I was 20 years old and still hadn’t been to bed with a woman. I knew women, but I had none that I could consider candidates or even true friends. I looked at them everyday and was under the belief that I should’ve been sleeping with every single one of them. Of course I never really had a true understanding of them and my only answer for them was inacation. With that, every woman became an immediate failure.

Even the idea of a relationship was alien to me. Hell, it still is. I thought I was in love once, but the courtship never amounted to more than holding hands and hugs from behind that she was so fond of. She quickly found someone better suited for her and it ended.

Things have changed. It took me years to realize that success comes while daring to fail. Everynight, I’ve dared to fail greatly. Some nights I have. I might even say I’ve failed more often than I’ve succeeded. The truth is, the good nights far outweigh the bad.

In the grand scheme, failure defines. It guides you and even pushes you towards greatness. I can comfortably say that there have been 3 significant failures in my life. There was Allison Grenier, Katie Arent, and finally Natalie Portman.

There were others in between and after that either embaressed me or whom I humiliated myself in front of, but those are the three that actually molded me. Of course Natalie Portman isn’t really her name, but if I were to say it my subconcious would latch on to it and I’d end up havfing dumb what-if dreams about her. So instead, Natalie Portman. She’s a beautiful woman desired by everyone. Mostly, she’s unattainable. That probably sounds more pathetic than it is meant to, but that’s how I felt everytime I wrapped my arms from behind her while nervously talking over her shoulder.

She was my greatest failure, but that’s over and done with. If she ever read this I would want her to know that this was never a bad thing. This was the push in the right direction. Sure those days were miserable. The worst type of failure is the one that results from inaction. It’s the type that leaves you wondering. This one really meant a lot back then, but now it’s just a lesson, like a college course I took one year. It’s even more like losing all your money in Vegas and getting arrested after binge drinking and doing a bit of blow. It happens, you get sick and vomit blood for awhile, but then you spend the rest of the week having a great fucking time.

You could say I’m having a good time. I’m the guy at the bar that sleeps with that woman just because I can. It doesn’t really matter what they look like or how old they are. I mostly find myself battling all of those years of inaction. I’m still trying to figure out whether I’m happy or sad.

It’s probably best to start from the beginning. Allison Grenier was just a crush. If you had asked me back then, the word crush was absolutely a good word to use with her. She had decisively crushed the little boy in her class who just wanted her to know that he was in love with her. That little boy believed, discernibly, that he had loved Allison ever since she walked into their Kindergarden class in her white dress on their first day of school.

Time does that to people. Absence and the whole getting fonder bit, it’s played out, but it’s true. When you don’t see someone, you can only imagine them. Then you have a problem. Nothing is stronger than the imagination because it’s just a bunch of ideas. If you take a simple moment of honest infatuation and mix in a bit of imagination, you fool yourself into believing it. What’s worse is that they’re your ideas. It’s impossible not to fall in love with them. Now, I can see through it and call it for what it is, a pedestal. Women might describe it as a moment of passion. As a kid my understanding was quite limited, so I was in love.

After sharing Kindergarden, it wasn’t until 5th grade that we met again. Time did its part. This year girl-friends were cool. One of my friends had one and I decided I had to do something about my affection. This was 5th grade, so when girl-friends were talked about everyone knew about it. I was nervous so I asked other girls for advice and most of all for clues. Did she like me? Would this finally happen? I was constantly assured by several girls and urged on by a couple friends. I told them I would do it. I didn’t know how or what, but I would do something. I would do it on Valentine’s Day.

I went to Walgreens with my mom the day before. I immediately saw the entire row of red devoted to Valentine’s Day. I walked over discreetly. I had $5 with me that I had saved up by not buying lunch that day. I wanted to buy something amazing but also something that wouldn’t draw too much attention to myself. I grabbed a box of chocolates encased in a red heart-shaped box. This seemed as perfect as the girl. I’ll never be sure whether my mom noticed me buy it or if she kindly looked on in sweet approval.

In class all the girls knew what I had planned since the beginning of the day. They had seen me stuff the heart-shaped box into my desk. All day I was being peeked and glanced at while I just nervously waited for my cue. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had written a note, “Will you be my Valentine?”

When the final bell rang everyone got up. All the girls had lost interest. They thought I had chickened out. I didn’t care, I had one thing on my mind. Then Allison got up from her seat and went to get her jacket from the coat room. I couldn’t have planned a more perfect scenario. I ran over to her desk and tried to slide the box into it. To my horror, her desk was filled with papers and books. I couldn’t slide it in! I panicked and shoved it in as hard as I could leaving it pinned awkwardly between her belongings. I then quickly ran back to my desk.

I peeked over as Allison returned to hers. The other kids were walking between us. I couldn’t see her reaction as she discovered my gift, but I heard her.

“What is this?” she asked.

I managed to look over and see her curiously examine the Valentine. Our classmates quieted down to watch the ensuing events. I felt a surge of confidence. “It’s for you.”

“NO!” she proclaimed as she immediately turned her back to me.

I was too embaressed to feel any immediate heartbreak. I reacted quickly, “Well, just keep it anyway.” I looked away and could feel the blood flowing throughout my face. Every cell was on fire. I felt as if by not looking at anyone and just concentrating on my bookbag, I was actually invisible. I packed up my things and acted as if this was my only purpose in life.

I can look back now and say that I never felt truly devastated. It had something to do with how I imagined her. I had this belief that I could still win her over. I ended up giving it another shot a few weeks later. Well, a girl I knew actually wrote a note for her in my name. I’ll never know what it said, but I’ll always remember her response. It had been the same as the first one. It took me a year to get over Allison.