Remembering the Loss of Darren

Sometimes, I'll have a dream about an old friend. I haven't seen him in years, and I'm always so happy to see him. As usual, he looks great. We'll be doing something, talking, and I'll start to wonder why he looks so much younger than I do. It doesn't usually dawn on me why until I wake up. He never got gray hair, or laugh lines, or middle aged spread. He's frozen in my memory, frozen in time, before he got sick. Before he died of AIDS.

He'd be glad that the automatic image my brain calls up is of him looking gorgeous.

It's rare that you end up being best friends with your first high school crush. I met Darren in the fall of 1980, when I was a freshman. He was only 3 months older than I was, but he was a sophomore. He had a part in the first play of the year, and I was an usher. He was very good, delightful to watch, and ridiculously good looking on top of being talented. I developed a raging crush on him.

We discovered that he lived right around the corner from me. I loved it when he'd pick me up and drive me to school in whatever sports car he owned at the moment; I felt incredibly cool and very special. I was jealous when he had girlfriends.

It took a while, but I discovered that I was happier being his friend than his girlfriend. Girlfriends came and went, and breaking up was never a Bruce and Demi affair in which they were best friends afterward. Sometimes, they barely spoke afterward. Darren and I, though, became closer over time. I was glad that I wouldn't be relegated to the scrap heap, so to speak, any time soon.

I'm glad that I remember his smile so vividly, because I don't think I have many photos of it. In most photos, especially school photos, he refused to smile. He didn't have an "I'm soooo cool" James Dean glower, either. In most of his school photos, he looks deeply depressed, like he's about to cry. "Smile, for crying out loud! What is that look?" I'd say. "I look stupid when I smile," he'd reply.

He had a wicked sense of humor, which was occasionally too bawdy for my taste. He was a talented artist, drawing detailed and accurate automobiles of all kinds. While I was an actor and a technician, Darren was an actor, period. He had no desire whatsoever to do any tech work. When we both joined the debate team, I did both debate and speech events, but Darren only did speech, events like Dramatic Interpretation.

We got to the point where we could usually tell what the other was thinking. We developed a signal, a hand-to-the-forehead-and-then-outward motion that meant, "Catch this thought." Most of the time, we could.

My parents didn't want any of their kids getting a driver's license before they were 18, but when I was 15 my dad bought a VW van that became, by default, the car I learned to drive in, and subsequently became "my" car. My mom made Darren his own key, at least 2 years before I had one, so he could drive me places in my car. We called it "bussing," since we were in a VW "micro bus," and we'd go together or in groups to the mall, to the movies or out to eat. He loved the magic and joke shop. Once, we bought Groucho Marx glasses and went to McDonald's wearing them. Another time, we drove the van backwards through the drive through, and ordered out of the sunroof.

I don't remember exactly when, or how or with whom, he started smoking pot. I was such a total straight arrow, uninterested in chemical escape and unable to imagine either rebellion or conformity as a means of bonding, that it caused me literally physical pain. I was devastated, every day. He knew I didn't approve, but I don't think the depth of my reaction was entirely clear or would have made any sense to him. (With certain people, I spent my time waiting for them to grow out of various behaviors, while they undoubtedly spent their time waiting for me to get with the program and act like a "normal" kid.)

"Look at my pupils," he'd say, or, "Smell my shirt," to point out to me during school hours what he'd been doing between classes. He'd giggle when I scolded him. He moved on to other assorted intoxicants, and was soon dealing.

He had a part time job at McDonald's, but made far more money selling drugs. He always figured that he hid this fact rather well, but come on, what 16 and 17 year old kid buys a sports car with cash? "I could have saved that from my job," he said when I pointed this out. Not in this universe, I thought, but his parents seemed oblivious, so who knows?

My mom always knew who was doing what among my friends; either I'd tell her, or they would. Darren didn't drive me or my car while intoxicated, and never offered me anything – in fact, forbid others to – so she didn't worry about me, just about his own safety.

We were still in our teens when he told me that he was gay. He made no real secret of it to anybody. I was a total mother hen – my friends frequently called me "Mom" – so my worry about him increased. It was the early 80s, and AIDS was brand new. The CDC had identified three high risk groups – gay men, intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs – and Darren was in two of those groups, and cavalier. "Be careful!" I'd say, over and over. I was terrified that something would happen to him.

He did not share my worry.

