Hi everyone, I am in my early thirties and have been dealing with something that has brought me a lot of shame and frustration.
I am still a virgin.
Putting my thoughts into words on this has been really hard, because for the past fifteen, even twenty years, I have internalized the feeling of being unattractive and a failed man (there are other factors for this, but those parts of my life are slowly getting back on track.) Also, I’ve had a lot of hostility on Reddit when I’ve tried to reach out on there in the past, so the motivation to really type this isn’t there.
I don’t want to reveal too much about myself, but I’ll try to explain my thoughts as best I can.
My primary and secondary school years sucked. Being autistic made me an easy target for bullies and I was picked on a lot by boys and girls alike. Girls would flirt with me or come on to me as a joke, then laugh in my face (or worse) if I took them seriously. One classmate took things so far that she went on a year-long harassment campaign of calling me a creep and telling me to kill myself.
Sixth form and university were my quiet years. I made temporary friends in both places but I keep in touch with virtually nobody. The girls I interacted with during those years seemed stuck-up and had no interest in even talking to me as a friend. I don’t know if it’s a thing about British women, or just the overall vibe at my uni, but I just get really frigid vibes.
Don’t even get me started on online dating. As a man, you cannot even get matches or replies unless you look like Ryan Gosling, and it is disheartening to have nearly every single one of your messages ignored, even in the modern days where every dating app is a Tinder clone and now requires you to mutually match to send a message. The worst one nowadays is Okcupid, where I realised that the only matches I even get are women on the other side of the world who blatantly falsify their location in the search for a Western husband and the means to a spousal visa.
I have had dates before, but about half of them she’s made excuses to bail and then blocked/unmatched/ghosted me afterwards, and it’s not like I knowingly did anything creepy.
I’ve also had girlfriends before, but I’ve only even kissed one of them. Two were LDR’s that fell apart the moment we closed the gap (of the two, one was a Chinese lady who my German friend tried to set me up with, the other was a Japanese girl who in retrospect was using me for English practice and help with her student visa.) Of the two that were in my country: one used me for my money and cheated on me, and the one that I did kiss we broke up because of the distance and the fact that our personalities just clashed (I was attracted to her but much of the time it felt like I was talking to a brick wall.)
My birthday is in a few weeks and I’ve debated on whether to pay a hooker to take my virginity (I’d likely go abroad for this. Prostitution is technically legal here but a lot of stuff associated with the sex industry isn’t.) I don’t want to end up in my forties not knowing what sex feels like.
The main reason I’m even considering this is because I’m fed up of trying to date people. My past experiences have left me feeling aromantic, but it feels like even the rare few women who are open to hookups wouldn’t go near me with a barge pole.
Am I doing all of this wrong? I have tried numerous things:
- Dating apps: Okcupid, POF, Hinge, Coffee Meets Bagel, Happn, Tinder, Bumble. Name the app and I’ve most likely used it. Most of them are owned by the exact same company and are just a different brand of snake oil anyway.
- Asking friends if they know single women they can introduce me to. Only once has this actually happened.
- Meeting women at work. I work fully remote now so this ain’t really an option, and even in the pre-COVID days, nearly every female colleague was not single.
- Going to singles meetups. Last one I went to was a sausage fest and the only lady who I did speak to was a woman in her fifties with a wedding ring on her.
- Changing the way I look and dress. I tried multiple styles of clothing, hairstyles, etc. I get short bursts of motivation to hit the gym and at one point spent a few months going through bro split and PPL split routines, sometimes going 4+ days a week.
The PUA stuff is BS that only ‘works’ to the extent that it’s like a self-placebo instilling confidence in the methods where there wasn’t enough confidence. But most people will just tell you to F off if you try that crap.
Much better is just go out to pubs and have a goal of talking to X number of people a night, and do that at least once a week, and eventually you’ll have much smoother ability to start and maintain conversations with strangers in your own way, and much less anxiety about rejection/etc.
I already go out drinking quite often, usually with friends but sometimes I have gone to my local pub on my own. Dunno if I want to make more of an effort with that, because I worry it could impact my health unless I go cold turkey and only drink non-alcoholic stuff.
Talking to others is a challenge and is something I really have to be in the best place to do. Alcohol doesn’t really lower my inhibitions as much as it did and I find myself withdrawing more if anything.
You might want to try it with ordering virgin drinks when out alone. See it more as focusing on practicing socialization over an opportunity to drink. Ideally you’d get better at that skill sober, so it makes sense not to drink alcohol when practicing too.
It’s more about it being a format where other people are more open to socialization with strangers too.