and the two of you have a natural chemistry that makes it enjoyable to hang out. It’s sad that I have to consider this, but a friend is also someone who isn’t ashamed to be seen with you in public, and is also someone who is willing to put up with all of your silly moods.

I have a couple friends, but I don’t really have a close friend aside from the boyfriend. To me, a close friend is someone who you don’t have to censor yourself around. For me, I can come across as a bit blunt at times, and it usually ends up offending people. If I want to keep a “best friend”, that’s usually something that they fail the test on, so I end up keeping more regular friends than close friends.

When I was younger, I tended to be the odd-one-out. No matter what I did, I couldn’t manage to get any friends to hang out with. I ended up spending elementary, middle school, and the majority of high school as a loner who hung out by herself. I lost myself in books and the internet, and that’s probably where my large vocabulary and technological skills come from. It’s really not that bad hanging out by yourself, but at that time, while watching everyone else gather for large parties, I could only focus on the things that I was missing. I was alone, yes, but it wasn’t by choice. Now, I just wish I had been more content being alone when I was younger.

Now that I’m older, I do have a couple people who keep asking me to hang out. But my life always ends up being so busy that I never get around to hanging out with them. When I do end up being social and being around people, I end up feeling more like I wasted time than being fulfilled. So I’ve been avoiding hanging out with people and focusing on doing work instead. Aside from the boyfriend, I don’t see much of anyone in a social setting. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone socially for at least three months, and I’m pretty content with life going this way.

Since I didn’t have any friends when I was younger, I haven’t really had any long-term friends. The boyfriend has been my longest relationship – friendship, romantic, or otherwise. I have a couple people who I keep friended on Facebook. But after seeing how few of those people even wished me Happy Birthday this last week, I ended up cutting down on Facebook friends as well. While Facebook is just a website, when it says “Friends”, I take it literally. So, if you don’t interact with me on a regular basis or don’t seem to care, I end up deleting you from my profile pretty easily. I’m not one of those 300+ friend keepers; I only have about 18 now. In fact, even though I’ve had my profile for over 3 years, Facebook now has a link on my profile to “suggest friends” for me since I’m “new”.

The internet, even aside from Facebook, has changed how I look at friendship. When I was young and had no real-life friends, I turned to the internet. I remember being a moderator on a graphic forum and gathering a ton of online friends. I enjoyed going online just to interact with these friends. I suffered a bout of “real life” for a couple years when I got busy, but now, even though I’m back in the sex community, I, again, find myself relating more to people online than out in the “real world”. I enjoy chatting with people on Twitter, and I e-mail back and forth with a lot of different people.

Sometimes I think of myself like a Sim character (from the Sims series of games). In the game, there are little “needs” bars that you have to fill up to keep your Sim happy. If I was a Sim, I feel like being online and chatting with others easily fills up my “social” bar, so I don’t have any reason to seek out extra people, aside from being online and with my boyfriend.

Sometimes I worry about the effect that this will have on my social networking. After all, I’ve been told that having connections is one of the best ways to get a good job. However, I never end up talking to people who are involved with my Psychology degree. In my classes, most people tend to ignore me, and I tend to ignore them back. When people give presentations about how to get jobs, though, everyone talks about how social networking is the key to finding some of the best jobs. When it comes to Psychology, though, I can’t say that I know a single person in the entire college, which is amazing considering I’m going to be graduating this fall.

Sometimes it amazes me how much the internet has changed exactly how I relate to people. It’s not a bad thing; I enjoy having online friends a lot more than dealing with people in real-life. I’m not sure if this is because they take less energy, or because I can just log off when I’ve had enough. Either way, despite not surrounding myself with people, I find myself feeling quite content and satisfied with the social life I currently have. Between my job, college, and online communities, my social life is just perfect.

Friendship is important to me. While I don’t surround myself with many people (or even all that often), I want to know that those I think important enough to be around me are ones I could trust. At this point, I have two people I’d consider friends, since I just lost two friends that I had considered some of my closest. I recently found out that these two people had betrayed me, and while I’m not melodramatic about it or anything (Seriously. “Betrayed” just fit the situation), it still tends to be just as surprisingly every time I find out that one of my “friends” isn’t exactly as I thought they were.