The more I read your stuff, Matt, the more I shift from "we're similar, but..." to "yup, that's me."

Sex is okay, for me, but I need the romance first. "So wait," someone might ask, "You're saying if a beautiful woman wanted to get you into bed with her, you'd turn her down?" Um, you left out "drunk and horny," but yes, that's what I did in my early 20s. Her boyfriend had stood her up, she'd gotten drunk, I was a friend who thought she was sweet but felt no romantic attraction to her (in part because she had a boyfriend already), and next thing I knew she'd gone from flirty (she was always flirty, it was a running gag between us) to kissing me seriously to getting my shirt off to making out to inviting me into bed. And I said thank you, but no, and went home.

(It had a happy ending. She was VERY embarrassed the next day, apologized profusely, made up with her boyfriend, and they were married a few years later. And she never had to make any confessions to him.)

It took me another eight years before I lost my virginity, to a woman I was totally in love with and engaged to.