Why Having Sex With A Guy Changes The Whole Relationship

I've sworn off the almost-relationship. Man, I'm tired of giving all of me to someone who's reckless with what I give him because he never promised me he'd tread lightly.

Everything changes for me after I have sex with a guy. I used to be ashamed to say that because I felt I wasn't revolutionary or badass enough to survive in this hook-up world or that saying it rendered me a weakling, the kind that can't evolve and dies off with the rest of the dinosaurs.

Jesus, though, how could sex not change it all? Especially in situations where you're habitually having sex with a person, it's just natural to have that person grow on you. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's completely unnatural if the person you're having sex with every weekend doesn't grow on you. If that's you, you must be some sort of heartless robot.

That's why I'm done with this stuff. Because you end up catching feelings for some dimwit you probably wouldn't have caught feelings for if you hadn't slept with him, and then he screws you over because he never wanted you in any real capacity to begin with. (Seriously, that's how it happened for me ages ago. A guy went from a friend to a lover and just like that, I turned into a weepy mess who couldn't keep her shit together on Monday mornings at work.)

Wrapped in your sheets wondering why he left as quickly as he did, you stare at the door longingly like an inside puppy who's been forced to go outside. And then you spend the following weeks trying to snap out of a funk that, well, you really didn't need to be in.

I refuse to put myself in a position of vulnerability with someone who can't handle being vulnerable.

And you know what? That girl crying into her pillowcase, mascara smeared down her face and all, isn't me. I'm independent as all hell. I hate that sex turns me codependent, silly putty, a woman on the verge. That's why I'm not really having sex right now (aside from the occasional drunken phone call to one of the many fuckboys in my roster).

I used to sleep with a man whenever I felt fireworks. But I need more than just fireworks now, and that's only something you learn after sleeping with one too many men who spark a fire but can't follow through. So now, I'm the woman who withholds.

It isn't that I'm trying to use my sexuality as a tool to tease men, per se. It has less to do with them and more to do with me. I absolutely refuse to put myself in a position of such vulnerability with someone who can't handle being vulnerable.

Can we stop pretending that sex -- real, we-know-each-other sex, not the one-and-done, jackhammer one-night stand -- doesn't muddy the waters? Because it does. Sex changes everything, and some of us just aren't up for that. When you're not having sex, you are in control. And it just so happens that I like being in control.

From now on, I'll only be letting a man pepper my special lady parts if he's equally as special and promises to carry my heart with both his hands, not just one. What can I say? A girl's gotta protect herself.

I am and always will be a hopeless romantic at heart, but I feel out of place in a world that no longer encourages falling madly in love without using a middleman known as Tinder. Until I meet the man of my dreams, I'll be sexless but powerful, a devoted workaholic, a girl who wants to have sex but really is just afraid of the repercussions.

And that'll just have to do.