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"This year, my friend taught me what sexy is. She said, &amp;amp;#8220;Sexy is knowing who you are. Sexy is loving who you are. Passive isn&amp;#x27;t sexy. Apathy isn&amp;#x27;t sexy. Sexy isn&amp;amp;#8217;t perfect, and sexy don&amp;amp;#8217;t care.&amp;amp;#8221; Mind. Blown. Here are 13 other things I learned about love this year. So many surprises! 1. Love is in the details Readers told me the smallest thing they love about the person they love: &amp;amp;#8220;He makes my bed for me when he leaves my place. I don&amp;#x27;t even make my own bed&amp;amp;#8221; and &amp;amp;#8220;His stress-ball butt.&amp;amp;#8221; They described their perfect Valentine&amp;amp;#8217;s Day in six words: &amp;amp;#8220;Reading Calvin and Hobbes together&amp;amp;#133;naked.&amp;amp;#8221; And they filled in the blank: &amp;amp;#8220;Anyone I date must love __________&amp;amp;#8221;: Bad dance moves. Me at my worst. Star Wars. Themselves. 2. Young love is the unforgettable&amp;amp;#133; From one friend: &amp;amp;#8220;My first crush was Jordan Fox in the first grade. One time, my mom got a phone call from the teacher saying that he had bitten me because I was tickling him. When asked why he bit me, Jordan told the teacher, &amp;amp;#8216;My mom told me never to hit a girl.&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; 3. &amp;amp;#133;But it could use some words to the wise. One reader&amp;amp;#8217;s advice to his 16-year-old self: &amp;amp;#8220;Use a condom, and make sure it&amp;amp;#8217;s an actual condom. Do not improvise&amp;amp;#8212;sex is no time to be resourceful.&amp;amp;#8221; Another&amp;amp;#8217;s advice to my college freshman little sister: &amp;amp;#8220;Don&amp;#x27;t have sex until it&amp;amp;#8217;s the right person (if you haven&amp;#x27;t yet). You&amp;#x27;d be shocked how many of the college folk haven&amp;#x27;t had sex&amp;amp;#8212;mostly because it&amp;#x27;ll seem like those who do are having lots of it.&amp;amp;#8221; 4. No sex is better than bad sex&amp;amp;#133; I stopped having sex for over a year. Best decision I made in 2013, especially when I decided I liked watching it better than doing it: The best on-screen or in-book sex is highly stylized, a beautiful dance between beautiful people that, most importantly, proves significant and meaningful to its characters beyond mere intercourse&amp;amp;#133;the best movie sex is never just sex; it&amp;amp;#8217;s art. 5. &amp;amp;#133;But nothing is better than good sex After breaking my streak of celibacy, I explored, through a series of strange metaphors, the idea of &amp;amp;#8220;fitting,&amp;amp;#8221; the sensation of bodies and hearts and minds perfectly aligning: We&amp;amp;#8217;re tangled like spaghetti, yet organized and immaculate, like a bedroom in a Container Store back-to-college catalog. Your body is so close to mine it&amp;#x27;s like we&amp;amp;#8217;re conjoined. Siamese. Or, like we&amp;amp;#8217;re one being whose limbs numbered five through eight are soft and sweet and warm. Welp, guess I&amp;amp;#8217;m an octopus. 6. We all have secrets I asked readers, &amp;amp;#8220;What&amp;amp;#8217;s the one thing you can&amp;amp;#8217;t say to the person you love?&amp;amp;#8221; To my boyfriend: I really, really hate that sweater you love. I&amp;#x27;ve never told how much, because I don&amp;#x27;t want to hurt your feelings. You&amp;amp;#8217;ve had it for years and can&amp;#x27;t seem to part with it, most likely because it would mean having to go shopping (which I know you hate). But come on! The sweater is a faded lime green&amp;amp;#8212;LIME GREEN!&amp;amp;#8212;with red letters on it. RED! It&amp;#x27;s like a Christmas nightmare you wear all year-round. To my best friend: You&amp;amp;#8217;re the love of my life. 7. Our parents taught us the important things about love&amp;amp;#133; My mom taught me to love myself and my weirdness, even if no one understands why I dressed as Batman for school picture day. My dad taught me to respect everyone, even if they&amp;amp;#8217;re donut store parking lot prostitutes. Readers&amp;amp;#8217; parents taught them to &amp;amp;#8220;Put your marriage first&amp;amp;#8212;before your children&amp;amp;#8212;because a strong marriage is the foundation for raising a happy family&amp;amp;#8221; and &amp;amp;#8220;Women are always right. And I&amp;#x27;m right about her being right, so I also win.