Peter’s Story

Section Five - Episode Two

At last!  True Love!

But.... for Peter, true love definitely does not “run smooth”.   Much drama and heartache was to follow....

By mid 1965, aged eighteen and a half, I had still not even kissed a girl!  It was definitely time to change this sad state of affairs.....






Towards the latter part of 1965, in order to meet girls, I began to attend public dances in Christchurch.  I would never attend these dances alone, always with a male friend.


Us guys would stand on one side of the hall, and the women would be sitting on the opposite side.  We would be eyeing the women, trying not to be obvious about it, never making eye contact with any of them.  And they would be doing the same to us, very discreetly.  Many of us would be smoking, which was a very useful way to seem preoccupied, as well as to hide our nervousness.  Us guys were deciding who we would like to ask for a dance, and the women were deciding who they would say yes to if approached, and who they would refuse.


It was a delicate and elaborate game of  “courtship display”, not unlike the courtship displays of some animal species.  Thinking of it now reminds me of a cartoon of peacocks going through their traditional courtship routine, where the male peacock does his thing in showing off his spectacular tail to the female pea-hens. One of the pea-hens says  “Oh, cut the crap, and just show us your willie!”


Life would be so much simpler if we could dispense with the pretense and false modesty that surrounds these elaborate rituals, if we could just get right to the point.  A work colleague told me a story once about how he had given up the pretence about what it was that he really wanted from women, and it was working for him!  On one occasion, he said to a young woman  “Turn it up, or piss off!”  And she “turned it up!”  He scored.  Just like that, she had sex with him, once he told her what he really wanted.




Anyway, on with my story.  I would never of dreamt of trying such crude, improper tactics.  Anyway, the type of young women that I was attracted to would not have responded at all favourably to such blatant tactics.  I was only interested in  “nice” girls.  I remember looking longingly at some of the young women who I judged to be  “easy”, but I never dared approach any of them!  In their short mini-skirts, heavily made-up, heavily perfumed, with low cut dresses, these young women exuded a blatant, crude sexuality.  But they were not for me!  My energy was not compatible with such a powerful, earthy, energy.  I was only compatible with the nice, safe, conservative young women in their modest dresses and with their nice manners.


And I eventually found myself such a  “nice” young woman, let's call her April for the purposes of this story.  I met April at one of the dances, but first another word about the courtship ritual.


Once I had sorted out my likely prey, and had plucked up the courage to ask her for a dance, there came the ritual of  “the approach”.  Timing was all-important.  Important to make one's move quite early in the dance, so as to maximize my time with her, but not too early, or she might turn me down to avoid the embarrassment of being the first up dancing!


It was very important to appear to be assertive and confident, make the approach quickly, ask confidently, with an appearance of expecting to be accepted.  Must not be like the limp rags of men who so radiated fear and uncertainty that they hardly scored a single acceptance all night.  These unfortunate specimens quickly became known to the women, and no self-respecting woman would be seen dead dancing with any of them!


It always seemed like a very long walk from “our” side of the dance-floor to “their” side.  The long fateful walk, butterflies churning in the stomach, fearful of rejection, trying to hide the fear and uncertainty with a confident smile and sophisticated manner.  But even longer was the long, long walk back following rejection!  If this calamity did occur, there was only one thing for it.  Get away from her as quickly as possible, so as not to be seen as a rejectee.  Under no circumstances ask someone else straight away!  Get the hell out of there and regroup for an eventual retry with someone else for the next dance.  Pretend that the refusal never happened, and that you had decided to sit this one out.  Never be like the pathetic creep seen doing the rounds, asking woman after woman, being refused every time.




And once you were accepted, then what?  At least at these dances the volume of the band permitted some semblance of conversation, so there was the opportunity to use the  “chat-up routine”.  The inevitable opening question was either  “Do you come here often?” or  “What do you do for a living?”


On some occasions, there would be an instant rapport, and the conversation would flow naturally and effortlessly.  But on other occasions, she would reply in monosyllables and the conversation would comprise awkward questions from me with vague answers from her, interspersed with awkward silences.


I eventually, through practice, became an accomplished practitioner of the  “subtle art of chatting-up”.  I developed an intuitive skill at what to say, and how and when to say it, and I took great pride in this skill.  I was much better than my friends at this art.  It probably also helped that I was good-looking, just under six feet tall, with an infectious smile, and with the curly hair that I had so despised during my primary school days!  I found that yes, it was true what my aunties had said to me when I was young, that  “one day all the girls will love your curly hair”.


