Well, it's a luxury of being young isn't it? And I'm certainly hoping to hear some amusing tales of minor cluelessness, but I honestly think my levels were off the scale, and do wonder if there was something wrong with me to end up in my situation. Not that it matters now, it was a long time ago, just mulling. This will be long, soz.
When I was 16 a new lad joined our church youth group. He was 18, and the cousin of my best mate from when I was 13 who had moved away, so I hung around him a bit to get contact with the cousin which not only failed but gave him the wrong impression. He kept asking me out, which I wasn't interested in, but then he started to bring me 'romantic' gifts (in the youth group), think padded cards and teddies with messages. I was mortified and agreed to go out with him to STOP him doing this. I must be the only person to agree to a boyfriend to stop the romance!!
i very much regretted this, but very shortly after this I was woken by my mother one morning to be told that he'd moved into our spare room overnight because his mum had chucked him out. I felt stuck.
So we did some normal boyfriend/girlfriend stuff, went to the pictures etc. One evening he took me into the quarry (grassed over) at the end of our road, and after telling me how much he loved me asked if I'd like to see his penis. This seemed an odd question to me, but OK? I just don't understand how I got to 16.5 without EVER having had any thoughts about sex. Even if uninterested, you'd have thought I would have overheard others discussing it, but I simply don't think it had ever crossed my consciousness.
So he got his nob out and I just er looked at it. And he asked if I'd like to touch it. I could see the expected answer was yes, so I stroked it like a cat!!! Things moved on and he had sex with me. I don't recall being upset or surprised or anything, i just sort of accepted this is what boyfriends do. Although sex wasn't on my radar I had seen James Bond films, so lying down with someone seemed appropriate I guess.
I was deeply unhappy, but stayed with him for 2 years until I finished college. I was supposed to be going to uni, but he talked me out of it. I did however KNOW I needed to get away. So I signed up to a scheme for a year, looking after disabled students. He wasn't happy but it was better than 3 years of uni, so off I went with strict instructions to phone every other day (from a call box).
As soon as I was gone I felt a million times better, and just basically stopped phoning almost immediately, without actually ever breaking up. I was having the time of my life, and I was really attracted to one of the disabled guys. But my attraction was based on him being a total rock star, cute floppy hair, party animal etc. i thought he was cool as, but I did NOT have any sexual thoughts about him. In fact I'd still never had sexual thoughts about anyone. That's not normal at 19 is it? In fact, as an aside I didn't understand what 'turned on' meant until I was 27 after having had 2 children!
So I hung out with this guy and we had a great time, but one night he got totally pissed and while I was hoisting him into bed he got really weepy that no-one wanted to shag him. So i did. It just seemed the right thing to do!! And I left the door open so I could hear the call buzzers of the other residents. I absolutely NO idea that this was a crazy wrong thing to do.
The next morning he spoke to me and said he was fine to carry on shagging me but could I keep it quiet because people would expect him to be shagging a big titted blonde bimbo. That seemed perfectly reasonable to me, so I kept it quiet, but of course it got out and everyone took the piss (good humoured) but were fine with it including management.
Then I fell pregnant. I don't recall EVER having given it a single iota of thought, but I must have known the facts somewhere because when my periods stopped I knew to get a test. And I phoned him and asked him to keep it quiet until I got back, but he'd told people by the time I got back. He was delighted and actually I realised I was delighted too. Not about having a baby, I still hadn't thought about that, but I knew it meant I couldn't go home.
I got sacked from work for having an inappropriate relationship (which they'd known about for months), but they also tried to talk to me darkly about 'options'. I know now that they were talking about abortion, but I didn't at the time, everyone talked in riddles, and I was too embarrassed anyway.
We got married, but I don't recall us ever agreeing this, it was just constructed around us by both our parents. And then I realised it was down to me. I'd stopped partying the minute I found I was pregnant, so at least I had that sense. But I genuinely thought I was going to look after a severely disabled man round the clock...and a baby...and earn enough money to rent a flat...and sort out all the adaptations needed. I'll leave it there, but the situation of me trying to sort this out as a still very clueless 20 year old don't show many improvements. I had absolutely no idea that we could get help with care or housing at all.
I'm not sure why I've written this, but I don't know, just wondering how out of the ordinary I was (and maybe still am).