I told him I’d not really thought much about it. I’d been so focused on my course work I hadn’t had time for even thinking about a social life. But now that I was more confident about academics, it was a real question. I didn’t tell Yossi how I hadn’t worried much about my isolation until I became friends with him. It seemed so matter-of-fact to discuss more than course work with your lab partner. I didn’t notice how much I looked forward to our meetings, to talking about whatever I wanted, with someone with whom I felt entirely at ease.
“Yossi, I understand entirely. Alcohol isn’t an issue—it makes me sick, and I don’t like it. But the other thing, sex, we may as well call it by its proper name, I think I’ve fooled myself into believing I was above being affected by it. Look, please, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, and if you want we can change the subject.”
He seemed all ears, so I continued. “But it occurs to me seeing what goes on from the outside, that sex is very much a symbolic act. I hear these girls go on and on about how horny they are, but I don’t think they’re that much different from me. We’re lonely, and the solution to horniness is so much more obvious and less threatening than to try and make friends. It’s so hard to go up to someone of the opposite sex and say, hey, here I am. Do you like me? Can I trust you? Will you reject me? It’s so much easier to drink until you’ve almost passed out and wake up next day next to someone you barely know. You’ve violated your physical aloneness, but it’s a false symbolism, because you’re even further from the guy than the night before.”
Yossi at first looked startled, but as I spoke he leaned towards me, at once listening to every word and impatient to add his own thoughts. “Lexie, I’ve never talked to a girl about anything really important before. It’s not that I was forbidden to speak to one, but in my circles you hold off dating until you are ready to get married. I’m nineteen, since I spent a year in Israel studying in a yeshiva, but that’s still way too young to get serious. What I mean to say is that I’m thrilled to talk to you, so much so that I’m worried it’s getting dangerous. I’m just like you. I feel terribly alone a lot of the time and the guys I’m friendly with don’t have this kind of conversation.”
I said, “Yossi, I’ve never really talked with boys that much myself. My parents weren’t all that crazy about me dating, but they wouldn’t have prevented me. I prevented myself. I also thought I wasn’t ready. I’m also very conscious of the fact that my husband will emerge from the guys I choose to date, so I’d better choose wisely up front. I don’t want to end up like my sister, putting off marriage on account of her career and then drifting into a problematic relationship. Trouble is, at some point we will be ready, but we won’t know how to make it work all of a sudden, to talk seriously with a guy or a girl, when you’ve never even learned how to talk about ordinary trivial matters.”