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Thread: Feeling depressed due to turning 30 and having alw

  1. #1
    Lundi_Hákarlsson
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    Feeling depressed due to turning 30 and having alw

    Hi everyone.

    I am a 29 year old male from San Francisco, California, USA who has never been able to have a girlfriend and am still a virgin despite not wanting to be. I turn 30 in October. Since today is the first day of September, I am naturally quite concerned that I will be turning 30 next month being in this state.

    I have always been a shy, introverted, anxious and awkward person. Perhaps I spent too much time studying, focussing my entire life up until my mid-20s on studying. I studied two degrees in university, mathematics and pre-med molecular biology, thus having twice the courseload of a regular student. I neglected my entire social life, and had no dating life to speak of. I spent basically the whole day trying to stay afloat with my studies. My only other serious hobbies were and are introverted activities, such as competitive chess and foreign languages.

    When I was around 25 I felt very lonely and sad that I still had never had a girlfriend and was still a virgin. I felt pain knowing that to be a virgin this old as a male is very taboo and looked down upon. I joined meetup groups, met some interesting people, and went on a few dates, but it seemed that women just did not like me.

    So here I am at age 29 and 11 months old, still without a girlfriend and still a virgin. I feel very depressed and enormous shame for how I am. I feel depressed as well for feeling missing out on love and sex like most males my age.

    But what really pains me is seeing and hearing comments from women that someone in my situation must be very weird to have always been single and a virgin. Especially since I am not religious, so I am not practising abstinence at all. I just simply ended up this way.

    I would like if any female members here have any opinion of this. I have lived most of my life in USA and went to uni in Britain. But my general impression was that both American and British women would find me totally undateable, unattractive and a weird freak due to being single and a virgin at almost 30. I hope my fears are not true though.

    Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated.

  2. #2
    Librarian and chief holder of antiquities and biscuits Jaquaia's Avatar
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    Hi and welcome. I personally don't see that it matters, it will happen when it happens, but then I am not male and have a different set of pressures.

    I'm pretty confident that there will be more people than you realise who are still a virgin at 30. It most certainly doesn't make you undateable or unattractive and it definitely doesn't make you a freak!

    It might be worth starting to work on your social skills, a lot of the time the more you practise something the easier it gets. Maybe if you feel a little more comfortable around people you would find it a little easier to meet someone?
    Tęn përdu, jhamâi së rëcôbro

  3. #3
    AAndrea
    Guest
    Hi
    I am a 22 year old female and I think you are beautiful human being . You are smart and speak languages . I am 22 and a politics geek and I am still a virgin.
    I can understand how you feel. We in a couple's world. We live in a world in which being in a relationship is the norm and being single is not . Everywhere I go all.see is.couples holding hands and kissing. I am being reminded of something I don't have.Being a virgin in your 20s and 30s something which is not discussed that much in society. The media , family and friends sometimes don't help . I have members that ask me when I am getting married and why I don't have boyfriend.I
    I am ashamed of being a virgin too.
    You are not alone . People get married in their 30s , 40s and even 50s.
    I can't advise as i.don't understand being 30.
    I do know you are amazing from.what you told me .
    People find love I'm the weirdest of places
    I love you and Goodnight from
    Andrea from London

  4. #4
    Lundi_Hákarlsson
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Jaquaia View Post
    Hi and welcome. I personally don't see that it matters, it will happen when it happens, but then I am not male and have a different set of pressures.

    I'm pretty confident that there will be more people than you realise who are still a virgin at 30. It most certainly doesn't make you undateable or unattractive and it definitely doesn't make you a freak!

    It might be worth starting to work on your social skills, a lot of the time the more you practise something the easier it gets. Maybe if you feel a little more comfortable around people you would find it a little easier to meet someone?
    Thanks for responding. As a male, there is definitely a different dynamic. Many males, especially those under 30, will outright call you names if you ever hint that you are a male virgin past even age 20. There is a certain amount of bullying in male-to-male interactions that is probably not prevalent in female-to-female interactions.

    Even family members make comments. Apparently they tell my mother about how I am weird because I am almost 30 and they never saw any of my girlfriends. Rumours regularly circulate about me being asexual or just a completely weird.

    In contrast, my mother was a virgin until age 27, but she said that no one ever made negative remarks about her for this. Maybe women are just not as brutal as men when it comes to insulting each other.

    I am trying to work on my social skills now. I feel that I am very late to catch up.

    Exactly an hour ago a woman with whom I went out a week ago told me that she would rather be friends and nothing more. It hurts, but I am used to disappointment, so it does not hurt as much. At least it was not like when I was 26 and a girl whom I knew for a long time asked me to dinner on Valentine's Day, then cancelled abruptly saying that she was going with someone else. That really hurt. However, today it hurts enough that I feel physically sick to my stomach when thinking about this.

    I think about the popular film 40 Year Old Virgin, which basically makes fun of an older male who is a virgin without wanting to be so. So there is a certain degree of ridicule with being a virgin this long; I just do not know to what extent nowadays. I do not want to end up like the caricature of some awkward male as portrayed in that film.

    I live in San Francisco, USA, which has the dubious reputation of being the city in the Western world with the highest male-to-female ratio amongst the age group 20-40. Around 70%+ of people in this age group are all male.

    I wish to move to Europe as soon as I can. I know from first-hand experience that when I lived in the UK, people were much friendlier and more compassionate than here where I live. Maybe not as many women in Europe would find my situation strange. At least I hope so.