He came home from a weekend trip to Las Vegas and told me, rather gleefully, "I was really sleazy this weekend." I was beside myself. "Are you insane? Do you want to get sick? Do you want to die? You CANNOT be sleazy in Vegas!"

He laughed. "That's exactly why you go to Vegas!" he said. Over and over, if I panicked he'd shrug and say, "If I'm going to get it, I'm going to get it. I'm not going to worry." I tried not to make myself frantic.

When he was diagnosed as HIV+, just a year or two later, I never again criticized his behavior.

I read every news story about treatments, hoping for a cure.

Darren did my makeup for my engagement portraits; I knew he'd do a better job than I would.

After I got married and moved to a small town hours away, Darren sent me a stack of photos from Reno, "so you won't be so homesick." One of my favorites was a shot of the sign outside of a business that I used to pass daily while I was at work, "The Hitchin' Post Wedding Chapel." It was one of the tackiest things I'd ever seen, and he knew it. Another favorite was a shot of a man walking toward the dumpster in Darren's apartment complex. On the back Darren had written, "This bum goes through my garbage every day." I laughed out loud; I still laugh at that.

He moved to Hollywood, where he kept a coffin in his living room ("This is the guest bed,") and once hung his Christmas tree upside down. He became fascinated by vampire stories. (Now that vampires are mainstream, I wonder what he would have thought about the whole "Twilight" thing.) One of the last photos he sent me before he got very sick is the photo that still hangs on my wall. He's sitting, in sunglasses and impeccable clothes, on the beach in Santa Monica.

Once when we were both visiting our parents at the same time, he walked around the corner to see my family. My older daughters were probably 3 and 4 at the time, and fascinated by his left arm. He had a bat tattoo that extended the entire length, with the bat's body in the crook of his elbow and the outstretched wings going from wrist to shoulder. My girls had never seen anything like it, and they trailed their fingers over the drawing. "What is that?" "How did you do that?" "Does it come off?" they wanted to know. His concise answer: "With needles. It hurts. Don't do it." Is there a better way for an honorary uncle to explain body art to preschoolers? I don't think so.

He never said so, but I think he appreciated the fact that we weren't reactionary and paranoid about getting sick ourselves. In the late 80s, some people were still saying things like, "How do we know for sure the virus can't be airborne?" We hugged him; my kids sat on his lap. He was no danger to us.

When he got so sick that he could no longer live alone, he called to arrange to stop by my house on his drive from California to Pennsylvania with his mother, moving from his Hollywood home to hers outside of Philadelphia. My husband was at work and my kids were at school when they came through, and they only had about half an hour to spend, but it was nice having him almost to myself one more time. He was starting to look, and feel, a little too thin, but if you passed him on the street you wouldn't have known that he was ill. I got to hug him twice more before we were separated by thousands of miles.

"I need to see Darren one more time when it gets really bad," I told my husband.  He didn't even hesitate; Darren was family. Another dear friend, whom he'd called "Little Sister" for years, talked with me and decided that she, too, would fly out if we sensed that he was slipping away.

Darren took up sewing. In the last two photos he sent to me, he's modeling a coat he made and holding up a quilt he'd crafted. He finally looked sick, even though the only part of his body you can see clearly is his face. He was far too thin, and his skin was grayish. I bought a plane ticket to Philadelphia.

He phoned me, surprised by the news. "Have you booked a hotel? Don't book a hotel without checking with me! Parts of Philadelphia are really scary; you don't want to go there alone!"

His voice was starting to sound hoarse, and he slurred slightly. He was on an enormous amount of medication, including painkillers.

He phoned a week or so later, and said, "I hope that ticket was refundable. I really don't want you to see me like this. I can't go anywhere or do anything with you anyway." I started to protest, to insist that I didn't care, but he asked, in no uncertain terms, "Please don't come. I don't want you to see me like this. I don't want anybody to see me like this. I want you to remember the way I used to be."

"Is your ticket refundable?" It wasn't, and it cost slightly more than my monthly mortgage payment. "No problem. It's totally refundable," I lied.

I should have made the trip months earlier.

Darren died in 1995; we were both 29. Our friend Sue called to tell me when he passed away. His mother planned a memorial service in California, just 2 hours from me, so that his West Coast friends could attend. I left my girls, now 7 and 8, at home, but brought my infant son, whom Darren had never met. He sat on my lap in his sailor suit, one of three people in the room that I knew, Darren's mom and another high school best friend being the other two.

