First, a little about me. I'm 5'5ish, 135ish depending on the day, and have dark brown hair that falls part way down my back with brown eyes. My mom is a Crow and my dad is Italian so the olive complexion genes are active in my family. I've got a fairly petite/athletic build with a 32B chest and a toned butt. My nipples are dark brown, on the smaller side, and I shave everywhere. I'm a fan of tattoos and have a feather on my foot, flower pieces on my right hip into my lower ribs, left shoulder, and lower back, a small script piece in my left side bra line, a green carebear in my left bikini line and a large dream catcher down my left ribs. If there's a detail I've left out, feel free to ask ;)
Without further ado, my story:
I was an 18 year old private, 92F (fuel handler) working on a base in the heart of Bourbon Country. It was a huge culture shock for me, coming from a small town in Maine to a massive military base with more people in my division than my home town. I honestly felt a little lost and overwhelmed, which probably contributed to why I sought out a relationship where I felt wanted. It's easy on a base like that to feel completely ignored. My unit had long been integrated and was about 30-40% female on any given day, so no I wasn't getting hit on constantly, and no I wasn't sleeping with every guy in my barracks.
Speaking of my living situation, I was in a 4-story building with all of the junior enlisted soldiers in my battalion. There wasn't open bays and there wasn't all girls areas. We roomed by company in our own room with a bedroom, closet, bathroom, and a fridge/sink/1 burner stove setup by the door as a kitchenett. Barracks could definitely be a wild time, similar to a college dorm but contrary to your favorite porno, gangbang orgies with 20 guys "running a train" are something I never saw or heard of in my 4 years living there and I was/am a fairly sexually active adult.
Given my situation of being totally new and massively out of my element in terms of culture shock, I quickly turned to Bumble to help sort out my dating scene because the base really was a city and everyone is pretty insular when it comes to their unit, so trying to meet guys who also aren't your coworkers means turning to the swipe game. After a few days online and connections with everyone from the local off base that definitely has fewer teeth than fingers to the obviously fake bot that just screams scam, and swiping left on some guys from my own company (hey, 18-25 year old demographic has the same needs, I get it), I finally matched with a 26 year old, Dustin, from another brigade on our post.
Given 10 seconds on Dustin's profile, I could tell he was an officer and anyone with 10 seconds to spare on my profile could tell I was junior enlisted, but we matched anyway. He was handsome in a gentle sort of way. Sandy brown hair in a military cut, athletic features that let you know he was fit without screaming chiseled gymrat, and a style that screamed more laid back homebody than the stereotypical "bro vet" vibe that you get with some young officers....and a ton of junior enlisted. I took a pause and decided to message him despite knowing our ranks didn't line up because the way I saw it, we were in totally seperate brigades and there'd be no reason we would ever interact or influence eachother at work.