Two Day Magazine

The Good, The Bad, The Forgettable...

The other night while cleaning my room, I ran across a list – a list which I had neglected and purposefully forgotten about. The list had all the names of guys I had slept with, alongside with their age. I haven’t seen that list in the last few months, so I haven’t added any names.

I looked at the list, and even though I had the names and ages written, there were moments when I couldn’t remember a guy for the life of me. “Did I meet him at my friend Jenna’s party?” “Oh, did I meet this guy at the coffee shop?” “I think I met him at the bookstore.” If you had seen the list, you would understand why it was so hard to place a name with a place, alongside with a face.

Looking at this list brought me back to a time when I had no self-worth or meaning in my life. Through these encounters, I remember how desperate I was for a connection with basically almost anyone. A majority of these names did not involve drunken nights. No, I was aware of what was going on and a full participant in the activities taking place.

I don’t remember who my first one-night stand was. Was it Jesse? No, no. Must’ve been Johnny. Wait, wait, his name sounds familiar. It’s been four years since I started having sex on a very regular basis; sometimes with guys more than once, leading me to believe we were dating. Other times I couldn’t wait to jump out of the bed and get the hell out.
    
I tried to analyze why I would misplace this list instead of just throwing it away. I believe I feared letting go of that part of me. This part of my past had affected how I treated myself and how I viewed relationships. It also held a lot of shame and guilt for how carelessly I treated my body and the permission I gave men to do the same. I looked at the list again and remembered no matter how much attention I received from men I felt alone. Really alone.
     
Through public speaking and talking candidly with my friends, I realized that I was not the only one who felt shame for past sexual encounters, nor was I the only one who kept a list. Maybe we felt empowered when we saw how many men we had seduced. Maybe it boosted our self-esteem momentarily.

In my case though, when I looked at the list, I tried to remember how many of these men had taken me out on a date, who picked me up from my house, called me instead of texting or Facebook-ing me, or had gone out of their way to show that they were interested in me as a person. All that empowerment I felt briefly quickly vanished. None of these men had pursued me.
    
I realize now that the list I kept helped me feel good about what I was doing at the time. I shamelessly left it on my desk for friends to see when we hung out in my room. My girlfriends would look at it in amazement and question how I got men so easily and they would ask how did I have time to date so much? I didn’t try to explain to them the difference between dating and ‘sex’ing.
    
This takes me back to why I unconsciously I decided to neglect the list. I was tired of adding to it, knowing that these men cared nothing for me. I took that list and tore it into pieces and threw it away. That moment empowered me to create a new list.

This new list would consist of each time I did something that enhanced my character and propelled me into my destiny and purpose, and each time I chose not to let myself fall prey to sleeping with someone whose name I barely knew. This list will be something I can look at years down the road and be proud of for giving myself respect and truly focusing on my needs. In essence, this list will be a list of self-validations, instead of finding value through the person lying next to me. And, that, my friends, is a list worth keeping.