The Difference Between Men and Women: Love and Sex

Jarod and I shortly after our engagement (August 2004).

The summer of 2004 was my first summer as a high school graduate. It was also the summer I started a new job as a Sales Associate and the summer I would meet my future-husband and father of my three beautiful babies. I didn’t think much of Jarod at first, didn’t even consider him as anything other than a friend/ coworker for about two months. After a few rather disappointing dating experiences, I jokingly told myself I’d be better off as a nun but if I was going to date, I was only going to date a genuinely nice guy that wouldn’t waste a minute of my time with even the slightest appearance of any sort of mind-games.

A light bulb went off in my head as I finally noticed the really nice, really cute, blue-eyed guy working in the Young Men’s department at my job. Unbeknownst to me, he already had the biggest crush on me since the minute he first laid eyes on me and it grew over the short conversations we shared through passing. The minute I started liking him, he became ecstatic at the attention I was giving him because he had already liked me for awhile so he asked me out as fast as he could before I could change my mind and shortly after, we went on our first date. A week later, he gave me the sweetest card, a stuffed animal bear, whom I affectionately call Mr. Bear, and told me he loved me and to which I replied, “I love you.”

We were really young when we met; I was 18 and he was 19. Thus, we shared the kind of love that unapologetically disregards all rationale, the kind of love that could only occur when two young people first step into the world with untainted hope and a soul that has yet to feel the weight of the harsh injustices of life. We naively loved each other negating the possibility that we could ever afflict any sort of pain upon the other. We loved each other with everything inside of us and even at the time, the knowledge of how rare and pure our love was didn’t escape me. Jarod and I cherished what we had. It consumed our every waking moment and we decided to marry exactly four months and three days from our first date.

At the time our relationship was blossoming, I bought a body mist, Fresh Raspberry, from The Gap and wore it as often as I could in those early months we fell in love. The other day as I was getting ready I noticed the pink bottle containing my beloved body mist tucked behind my other body sprays and perfumes. I inhaled it's aroma as I sprayed it upon myself and nostalgically thought back to that summer in our lives where responsibilities were limited and being in love and being together was our only concern. I was transported back to that summer and all those intense emotions cascaded back into my heart as I smiled at the man that I’m still very much in love with and curiously asked, “what does this smell remind you of?”

The man whom I’ve loved and shared my life with for over seven years, whom has seen the births of our three children and has watched them grow ever so fast, leans into me with the ease that only two people who have loved one another can, gently brushes my hair to the side, breathes into the warmth of my neck, pauses for the slightest of moments and then without any hesitation replies, “sex.”

Fresh Raspberry: the difference between men and women.