Don't you know it's torture?

2005-12-05 - 5:59 p.m.

I'm going to talk sex today. If that bothers you, please, read no further. On second thought, what I'm really going to talk about is not having sex. Right, this could get personal.

I love Lolo. He gives every indication of loving me right back. We seem to have a fairly healthy relationship. Once, a month (or two?) ago--pretty early on in the game-- Lolo and I were in bed together and he decided he wanted to have sex. He got out of bed, grabbed a strip of condoms from his pack, and came back to me. I wasn't overly enthusiastic about it, though, mostly because I was thinking it was too early and I was still unsure really if his intentions were long-term. So we ended up not having sex that night. Afterwards he felt bad about it. He felt bad for pushing me too fast.

Maybe a week or two later, after encouragement from Azuma and time to work up the nerve, I confided to Lolo (who already knew that I've only had one boyfriend in the past) that although my ex and I were together for nearly two years, he hadn't believed in pre-marital sex. So although I'm not necessarily opposed to having sex before marriage, I am a virgin. It took him a little while to recover from this revelation, but mostly he was very sweet about it. He decided to give me a "code word" that I could use when I was ready so he wouldn't have to keep asking.

You know me, I'm horrible at saying what I want to say. How was I ever going to say the code word? So I made him a CD...the titles of the songs when strung together formed a bit of a love letter to him. And in the background was a picture of a paramecium. (The code word was 'paramecium'--have any of you seen that episode of "Mad About You?" At least he didn't choose 'Estes Kefauver'...) I finally got up the nerve to give it to him at dinner last night. We were meeting two of his friends at a jazz club and they hadn't arrived yet so we were sitting at the table waiting when I decided to just do it. It went ok.

After the show at the jazz club, his two friends (I can tell I'm going to have to give them nicknames here soon) asked us to continue to hang out with them that night, but Lolo said no, actually he and I would rather go home. So we went back to his place for the already-planned sleepover.

We headed for the couch and things started getting pretty touchy-feely. I was thinking that was the night I was going to lose my virginity. Actually, I'm not too hung up on the virginity thing, I was just really looking forward to finally having sex with Lolo. And then he said, "Have you thought about back up?" I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. I had to make him explain himself. He finally said, "Sometimes things break..." You'd think as a couple of pharmacists we'd have an easy time talking about contraception--but no. I had condoms--I thought condoms were back up. Turns out he was talking about the pill, which of course I'm not taking, or a diaphragm or IUD or something of that sort. What happened to the Lolo who dashed off to grab condoms from his pack all ready to have a go not so many weeks ago?

So we had little awkward birth control discussions throughout the night. I think he's being overly cautious. I think a condom is probably enough. But now that he's raised the issue, if it did break, that would leave me in a pretty poor situation. I'm mean--I tried to be as tempting as possible all night to get him to change his mind. It almost worked a couple of times. I felt really slutty doing it though. I felt like I was begging him for sex, which isn't really a wonderful feeling. Do you think the contraception issue is just an excuse? Do you think he has another reason for not wanting to have sex with me? Did I put too much pressure on him by telling him I'm a virgin?

He dropped me off at my place late this afternoon. The first thing I did was to get out my health insurance info to see about getting a doctor. I know, I'm so bad, I'm nearly 27 and I've never been seen by a doctor. It's high time I did it anyway. So I went through my insurance info and to the best of my understanding it seems as though unless I want to pay higher co-pays, I have to be seen by a doctor who works at the hospital where I work. I honestly wouldn't mind paying a bit higher co-pay for office visits, but what if something serious (expensive) ever happens? It would be nice to already be hooked into the network that my insurance will cover.

So I called up the general practice clinic in my hospital. The lady on the phone was incredibly nice. She told me if I wanted to establish care with an attending I'd have to wait until the end of the month, but if I was willing to be seen by a resident they could get me in next Monday. I don't really have an issue with being seen by a resident, sure they're young and inexperienced and leaving in a few years so you can never really build a strong doctor-patient relationship with them, but I don't need anything too serious anyway. So I asked for an appointment on Monday. She told me the name of the resident who would be seeing me. Turns out I work with him. Spent every day of the past two weeks rounding with him in the CCU. I asked who the other options were and the lady listed off eight or ten residents, all of whom I've worked with and will invariably be working with again. There was one name I didn't recognize...but I figured it wasn't so much of a case of me not knowing this person, it was more a case of me not knowing this person yet. I just don't like the idea of working with someone who's given me a pap smear. Is that unreasonable? So I ended up making an appointment with the attending (who I had never heard of) for the end of the month.

So it'll be a month at least until I can start taking the pill and then, what, another month before it's effective? Will Lolo make me wait so long?