It was the second time in less than a year that I lost a very dear 20-something friend to disease. No matter how much time you have to "prepare," you're never prepared. I felt decades too young for my friends to be sick enough to die. Accidents I could have understood. Illness seemed somehow wrong.

Professional modeling photos from his time in LA sat in frames in the middle of the room, and the mourners sat in a circle. His aunt read a poem, some formal words were said, and then the time was opened to the rest of us for remarks. Everyone sat in silence; his friends from LA sat across from me looking uncomfortable.

Nobody wants to go first, I realized. OK, I'll go.

I told stories. I talked about the rubber noses, the ever changing array of cars, the things we'd done while growing up. I don't remember a fraction of what I said, but when most of his family laughed at something, I knew it was OK. And after the ice was broken, then others felt comfortable getting up and speaking.

After the service was over, his friends from LA came over to talk to me. "Until you got up to speak, I almost thought I was at the wrong service," one of them joked. "After you spoke, I thought, 'That's the Darren I know.' "

Sometimes, in my sleep, my brain forgets that he's gone. And I never dream about him sick; he's always healthy, vibrant and grinning. I can hear that distinctive laugh, just as clearly as I ever could.

I miss you, Darren. I love you always.

Are We There Yet?

Two things prompt me to share this essay now, even though I wrote it years ago. One, I just returned from a great trip to visit my oldest child and her husband.

Two, I spent a great deal of time on the phone today with a frazzled Expedia customer service rep who was rebooking the trip we have planned, in several months, to celebrate my husband's 50th birthday and my brother's 60th birthday. We're all headed to Hawaii, somewhere my brother's never been. We researched this trip for over a year, watched prices fairly obsessively, squirreled away money and finally booked a few weeks ago. We booked at a golf resort on Oahu's leeward shore, not because we love golf (none of us play) but because it had a great price on what we wanted - mini suites with kitchenettes. Apparently those great prices were their last ditch effort to stay afloat, because they just declared bankruptcy. They'll be closing in a month, displacing hundreds of holiday travelers and those like us who are leaving months after the holidays.

"Thank you so much for having a sense of humor and being patient!" the Expedia rep said to me. "I've been on the phone with angry people all day." No sense in getting angry here. Hey, even though the new booking would have originally cost us more, they're changing our reservation for free because we already booked and paid. Plus, we're going to Hawaii! How bad can it be?

(Note to self and others - I've never dealt with Expedia customer service before, but based on this experience, I highly recommend them.)

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I believe firmly in the value of travel. My parents had very little discretionary income – truth be told, they had little income to cover a lot of necessities. Yet, we took a family vacation every year, and more day trips than I can count. It was just part of the fabric of life.

I can only remember staying in a motel twice. We may have done so more than that, but it was extremely rare. We stayed with relatives, or we camped. I could spot a KOA Kampground sign from miles away, even before I could read. I went on an airplane for the first time at seventeen; we always drove wherever we were going. (Airplanes were for rich people.) When we could, we picnicked instead of eating at restaurants. And yet, we covered thousands of miles. We visited volcanoes, geysers, the ocean, the redwoods. We saw moose, elk, antelope, buffalo and bears. We swam, fished, hiked, climbed, and spent time just sitting in patio chairs.

When I was the only child left at home, and a teenager besides, family vacations seemed less relevant. Still, I went to Disneyland with my friends two years in a row, with my mom along as a chaperone. I spent a week with my dad and my cousin in her cabin. There were still day trips with my family, but now there were day trips with friends as well. We once drove to a neighboring city just to eat at a particular Japanese restaurant. I've never had wanderlust in the sense of having to constantly change dwellings and/or jobs, but if I spend too long without getting out of town at all, I get antsy and grumpy.

After growing up and getting married, Dan and I took our first family vacation when our oldest child was eight months old. (We'd been married for about a year and a half.) It took a bit of talking to convince my husband that it was a good idea; he was much less sold on the idea of yearly vacations (or, really, any vacations) than I was. We stayed with my sister in Orange County, and spent a day at Disneyland as just a couple while my sister babysat. Suddenly, Dan felt better about vacations. Since then, we've made sure to take a trip every year, and occasionally more.

