“What are you wearing?”
I type these words out on my phone shyly and send the message. I’m nervous. I’ve never done this before.
“A sexy black top with no bra and thigh high boots.”
The response is almost immediate. I blush as I look at the response. I look up at my friend Katy, who’s sitting next to me, and ask, “Now what?”
She laughs and tells me to say something about how hot that is or maybe about what I want her to take off. Since I’m texting her.
Well, “sexting.” Trying to anyway. Who am I kidding?; failing at. I don’t “sext,” never have and after some failed attempts, never will. My friends are by no means blushing belles when it comes to their sex lives, or lack thereof depending on the relationship status, and certainly not when it comes to the art of sexting. I think there are special kinds of people who can sext, and lucky for me, apparently I am not one of them. In fact, I’m terrible. I don’t get the hint, I can’t figure out what to say, sometimes I fall asleep mid conversation, basically I’m the worst.
After some questionable text exchanges, Katy decides I need to learn how to sext. I am a strong, independent woman, and this will obviously be a good bullet point on my resume. I can see it now: Microsoft Office proficiency, organizational guru, and excellent communication skills including sexting; please contact me immediately for examples.
Eventually I agree with her, mostly because I’m embarrassing myself in my messages. We make a date-night of it, drink some 4Loko and head out to a bar where perhaps I might meet a fellow to practice my finely tuned sexting skills on later in the evening.
The messages start innocent enough as I build up my courage and expressiveness. It’s a little strange because this is one of my best friends, who’s a female, so neither of us straight girls is really taking the lead, mostly just typing aimless chatter that is supposed to sound sexy. I don’t feel very sexy.
I’m taking shots at the bar to try and “loosen up” and talking to some other friends in between. It feels weird, awkward and forced. I don’t really know what to say most of the time, and finally when it’s my turn to write something back, something witty and clever, the best I can come up with is, “Your body looks so hot.”
That’s the best I could do?
Katy laughs. “You can’t see me!” she exclaims, and then tells me I’ll get better. Everyone has a good laugh about it, and we spend the rest of the night doing what I do best: Not Sexting.
Several months pass, and I decide to pick up these rusty skills again and try them on a previous boyfriend. We casually discuss the weather, and he says it’s really cold in Colorado, and I, being the kind soul I am, offer to warm him up. I’ve been drinking, and I’m feeling bold, so I tell him, “We could have a secret rendezvous, indoors, some place warm.” He responds with a bunch of different places, most of them bathrooms. Someplace sexy and sneaky where we might get caught but we probably won’t, someplace exciting.
My response? Nothing. I fell asleep. Like I said, I’m the worst.
After this small tryst back into the sexting world, my friends decide to have another intervention and declare me unfit for sexting. Thank god. If I never send another somewhat awkward, trying to sound sexy text for the rest of my life, I will be OK with that. Unfortunately, this means no one will ever have the pleasure of the world’s best compliment via text: “Your body looks so hot.”
