when was your first?
late-bloomers assemble.
When I was sixteen, I got a call from my friend Sydney1 on New Year’s Day. It was eight in the morning on a Monday and we were scheduled to return to school the next day after a sleepy winter break of binge-watching “Grey’s Anatomy,” which was really popular at the time (little did I know, I would work on the very same show 15 years later). I rolled out of bed at my parents’ house, wishing my most riveting update wasn’t that Addison Montgomery arrived at Seattle Grace. I mean, what would happen to Meredith Grey and McDreamy now??! But alas, the TV seemed to be far more exciting than my innocent, inexperienced, romantic life.
I yearned to be hungover and love-drunk after some cool New Year’s Eve party in the Hollywood Hills. Somewhere far away from the valley where I grew up. At some very big house with high, arched ceilings and absentee parents with a very niche party theme (“I am not a Wolf” is just one example of one from my 20s). There would be a large, murky, unkept pool in the backyard that someone would inevitably stumble into or dare to cannonball. And eventually that same party would be blasting 50-Cent’s “In Da Club” at an earsplitting volume, only to get raided by the cops shortly after midnight. And we’d sprint to the closest avocado bush to hide for hours until the 5-0 finally exhausted their accruement of teenage arrests and vacated the area. A girl could only dream.
Instead, my parents were fairly conservative and I was prohibited from going out 90% of the time. There was a small fraction of time where I did indeed con the system— sometimes I’d go to my friend Rae’s2 house for a sleepover, and her parents were traveling out of town, or disassociating in the other room with a bottle of wine. It was then Rae and I would tip-toe out to parties where we’d meet up with kids from other high schools who would smoke weed out of grapefruits and snort coke off of ping-pong tables. We never participated in any of that, outside of having a few Bill Clinton-esque “I smoked, but didn’t inhale” moments. But taking small sips out of red solo cups of light beer and being around the energy of a party made us all feel relevant.
And I’ll admit, now that I’m in my 30s and have the complete picture of my youth… my parents had the right intentions by enforcing a strict curfew. And when I did go out into the wee hours of the night, it was probably good that they didn’t know about it. Besides, I was underage and didn’t need to be drinking copious amounts of Smirnoff Ice on the silent killer of government holidays (second to St. Patty’s Day, of course).
But back to the wake of that gloomy New Year’s Day…
I eagerly picked up Sydney’s call, rapid-firing with questions that dripped in soured desperation:
“So was it the best night ever? Did you meet a cute guy? Did you kiss anyone at midnight? Was there a backyard pool? And did you jump in like last time?”
Before you cringe from sideline embarrassment over my teenage priorities, please remember that “Grease” was the revolving play of millennials’ past.
For those that aren’t following— if you were in elementary school in the 90s, there’s a good chance you mouthed the words to 1950s tunes as Rizzo, Sandy, Danny, or background “Pink Lady #3” on stage at some point in your life. Or at least watched the movie 65 times on rainy days during P.E. class (along with “Remember the Titans,” “The Sandlot,” “Little Giants”, to name a few). It wasn’t until I really, truly listened to the lyrics of “Summer Nights” during a late-night karaoke outing in my 20s that I realized we’d all been brainwashed.
The central theme (and overarching lesson) of “Grease” was to change who you are to get anyone to like you. And as budding teenagers with bubbling hormones, we were gonna do just that. As teenage girls specifically— who at the time, when I was in high school, all pretended to be straight and those that weren’t came out their senior year or in college— we all wanted BOYFRIENDS.
Hot ones, medium-ugly ones, ones with chin acne that could cosplay as freckles, ones with chubby cheeks and told inappropriate jokes in class, ones that drummed in alt rock bands and ignored your texts, or played sports and thought they had a chance of going pro (they didn’t). The ones that wore thick-rimmed glasses before they were considered hipster, or ripped off their toenails instead of clipping them, which is disgusting— but also meant they didn’t give a flying f-ck. It didn’t matter anyway. A boy liked you.
