Part One – Boner
“Are you coming into the water Oliver” she said, Frenchly.
I sat there on the beach gazing at her stunning body as she splashed around, knee height in the water, playfully beckoning me to join her.
The problem was, I couldn’t go into the water for a simple yet relatable reason.
I had a raging boner.
“I’m good here thanks!” I said, barely able to control the volume of my voice.
“Pffttt” she began to swim, the delicious sight of her round ass almost entirely engulfing her bikini bottoms disappearing from view.
Thank god.
Now, in hindsight. I probably should have just dived into the cold water.
She was one of the hottest women I had ever met.
I had come to Australia for a working holiday for reasons unclear to me even today but one thing was a definite motivation. The premise of having sex with exotic and beautiful women.
You see, my mum died when I was 14, leaving a mother wound that I have unsuccessfully attempted to heal with the affections of many, many women. Project still underway.
The problem with this woman (we’ll call her Abigail) is that being in her presence inspired a kind of anxiety in me that I had rarely experienced with women before.
And the awkwardness did not get better from this point onward.
Part Two – Dicking Around
When I arrived at the hostel, it was Abigail and her group of friends that welcomed me. I fancied her immediately.
As the weeks progressed, we would flirt in passing, gradually building the sexual tension.
Things were moving much slower than I was used to. Usually, I enjoyed the lack of vulnerability of letting a woman make the first move, which worked up till this point but it was clear that Abigail wanted to let me take the initiative.
But I couldn’t. I was too afraid.
I wanted her to like me so badly that the ambiguity between us was preferable to her possibly rejecting me. So I just let it sit.
This frustrated her. One day she came back from the shop, sat me down outside and said:
“Is there anything between us?”
To which I vaguely replied.
“There could be. I don’t know”
She sighed, stood up and rejoined the rest of the group.
The phrase “you snooze you lose” would etch itself as a painful truth into my life the following week with the sound of a Harley Davidson pulling into the car park.
Part Three – The Dude With The Motorcycle
I felt threatened immediately.
The long warrior hair. The tanned physique. The suave, manly five o’ clock shadow.
Upon the first sight of him, Abigail’s eyes lit up.
The one thing that reliably kept me in the game when it came to women was my British accent, which was a real panty-dropper apparently.
Surely, that ace was still firmly up my sleeve, right?
He walks over to me.
“Alright mate?”
For fuck sake.
He even drove that big ass Harley Davidson.
It was as if the dating gods had sent an avatar of pure masculine sexiness to earth as a way of showing me what happens when I spend my time dicking around.
I knew what was coming.
Over the following few weeks, myself and the rest of the hostel dwellers would be forced to listen to them bang each other senseless in the disabled shower room (everyone’s go-to spot must have been caked in more Semen than a CSI crime scene).
It was especially painful for me, knowing that the opportunity was there on a silver platter if I just had the bollocks to take the initiative.
But it was too late. The chance was gone.
Lessons Learned
I’ve gained some pretty useful wisdom from books.
I’ve listened to podcasts & watched endless hours of lectures on YouTube.
But the lessons that really stick with you are those that you derive from your own experiences.
Because they are personal, indisputable meanings you gleam from what happens to you that have direct application in your life. The things you personally needed to learn.
Despite the painful missed opportunity, I’ve since gained some important insights. Not just for dating and sex but also for life as a man in general. Here are my main takeaways:
Be fucking honest.
I liked her. I wanted her badly. The actual feelings I was experiencing in the moment made me feel pretty vulnerable and uncomfortable but I wasn’t willing to face them. Being honest with her (and more importantly, with myself) would have been much better strategy. Not just to get a shag, but to be a more courageous, virtuous and authentic human being.
Take calculated risks.
Let’s say I came onto her and she rejected me? Big fucking deal. My bruised ego would have healed within a week and I would be back to my good ‘ole self again. The issue was, the premise of rejection was so irrationally terrifying to me that I was paralyzed from acting in the service of my true feelings. If I had just “had a word with myself” (as they say in the UK) and understood that I was being irrationally passive, I might have had the courage to act.
Being reckless isn’t a good idea. Just as damaging is being passive and letting life simply happen to you. So yeah, don’t do that (if you want to live a kick ass life).
Don’t be limp.
What triggered me about Biker Boy wasn’t the fact that I knew he was going to “mow my grass” (another UK saying), but simply by what he represented to me. I saw a dude who didn’t question himself too much and lived in an unapologetic fashion. A guy who embodied masculinity itself, which at time time was pretty deeply repressed within me.
I’m not saying this was how he truly was, but due to my projections and insecurities, this is what I saw. Envy can teach us a hell of a lot about ourselves, if we let it. My envy towards him was symptomatic of my desire to be to less apologetic and more outspoken. I wanted to stop feeling like a limp penis & be more masculine, motivated and driven.
Unfortunately, lack of ambition and motivation is still something I struggle with from time to time but one positive is that I’m much more aware of it when it arises.
In Closing…
I love taking once painful experience and transmuting them into sources of humour.
I hope this read gave you a chuckle and an insight or two.
I’ll leave you by saying that if you are on the fence about something, unsure if you should act with no logical reason not to, then just for gods sake just do it.
Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing. – Denis Waitley