I sat once, years ago, around a table with a group discussing a mutual friend and her post retirement travels. She and her husband, it seemed, spent more time away from home than they did in their own house. Their latest trip had taken them to Europe. We were all quite jealous. Then someone said something that demonstrated a sharp divide between my opinion and that held by the rest of the group.

"Well," she said, "I guess you can go all those places if you don't care what kind of hotel you stay in. I mean, they'll stay in discount motels."

Another woman agreed. "And they'll fly coach. All the way across the ocean!"

"They don't eat fancy food, either. They'll just pick up something simple in a pub."

"Sure, you can go anywhere, I guess, if you're willing to put up with that."

Then the fantasizing started. "If I were to go, I'd want five star everything – hotels, restaurants. I'd want first class plane tickets; you know, where they give you hot towels and eye masks and even foot massages."

The conversation went on while I sat amazed, wondering if they'd noticed that I was no longer saying anything. The thing that truly amazed me was that these were people who not only did not take five star vacations, they didn't normally take any. I'd known them for years; they were not travelers. I sat thinking, if the choice is between motels and pub food and not going anywhere, the choice is easy for me. Bring on Motel 6!

I've stayed in lovely resorts with helpful concierges and free group activities. I don't have the money or inclination to go five star, but I do know the difference between those properties and some others I've stayed in, like the motel made from mobile homes, whose pool was a Doughboy. Still, to me a room is a place to sleep, shower and dress. As long as it's clean and I can sleep, I'm happy. The reason I'm there has nothing to do with the hotel I'm in.

I don't even need a great view. I'll be leaving it all day anyway, and it doesn't do me much good when I'm asleep. I was glad my oldest daughter shared this opinion when she went on her high school graduation trip. She and her two best friends spent a week in Hawaii, and out of necessity they booked an inexpensive room in a high rise hotel. They took gleeful photos of each other standing in front of their windows, indicating the view – a multi level parking garage, so close to the cars that they could see make, model and plate number. They didn't care. They were 18 years old and in Hawaii without parents! They went snorkeling and to luaus, but because they were teenagers, they didn't have endless funds. Lana, my daughter, spoke fondly of buying 99 cent fruit and yogurt parfaits from a fast food restaurant, and then eating them on Waikiki Beach, feeling on top of the world.

Our four children had a great time on our various travels when they were growing up, but they're also kids. We listened to hours of complaining and bickering. "We'll be in the car for how many hours? I hate the car! I'll be so-o-o-o bored!" Siblings who were barely civil to each other when they shared a room were often thrown into the same bed, resulting in a recitation at breakfast of who kicked whom, who stole the covers, who snored and who hogged the bed.

For our first trip to Hawaii, we had to drive for four hours to the airport, then spend approximately six hours on a plane. The older two complained so long and so loudly about the travel time that we finally threatened to leave them at home with Grandma, as they were clearly missing the point. They grudgingly agreed that maybe they could stop complaining long enough to get to Hawaii.

Once we got there, we also listened to our ten year old complain that we didn't spend enough time at the hotel pool. "We're always leaving the hotel to go somewhere!" she groused. I finally had to say, "We did not spend thousands of dollars and come thousands of miles to the most remote pieces of land on the planet simply to stay in our hotel! There are swimming pools at home."

Every parent would also recognize our battles about what they could and could not buy, and where we could and couldn't go. Children who used the bathroom twice a day at home suddenly needed us to stop the car every hour so they could use gas station restrooms. We endured complaints about the food, the weather, the scenery and everything else.

It took years before we knew that, despite all that, they actually did get something out of the long drives and shared beds. When Lana went hundreds of miles away to college, she met kids from all over, kids with a variety of backgrounds. She found one fact about her new friend Sarah very odd. "Mom," she told me over the phone, "can you believe that she's never been anywhere? She's been in her hometown and here at school! That's it! We have to plan a girlfriend trip and take her somewhere!"

Here's a Thought...

                I've been married for longer than I was alive before I met my husband. I've been a parent for longer than I was childless. I hit both of those markers years ago. Since I expected to spend most of my life as a married parent, I am neither surprised nor dismayed.

                I don't tend to pat myself on the back too much, either, unless I'm exposed to some train wreck of a life that makes me think, "How is it that you didn't see that coming? Amateur."

                I continue to be baffled by other people and their thoughts on marriage and parenthood, though. That's also nothing new, but it is continually astonishing.