Boyfriends made a 90s/early 2000s gal feel seen. Boyfriends gave you status. Join the academic honor board and the French club and play softball and get a 3.87 GPA to get into Stanford, or USC. But for the love of god, if you want anything in life, you NEED a boyfriend. Because then maybe, just maybe, you’ll finally feel hot. Even if the media is telling you that you’re not skinny or the kind of pretty that’s blasted in magazines, at least you have a boyfriend now! You’ve been accepted into something better than an Ivy League: you’ve been accepted by the male gaze.
But Sydney couldn’t be bothered to answer any of my pressing questions about this (probably) super cool New Year’s Eve party. Instead, she simply declared:
“I did it. The deed is done.”
And in that moment, I knew exactly what she meant.
The who, the why, the where didn’t matter. She had done the thing every underage protagonist in 80s/90s/early 2000s movies set out to do. She’d lost her virginity.
My anxiety spiked. Like any young person, I thought about myself, and what that meant for me. Meanwhile, Sydney was probably just as freaked out as I was about it too— she just wasn’t about to admit it. While I was nowhere near being emotionally ready for that step (and like… with whom?!), I’d never felt more motivated to get the deed done too.
The thing that many “old people” at the time didn’t realize is that a lot of teenage girls of the early 2000s didn’t feel that romance was of central importance for their first time. Unless you were brought up Catholic or religious, and struggled with the guilt of it all, of course. Instead, many of us saw sex as a gateway drug to finding the one after gaining a little more experience at it first.
And of course, like any well-adjusted adult— in hindsight, if I could go back in time, I would tell myself (and all of my friends) to calm down, that there’s no rush, it’ll happen when the time is right. That it’s best to do it when you’re comfortable with someone, not as a checked-off chore. But of course, when you’re a sixteen-year-old girl, you don’t listen to anyone who knows better, or anyone that’s lived the very same thing decades ago. You listen to your friends. After all, your peers are the ones that dictate your reputation when you’re in high school.
This idea of “achieving your first” at a young age permeates in millennial culture beyond sexuality. Graduating college into a recession, hustle culture, all in an effort to be rewarded by a “30 under 30” title. To get married and have kids and a career (that’s interesting! and impressive! and rakes in the big bucks!) and the house and money before you go grey was/is the bar for success. Is the “when” the only part that’s impressive? Do accolades matter more before you get wrinkles?
2024 was a year of many “firsts” for me. I got married to the big love of my life, successfully wrote & produced my first hour of broadcast television, proudly joined the WGA, started weight training with gusto, and prioritized my mental health with a work/life balance mandate. All of these firsts occurred way past my prime, as perceived by modern society.
When you accomplish any kind of first at an “older” age (“30s”, lol), it hits a little different. You’re no longer a “young genius”, “ambitious,” or “lucky” but rather, there’s an air of… “FUCKING FINALLY.” The people most important in my life obviously never let that kind of arrogance seep through their measures of support. Instead, they basked in the celebrations with me. True friends only want what’s best for you. But I couldn’t help but think about the others, peeking in from the outside, cyber-stalking my socials. Fucking finally.
That being said, it does feel more rewarding accomplishing a first in your 30s. Unfortunately for most, virginity is not one of them (as seen in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “American Pie,” “Super Bad,” “Blockers,” to name a few). While I did not “do it” at sixteen, I’m glad it happened when it happened during my formative years in college. I was young, but felt so insecure, and so behind even at the time of the deed. And if I could talk to that kid back then at that stage, at the end of teenage-dom, I’d tell her:
“You’re not even a smidge behind. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. It’s gonna be okay.”
And it is okay. Firsts get easier through the years. The first time I fell in puppy love, had my heart broken, failed the test, aced the class, didn’t get the job, turned in the script, got the recognition, lost the weight, gained it back, bought my first car, totaled it, adopted a puppy, said goodbye to a good friend, felt the deep loss of a loved one. Some firsts you have less control over. I can only speak to my 30s right now, but when I achieve something that requires hard work, it feels so much sweeter touching down at that new destination.
