5 ms·

Throwaway. Correct for part. I'm in a similar situation, but only 28. Five years to go. Twelve to a movie. In my mind—and this is entirely anecdotal—sex and r

Throwaway. Correct for part. I'm in a similar situation, but only 28. Five years to go. Twelve to a movie. In my mind—and this is entirely anecdotal—sex and relationships are merely a checkpoint for the life of a person. It's nothing more than a signifier, of which people place a negative connotation on being a virgin. I'm not here by choice, but by inability to progress against these signifiers. While I agree with your point about the sex being irrelevant, the entirety of the statement of "It's sex" framed as a triviality is dead wrong. I, and I assume most other virgins, have severe issues with dealing with social cues. When you say "someone" who is that? Is it someone at the bar? A friendly glance at work? I can't tell. I'm pretty bad at learning social cues. I'm not sure where to do them. Or at who. And because I'm bad at learning those social cues, I'm afraid to be forward. A friend who was sexually harassed at work gave me the advice to try a small company because "they have more relationships between coworkers there." It's somewhat irrelevant advice given how tone-deaf I am to general human interactions. Kind of ironic too, considering I probably couldn't tell the difference between harmless office flirting and sexual harassment. Which is why it's precluded in my mind. Much like T.H. White's Merlin, I realize my doom, but am unable to change it. I'm guessing it's a chemical issue with my locus of control. EDIT: I spend a majority of my free time in the gym. I'm very fit, so it's not a matter of appearance. Minus any crazy expression on my face.

dnautics 12y ago
You should be afraid to be forward. You could get accused of sexual harassment. It's totally incredible that someone who was sexually harassed at work gave you advice to "try a small company", because that is completely reckless advice and can lead to potentially illegal behavior. Edit: I mean incredible in the colloquial sense, not the literal ("I don't believe you") sense.
- haberdash 12y ago
  Yeah, I'm not quite sure what's going on with that. It might have been facetious, we tend to joke about each other. I'll have to ask her about it tomorrow. There was one thing for her even worse than that, which would make her recommendation even more incredible to you. We're good enough friends to talk about things like that, I wonder if she's projecting her internal views of me on to other people. No more about my friend, please. I feel wrong alluding to these situations.
34yearold 12y ago
Also on a throwaway with only six years until the movie. I never understood why people make such a big deal over this. It's far more important to me to have it be the right person and time than to do it just because everybody else says you should. I'm fully cognizant of the fact that the right person and the right time may never come. I'm okay with that.
- haberdash 12y ago
  We're chasing each other's posts. I find it interesting you're interested looking for the correct situation. Have you turned down prior situations where it didn't meet what you were looking for? I'm quite a bit more broken than an average person—I don't think I could wait for a "right" anything.
  - throwmeaway001 12y ago
    Also a throwaway. I am in the same situation as you. It took me a while to realise it, but I am not good at understanding certain cues and I have no idea what to do about it. I always need to correct my perceptions. E.g "That woman is probably being really friendly because she's just friendly. She's probably not interested." At one point I got quite depressed. Eventually, still curious about sex, I just hired a sex worker. It's legal here and I save a lot of money being single. At this point I have mostly resigned myself to the reality that I'll probably be single for the rest of my life.
- SoDisposable 12y ago
  Throwaway; I'm 14 years away from the movie and I couldn't agree more with this point. I still have yet to have sex, any physical relations (cuddling, holding hands etc), have a girlfriend, or really feel real emotional attraction towards another person in a romantic capacity (as I understand it), and yet I feel perfectly fulfilled and don't at all question my masculinity. I used to get upset about not having a gf / being a virgin, but then I realized that my emotions were mostly driven by a desire to conform to some arbitrary social metric of success. Once I realized that, I stopped caring and have been far happier, less stressed, and more social.
jacquesm 12y ago
> It's nothing more than a signifier, of which people place a negative connotation on being a virgin. That's strongly correlated with age. Below a certain age it is expected that you are a virgin, then there is a gray area and then above a certain age it is expected that your not. Because we define 'normal' as 'what everybody does' being an outlier in this is perceived as negative, as if there is something wrong with you. That does not mean there is (or isn't), it just means that's how it will be perceived, it's a strike against that only gets stronger as you age.
- haberdash 12y ago
  Yes, I agree with you. I doubted anyone would read that much into it, despite the plain existential angst as a backdrop. The conflation of normal and normative reaches into Wittgensteinian territory, but normative is normal. Hell, even the good end of a bell curve can be seen as a bad thing.

dnautics 12y ago

You should be afraid to be forward. You could get accused of sexual harassment. It's totally incredible that someone who was sexually harassed at work gave you advice to "try a small company", because that is completely reckless advice and can lead to potentially illegal behavior. Edit: I mean incredible in the colloquial sense, not the literal ("I don't believe you") sense.

haberdash 12y ago
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what's going on with that. It might have been facetious, we tend to joke about each other. I'll have to ask her about it tomorrow. There was one thing for her even worse than that, which would make her recommendation even more incredible to you. We're good enough friends to talk about things like that, I wonder if she's projecting her internal views of me on to other people. No more about my friend, please. I feel wrong alluding to these situations.

34yearold 12y ago

Also on a throwaway with only six years until the movie. I never understood why people make such a big deal over this. It's far more important to me to have it be the right person and time than to do it just because everybody else says you should. I'm fully cognizant of the fact that the right person and the right time may never come. I'm okay with that.

haberdash 12y ago
We're chasing each other's posts. I find it interesting you're interested looking for the correct situation. Have you turned down prior situations where it didn't meet what you were looking for? I'm quite a bit more broken than an average person—I don't think I could wait for a "right" anything.
- throwmeaway001 12y ago
  Also a throwaway. I am in the same situation as you. It took me a while to realise it, but I am not good at understanding certain cues and I have no idea what to do about it. I always need to correct my perceptions. E.g "That woman is probably being really friendly because she's just friendly. She's probably not interested." At one point I got quite depressed. Eventually, still curious about sex, I just hired a sex worker. It's legal here and I save a lot of money being single. At this point I have mostly resigned myself to the reality that I'll probably be single for the rest of my life.
SoDisposable 12y ago
Throwaway; I'm 14 years away from the movie and I couldn't agree more with this point. I still have yet to have sex, any physical relations (cuddling, holding hands etc), have a girlfriend, or really feel real emotional attraction towards another person in a romantic capacity (as I understand it), and yet I feel perfectly fulfilled and don't at all question my masculinity. I used to get upset about not having a gf / being a virgin, but then I realized that my emotions were mostly driven by a desire to conform to some arbitrary social metric of success. Once I realized that, I stopped caring and have been far happier, less stressed, and more social.

jacquesm 12y ago

> It's nothing more than a signifier, of which people place a negative connotation on being a virgin. That's strongly correlated with age. Below a certain age it is expected that you are a virgin, then there is a gray area and then above a certain age it is expected that your not. Because we define 'normal' as 'what everybody does' being an outlier in this is perceived as negative, as if there is something wrong with you. That does not mean there is (or isn't), it just means that's how it will be perceived, it's a strike against that only gets stronger as you age.

haberdash 12y ago
Yes, I agree with you. I doubted anyone would read that much into it, despite the plain existential angst as a backdrop. The conflation of normal and normative reaches into Wittgensteinian territory, but normative is normal. Hell, even the good end of a bell curve can be seen as a bad thing.