Dismal purple said:
I am 24 years old. My cousins around my age are married and have children by now. But I have never had a boyfriend or had my first kiss (if that was ever important) yet. I have never met someone I like, or someone who like me.
I used to not care about this because I think doing it as a teenager is rushed, but now that I am 24 I am starting to feel the pressure. Even if I don't expect to find the one yet I wish I had at least some experience with dating. Maybe I'm rushing but it feels like I am living the life of a retired old lady sometimes, I never "go out" or anything. I want to experience youth.
I'm just wondering if anyone here have ideas or insights about people who didn't lose their virginity as a teenager. When did you get your first boyfriend/girlfriend? Did it matter to you when it happened?
captcha: groundhog day. I've been getting that one a lot lately.
Hmm, in the last year and a half I've had a lot of experiences directly relevant to your situation.
When I was your age I was in the very same boat, except for being a man seeking a woman. No girlfriend, no kisses (except for that one girl at a party during which everyone was getting falling-down drunk), no one even interested or interesting. I also had missed dating in high school mostly because I was both mature for my age and very anti-social, so everyone around me seemed juvenile and a relationship would have been a bad idea. I figured college would provide me with better opportunities.
Of course, it didn't, because after missing my chance to learn the necessary social skills when I was younger and dumber, suddenly everyone around me knew how to make friends and I had no clue. Still, I didn't let it get to me much, I've always been comfortable as a loner, my handful of male friends were all I really wanted as far as personal interaction went.
However, that feeling that I was lacking female companionship would bother me more and more frequently. I even admitted to myself that I was lonely and worried that I would never get anywhere. Then a month before I turned 25 I very suddenly had a girlfriend. My only female friend, who I didn't even spend very much time with, had liked me for a while, and I decided that I might like her too, so I gave the relationship thing a whirl. Now we've been together for a year and a half.
So, my personal half of this story went pretty well, hopefully illustrating that you really can't ever expect when and where a relationship might occur, and it's certainly never too late for one. Even if you actively avoid such situations as might bring one about, they can still happen, so the best advice is just to do what you want and be open to what can happen.
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Now, there is another thing I'd like to get into. My current roommate, one of my best friends, I've been living with for 3 years now. For the purposes of this story, I'll call him Matt. When he was 19 he found his first girlfriend, and their relationship was one of those things where they really liked each other right away and made the mistake of jumping too far into it too quickly. They broke up two or three times over the next 2 years and when they finally called it quits for good, it kinda messed Matt up.
Matt's always wanted the whole wife, kids, happy home thing. Ever since having his heart thoroughly broken by his first girlfriend, he has continued to seek female companionship, but in the last couple years, as he's become more desperate and more lonely, he's made a lot of mistakes. Too many and too personal to go into all of them, but let me tell you where it has all led him.
These days, Matt spends a lot of time on a "dating" site called OKCupid. He still claims to want to settle down with a serious girlfriend, that he wants a meaningful relationship, but the thing is, OKCupid is less a dating site than a site for cheap hookups. He's met at least half a dozen women there who were simple one-night stands, a couple others whom he dated for a week or two before deciding he didn't like them.
He's got no idea what he actually wants anymore, and the more he tries to grab at that perfect rosy future with the wife and the kids, the more dumb decisions he makes with women.
So, if you actually bothered to read this extended diatribe, I congratulate you on surviving my overlong and verbose explanation of a simple concept: relationships are best when they happen naturally. And whatever you may think, it's unlikely that you won't find one yourself, naturally, as long as you are willing to put yourself out there and just be open to it, as it seems you are. So, don't sweat it, let it come to you, and don't let your preconceptions cloud your judgement, because it won't be like what you expect. That I guarantee.
