By Scary Bradshaw

Welcome to Sex and the Pity! Dear reader, I am delighted to have you. My proverbial Manolos have been dusted off, and admittedly, I have far too often been described as Carrie in my life. Though I personally think Miranda is the true champion of the series, a reliable friend who never sacrifices character, I must confess I have some Bradshaw-based traits — I love being the center of attention, finding a way to make every conversation about myself and my romantic obsessions, fretting toxically over people who don’t care if I live or die, drinking pink cocktails, flirting with everybody by accident, and wearing outrageous patterns (I hope I haven’t already given up my anonymity). Despite my previous long term relationship status, I consider myself a well-seasoned romance guru. I tend to find myself over and over again yearning to give advice to each and every friend — regardless of how relatable I found their situations. Most of the time, I would drop my opinions unsolicited. 

Now, it seems like everyone in this world loves to talk about sex at every opportunity. In our deeply institutionalized, repetitive ways of existing in the cogs of a neoliberal machine, sex is the one thing we tend to tie our minds to, like a kite above us in the summer breeze, hoping it’ll catch just to have something to distract ourselves with. We can be going through intense trauma or exuberant joy, and our minds, funny enough, still find space to pore over our sex-capades. Imagine now, I grant you; an endless spilling of tea, anonymized of course, and my own pathetic escapades as I navigate love, lust, life, and yes — sex (dare I flex) — on this itty bitty teeny tiny campus and beyond. So, whether you are a Sex and the City fan (in which case you’ll recognize my incredible replication of Carrie Bradshaw’s cadence and style) or you’ve never even heard of it, I hope you gain some entertainment, and dare I say, insight as well. And if you’re going to come for us to tell us Sex and the City is outdated and harmful, we already know, we’re just being hilarious.

While we’re in Claremont, a few questions feel pertinent, lovely readers. Ultimately, you can’t stop the world from turning, from night passing into day, and your heart from latching itself to others. At a time in our life defined by three-month stays and constant transition, flying from home to school and back again, knowing each place is temporary, is it worth it to indulge in these emotions at all, or should we all just spend this time growing up on our own? Are we hurting others by getting attached when we know all too well the semester will end, our flights go in different directions, and some of us are throwing our caps in the sky so soon? How can romance survive such a time?

Recently, I experienced a life-altering, brain-chemistry-wrecking, time-and-space-destroying Big Love. Let’s call him my very own Mr. Big. We had a limited seven weeks, and we spent five of them absolutely enamored with the inside of each other’s brains. We fell into a black hole of obsession, spending every conscious moment (and the in-betweens, too) metaphorically eating each other’s brains. We danced until the sun rose, showed each other our favorite songs, and played house whenever we could. We agreed for our time left, we may as well indulge. Isn’t it a beautiful sensation? The word itself even — indulgence? It’s seductive, the metaphorical licking of the inside of another’s brain before the taste fades, and bending the rules of time, running your fingers through their hair and soul simultaneously. It also connotes a guilt-inducing temporality, the impending doom of knowing you will be wrecked when you can’t tuck the love in your pocket and take it with you, that maybe it would be easier to just not do it at all.

As the story went, he couldn’t pretend to enjoy this and come out the other end just alright (maybe I’m projecting). It was so much emotion to experience so quickly, and with impending doom (a set end date) looming it became purely unenjoyable. Meanwhile, I had thrown myself into the deep end, been as emotionally naked as possible, and trusted myself to survive the aftermath. I was wrecked — I spiraled deep down into an emotional abyss I had never experienced before. I obsessed over his actions, talked about him constantly, and cried myself to sleep. How could I have given myself fully to someone who had taunted me with all his secrets, a mirage of his entirety, and then taken it all back? He had put up his walls once I had begun to have expectations of him, and I spent the last few weeks of our time together crumpled up emotionally, locked out. I knocked and knocked on the door, but it had been bolted.

I couldn’t help but wonder… Do the walls we build protect us from hurt or just keep us from finding out what’s truly within us? To know we are capable of being hurt, and of hurting another, do we still take the leap? What is it all worth? Should we build a wall around our hearts, or succumb to love, even when fleeting?

We parted ways with promises to see each other at some point in life, not knowing it would be a mere few weeks later. It was lovely. I no longer felt the pressure to be let in, and as these things always go, that made him more inclined to open the door. Cautiously, I crawled through the window, and felt absolutely enamored with the inside. I sobbed upon our goodbye, my heart aching in my chest. His goodbye was tearless. I knew he cared, but he had chosen to detach himself. On my way home, it felt like my heart had been scraped like the bottom of the ice cream tub — but I relished the opportunity to see what was on the bottom. People live their whole lives waiting to feel as deeply as we had for each other, and to waste the opportunity to feel so wholly human was one I was not willing to give up. I learned who I am when stripped to my most vulnerable self, we shared the memories you can only share with a human whom you love — even the wildly terrifying and unpleasant ones that show you the extent of your spiral.

Love is the singular most effective drug to the mind, an all-consuming high of body and existence, one thing worth writing songs about and waging wars for (besides maybe oil). If tension lies in knowing we will be hurt, alongside those we take the leap with, for a mere temporary high, how can any drug be worth it?

Though Mr. Big always would keep himself closed off, I never regretted my decision. What you put in, you get out, so go forth and fall head over heels or the world will keep spinning without you (and maybe the love of your life will keep swiping on Hinge). What if you never got to find out who you are when in love with a certain person? What is in store if you’re granted the opportunity to find out? Indulgence, especially at this age, is a gift to explore so many different types of love in their entirety. To half-ass anything is a sacrifice. And more than anything, you may never meet anyone again who you feel that specific way about. It sometimes feels good to feel the toils of the heart and remind us that though it aches, we are alive! Mr. Big probably didn’t enjoy our time together as much because he never explored our world with his walls down. We only have one life, and to keep it loveless in order to “protect” a future self is a sad naivete. If you get hit by a truck tomorrow, you won’t have seen how deeply your heart can feel, how painfully it can love, and feel the traps of emotion in their pathetically human entirety. And I never ever regretted falling in love because I got a damn good column out of it.

Until next time,

Scary Bradshaw