Once the dance was almost finished, presuming that I had decided that I was interested in her, came the decision as to whether to immediately make a move, or to just see her back to her seat and approach her again later for another dance.  Either way, there was a risk factor.  Make a move too soon, and she might turn me down for being too presumptuous, but delay too long and someone else might snap her up!  Oh, decisions, decisions!


If the decision was to go for it immediately, the next move would be to ask her if she would like to have a drink, or supper, with me?  If she was really interested in me, she would almost certainly say yes, and that was it, mission almost accomplished.  But, if she was only mildly interested, it may be that she just was not thirsty or hungry right now.  A wrong move here could blow my chances right out of the water!


Presuming I managed to clear this hurdle, we would probably stay together for the remainder of the evening, and if she was really keen on me, we might even end the evening dancing really close, maybe even with her head on my shoulder.  Oh, the bliss when this fantasy was occasionally fulfilled!


The final hurdle came at the end of the evening, when it was time to leave.  This brought up the delicate subject of offering her a ride home, ripe with all the possibilities that this conjured up.  Although, for me, there was no real possibility that this would involve anything more than, if I was lucky, some kissing and cuddling.  She was, after all, a “nice girl”, and nice girls like her would never even consider any more than this with someone they had only met that night!


If she was conservative or cautious, she might have a policy of refusing a lift home on principle, even from someone she really liked.  Or, if she was really young, her (horror of horrors) father might be picking her up.




Anyway, let's get back to April.....


April


I went through the initial courtship ritual at the dance with April, and we really did hit it off incredibly well.  I thought that she was really very sweet, and she seemed to like me.  The conversation flowed, with us really enjoying each other's company.


Eventually, it was time to go home, and yes, she did accept my invitation of a lift home.  We rode home in the back of my friend's old Bradford van, and even though she hugged me tightly, she avoided all my attempts to kiss her.  She later told me that she would have liked to have kissed me during that ride home, but was determined not to because there were other people in the van with us, and because she had only just met me that night and it did not feel right to do such a thing at the first meeting, with other people present.


During the week I called her on the 'phone, and she agreed to accompany me to a dance the following Saturday night.  By now, I had discovered that she was only sixteen, still in the sixth form at high-school, planning to attend teacher's training college the following year, to train as a primary school teacher.  I was eighteen, in my first year at university, and to her I must have seemed very mature and sophisticated, at least that's what I hoped!


She looked older than sixteen, and was very mature for her age.  She had dark hair just down to her shoulders, she wore glasses, and she was quite solidly built, even a little plump.  The majority of the women that I have had relationships with much later in life also wear glasses, I seem to have an affinity with women who wear glasses.


I still have two photographs of April and I, taken at one of the dances.





During the following week I counted the days and hours until the big date.  Eventually, the time arrived for me to pick her up.  I was taken inside to meet her parents, a nice working-class couple just like my parents.  I had managed to persuade my father to let me have the family car, and we were away on our first date!





I cannot recall anything about what happened during our time at the dance, but I can recall in vivid detail what happened after I parked the car outside her parent's house.


We hugged, and then, suddenly, without fanfare, it happened, our first kiss!  My first ever proper kiss, lips to lips, with a girl.  Her first ever proper kiss, lips to lips, with a boy.  We were both total virgins, both with zero experience.  It was one of those occasions, that if ever recorded as a movie scene, would be accompanied by the most romantic music imaginable, with lots of violins and maybe a flute or harp.


The kisses gradually became deeper and deeper, and time stood still.  We fell into a timeless state of blissful ecstasy.  Literally, for us, time stood still.  We explored each others faces, mouths and tongues for an eternity, totally fascinated.  It was bliss!  All we did that night was hug and kiss.  I would not have dared to spoil the occasion by trying anything more than this, I would not have dreamt of attempting to fondle her breasts, even through her clothes, or any other such blatantly sexual activity.


We were literally a sixteen year old goddess and an eighteen year old god discovering each other and ourselves.


But, eventually, many hours later, reality intruded.  The sky was beginning to lighten with the approaching dawn when she finally, reluctantly, slipped out of the car and went inside.


I drove home, across the city to the other side of Christchurch, from Mairehau to Spreydon, in absolute awe.  I was awed by the power of the emotions that I was experiencing.  After all this time of dreaming and fantasizing about it, I was finally there!  I had found my true love!




