All my friends are racing to grow up. It’s like a contest. Who’s going to smoke the first cigarette? Get into the best college? Lose her virginity first? Now that we’ve turned 17, my friends are starting to feel like their youth is slipping away. Haven’t you heard? Seventeen is the new 70. Everyone I know is scrambling to reclaim their “lost” innocence while at the same time becoming more sexual, more grown-up.

I don’t understand why everyone our age is trying so hard not to be our age. Those of us lagging behind in the great race toward adulthood are starting to feel the pressure. Especially the virgins. It’s as if you can’t be a legal adult until you’ve done “it.” I bet in certain cities, like Los Angeles, you can’t vote if you’re still a virgin. When the first of my friends lost her V-card, she started strutting around campus like Beyoncé in the “Single Ladies” video (oh, the irony). But watching her parading around like Queen Bey herself, I couldn’t help thinking, What’s the big deal? It’s just sex … or is it? I don’t actually know.

When I was little, people loved to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Even when I went to bed I heard those words clanging around in my head. I couldn’t escape them. Being a princess never interested me; all I ever wanted to be was a teenager. Pretty cutting-edge stuff, I know. “Teenager” was the coolest title I could imagine. It seemed so glamorous – the friends, the cafeteria, the boys, the drama, the lockers, the homework. I blame Disney Channel. Lizzie McGuire did not prepare me for what high school would actually be like. My girl Lizzie gave me the unrealistic expectation that my biggest teenage problem would be telling my mom I wanted to wear a bra.

I never could have guessed that my biggest teenage problem would actually be sex. When to have it? Who to have it with? Should I make my selection from the soccer team or the debate club? Or should I have sex at all? How will I know when I’m ready?

Being the last virgin in your group of friends is no fun, let me tell you. It’s like being the last one awake at a sleepover. Or the only human left after the zombie apocalypse. Seriously, it’s as if my friends have had their brains fried by hormones and are stumbling around campus, chests thrust out, yelling in their best “Walking Dead” voices. “It’s not a big deal,” they tell me. “You’ll lose it when you’re ready. No pressure.” What they’re really saying is, “What are you, twelve? Just do it already. Feel the pressure!” Can’t we just go back to pretending boys have cooties?

The pressure to lose my virginity has done weird things to how I look at guys. I can’t help myself. Every boy I see, I wonder, “Is it going to be you?”

What does having sex have to do with being a grown-up, anyway? For a while I thought holding a corporate meeting was a good indicator that you’d reached the pinnacle of adulthood. I could just picture myself in a glass office aggressively pointing to a spreadsheet and saying, “We need these reports tomorrow, people!” Yeah – that’s what being a grown-up is all about. It has nothing to do with maturity. Or, like, world experience.

I’ve realized the point about growing up is that you can’t fake it; you can’t make it happen. It doesn’t matter how much sex you have or how many cigarettes you’ve smoked or how many meetings you’ve headed. Growing up is inevitable. Time, not sex, does it for you.

And since that’s the case, I don’t want to have sex just so I can say I have. I want more. I want the connection that comes with doing it right (pun intended). I want a good partner. I want Ryan Gosling standing shirtless in the rain, belting my name into the wind. Or, if he’s not available, someone who thinks the sexiest thing I’ve ever said is, “Let’s stay in and watch Netflix.” Or, maybe, “Let’s go for a walk.”

That’s where I am right now. While my friends are speeding down the highway to adulthood, I’m perfectly happy walking. Just walking.