Estimated reading time: 20 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
The summer I turned 16 a difficult family situation led to me and my younger siblings who were in my charge spending a lot of time with “Adrian,” a family member of our neighbor who was staying temporarily in our neighbor’s house, and who was in his early to mid-20s. This still embarrasses me to write, but long story short, I developed a typically intense teenage crush, which caused me to misread many of Adrian’s kind and playful actions; toward the end of the summer, when he was about to leave, I came on to him; and he very firmly, gently, completely properly turned me down.
This is entirely on me, but somehow the explanation he gave I internalized the wrong way and have never emotionally gotten over, even though I’ve been able to intellectually analyze where my thoughts went wrong. Basically, I drew the conclusion — only partly consciously at the time — that I was not just not old or mature enough right then, but somehow unqualified to ever take part in sexual relationships; that this was a fundamental defect in me that would never change; and that no one (not just an inappropriately older man) would _ever_ be attracted to or want to be with me sexually.
I think part of what confused me was that I knew plenty of girls around my age who were sexually active (though none to my knowledge with guys that much older), and further that most of these were girls I considered prettier and more popular than myself. I’d thought I could be that way too, and felt like I’d been told not just no, I couldn’t, but that I’d been stupid and ridiculous to ever even think I could. It was as if Adrian’s perceived attention had built my confidence and self-esteem up into a tall but shaky tower, and feeling rejected by him knocked it down, scattering the pieces so far and wide I could never rebuild it. I reiterate however that he behaved entirely properly and all this is on me.
The upshot is that to this day, in my early 30s, I’m still a virgin. I’ve never had anything resembling a relationship, even without sex. I’ve never even been on a date. I naturally never came on to a guy again, and although I’m fit and hygienic and put-together and all that, I’m apparently just plain enough that I don’t get passively noticed and pursued, as some women do. I’m sure my whole aura of not seeing myself as a sexual being contributes to this. (By which I mean sexual in the interpersonal sense; I have a strong sex drive when it comes to erotic reading material and the self-pleasure inspired by it, but I almost feel that this only drives me further into my hole, because it feels as secretive and embarrassing as it did in adolescence, going back several years before the incident with Adrian. In other words, it does not feel like proof of my sexuality, but rather has come to feel like this weird, backward, adolescent thing I’ve always done _instead of_ having adult relationships.) But every time I try to break out of it, every time I contemplate making an online dating profile, or talking in a flirty way to a guy, I flash directly back to this incident and my feelings of shame, inadequacy, disillusionment and ridiculousness.
Over the years I’ve spoken to several therapists about this, but none have been of any real help. One tried to diagnose me with ADHD or AuDHD because she thought it sounded like Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, even though I have no other ADHD or autism symptoms besides being introverted: I’m organized, conscientious, successful at school and work, no sensory issues, no weird obsessions (unless the self-pleasure counts), and can be normally social outside of a romantic context. Nor have I ever had any other outsized negative reactions to rejection or failure that I can think of; I’ve not gotten into certain colleges, not gotten jobs I interviewed for, had my writing rejected by publishers, and taken it normally in stride.
The reason I’m writing to an online advice columnist is because, out of the blue, I just got an email from Adrian. He visited my childhood neighbor, his relative, over Easter, and ended up talking to my mother and asking after me and my siblings. Ever since I graduated college my mother has grown increasingly distressed that I’ve never dated, and apparently Adrian was bothered to hear this as well. He apologized profusely for anything he may have done wrong that summer, and wants to know if his actions harmed me in any way. Again, nothing remotely sexual happened between us — no kissing, inappropriate touching, or anything along those lines — and only things a naïve and hopeful 15/16-year-old girl would even have interpreted as romantic.
I confess to having done a little internet stalking of Adrian. He got married not long after I knew him, but the marriage only lasted about three years, and he’s been single ever since. He doesn’t have kids but seems to enjoy being an uncle to his sister’s kids. And yes, I still find him highly attractive. I hope it’s understandable that I have this ridiculous fantasy of reconnecting with him, and him wanting me, and somehow feeling “fixed” by this so that even if we don’t end up together, I’m able to pursue other men—as if being “un-rejected” by him, specifically, could magically heal everything that’s wrong inside me. I’m completely aware that this is not an actual possibility, but it means that I need to take care not to exacerbate it.
My question in light of this is, how should I respond to his email, if at all? It’s true that our interaction does have at least something to do with why I’m alone — but it’s also true that it’s not in any way his fault. Should I tell him a white lie that it has nothing to do with him, I just discovered after we parted ways that I’m asexual, or a lesbian (my mother is not super progressive so it would make sense if I hadn’t come out to her, and would ask him not to out me), or I’ve had a few short relationships that weren’t worth telling my mother about, I just haven’t found “The One” yet? My number one concern is that I don’t want him to feel like some kind of predator, or any shadow of guilt, when he has no reason to — which is what I worry would happen if I simply don’t reply. I’m afraid of becoming emotional if I speak to him in real time, much less in person, so any response is going to be in writing. Thank you for listening and for your help.
