Peter’s Story

Section Five - Episode Three

Endless Search for “The One”

Searching, searching, searching.....  Lonely young man in search of love....  searching everywhere, desperately looking for someone to make him happy....

An ache, along with many other similar aches, that would wait many years for resolution.


Within a few weeks, I was back at the dances looking for a replacement for April.


Over the period of the next few months, from late 1965 to mid 1966, when I was aged nineteen, there were a succession of young women whom I met at the dances and went out with once, twice, maybe three or four times.  None of these brief relationships ever got past the hug and goodnight kiss stage; the intense feelings that I had experienced with April just never happened with any of these girls.


I realise now that I was in intense pain, totally dysfunctional, staggering around looking for someone to ease my pain.  I was totally codependent, extremely needy, with very low self-esteem.  At this time I was very much like I was to be 25-odd years later, during the  “Cynthia saga” (see earlier in the story for details).  At the slightest hint from any of these young women that they might not like something about me, I would drop them and find someone else.  I was totally unaware as to what was really happening deep inside me, like the punch-drunk boxer who staggers on oblivious to his real condition.


I cannot now recall anything at all about most of these brief relationships.  But there is one that I can remember quite well.  She seemed to really like me.  There was certainly a real spark to her kisses when we said goodnight on our first date.  She was a very passionate kisser, sticking her tongue deep into my mouth as soon as our lips met.  I cannot recall her name.


Being so totally codependent and needy, I immediately hooked in to her passion as being a sign of something  “special” between us, and went into major fantasy about her for the next few days.  At our next meeting, I lent her a whole lot of my books.  And I never saw her again!


I do not recall exactly why I never saw her again, probably because I took fright over some remark or incident and just never called her again.  And there was no way that I could find the courage to call her and ask for my books back!




There was one incident where I almost lost my virginity, but not quite!


A male acquaintance (not really a friend), suggested that I might like to go out with him and a couple of girls he knew, on a car rally.  I went around to his place and met the girls on a Saturday afternoon, and later that night the four of us went out in his car.


He had told me that both the girls were  “easy”.  He had had sex with them both,  “no sweat”, and had been having a nice little ongoing relationship with one of them.  I might like to try the other one.  She was a little shy but not to worry, she'll be “sure to turn it up for you”.  The girls were only sixteen, I think still at school, and were virtual strangers to me.  But, eager to finally do the long-desired deed, I was more than game!


We went on the car rally, and my friend deliberately got  “lost” on a dark, secluded country road in North Canterbury.  In no time, he was busily having very noisy sex with “his” girl on the front seat, with me sitting with the other girl on the back seat of the car.  I cuddled up to her, doing my best at a very basic seduction routine, acutely aware of the (very loud) blatantly sexual sounds from the front seat.  The car was one of those 1950's model Vauxhalls with a large bench front seat and plenty of room for two couples.


“My” girl responded in a very half-hearted way to my seduction routine.  I managed to get her, and me, more of less undressed, but it felt awkward.  She was only going along with it because it was expected of her.  I was still technically a virgin, but I had a pretty good idea what to do!  I attempted to enter her, but she was half sitting, half lying, in an awkward position, and she was not inclined to make it any easier for me!  I was very nervous, and very worked up, what with the loud noises from the front seat and the blatantly sexual nature of the occasion.  After a minute or two of rubbing against her genitals but failing to make an entry, I suddenly came all over my friend's car seat, and that was that!  We got dressed, the two-person orgy in the front seat eventually finished, and we drove home.  I never saw any of them again.  I was too embarrassed to front up and see them again.


Following the fiasco with the “easy” girl, I went back to my old haunts, the public dances, to find myself another “nice” girl.


Quite soon, I met one.  For the purposes of this narrative, let's call her Jocelyn.....





Jocelyn


Jocelyn was a trainee dental nurse at the Christchurch School of Dental Nursing.  It must have been around mid 1966 that we met, and we were both the same age, nineteen.  At our first meeting, she certainly seemed keen enough on me.


