Breathing Room

An Exercise in Dialogue

"You don't have to mention sex on the first date."

"I know I just don't want them to get the wrong impression or feel I'm leading them on."

"Carmen its the first date! The impression is - its nice to meet you. Damn!" Nzingha laughed. Carmen sighed, it was easy for her to say that after all she wasn't a virgin.

"Listen, you're making this harder than it is. Relax. I'm not saying have sex. Clearly you're not going to have sex but you can at least have three comfortable dates without making it an issue."

"Well what should I say?"

"What do you mean what should you say? Nothing. There's nothing to say. If he's trying to have sex with you on the first date then clearly he's the problem."

"Well don't act like it's not on a guy's mind."

"Of course it is, but there are guys out there who can respect you - just don't blast them with, 'Hi my name is Carmen and I'm not having sex before marriage, that's sure to drive anyone away."


The above exercise was meant to be one where in practicing writing dialogue we had to write a conversation we'd had with a family member but write it from the point of view of the person you were talking to. Thinking about how they would talk and what they're thinking. I think that in this first draft of the exercise I'm still writing more from my point of view so I need to focus more on the other person.

This is actually based off a conversation I'd had with my oldest sister who is -yep you guessed it- a virgin. And well you probably correctly assume where I stand on the issue seeing that I live with my boyfriend -hmm. But this reminds me of another conversation I had with my younger sister.

Anyway, the thing is my little sister (now 20) and I are quite close and we're a lot alike. She's at that point in her life where she's with a guy and she can't see beyond him. More or less her first relationship - really her second but along the same lines. Anyway she's constantly talking to me about her relationship (which being slightly older can get tiring because I'm long past that stage and anyone who's past my stage feel free to HELP! me) and how close she's gotten to the ACT (ahhhhh!!) but she always stops and she just needs to break up with her guy because its too tempting and she doesn't know if she can stop herself.

Now I tackled that dilemma when I was 19 my sophomore year in college and though I thought I was sure going to hell I got over that too. Now even though I was raised in a strong Christian family I pretty much knew I was not waiting until I was married. That's just me. I had pretty much come to terms with that before I finally went through with it. My dilemma is trying to advise my sister appropriately. If she wants to wait like my older sister, I support that, and if she decides not to, I support that but I don't want to say Hell go for it. So I try and be delicate when I talk to her. Then she gets all testy (she's a bit moody) and doesn't like what I'm saying - this is mainly when I'm supporting her decision to wait- so I'm like what do you want me to say do it? I told her to chill. Her and her boyfriend decided to take a break and after one day of him really taking a break she's calling me saying she can't take it. He hasn't called her all day. Aren't you on break? Yeah, but he hasn't called me all day! Get a grip I tell her. Exert some self-control and maintain your distance. Hell I need to take my own damn advice! I'm taking a break....