Yes, I’m a Mess
Let me ask you a question, YIAM: what are you hoping to get out of contacting him again? I know you have a fantasy of being “fixed” by this – basically getting closure – but if you were to dig deep and really game it out… what are you hoping comes out of this?
Take a second to really think about that while you read this, because I think you may be giving too much importance to the person, rather than the circumstances.
I understand that the embarrassment of it must still be mortifying, like a late-night anxiety brain spasm that says “hey, remember this embarrassing thing you did way back when?” that just never ends. I also understand that sense of almost imprinting on someone like a duckling, especially at an impressionable and confusing age. At the time you were starting to get a sense of your sexuality and trying to figure out who you are as not just a sexual being but a person. Then you meet Adrian, a person who’s a near-peer to you. He’s demonstrably older but not so old as to feel like an authority figure like your parents, so it’s easier to see him as an acceptable fantasy object. He’s old enough to be an “adult”, but not so much older that you can’t at least convince yourself that the age gap isn’t so significant. If you were the sort of precocious teen that always seemed “older than her years” or just out of step with your peers, the attraction is entirely understandable. He’s young enough to be boy-ish, but more mature than the boys your actual age and so there’s that feeling that he’s better than them. Someone who’s more of a match for where you feel you are, mentally and emotionally, which would almost be a validation of sorts. It would confirm that you’re special in ways that you’ve always wanted to be. Small wonder that you develop a bad case of limerence over him.
Just as importantly, he seems to have been a safe person to have a crush on – there’s no real risk of having to suddenly navigate a sexual relationship that you wouldn’t have been ready for, but enough room for the fantasy of it. The problem – such as it is – is that you made a move and he (rightfully) turned you down. He moves out, you move on… an almost prototypical coming-of-age-over-the-summer story.
Except for the part where it doesn’t seem like you’ve moved on. What might otherwise have been a summer that was a little cringe-y but left you with a definite “type” seems like it rocked you to your core instead, and I think that part is worth examining.
Is it possible, for example, that you felt like this was the first time you met someone who could get you? You met someone who may have been older but treated you closer to a peer than a schoolgirl and maybe made you feel like you were more “adult” than your friends and classmates and it felt “right” in some nebulous way, like a camera lens suddenly adjusting and the world comes into focus for the first time. And then… you realize he always saw you as a kid and was never a serious possibility. That can hurt, and if it happens to hit a specific pressure point in your sense of self just right, that could cause a fissure of sorts.
Think of it like polishing a diamond; diamonds may be the hardest naturally occurring material, but if you hit them in the right spot – an occlusion, a fracture, something – you can shear parts away. Hit in the wrong spot and you can create cracks or break the stone in places you never intended. If, for example, you felt like maybe you weren’t quite on the same page as the other kids your age, as though you couldn’t really relate to some of their interests or concerns and felt like you got along better with adults or teachers, the attention you were getting from Adrian could make you feel like maybe you finally found someone who understood you. If you were starting to seriously (in as much as a 16-year-old can) see yourself as being more like his equal, the sudden realization that this was all a fantasy – a childish fantasy, even – that could be the emotional equivalent of hitting the diamond in just the right spot and things fractured.
Alternately, were there other issues going on at home at the time? Did you have other pressures or expectations weighing on you at the time? Things that might have played into your sense of your own maturity or sexuality? A pressure to be as active or at least seem as active and desired as other girls in your class? A sex-negative upbringing that made you feel like you were wrong for wanting to be sexual and feeling rejected felt like an inevitable outcome? Were you having doubts or questions about yourself and this flirtation with Adrian felt like they were proof that those doubts were wrong? His rejecting you might then have felt like they were reinforcing and reaffirming that you just weren’t seen as a sexual person and you took it more onboard than you ever thought you had.
Similarly, I wonder: in the years since, have you ever tried to get more in touch with yourself as a sexual person – not just with yourself but feeling not just desire but desirable? The way you write about your fantasy life and masturbation, it seems like you have a lot of internalized shame about having those desires – as though masturbating and reading erotic fiction is immature and shameful. I wonder if that isn’t a symptom or sign of a hang-up that you didn’t realize you had, but that Adrian inadvertently reinforced.
