Wednesday, 17 August 2011

• My Ex-Boyfriend Wanted To Be a Priest... But Then He Lost His Virginity

  

  I would say I'm on good terms with all of my exes now, but it took a lot of time and energy for me to come to terms with my first boyfriend. It was an uphill battle trying to undo the abuse and self-esteem draining he thrived on, but when I was finally done being bitter, we were able to talk amicably.

  After we broke up, the only reason I saw him was because we went to Mass at the same time. He had a childhood aspiration to become a priest, believing since kindergarten that he was meant for it.

  While we were dating, we had talked about having sex, but never went through with it because he wanted to respect his future profession. 

  I didn't want to prod further into all things sexual because I felt we were moving too quickly anyway. Our break up was a mess, but we tried to be civil to each other for the sake of our mutual friends. 

  I stopped going to Mass during high school, and therefore stopped seeing him on a regular basis. I would see him randomly at his school's dances or at the mall where he worked. My classmates felt a need to report back to me every time my ex did something shady to another girl, so I was always up to date on his relationship status. I always wanted to ask them if they knew whether or not he decided to have sex for my own nosy curiosity, but figured it was none of my business asking.

  Last year, I was on a university shuttle that takes students from one end of campus to another. I was sitting in the back, going over some notes from my last class, earphones in ears. Someone sat across from me and I looked up to see if it was someone I knew...

  And surely enough it was my first boyfriend.

  Ensue awkward small talk. He could have sat ANYWHERE else on this near-empty bus.

  "Hey, how are you doing? Haven't talked to you in a long time," he chirped loud enough that I heard him through my music.

  "I'm great, how are you doing?" Something was weird about this picture...

  "Good. I have a boxing match in November if you want to come."

  "Sure, let me know details later. Wait..." I paused. I realized why it was so weird for me to see him at my campus. "Weren't you going to go to the seminary after high school?"

  "I was... but things changed. I did something I wasn't supposed to with my ex."

  "You had sex?!" I blurted out, blunt as anything else I've ever said. An aspiration he had for fourteen years didn't just die overnight.

  "Well, life happened. And I decided I'd be fooling lots of people if I continued on to the priesthood after what I did. The closer I got to graduating high school, the more I realized that life wasn't for me."

  I'm glad he realized that the priesthood wasn't for him instead of trying to mold himself into such a committment. He went on to explain he didn't want to be a hypocrite, but a part of me thought once he experienced sex for the first time, he wanted to keep having more.

  Do you ever run into your exes? If you haven't talked to them in a while, have they changed in surprising ways?
  

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