Reality intruded again when I arrived home.  I tried to sneak into the house quietly and into bed, but I was confronted by a pair of angry parents!  Where had we been so long???  April's father had telephoned my parents when she did not arrive home at the expected time!  She was only sixteen, still a school-girl, and they did not want their son getting a nice young girl like her into trouble!  And they had been worried about the possibility of an accident in their car.  I was not lent the family car again for a while!


My parents would never actually confront me with straight-out questions about the possibility of me actually having sex with my girl-friends.  After all, how could they, when sex did not exist in our family?  Euphemisms were always used, like  “Don't you dare ever come home and tell us that you have got a girl into trouble!”  I was very happy to play along with this game, and pretend in the non-existence of sex and sexual activity.  It avoided embarrassment for all of us.


The loss of my privileges regarding the use of the family car made it difficult to develop my relationship with April, but it did not totally prevent it.  I can recall talking to her on the telephone on one or two Saturday nights, with both of us feeling intense frustration at not being able to be together because of the lack of transport.


I can recall on one occasion using taxis, and on another occasion having a ride with her in the back seat of a friend's old Austin-7 car.


The “Austin-7 evening” ended in intense but frustrated passion.  All evening there had been this smoldering suppressed passionate energy between us.  We rode in the back of the Austin-7 with our arms around each other, with an acute awareness of my friend's eyes looking at us in the rear-view mirror.  Upon reaching April's home, we walked around to the back-door together, embraced, and kissed.  All of the frustrated, pent-up emotional energy of the past few frustrating weeks surged between us!  We were almost knocked over by the intensity of the energy.  After a few minutes, we reluctantly said goodnight, and I staggered weak-kneed back to my friend's car.


The first big love affair of our life is said to be the most intensive experience of our lives, and this was no exception for us.  I can remember the first time that April, on our second date, called me “Dear” and “Darling”.  To hear these words from her lips, the lips of my beloved, was overwhelming!  To realise that she really, really cared for me very deeply was mind-blowing!  Me, little unlovable Peter, the boy that no-one loved, had found a woman who really cared about me!  Daily, my emotional state would alternate between blissful ecstasy and unbearable frustration.




As the weeks turned into months, we gradually became more sexual in our lovemaking.  The first few times, we stuck entirely to hugging and kissing.  I was acutely aware of our total inexperience, and, despite the powerful sexual urges I was feeling, I did not want to spoil our “perfect love” by any blatantly sexual activity.


I was very mixed up about sex and sexuality.  Years of conditioning that sex was disgusting, shameful and dirty had left both of us very screwed up about anything to do with sex.  As long as we stuck to just kissing, which, after all, you could see at the movies, we were on safe ground.  And, of course, there was the fear of possible pregnancy.


Eventually, our feelings got the better of us, and we began to explore each other's bodies.  I remember the time that, in a moment of passion, I first put my hand down the front of her dress and caressed her breast.  She seemed to really enjoy it, but afterwards she told me that she would not like me to do that again.


However, it was not long before our lovemaking sessions culminated in both of us being naked, panting with the passion of the feelings, but too afraid to “go the full way”.  I desperately wanted to proceed,  but she would always stop me, sometimes reminding me that she was only 16, still at high-school, and was not ready for this yet.  And the fear of possible pregnancy would come up.


The roller-coaster of emotions that we experienced was intense:  the desperate longing, the unfulfilled intense desire, but with the equally intense fear and shame.  Many teenage couples must go through this agonising experience.


We carried on like this for several months, until, one day on the telephone, she told me that she could not take it any longer.  She was breaking off our relationship.  She reminded me again that she was only sixteen, still at school, etc, etc.


I was heartbroken.  How could I live without the love of my life?  My answer was to go back to the dance and find someone else to take her place!




Within a couple of weeks, I was back at the dance, using my chatting-up skills to find a replacement for my lost love.  At my first attempt, I met a beautiful young woman my age (eighteen), and the following week we had our first date.


This new relationship  (I cannot remember her name, but I do still have a photo of us) was more low-key.  There was no instant passion, just a lovely feeling of togetherness as we danced close together.  And we never got past the brief hug and kiss stage when I dropped her off at her home.


I had been out twice with my new love, when April called me.  We spoke on the telephone for ages.  I cannot recall most of what was said, but it was very intense, with us both agreeing that we could not live without each other.  We arranged to go out the following Saturday.


