Performance Anxiety

I am in Greece teaching English to rural Greek boys. Ruth is an attractive Jewish girl about my age, who is teaching English in a somewhat higher class school within walking distance from the school where I was working. We met at a teachers conference and I pursued a relationship with her. She seemed receptive.

I walked to her school and we started back to my apartment, which was at my school. The walking path between the two schools went through some farmland. I initiated some lovemaking while we were walking back and “way leads on to way” as they say, and soon we were lying down on the plowed earth and I had sex with her.

It was rather fast without much foreplay but it certainly served to break the ice.

A few days later she showed up – unannounced – at my apartment and made it clear that she was open to having sex. We went to my bed room and began making out on my bed. But I am feeling challenged. She initiated sex this time and I felt I had to prove myself. And of course that inhibits me and I can’t perform. Much later I learned that this is called “performance anxiety.” That is an accurate term for what I experienced. At the time it simply meant that I had failed. I was not a man. Again, as it happened with Sheila, I was devastated.

Soon after that she withdrew from me and from our relationship and sparked up a relationship with my roommate. Presumablye he had less performance anxiety.