I once belonged to V-CARD, a women-only group I’d run across on Facebook. We’d meet once or twice a month at the organizer’s house. V-CARD stood for Virgins, Celibates, and—the last two letters would change: Raspberry Donuts (someone had brought them), Retro Disco (playing on the CD player), Rodney Dangerfield (a poster of him), whatever. The forced fun, the “You go, girl!” attitude, the implicit acceptance of lifelong loneliness—all made me even more depressed about my protracted virginity. After three months, I stopped attending. People can change, I dimly perceived. All my life, I’d specialized in dim perception.
Copyright © 2018 by David V. Matthews