I was worried as to how to break off the relationship with the other young woman.  I dithered around, too afraid to just ring her and tell her the truth!  The days went by, and she would have been expecting me to call to arrange our next date, but I never did.  Eventually, Saturday came and went, and I still had not called her.  She did not have my telephone number, so she was just left high and dry not knowing why I never called her again.  I carried the guilt from this for many years.




The relationship with April picked up exactly where it had left off.  Despite her firm insistence that she was “too young for sex”, our feelings would always get the better of us, the intensity of the emotion would just take over, and we would end up naked and panting with frustration.


We never did have full sex.  Probably just as well.  Back in the 60's, you could not obtain condoms from the supermarket or a vending machine.  You had to front up at the chemist's shop and ask the (usually young, female) shop assistant, and I had not yet overcome this fear.  April was terrified of pregnancy, and if we had consummated our relationship this disaster would probably have happened.


Eventually, in a re-run of the earlier break-off, she terminated the relationship.  I can recall a tearful final long telephone conversation, and that was it.


I saw her just once again, maybe a year later.  I was at a ball with Mary, my later girlfriend, and someone tapped me on the shoulder.  It was April!  She said “Peter!”  I stood there frozen in total confusion.  I had moved on.  My latest love was at my side, and here was my ex!  She looked much more mature, and was with a guy who looked to be quite a lot older than her.  I felt a momentary flash of jealousy towards him.  The thought came “I'll bet she's having sex with him!  She wouldn't do it with me!”  I mumbled a few incoherent words and turned away.


I never saw or heard of her again.


Many years later, feeling nostalgic, and wondering what had happened to her, I did a little research at the public library, looking in old telephone books and electoral rolls.  Her parents had stayed at the same address for many years, but there was no trace of April in the Christchurch electoral rolls.


During a rebirthing session in 1992, the whole episode came up.  I re-experienced the intensity of the emotions.  The incredible pain of the separation, complete with my intense feelings of guilt, frustration, and anguish.  The rebirther gently led me through the experience, and afterwards I felt at peace; the ghost of April was, for me, finally at rest.  I really hope that she has had a happy life.




The immediate aftermath of the April episode was intensely painful for me.  I staggered around barely able to hide my pain.  I told no-one how I was feeling.  I kept it all locked away deep inside me, my own private hell of frustration, bitter regret, guilt, and intense pain.


I recall spending a few days with my parents on holiday around this time.  There was a young woman of about my age there who, I suspect, was going through a similar experience to me.  She was the girlfriend of my cousin, and I was aware that their relationship was very rocky and intense.  My cousin was away somewhere, and she was spending time with his parents.


We spent many hours playing cards together, just the two of us, two-handed euchre.  She was a very attractive, red-haired young woman, with an intense energy about her.  I was aware that we were both suppressing intensive emotional feelings, but there was no way that either of us could say anything about this.  So we went through the charade of pretending that everything was just fine and dandy, two young people smiling and laughing, suppressing and hiding their true feelings with a thin veneer of smiles and laughter.  It was just not the accepted thing for anyone to show their true emotional state, it was outside the paradigm of our society, the paradigm that had been programmed so deeply into us all through our 1950's childhood.


There was no way that, back then in the 60's, we could risk stepping outside this paradigm.  However, eventually social conventions do change, and we change too, as we gather life experience.  My deeply hidden pain may have had to wait a long time, locked away inside me.  But eventually, twenty-something years later, I was ready for the paradigm shift necessary for me to let this pain out into the light of day.  And this is what this story of mine is really all about, about my personal journey as I navigated through the energy of the 1950's, 60's, 70's, 80's, and eventually the 90's, finally ready to look deeply into the mirror of self-discovery to find the real me that had been long hidden.



Many years later, all of the rebirthing, the 12-stepping, the self-therapy with the flower essences and homeopathy, etc, the many tears and screams shed in cathartic release, the endless weekend workshops, allowed me to, in a sense, climb aboard a time-machine from the 90's back to the 50's and 60's.  A time machine that allowed my forty-something year old personality to “voyage back in time”, to heal the bewildered child and the distraught teenager.  Using the therapy technology of the 90's to heal the wounds of the 50's and 60's.  That I eventually found this technology for healing, and had the courage to use it, for this I am eternally grateful.

Click here to continue on with the next episode of this section of this (1998 version) of the story......

Section Five, Episode Three.....  Searching, desperately, for love....