Virgin/Alone over 30y/o?

[quins]

Is anyone here over thirty-years-old without a relationship? Or even better: has anyone here missed the boat on relationships completely? I'm well over forty now... A thread here got me remembering my sullen days of youth. I haven't had a partner, ever. I've been with escorts, but I'm still a spiritually castrated virgin, in some sense. I'm guessing my situation is rather "unique" to most, so I'm wondering if there are any others like me here...?

 

[patheticparasite]

Yes. Entering the fourth decade this year and didn't even have normal friendships since I dropped out of high school. I believe my brain is too slow for social interactions.

 

[quins]

Yes. Entering the fourth decade this year and didn't even have normal friendships since I dropped out of high school. I believe my brain is too slow for social interactions.

After highschool I felt I had a premonition that I'd missed an important period of "socializing" that would never again return. I have the feeling that a woman may have resolved those problems, "an intelligent woman to lend an ear to me", so to speak.

 

[foreverfalling]

Yes. I had always longed for a relationship. I did get into one briefly in my late 20s, if you can even call it a relationship, but it only made me realise a relationship is probably not for me. She said I wasn't normal and wanted me to act like everyone else did. At this point I've lived maybe half my life without someone else, the best years to enjoy with someone else are now gone. I don't imagine a future with someone anymore. I also see escorts to get my fix of intimacy. Not imagining a future with a partner has given me that freedom, I don't need to worry what a future partner might think. In this way I've had more 'partners' than the majority of people. But I haven't experienced being totally comfortable with someone and having that often touted 'deep emotional' connection with. Nor living and going through life together as a partner with someone I can trust. So I often feel like a child, and I think people that interact with me can also 'sense' this and treat me thus as well.

 

[tiredash]

Yes, im 35 and im extremely lonely and it hurts a lot...

 

[quins]

Yes. I had always longed for a relationship. I did get into one briefly in my late 20s, if you can even call it a relationship, but it only made me realise a relationship is probably not for me. She said I wasn't normal and wanted me to act like everyone else did. At this point I've lived maybe half my life without someone else, the best years to enjoy with someone else are now gone. I don't imagine a future with someone anymore. I also see escorts to get my fix of intimacy. Not imagining a future with a partner has given me that freedom, I don't need to worry what a future partner might think. In this way I've had more 'partners' than the majority of people. But I haven't experienced being totally comfortable with someone and having that often touted 'deep emotional' connection with. Nor living and going through life together as a partner with someone I can trust. So I often feel like a child, and I think people that interact with me can also 'sense' this and treat me thus as well.

I'd imagine we're more or less simpatico in our feelings about sex... I, too, always feared that prosocial folk would be able to "sniff" out my attempts at being folksy, as if any movement, affectation, would be a deadringer for the lowest human stock.

I gave up on intimacy a long time ago. The thought of laying my head on a woman's lap doesn't even stir anything in me...

 

[Subhumano]

Im 27 year old virgin, Im going there. Its over for me tbh

 

[Michelstaedter]

I'm 33 and a virgin, never having a girlfriend.

I think going to escorts is relatively better than having a girlfriend. Otherwise, you might idealize having a girlfriend, and when you do, if you're unlucky enough to have a bad relationship, you'll feel worse.

 

[Apathy79]

I'm 45 and single. I'm claiming my virginity back too as it's been over 20 years, also that long since I was in a serious relationship.

I miss parts of that relationship, but they really are a whole life transformation. To stay in it, I would have had to stay in my 60 hour a week job and have had 3-5 kids by now, most of which would be finished high school. Life would look extremely different. When I think of the totality, I think ending it was the best thing for both of us - she got that life with someone else eventually, and I got to live my free-er version.

I'm not sure the grass is greener on the other side, with everything considered together. But there are elements of connection that would be nice to have again.

What are your thoughts? Do you think you really want it? I contemplate the imperfections I see in most relationships around me. Say I find someone that is nice in public, intelligent and attractive, but also argumentative in private, naggy and a bit clingy. Is this a net positive or not? It seems more realistic than the always smiling, laughing, happy couples depicted in photos on social media to me. Do the positives outweigh the negatives for the relationship I'm likely to get or just in the fantasy version in my head?

 

[quins]

What are your thoughts? Do you think you really want it? I contemplate the imperfections I see in most relationships around me. Say I find someone that is nice in public, intelligent and attractive, but also argumentative in private, naggy and a bit clingy. Is this a net positive or not? It seems more realistic than the always smiling, laughing, happy couples depicted in photos on social media to me. Do the positives outweigh the negatives for the relationship I'm likely to get or just in the fantasy version in my head?

Well, there's a part of me which yearns for my lost adolescence, the "sexual experiences" which I never had. Another part of me is content in dying alone, not because I'm content in flying solo but because my mind tells me to get real, and that's enough for me. I'm not want to fantasize about "marriage", and I'd never felt dismayed in the possibility of not marrying. I've always been a realist, and so the only thing left to fantasize about are those irretrievable experiences of boyhood. I
If you can drop the romanticism I'd say that partnerships which are "not what they seem" or problematic are still preferable, love shouldn't be a "public act", it's to be completely involved in the world of another person, to defy any moral characterization and instead be entirely "self-contained", answerable to none.

...I feel like an airyheaded idealist just rereading that.

I'm 33 and a virgin, never having a girlfriend.

I think going to escorts is relatively better than having a girlfriend. Otherwise, you might idealize having a girlfriend, and when you do, if you're unlucky enough to have a bad relationship, you'll feel worse.

I can only imagine, though. Also appreciate the name "Michelstaedter", Persuasion and Rhetoric is a favorite of mine still.

 

[Greyhawk]

I'm 22 and I think I'm never going to be in a relationship because I'm so unattractive and suffer from bad social anxiety.

 

[Aloneandinpain]

40s and haven't had my first kiss yet.

Escorts don't really appeal TBH and I don't really see my situation ever changing because I have no IRL friends nor any type of social life.

I tried dating apps a while back and that really messed up my self esteem more than anything ever has. I definitely don't recommend those.

 

[Apathy79]

Can't say for sure as have never tried dating apps but I would guess the 40s market is less skewed than the 20s market. May even be similar demand both ways. But no experience with them to back that up, just a hunch based on how the real world looks to me.