Within a very short time, our relationship fell into a pattern.  I was really keen on her, and I wanted to have a “serious relationship” with her.  She would cooperate up to a point in my attempts to make love to her, often to the point of allowing me to remove most of her clothing.  But she would then go limp and dead in my arms, just as if she had suddenly lost interest.  This was extremely frustrating for me, to say the least.  I would become all steamed up, and end up with a limp rag of a woman who was totally uninterested.


I soon discovered that, just prior to meeting me, she had had a brief very passionate relationship with someone else, and that this had finished when he left to go overseas.  She was obsessed that he would come back one day, and they would carry on where they left off.


And, the main reason that she had even bothered to acquire herself a new boyfriend (me), was for the convenience of having someone with a car to take her out places she wanted to go.  I eventually got the message that she was going along with my attempts at lovemaking up to a point, in order to keep me interested enough to keep taking her out.  But there was no way that she was seriously interested in me.  In other words, as her best friend eventually told me, she was just using me!


The relationship drifted on during mid to late 1966.  I can recall going with her to at least two balls in the winter of that year in Christchurch, the Anglican Ball and the Dental Nurses Ball.  These occasions were quite fun, we would smuggle in bottles of spirits, and get very drunk.  On one occasion I arranged a blind date for her best friend, who I shall call Debbie, for a ball we attended as a foursome, and I still have the photos from this occasion.



But eventually, it came apart.  I realized that I was wasting my time with her, and she was indifferent to me.  She just did not care in the least for me, and was actually very cold hearted.  I stopped seeing her.




I had developed a lovely friendship with Debbie, Jocelyn's best friend.  Debbie was also a Trainee Dental Nurse, and as our friendship developed we would often talk on the telephone for hours.  After it finished with Jocelyn, I can recall going out to dances with Debbie a few times.


My friendship with Debbie was purely platonic, the first time since my childhood friendship with Lucy that I had had such a close friendship with a member of the opposite sex.  This friendship was the forerunner of the many beautiful platonic friendships that I was to have with many women friends years later.  She was a lovely young woman, totally different to Jocelyn.  I could tell that she really did care about me, very deeply.  We enjoyed a natural, easy intimacy, and I always felt at ease in her company.


I can especially remember going to a dance with Debbie, and how we both totally enjoyed the occasion and each other's company.  We danced all night (we were both good dancers), ending up dancing cheek to cheek.  It did not feel at all “sexual” with her, just intimate and joyful.  Even when we spent maybe a half hour kissing in the car when I dropped her off, it did not feel like a “sexual” experience.



Very soon after this happy evening with Debbie, both she and Jocelyn graduated from the Dental Nurses College and they both obtained jobs away from Christchurch.  I never saw nor heard from either of them again.  In years to come, in the middle of drama with later partners, I would sometimes fantasize about what might have been if I had got to know Debbie better.  I was sure that with her, or with someone like her, there would not have been all this drama that I was now enduring!  But of Jocelyn, all I ever felt was relief that I was rid of her.


I later heard that the guy that Jocelyn had been pining for had come back from Australia.  She had been really excited, but very soon after his return, she dropped him!  The idealized fantasy of the person of our dreams is often far more attractive, viewed at a distance through rose-coloured spectacles, than the close-up reality!




Many years later, I am sure that I saw a photograph of “Debbie” in the newspaper.  The photo was of some businessman (or maybe a farmer), and his wife.  The wife looked exactly like Debbie, allowing for the extra years.  I was momentarily stunned when I saw her, she was smiling the same lovely, happy smile that I knew so well way back then, when we were all so young and immature.  “We dance our little dance together, and then move on, never to meet again.”






Back in the 60's again.....  With the moving on of Jocelyn and Debbie, I went back to my old haunts, the public dances, and it was not long before I found exactly what I was looking for.  For the purpose of this narrative, we shall call her Mary.....