Virgin ate 23 years

Hello there.

Last week I turned 23 years old. I currently am a master student in molecular genetic doing my thesis and I started to realize that i am becoming old. As the title say, i am still a virgin, never kissed or started a relationship.

My parents are divorced sence i am 12(my father let my mother for another woman), and I swore never to do what my father did. I focus on my studies in sciences since then and in my hobby of writing (I am writing a book) and I never persuid a relationship.

When i enter on puberty, besides i starting like girls, I never found anyone that I really like (besisdes a crush in my 9th grade), and i did my high school without dating or being interested in anyone. In that time, i think that i will have time in the future for that.

I started university and on my fisrt year i fall in love by a girl of my course, but she threatened me to call her boyfriend to «talk to me» if i looked at her again(when that happned was in my second year and I wasn’t interested in her anymore after she rejected a invation to dinner) . It traumatized me in a way that I only now think I’ve recovered from it. Months later, my hair started to fall and almost six months ago i started to get tinnitus, phantom noises, because of cold after a covid infection.

Since my highschool, never a girl was interested in me. I am a nerd (love science and pop culture, star wars and other movies) and since child i prefer to be alone and do my things. I always thinked that i had time to date on the future. Now I am 23 years old and I see lot of my friends or getting in relationships or envolved in casual sex. I like girls but the idea of getting in casual sex seems gross to me, besides that in same way the girls dont have interest on me, its really hard to me to «fall in love» or whatever, even before of my trauma with that girl.

This is more of a rant than other thing, but what can i do to improve my situation. I am good in sciences and in writing, but besides of intelectual work, by skills on dating are miserable. My friends give different advices to me. Some say that i need to grow up (grow up in what?, they dont say), other say that i need to take care of my self, others say that i need to go out and search for one (the ideia of chasing a woman like a dog in heat sounds ridiculous), other says that will happen when i am not searching up, when least expect. For me dating seems so complicated and irregular, like an expoired sea full of rocks and the compass don’t work, basically i feel lost. I never hated girls, even after my trauma, i love my mother and my sister and i have a lot of female friends. I believe that the people are free to love and chose their own path. If the girls dont want me, the most simple explanation taht is my fault for the situation that I am.

What will happen in ten years when all of my friends start to marry and have kids and i remained alone with my doctorade and surrounded by machines as my only company? I am really scared that dark future that I see.

Sorry for the long post and thank you for the attention. English is not my first language so sorry for any gramatical or sintaxe error.