  5. #5
    Lundi_Hákarlsson
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by AAndrea View Post
    Hi
    I am a 22 year old female and I think you are beautiful human being . You are smart and speak languages . I am 22 and a politics geek and I am still a virgin.
    I can understand how you feel. We in a couple's world. We live in a world in which being in a relationship is the norm and being single is not . Everywhere I go all.see is.couples holding hands and kissing. I am being reminded of something I don't have.Being a virgin in your 20s and 30s something which is not discussed that much in society. The media , family and friends sometimes don't help . I have members that ask me when I am getting married and why I don't have boyfriend.I
    I am ashamed of being a virgin too.
    You are not alone . People get married in their 30s , 40s and even 50s.
    I can't advise as i.don't understand being 30.
    I do know you are amazing from.what you told me .
    People find love I'm the weirdest of places
    I love you and Goodnight from
    Andrea from London
    Hi Andrea, thanks for responding.

    And thanks for the compliments. I am not that smart--I spent all of my years at uni studying and studying trying to at least pass due to having too much courseload. Yes, I can say that I have a bunch of STEM degrees, plus speak around five languages to CEFR C1/C2 level, and a few more to CEFR B1/B2 level, but somehow this is not much consolation for my situation. I am glad that I have these accomplishments, both academically and in activities such as competitive chess...I can do all of these things, but I feel like I do not attract women. As if whatever talent I had went very unevenly to academics and none to social/romantic skills.

    You are 22, that is almost eight years younger than I am. What I can say is that a male approaching age 30 being a virgin is quite depressing. I am clearly not young again like you are in your early twenties.

    I completely understand the feeling of missing out, because I went through the same thing at age 22. At least you are younger. At my age I find that there is a lot of taboo about being in this situation. As I replied to Jaquaia above, many family members make derogatory comments about me because they have never seen any of my girlfriends. They tell my mother that I am a weirdo, and insinuate that I am asexual. Their mentality is that people who are single that long are doing so deliberately; they want to be single. They do not know that I am in this situation despite not wanting to be.

    In the country where I live, there definitely are a large minority of women who remain virgins for long. It is usually because they are very religious and/or practise abstinence. But I can understand your feeling of being a virgin at 22.

    It is true that people find love in very random places, in their 30s, 40s, etc. The thing is that many of these older people had already had several relationships before as well.

    I am not sure how the dating dynamic is in London. I lived for a bit in Newcastle and Manchester. In both places I felt that people were less judgemental than where I currently live in San Francisco, USA.

    Over the years here, men have called me weird, asexual and other names. Women have called me ugly and that I "look like a virgin". Maybe I give off a strange vibe, who knows.

    I feel as if I am stuck in a rut. I understand your feeling about when people ask when you are getting married. Virtually every adult family member has asked me the same thing, as well as other related questions. It seems like they want to make me feel worse if anything. The media certaintly do not help, in fact it seems like they encourage ridiculing virgins and single people.

    To say that I feel terrible is an understatement.

  6. #6
    Boss Lady ;) Suzi's Avatar
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    Hi and welcome to DWD.

    Let me start by saying that someone telling you that you "look like a virgin" is rubbish. You can't tell by looking at someone whether they have had sex or not. They've just made a comment which attacks a generalised insecurity and happened to be right that you haven't "done the deed" yet...

    Is this just about having sex or is it more about wanting that relationship which leads to sex?
    Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!


  7. #7
    Lundi_Hákarlsson
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzi View Post
    Hi and welcome to DWD.

    Let me start by saying that someone telling you that you "look like a virgin" is rubbish. You can't tell by looking at someone whether they have had sex or not. They've just made a comment which attacks a generalised insecurity and happened to be right that you haven't "done the deed" yet...

    Is this just about having sex or is it more about wanting that relationship which leads to sex?
    It is true that what they say is rubbish. I presume that they mean I look awkward or nerdy, which is like virgins. It is annoying that friends, strangers and family make comments like these. It makes me more introverted and not wanting to interact with them.

    It is definitely the latter. Friends and family make sly comments about how I should just fly to a place like Amsterdam, go to the Red Light District and get over with it. But I know that I would feel even worse if I even tried this.

    I want it to happen naturally, which is the problem. I feel like I am missing out. But going the Amsterdam route would make me feel worthless.

  8. #8
    Boss Lady ;) Suzi's Avatar
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    D'you know what? My husband is a definite nerd and he's awesome. What kind of things are you into? What kind of things are you doing to meet people?
    Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!


  9. #9
    Lundi_Hákarlsson
    Guest
    The city where I live is not very good for meeting people. In my age group, over 70% of the population are male and usually very introverted because here is the IT capital of the world. Nevertheless I attend two meetup groups on a weekly or two-week basis: a foreign language group and a Europeans group.

    As for hobbies, I like chess (not as a simple game, but as a competitive sport and as a science) and foreign languages. In chess there are very few women and is widely known as a "sausagefest" activity since it is normal a chess tournament to have a male-to-female ratio of somewhere high like 500-1. Foreign languages are usually better for meeting women. But as I said, my city skews heavily male, and many meetups can average 80% male. Sometimes 95-100% male.

    Maybe meeting people online is better. But so far I do not know any online meeting groups to meet women. When I lived in Britain, I met a lot more women than I do here. But in the UK I was always studying hard instead of focussing on dating.

  10. #10
    Boss Lady ;) Suzi's Avatar
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    I've had a quick look around for meet up groups in San Fran, and it's not that easy to find groups for hetrosexual people.....

    Speed dating? https://www.sfquickdates.com/default.aspx
    Top tips? https://www.emlovz.com/dating-in-san...your-30s-guys/
    Best bars to meet single people? https://www.thrillist.com/drink/san-...-san-francisco
    Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!


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