                Years ago, I ran into a high school friend I'd lost track of just after she graduated. I was 24 and she was 21; I'd last seen her shortly after my wedding. I had a husband, two kids and a mortgage. She was divorced. "You're still with the same man?" she said. "That's so cute."

                Um, yeah. That's just how we thought of ourselves – so cute.

                (That's sarcasm, folks; I've discovered that I have to label it, or people can't tell.)

                A few years later, I was commiserating with a girlfriend as she griped about annoying male habits. I agreed with her on some point or other, saying the usual, "I know exactly what you mean."

                "No, you don't!" she said. "You don't know about men! You're married!"

                Wow. "And I married what, exactly, a hamster?" I asked.

                "No. Well, you know what I mean. You aren't out there, like, dating or anything."

                "How many hours a day do you spend with your boyfriend? I live with a man!"

                "It's not the same."

                "I know! I live with a man."

                She remained firm in her assessment that my lack of dating experience meant that I knew little about men. "You know about your husband, not about men in general." Well, OK, but that's like telling the mother of an infant that she doesn't know about babies, or a sick person that they don't know about disease. It may not be all-encompassing information, but by golly, it's first hand, reliable and in depth.

                Actually, I was always sure – and I still am – that I knew more about men from being "one of the guys" than I would if I was dating any of them. Guys, think about how you behaved around your buddies, and how you behaved around girls that you wanted to impress. If you grew up with me, think about the times you hushed me before I spilled the beans in front of your girl. Who knew you better – that is to say, who had a more accurate picture of what went on in your head and your life?

                What I want to talk about today, though, is one of the commonly held beliefs that just don't make any sense to me. I mean, as usual, I can tell you why people believe what they do, but to me it seems fairly ridiculous.

                I cannot come up with any compelling reason to believe that sleeping around before you get married will make you more likely to be happy settling down and being monogamous after married.

                Leave all of your preconceived ideas about choosing sex partners aside and consider the two following scenarios.

                Scenario One: It is perfectly morally acceptable to have sex with anyone who wants to have sex with you. In fact, you are encouraged to have many different partners in relationships lasting anywhere from minutes to years. You will never be able to be truly satisfied and happy with your life unless you've experienced everything that's out there. Try any number of sexual philosophies and practices, and enjoy them all. Then, one day, meet someone you will love more than you'll ever love anyone else, someone who is more compatible with you than anyone else ever will be. From that point on, you will only have sex with that one person. Even if you meet many willing, attractive, compatible individuals after you've made this commitment, even though in days or years past it would have been acceptable or encouraged to bed them, now you can't, because you've chosen your one.

                Scenario Two: You have always known that you will only ever have sex with one person. Before you make that commitment to your one, no matter who offers, the answer is no. You very carefully choose your one, because it's a matter of great importance. After you have actually made that (lifelong!) commitment, you are encouraged to have sex as often as you both wish.

                Now ask yourself: which person is more likely to be happy with their partner, happy with their sex life and content in a life of commitment and monogamy, someone who lived life #1 or life #2? Who is going to be more likely to fear that they didn't get a chance to do everything and to meet everyone?

                Right now, before you tell me at once how wrong I am, how unrealistic and naïve and stupid, and and and, let's set the parameters.

                You probably noticed that I talked about giving consent and being willing, but didn't tie it in to the usual noun that follows the word consenting in these discussions, "adult." That's because I'm thinking about all the people of my acquaintance who were having sex before they were adults. By and large, they felt justified in doing so then, and as adults they say things like, "Kids are going to have sex. It's just a foregone conclusion." I am not, for purposes of this discussion, bringing in the idea of adult to child sex, although I have heard people make that argument. ("In past centuries," they say, "it was just understood that…" Or, "We like to deny that children are sexual creatures, but they're not." I'm not going to have that discussion right now.)  I'm assuming that we're talking about teens to teens or adults to adults, with about a 4 year wiggle room margin.

                I'm also not going to muddy the waters with a discussion on the exact definition and purpose of "consent." The standard definition is my preferred one, thanks, and I'm not going to get into minutae like, "After how many drinks?"

