Attachment to Broken Men: The catalyst

As I previously explored in the first installment of “Attachment to Broken Men”, my relationship to men has never been healthy nor productive. In continuing this series, I have decided to explore my past relationships in a meaningful way to learn from these experiences and maybe one day change for the better. Instead of beginning with the first boy I ever chased after, I have decided to talk about the men in order of how much I think of their impact on my life.

With this said, please read with caution as some of the topics spoken about in today’s installment may be hard to read. Sexually explicit language is used.

When I was younger, my parents where huge into parties. Every weekend my dad would take us to a party, and we would be there till 2 AM. That’s where I met him, my dad’s best friend’s son. He was older than me and was part of the football team, something I knew all my friends would be jealous of. So, when he began to show interest in me, I was shocked. The need for my parent’s constant attention, at that moment, felt obsolete. Here was someone who wasn’t forced by convention set by the government to love me. This man had no reason to be giving me this attention, and yet he was. That night he gave me my first kiss. I was shocked. I had no idea what I was doing. I am pretty sure I just laid there with my lips perked while he was trying to fully make out. It was embarrassing. He got up and went to turn the light on or shut the door I don’t remember. But I remember I mumbled to myself that that had been my first kiss. He said something back, but I couldn’t understand him, and I felt so stupid. Here was this guy who should have no interest in someone like me trying to kiss me, and I was too much of a prune to accept it. Later that night, I sucked up my pride and asked if the kiss meant we were an item. He responded with a no that he had a girlfriend. I felt so stupid. Yet the next time we saw each other, I did it again.

I don’t know how many times we saw each other or what happened each time, but I remember one of those times we were at a clubhouse of sorts. The clubhouse has a movie theater inside of it. We started to watch tv and not even two seconds into the movie, he immediately wanted a blow job. I said no and pulled away. He started begging me, telling me that he loved me and all the things I always wanted to hear. And for a moment I thought, maybe if I just gave him this blow job, he would like me, and he won’t leave. At this point in my life, my parents’ focus was on my brother. He had developed a drug problem and had been in and out of hospitals—all I wanted to be someone’s attention to be entirely on me. I somehow justified giving in to his needs will mean that I will be loved and happy. So, I did it. First time ever doing that. His litter brother came in, and I tried to move away, but he kept my head pinned. I slapped his leg a couple times, but he would let me go or even get up. After a while, he got annoyed with me, let go, and just left me there. I felt humiliated. I felt useless. However, that night, as I lay in bed crying, I decided to see if this time we wanted to be with me. So once again, I texted him asking the same question I always did—still nothing. I began to wonder if maybe I wasn’t anything to him.

Perhaps the only reason he was kind to me and would text me the day before the party was because he wanted my body. I began to realize that to keep a man’s attention, I needed to have sex. I needed to be sexy. If I wasn’t, then they would leave. If I wasn’t, I would not be lovable. We saw each other a few times, and the same thing would happen every single time. And every single time I thought to myself, “well maybe this time I did enough, and now he will love me.” He never did.

His affection, or lack there of, is beside the point.

What is the point is he was the first time in my life that I honestly noticed how much sex affected men’s view of me. He was not the first, nor was he the last to only view me as a physical object. But he impacted me the most. Because of him, I began to accept this label. We had been friends for a few years before this. Our families went to Europe together. He was one of my closest friends, or so I thought. He taught me a lesson that took years to relearn. He incorrectly molded me to believe that men will only stay if I give them sex. And if I didn’t want to be alone, I had to push past what made me uncomfortable and do what the guy wanted. Looking back, I can see now just how wrong this is. I can see how inappropriate and sick a mindset this is, but fourteen years old, I could not. It took until college to realize this was not always going to be the case. There are men who want more than just sex. I just never knew how to find them. The journey to move past these men is something that I hope to continue to dive into with “Attachment to Broken Men.”

Advertisement