An Education

I just read an excerpt from Lynn Barber's An Education on the Guardian website (My harsh lesson in love and life). This memoir has been adapted into a movie of the same name. I saw a trailer for it and for some reason I have been entranced with this story ever since. It is about a teenage girl who is courted by an older man, who turns out to be married and a crook. This older man was cosmopolitan and a gentleman, never encroaching on her privacy and giving her respect as a woman in exchange for no questions concerning his double life. This story is set in the 1960's, at a time when many things were taboo. He went through all the courting rituals and waited for the ripe time to take her virginity.

Minus the crook part, this is something I think I fantasized about when I was around the same age. Wanting an older and more experienced man to sweep me off my feet and take me to places I'd never been before, school me on life, and protect me. I was a girl bored generally with school, boys my age, and my crazy/uneducated family. I wanted more than that, and I still do. It doesn't help that Peter Sarsgaard (whom I have a crush on), plays the man.

I am still young and vulnerable, still looking for someone and still wanting more. In one part of the movie she says "I feel old, but not wise." That rings true for me. I know how to take care of myself and am self sufficient, but still feel jaune when it comes to love and relationships. Regardless of all the failed relationships I've been in, I still romantically fantasize of being swept of my feet. Believe me, I'm too jaded to rely on this. But I always hope to be surprised because I am still bored with everything. Maybe this will never change.