About me

So silly of me. Here I've been telling you all this crap about my past, and you have no idea who I am.

Well, my name is Lorelei Stevens and I'm a marriage therapist. The irony is that while I heal other people's relationships all day long, I am 28 and have yet to find a healthy, stable relationship for myself.

Let's see, what else. I guess for one thing, I am technically single, although I date a lot now. I decided after my last bad relationship that committing myself to one guy was apparently not working. Yeah, I know, go figure -- even worse than an unmarried marriage therapist, I am a marriage therapist who gets stuck in bad relationships. I joke that it is professional research -- it helps me advise clients when I've personally felt what they are feeling.

You know that cliche about shrinks whose personal lives are always a wreck? That they counsel everyone else but have no one to counsel them? Well, that's exactly where I was up until about 8 months ago.

On losing my virginity

If you asked me what the turning point of my teenage years was, I would have to say it was losing my virginity. It wasn't some drunken mistake, the way you always think of teenagers losing their virginity. Nor was I pressured or date raped. No, my first boyfriend -- Jason -- and I planned it from the beginning. And if anything, I was the one who made the decision.

And once you make that decision and follow through with it, you can't ever change what it's made you into.

The event itself wasn't anything special. It was all kind of awkward, since the only place available to us was in the backseat of my 16-year-old boyfriend's car. It also kind of hurt, although it wasn't as bad as the romance novels always made it sound. Unfortunately, there was no rush of pleasure after the hurting stopped, either.

The climax came later, though, with the realization that I was no longer a virgin. Jason dropped me off home, but I spent the rest of the day in a daze, marvelling at that simple fact. Could anyone tell? I wondered. I walked through the hallways the next day, meeting my classmates gazes and wondering if they were virgins, if they looked at me and wondered the same thing.

Sometimes I think I was right, and for the rest of my teens and twenties people could see that I was active just by looking at me. It would explain a lot.

4th of July

Everyone always says that Valentine's Day is the loneliest day for single people. But I think the 4th of July ranks right up there with it.

Back in my party days, we used to go camping every 4th of July weekend. The first time I went was when I was 18. I had a boyfriend back then, a guy I'd been seeing for only a month or two. I had just graduated high school, had tasted my first Bud Light (and still thought it tasted good), and was experiencing that summer high you get between high school and college. For a few months at least, I was free -- no school, no curfew, no rules.

The following year, my 4th of July pretty much sucked. I'd nearly flunked out of college my freshman year from partying too much -- which I know happens to a lot of students at my nationally known "party school," but it wasn't supposed to happen to me. And my boyfriend from the previous year had turned into an on-again, off-again thing -- which also wasn't supposed to happen to me. I was supposed to have a perfect college record, so that I could get a good job, and a perfect romance-novel relationship, so that I could get married and start a family. What went wrong?

Anyway, the summer I was 19, my boyfriend ditched me on the 4th. We had plans to go camping, but on the day we were supposed to leave I could suddenly no longer reach him. I moped around, depressed, until I couldn't stand it anymore. Then I started calling other friends. I found another camping trip, and was able to tag along.

I honestly think that was the last memorable 4th of July I had. We drank a lot, played with fire(works), and skinny dipped in the river. I'd been tanning in a bikini all summer so far, and I got so burned in the places that hadn't seen the sun that when I was naked I looked like I was wearing a hot-pink bikini. But permeating everything that weekend was the underlying feeling of depression and loneliness.

Within the next year, my party days started to end. I wasn't drinking as much, and since that's the only fun way to celebrate the 4th, I stopped doing anything truly memorable on the holiday. (I outgrew fireworks shows when I was, like, 12.) As a result, when I think of the 4th of July, I usually think of being alone.

This year, I'm sick of moping around and being depressed. So I'm going to do things a little differently. I'm going to go out tonight, get drunk along with the rest of the city -- maybe even drunk enough that fireworks seem interesting again -- and flirt with the hottest guy I can find.

What are you doing for the 4th?

A whole string of firsts

When I think about my "firsts," I don't like to count the encounter with Daniel. I was 9, for heaven's sake. You can't count a childhood experience as your first kiss, or your first blow job.

I was 15 when I got my first boyfriend. That was also when I fell in love for the first time, experienced my first kiss, lost my virginity, and went through my first breakup.

It was a lot for a 15-year-old girl to handle, particularly in a 6-month time period. The thing I kept thinking was how nothing had turned out the way they did in romance novels.

That was also when I experienced my first period of depression, my first booty call, and -- later -- my first rebound relationship.

Start at the beginning

When I was 9, my neighbor Daniel kissed me. It was like everything else related to childhood -- awkward, sloppy, and completely innocent.

At least that's what I thought, until the next time, when he made me go down on him.

Daniel was four years older than me. I'd recently started playing with him more than my other friends, because Daniel and his buddies didn't mind a blossoming tomboy playing football with them. But I'd heard my parents arguing about it -- my mom didn't think it was such a good idea for her little girl to be playing with a bunch of 13-year-old boys, and my dad didn't see anything wrong with it.

None of this went through my head as Daniel pushed me to my knees. I nervously did what he told me to do. After an eternity, when he finally pulled me to my feet, he was smiling.

"So you are a girl, after all," he said. And then I threw up all over him.

I didn't play football with Daniel and his friends after that. Instead, I went back to playing dolls with Jessie and Katie. And Mom and Dad no longer argued, but hypothesized in hushed voices about what could have happened to produce my sudden change of heart.

Chick lit is such bullsh**

Whenever I read any of those books known as chick lit, I can't help but think how ridiculous it all is. Seriously -- these "heroines" with their career issues and their worries about how to get the guy. Interestingly, there seems to be a pattern -- take The Nanny Diaries and Confessions of a Shopaholic, for example -- of the heroines losing their jobs (not that they wanted them, anyway) but hooking up with their love interest.

I mean, come on. That's not realistic. Where are the girls who get screwed over by their boyfriends? The girls who pursue their careers because they like their independence more than they like boys?

Moreover, where are the girls who aren't willing to settle for just one guy? Where are all the female players?

Just for once, I want to see a chick lit novel that shows how it really is.