&amp;amp;#8221; 8. &amp;amp;#133;But nothing about sex, apparently I asked why my parents&amp;amp;#8212;and so many others&amp;amp;#8212;never talked to their kids about sex. Then I talked to my parents about sex (and masturbation and porn)&amp;amp;#133;on national TV. 9. We all love the same kinds of people&amp;amp;#133; As Gena brilliantly noted, all girls will have these 12 crushes. All guys will have these 12, including: The older crush: The moms, older sisters, camp counselors, teachers, tutors, and anyone other female whose air of experience, sophistication, and sheer disinterest in you piques feelings of despair coupled with tingly exhilaration. Then again, for every Stacy&amp;amp;#8217;s mom, there&amp;amp;#8217;s probably some Mrs. Robinson or Wendy Peffercorn. A boy can dream, can&amp;amp;#8217;t he? 10. ...But meet them in different places I explored the five ways we meet people and what that says about us. For example, I made connections at an eye-gazing party, artists collective, doctor&amp;amp;#8217;s office, and with any number of girls working as clerks or behind other counters. What that says about me: If &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;ve left the situation with my antibiotics or organic raspberries, so the trip was still a win. Plus, &amp;amp;#8216;Next customer, please,&amp;amp;#8217; is the nicest rejection I&amp;amp;#8217;ll ever receive.&amp;amp;#8221; 11. When things hit rock bottom, just laugh That&amp;amp;#8217;s what I had to do when I lost my chances with the love of my life, the Homecoming Queen. And with these girls too: Me Hey, do you still want to get dinner this week? Her: Sorry I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been MIA. My ex-boyfriend came to surprise me from Arizona, so I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think I should be seeing anyone right now. My friend Crystal, who&amp;amp;#8217;s battling cancer, is the quintessence of how to live and love with humor: I was out late one night with [my friend] when she ran into a bunch of medical students she was flirting up. When one of them mentioned he was an oncologist, she triumphed, &amp;amp;#8220;My best friend had cancer! Crystal, show him your scars.&amp;amp;#8221; I had to assure her that she was in fact the only one who wanted that to happen. 12. Those who overcome know best I learned perseverance and humility from a prom date-less high schooler turned gorgeous male model. I learned about staying true to myself from a girl who&amp;amp;#8217;s rejected five marriage proposals and plans to save her virginity&amp;amp;#8212;and even her first kiss&amp;amp;#8212;for an arranged marriage. Then there&amp;amp;#8217;s my friend Jacob, on dating through deafness: Because I can&amp;#x27;t understand someone if they&amp;#x27;re not near me&amp;amp;#133;we&amp;#x27;re forced to continue communicating in an intimate matter indefinitely&amp;amp;#133;It&amp;amp;#8217;s one reason I tend to have a few deep relationships rather than many shallower ones. I&amp;#x27;m forced to give all of my attention to the person I&amp;#x27;m chatting with or none. There&amp;#x27;s really no middle ground for me. So it naturally weeds out people who would rather have their nose in their latest mobile device over direct focused human contact. 13. I love the Internet. But the Internet isn&amp;amp;#8217;t love In obsessing over Facebook fans, Instagram likes, and Twitter followers, I realized I am not my life&amp;amp;#8217;s proverbial cyber box score: Instead, what truly defines us is often unquantifiable and often too human for a computer to calculate, record, or even begin to understand&amp;amp;#133;My life will not be determined not by how many likes my articles receive but by the times I double over or stop breathing or pee a little bit during the life-affirming pain of a truly hysterical moment. Goosebumps at an unexpected moment. Silences that say more than words. A friend&amp;amp;#8217;s tears&amp;amp;#8212;unashamed, unconstrained&amp;amp;#8212;telling me that I matter and that she cares. Kisses of every variety. Seventeen years ago, before the Internet started keeping score, Rent had it right: Measure your life in love. What did you learn about love this year?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2013/12/13-things-i-learned-about-love>