Part of me wonders if therapy didn’t help because you focused more on Adrian and not on the sexual side of things. Perhaps this was a forest-for-the-trees situation, where Adrian may have been a fuse but not the bomb. Focusing on Adrian misses the circumstances that made his rejection hit differently than it might have otherwise. A therapist who was taking this from a sexual dysfunction side might have been a better match – perhaps finding someone from the AASECT referral directory would help.
There’s also a part of me that wonders if maybe the feeling of immaturity and shame needs to be exorcised by taking more of an affirmative process of establishing yourself as a sexual being – something more public and visible in a safe and validating way. A pole-dancing class, perhaps or something similar. Hell, maybe getting into burlesque or some other performance art and blowing some of those insecurities open with pick-axes and dynamite. Doing something so visible (as it were) and so unmistakable that it forces you to push past the embarrassment and shame and actually confront it so you can accept it.
As I said, I think focusing on Adrian is the problem and it puts a convenient excuse on what is ultimately an internal issue. I have a feeling that Adrian is less the problem and more that he just happened to be the wrong crush at precisely the wrong time; if things had been just a little different, it wouldn’t have been the exact right setup to fuck with your head the way that it has. I suspect that if you focus your attention inward at your sense of self, rather than outward at Adrian and getting rejected, you would make more progress towards getting past this.
Which brings me back to Adrian and his email himself, and what you’re hoping for when you reply to him. I think getting a handle on what you hope – not expect, but hope, in complete and actual honesty – would come of this can give you more insight into what’s actually bugging you. And hey, maybe writing out a reply (in, I must emphasize, longhand, not typed and certainly not as a reply to his email) where you lay out your feelings and that hope might let you give yourself some closure. But then take that letter and file it away, burn it, do something ceremonial that feels like drawing a curtain over that specific incident and not letting it haunt you further.
I think the best thing you could do here is thank him for checking in and that you appreciate his concern, but he didn’t do anything wrong and isn’t responsible for your love life (or lack thereof). I don’t think he needs more than that, and honestly, I think giving it more than that just continues to reinforce him as the issue instead of the inconveniently timed trigger.
And hey, maybe telling him that will be what helps you stop holding onto this embarrassing moment like the 4 AM anxiety spiral that never ends and you can laugh with rueful fondness at the melodrama of your sixteen-year-old self.
Good luck.
Hey Dr. NerdLove,
Long time fan/reader here! I have a big dilemma and a decision to make that I need your help with. And my decision is time sensitive, so please respond to me as soon as you can. I’m a virgin. An older virgin. Well past the bell curve (as you say) of when people usually lose their virginity. Also, I’m a little too embarrassed to tell you my age. I hope that’s ok. I was largely fine with that, till my group of coworkers found out. We were hanging out after work and talking about our past sexual experiences, and when it was my turn to talk about women I’ve been with, I totally flubbed and gave away that I’ve never been with a woman. I honestly considered going home, packing my things up, and moving that night!
But they all had very different reactions yet were more accepting than I thought they’d be. Eventually they all came to the consensus, that they needed to help me get laid. Again, I would rather get in a time machine and not hang out with them that night, or wave the Men In Black light stick in front of their faces, but here we are. A little context: my reason for still being a virgin, is that I just kind of gave up. Sad, I know. But the idea of being intimate with women kind of scares me. I’ve tried in the past, and they’ve either rejected me before then, or we were starting to hook up and I messed up before we could do it. With that said, after some coaxing from my new friends, I finally came around, and thought maybe I could use the help to just get it over with.
Man, Dr. NerdLove, it was a train wreck at first. Speed dating that went nowhere. The bar scene was a complete non-starter. I had no idea what I was doing, and I was starting to think my friends had no clue either, even though they aren’t virgins. It all seemed hopeless, until a pretty women (let’s call her T) walked into my place of work, struck up a conversation with me and asked for my number. How did that happen?! I actually planned to call her ASAP, but my friends told me I should sleep with other women I’m not really interested in first. That way I don’t look like a complete idiot in bed. At some point, my friends had me approaching random women. I talked to another woman at her job (let’s call her B) who seems really into me for some reason. Didn’t get her number, but I see her around town, and she’s attractive but seemed to be less of my speed, so I finally got the courage to ask out T.
And would you believe it, we started going on a few dates? T’s great! But, I’m afraid I still haven’t told her I’m a virgin. Also, I’m gonna level with you: I’m a huge geek. I have action figures and collectables that have never been opened up, let alone seen the light of day. I’m telling you this, because her and I had a fight about them. Except, now that I think about it, I was really panicking about something else. She wanted to have sex and I was terrified, so I freaked out and got angry with her about touching my action figures. So, now we haven’t talked in a few days, and I’m feeling like I just need to sleep with B, so I can finally lose my virginity. I actually ran into her again and got her number this time.
