Are Dry Spells Character Building?

"Everyone should have to go through a dry spell at some point in their life," Miss Cute-as-a-Button was telling me as I was half paying attention and half eyeballing the cute red-head shooting pool across the bar (hey, I'm still allowed to look).

"So what's the longest you've gone?" I ask her.

"A month," she admits rather sheepishly. My rolling eyes prompt her to quickly add, "But I'm still young. I haven't experienced a real dry spell yet."

Truth is, women who look like her don't ever have to do without for very long. Not if they don't want to. And who ever really wants to go without sex for long periods of time?

"I actually enjoy the occasional dry spell," a friend tells me. "When I don't have sex for a while, I focus on my own stuff." Easy for her to say. She's in a long-term relationship and getting some regularly.

Though theoretically, she's right. As another Not-Getting-Any friend confides, "Going without sex is great when you get into that phase where you really don't think about it all that much because you are too busy thinking about the story you're writing, what you are going to cook for dinner, what you overheard at a restaurant. Basically, when you are into the rest of your life."

Inevitably, though, the dull ache in the region from your hips to the tops of your thighs takes over and you find yourself scanning the bar, the bus -- yes, even the laundromat (even though it seemed ridiculous when Cosmo suggested it as a great place to meet men). Before you know it, your standards are all out of whack. Suddenly, 18-year-olds don't seem like such a bad idea, and grey hair is more carefully considered.

And it's hard not to correlate the length of time you've gone without sex with how much of a loser you are. That's what makes people so uncomfortable with the question. Two years is pretty much the limit. No one, in my experience, will admit to longer than that.

"My longest dry spell was nine months," another attractive female friend confesses. "It was hell. I became such a mean person, my family was considering taking up a collection to get me some. I was in such a state. I felt like, 'What's wrong with me?' And the wear and tear on my vibrator, I tell ya ... "

Obviously, some of us are better at doing without than others. For some, two weeks sends them into a panic. For others, sexlessness is less frightening.

My longest dry spell (besides the first 14 years of my life) is eight months, when I first moved to Montreal to attend university at age 25. Fresh out of a relationship in Toronto, in a new city with no friends and surrounded by 18-year-olds, I eventually had no choice. So what if he had to phone his parents afterwards to tell them he was staying "with a friend"? The spell was broken. I had a good run of lovers that summer.

Summer's a pretty reliable antidote for dry spells. That's why it's best to time breakups just before summer. It lessens your odds of sexual deprivation.

Breaking up in November (as the relationship before the aforementioned dry spell did), sucks. Not only do you have Christmas to contend with (although you can comfort yourself with the money you saved on gifts for him), you lose your permanent bed warmer and have to face the winter drought with the rest of the Not-Getting-Anyers.

Sometimes though, it's better to not have sex than to just have sex for sex's sake. Sure, the idea of an orgasm induced by someone other than yourself can feel tempting, but then you think about all that stuff you have to deal with after you come and it can seem like such a bother. Better to wait it out for someone you can at least stand to be around for awhile.

But it's tough sometimes. Especially if you've been burned badly. There's often an overwhelming desire to jump the bones of the first person who will have you in an attempt to erase the physical imprint of the person who burned you. It's an option, but I suspect it's better to wait at least until your wounds, if not healed entirely, have at least scabbed over. If need be, some harmless flirtation and a crush or two can usually help get you by.