It also feels refreshing to accomplish a first at an age where the world isn’t so pristine. On the eve of exiting my 20s, I wondered if I could reclaim what a first once meant to me.
As May approached, my mother asked me what I wanted for my milestone 30th birthday. I considered my bucket list: there was actually something I’d always wanted to do, but never gotten around to it. Like the true late-bloomer that I am, I had never gotten my ears pierced.
It was something I initially liked about myself— that my skin had never been punctured by anything other than a scalpel for various hip surgeries or stitches after running face-first into a coffee table when I was four. But as the years went by, I found myself weirdly observing and analyzing the earlobes of friends and strangers alike. And I wondered, could I rock an earring? A sparkly huggie looked kind of sexy to me now.
My mother asked, “Really. Are you sure about this?” I nodded with utmost certainty, “Absolutely.” To my surprise, my mother, who can be a little risk-averse, didn’t try to convince me otherwise. Instead she surprised me with matched enthusiasm: “Okay, then. I’ll pierce my ears for the first time too.”
My mother and I scouted three different tattoo shops— and Claire’s, of course— before deciding where was the right place to de-virginize our ears. I even called Sydney, who’s pierced from head to toe, asking for recommendations. After pleading with us to not go to Claire’s (wise words from a pierced veteran), we landed in a tattoo shop that Sydney swore never gave her a pus-ridden infection or lopsided holes. My mother seemed nervous. But like when I was sixteen, I was just eager to get it over with.
On my 30th birthday, we arrived at Sydney’s favorite little hole in the wall tattoo shop. I, of course, volunteered to go first. There was no way I was backing out now, not at the sight of the needle. And before I knew it, the deed was done.
It never hurts as much as the pangs of anticipation and fluttering nerves. I looked in the mirror, admiring my two little cubic zirconia studs gleaming in the daylight. Just like that, I floated off into an Instagram ad I never subscribed to, dreaming up delicate charms, hammered pearls, and gold hoops that adorned my lobes. I was already planning a vast collection (mind you— I had Anthropologie taste on a Target budget).
My mother also seemed pleased with her piercings (or at least relieved it was over with, as this was more of a first “and last” experience for her). For six long months, we reminded each other to clean our earlobes twice a day and keep in the same boring studs. But we both got our perfect piercings, with no infections, as Sydney promised. To this day, we decorate our ears with jewels for every outing. And most birthdays or Christmases, we enjoy gifting each other earrings, to make up for all the years when we didn’t have them. Looking back, it’s a special “first” experience we can share together.
New can feel sparkly, shiny, and attractive like a pretty pair of earrings. On the proactive end of it, trying new things can rewire your brain, boost cognitive flexibility, improve memory, and increase your overall motivation to keep going.
According to a study led by Columbia scientists, learning new things can prepare the brain for adapting to evolving circumstances. In the study, researchers had mice navigate simple mazes where a portion of the mice had the chance to explore unfamiliar areas or cross with unknown mice. As it turned out, the mice who experienced something new before attempting the maze had more success moving through it.
Since my 30th, I’ve tried to reframe the narrative of crossing off a “first.” In fact, each birthday, I try to drum up a new first or two. Something I haven’t done, somewhere I haven’t yet explored, a new hobby, a new skill. My last birth year I got into sourdough bread baking (this deserves its own essay, so I’m going to hold off on the deeper meaning behind that). This year, I’m considering trying pottery for the first time. And maybe paddle-boarding. I’ve also always wanted to try shrooms.
If you have any ideas for new things I could try, or experiences you’ve tried for the first time that sparked joy, feel free to share what they could be in a comment or message. I’m open to stepping outside of my comfort zone and trying something new— and hell, like my mom, maybe next time, you’ll join me too.
Sydney is a pseudonym. All names have been changed to protect and respect the identities of anyone I’ve been involved with.
Rae is a pseudonym. All names have been changed to protect and respect the identities of anyone I’ve been involved with.