Here’s the gist Dr. NerdLove: should I sleep with B, or reconcile with my (ex)girlfriend (if T still wants me)? I’m honestly scared and don’t know what to do. What if I’m so bad at sex that T never wants to see me again? If I choose the second option, should I tell my (ex)girlfriend I’m a virgin, or not tell her and hope for the best? Also, how would I even tell T if I wanted to?
How Old Is Too Old?
I’ll give credit where credit is due, HOITO – I made it past the first paragraph before I caught onto this one.
This – for those coming in late – is another entry for April Fool Me, where I asked my readers to send in requests for advice from characters and situations from pop-culture, and see whether or not they can slip one past me, whether I can identify the source, as well as see what advice I would give them. Once again y’all have delivered. Especially since this touches on a couple personal pet-peeves that I have with the source.
But hey, what kind of advice would I have for And^H^H^H HOTO?
The first thing I will say is that not all offers of help are equal, and sometimes the best help friends can give is to not help at all. It’s a little too easy to make things worse, even though they may have the best of intentions and the purest of motivations. And one of the ways that this sort of help can make things worse is to get hung up on the wrong details. In this case, they’re treating your being a virgin like a problem to be solved without ever truly understanding the why of it.
The problem here isn’t being a virgin; as I have said over and over again, being a virgin just means that you haven’t had a particular experience yet. It doesn’t say anything about you as a person, nor about your worth, nor about your personal or emotional development. The issue is the embarrassment and shame, especially at being an older virgin, and letting that fester. Especially if the (bullshit) cultural stigma is combined with traumatic or embarrassing experiences that’ve left you gunshy. Focusing on the virginity just draws more attention to it and makes it that much more of a looming presence in your mind. Putting such intense importance on The Deed Must Be Done is a very good way to hype up levels of stress and anxiety to the point that it’s going to break containment in the most inconvenient way possible – messily and all over the place.
And it sounds like that’s precisely what happened; your bros were pushing you to hook up with randos for your first time, instead of understanding what you actually need. While there’re plenty of folks for whom “let’s just get it out of the way” could be helpful, those are not people who have lingering trauma, insecurity or anxiety. It’s also a good way to have a bad time… which is not more of what you need.
My general advice on losing one’s virginity is that how you lose it is less important than with whom – that the person you have your first time with should be someone worth sleeping with. This is doubly true if you’re an older virgin with anxiety about it; you want a partner who’s actually going to care about you and your experience – someone who’s going to be generous, compassionate and patient and who is understanding about your circumstances. A stranger – especially a random hook-up or person you just met – is far less likely to be a good match for those needs. The likelihood that you’re going to feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable with them – not just physically but truly vulnerable – is low, and the risks of them not caring or taking it seriously are high. And if you get especially unlucky and meet someone who’s going to be shitty about it… well, that just ends up compounding the problem.
Similarly, if you try to hide it and bluff your way through, the likelihood of there being more trauma and more difficulties grow exponentially. They may not be actively malicious, but they are also not likely to be as patient as you might need, or understanding about the way stress and anxiety can hit. As a result, an ill-considered comment or complaint could result in them stepping on a landmine they had no way of knowing was there.
What you ultimately want is someone that you can be honest and vulnerable with and who will honor that honesty and vulnerability. If you can’t be up front and say “ok, here’s my situation, here’s why and here’s how things’ve gone wrong for me before”, then they’re probably not someone you should be banging. Similarly, how they respond to that vulnerability is going to be important. Someone who takes it too lightly or doesn’t recognize the seriousness the issue may have for you is more likely to not be a good first partner. I am being entirely serious when I say that you would probably do better with a full-service escort that you can be honest with than someone you got drunk with at a bar; at the very least, the focus would be on ensuring you have a good experience, rather than your living out the nightmare of “I’m onstage for a role I never learned and also I’m naked”.
But someone who’s compassionate and caring, someone you have good chemistry with and who seems to get you? Someone who has shown that she’s a thoughtful and considerate person overall and who genuinely likes and cares for you? Oh, that’s about as perfect as you could possibly get… as long as you allow yourself to be open and honest with her.
Considering that you recognize that your outburst with T was displaced anxiety… I think you know this. And I think the best thing you could do for yourself is to confront the fear directly by letting go of the bullshit and just being vulnerable and letting go of the shame. So my recommendation would be to apologize to her and finally open up about what’s been going on. Even if nothing happens with T, this would be a huge step forward for you. Letting go of being a virgin like it’s a deep dark secret will make it possible for you to find someone who is worth having your first time with, and at a time and pace that would allow you to relax and be present in the moment, instead of either hoping to get it over with or praying they don’t figure out that this was your first time and repeating the past.
Good luck.
