Claire sighed at the mirror in front of her as she went through the final motions of primping. She used a q-tip to clean up the lines of color she’d applied on her lips, another one to clear the extra eyeshadow dust that had settled under her bottom eyelashes. This was so much work for just a date, so much investment with not much history of a return.
She was frustrated, but so much so she didn’t know how to explain it. She was 26 and on her own, in what felt like a twilight phase of life without the plainly laid-out direction of college but before she had figured out what she wanted, and this was extremely evident in her sex life. She had hooked up back in the dorms but never truly saw the point. She wasn’t even sure she had ever had an orgasm. Sex felt like an obligation, just like putting on makeup did right now. The past few months had been about trying to change that: signing up for dating apps, putting herself out there, being up for new people and experiences, but none of this work had paid off yet.