                I also know people who will be practically yelling right now that this is why monogamy is flawed and unnecessary, because it sets people up for failure. I am not OK with that philosophy. Did we learn nothing from the key parties and "open marriage" movement of the 1970s? Wait, of course we didn't. Humans are notoriously bad at learning from the experiences of others; why do I bother to ask? If you need me to pull statistics on how often "open" relationships fail, on their own or in comparison to monogamous relationships, I'll do that. However, I think we can all be grown up and informed enough to agree that giving your significant other your blessing to have sex outside of your relationship does not guarantee that your relationship will be successful, or even that it will be free from jealousy.

                While I'm not advocating, obviously, condemning those who had sex before they were married (I find that I have to state the obvious, or someone will argue the point), I am puzzled as to how anyone thinks that having multiple partners before marriage means that you'll be happier after marriage. I remember talking to the adorable 18 year old ingénue in a play we were both in years ago. She was gushing about her boyfriend, and another cast member asked her if she thought he'd be proposing soon. She was aghast. "Oh, no! My dad would kill me if I settled down before I sowed my wild oats!" she said. I just can't imagine.

I also couldn't wrap my head around it when a friend's mother kept encouraging her not to "rush things" by getting married to a man she'd lived with for five years. When did that become "rushing?" She insisted that she loved the daughter's beau, that he was a great guy and that they were smart people, but she panicked every time they said, "engaged" or "married." If I was cautioning one of my kids about a relationship of five years or more, it would be because I thought the partner was a bad choice, period, not because I thought they were rushing things.

I was equally puzzled when a friend broke up with her high school sweetheart when they were well into adulthood because, "I don't want to be with him just because I've never experienced anything else." Think about your best friend, the one you've known for years, the one who knows you inside and out, the one you can't wait to phone with news and spend all the time you can with. Would you ever say, "Geez, you've been an amazing friend, and I have no complaints, you've seen me through so much, but I've just got to dump you so I can see if there's someone more amazing out there"?

After they broke up and she started dating other people, she felt that the fact that she found new relationships that she was happy in (but nothing permanent so far) was a clear indicator that she'd had the wrong guy before. After all, if she was "supposed" to be with him, wouldn't life be unremitting misery without him? The fact that she found other men attractive, enjoyed their company, and had great sex with some, meant that her earlier, long standing relationship had been "wrong," she was sure.

Was I the only one who went into marriage intending to stay married and stay faithful while fully aware that I would undoubtedly, in the future, meet guys who would be great catches if I was single? Full TMI disclosure: I have had sex with 1 person in my life. I have met many that were charming, funny and delightful, who made my hormones buzz, who caused momentary daydreams or wishes that it was morally acceptable to sleep around. I kept my clothes on; it wasn't that huge an exercise in willpower. It was simply what I expected life to be like. I do not feel deprived. I am not missing out. If I was unsure about that, I have only to look at the lives of others to see it. They took what is, for me, the road not taken, and I wouldn't trade places.

I'm also not advocating staying in a bad relationship because "you made your bed, now lie in it," or because you can't bear to be wrong or to feel like the time you spent together was a "waste." (Did you learn from it? That's not a waste of time, even when you have to end it.) I'm here because I choose to be, not because I don't know that I have other choices available. I have a deal breaker list; everyone should. My husband knows what's on it, and it's nonnegotiable. Some people are in relationships from which they should RUN, not walk. I don't think that negates the idea that sleeping around is bad.

I don't believe in the idea that there is only one perfect match for everyone, and you either find that match or settle for second best all your life. Any number of people could be a perfect match for you, or me. That doesn't mean that choosing one is a bad idea. It doesn't mean that monogamy is doomed to fail.

I also think that the people who say to me, "Oh, I'm SO glad I didn't stay with my first boyfriend/girlfriend" don't negate it, either. The question at hand is whether it's easier to "settle down" after feeling free to have sex with any available partner, not whether or not young people generally have good taste or a sense of long term goals and how to get there. (For the record, some do and some don't. That shouldn't surprise anyone.)

I know many people who are monogamous after a very non-monogamous past. I know it can be done, and I know that people can be happy doing it. I just think it would be an easier transition if their past had been celibate. I know it would be tough for me to go through life thinking, "Oh, geez, why didn't I meet you earlier?"

So many people tell their kids not to drink until they're adults, but that it's OK then. The concept of, "not now, but feel free when the circumstances are right" shouldn't be foreign. Nobody feels that it's burdensome to keep people besides their spouse out of their finances and child rearing – why should it be burdensome to keep them out of your pants?

I submit that it isn't.