Searching for intuition

I’m really good at introspection (likely why I live more so in my head then in the real world)… That being said, there’s a few things I’m not so good at. In particular, I feel like a total novice when it comes to things like street smarts, art of romance, and nunchuck skills. I’m certain that my lack of expertise in these areas can all be attributed to my formative years...


I grew up in Washington Heights/Inwood… On a street that has had it’s own scandalous past (and present) – filled with plenty of bad boy lotharios, LL Cool J’s ‘round the way girls, quite a few baby-mama/baby-daddy dramas, dealin’ & wheelin’ hustlers, and the “searchin’ for that elusive pale numbers-playin’” quasi-gamblers (and they come in all shapes, sizes and classes). There was plenty to learn on this street… True, this kind of education wouldn’t get you a degree but it’s the kind of learning that’s quite vital to NYC survival.

Yet somehow, someway, despite it being all around me, I skipped that part of life learning. I, who never skipped class or played hookie (‘til college that is), somehow managed not to partake in some of the most crucial learning a person could ever get. Instead of hanging out at the local bodega or in front of my building, I was safely ensconced in my opera pink room playing with Barbies (pageants & fashion designing galore – until I was nearly 15), or reading (an assortment of YM, Seventeen & Sassy magazines, books by Sidney Sheldon, Christopher Pike, Stephen King, and tons of Harlequin romance novels), or watching lots of educational TV shows (The Facts of Life, Different World, MTV’s Real World, Shirley Temple movies, Midnight Blue/Robin Byrd – Umm, all I can say is that I too had raging hormones!).

I went to a private elementary school (1st to 8th grade) just a block away (thank God for the uniform ‘cause I didn’t have much cool threads to wear). I was nerdy without being a super nerd. Had friends that were boys but no boyfriends. And I played a heck of a lot Barbie during that time. I was a dedicated school girl that only suspected at some of the things the “cool kids” were doing but was essentially clueless at the burgeoning attractions/flirtations between boys and girls. I was the girl that tore a schoolmate’s shirt (I was trying to slap him but my aim was off) in 5th grade and then proceeded to have a teary meltdown – all this as a result of him grabbing my butt during an apparently sexualized version of “tag” taking place in our schoolyard. Oh, God… I was a mess. I just didn’t get it. Sure I liked boys but I was kind of scared of them too. I didn’t know how to respond to boys or how to fight back. I didn’t seem to have (or ever learned how to have) that intuition that the other girls in my class seemed to naturally have… And so I graduated from 8th grade at the age of 14 as clueless and kiss-less as a girl could be.

My teenage years took place mostly at an all-girls high school in the Bronx and a few summers in Santo Domingo, DR. At a time when many young adults start their sexual awakening and explorations, I chose to go to a school where there would be NO BOYS AT ALL (did I already mention I was clueless?). My interactions with boys were limited to rides to and from school on the Bx12 bus and the occasional dance at an all-boys school. I never learned how to ride a bike or roller skate – I was too scared of falling, getting hurt or dirty, and looking like an idiot. I just wasn’t a tough chick even though I could give off a lot of ‘tude. For a while I did excel at creating some very abstract neon artwork on my nails (Pollock would have been jealous indeed!). My dance skills, although limited, allowed me to keep up (and get low) with the Reggae dancing boys. And boy-oh-boy, I was a MASTER at the Catholic School girl arts of applying red lipstick, straightening hair and rolling up one’s school skirt as high is it could go without revealing the world as I walked down the streets. Passing flirtations in DR and heavy petting (never beyond second base) with a couple of high school boys was as far as I went. Let’s be real – I was a prude in heat – so good at playing hard to get that I never got any at all. As far as I could tell it was a combination of a deeply rooted guilty Catholic conscience, fear, embarrassment, and severe inhibitions that kept me from participating any further.

And so it continued onto college… I went to a fashion college in NYC. I might as well have stayed at my all girls’ school. I didn’t learn how to toughen up, how to fight or how to seduce anybody… Instead I learned about the high cost of designer gear (which of course I was too poor to afford), the cattiness and cutthroat business of fashion, and that’s about it. Oh, I had male friends… Straight ones at that, but they were all platonic relationships. I began to immerse myself further into the art world (a mostly cerebral pursuit) and farther away from fashion… Short skirts & sheer linen dresses soon evolved into overalls, suede vans, used clothing and brightly colored chunks of hair. It was a world so different from the schema I’d grown used to… Who knew that taking the 1-train from 200th street to 27th street could lead to such a change of lifestyle, wants, mores??? And so my hidden desire to be the edgy sexy girl that could fight like a ninja but seduce the boys like a geisha went to the wayside. You don’t go to fashion school to learn about the hard knocks and I was too firmly wrapped up in my own personal fears to allow myself much sexual freedom even when faced with promising encounters.

Fast-forward over a decade later and it’s apparent that my intuition is still off… Sure, my life experiences have evolved but I’m not your mainstream female (or what my perception of one is). Once upon a time there was much going on but I didn’t know what it was that I was missing. Now I’m fully aware of what I am missing and I’m STILL missing it.

So how does one get street smart? Is there a class I can take? And how can I learn about romance, seduction – the language spoken between men and women? I read a lot of online articles but I’m still not getting it right. As for nunchuck skills, I’m not particularly physically adroit and have never really developed a taste for violence, so I’m ok with not knowing how to use those.

Is it too late to learn something that you should have somehow been born knowing? Does this 30-something idiosyncratic woman still have a shot at figuring this out?