Sorry I’m reposting this. I realize now that I might reach a larger audience on this sub.
I’m 24 and I’ve never had any luck meeting people over the years, but lately I’ve been thinking about forgetting it completely so that I can work on myself/getting my life straightened out. I’m optimistically guesstimating that I won’t be in a place to actively date until my **late** 20s/early-mid 30s.
I’m just wondering how difficult it might be considering the stigma of being inexperienced at that age.
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You did not mention your gender and sexual orientation, so i’ll just give some generic issues that you might face.
For starters, smaller potential dating pool. Most people would be married or dating someone by the time they hit their 30s.
Next, there is always a reason why someone is single in their 30s. In your case, it’s because you’re focusing on straightening your life out. But, that’s not the case for everyone. You might have to deal with single parents, people who have commitment issues, people who have personality problems, serial daters, cheaters, etc. For someone who has never really dated before, it’s like asking a day 1 intern to present to the board of directors.
In general, these are some of the things that you can expect. If you want to start a family and have biological kids, i’d advice that you should continue to try and meet new people while sorting your life out. These things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
I’m sorry but, where do you all live? The reason I ask this is because I have yet to run into men or women who shares these dating issues here. Maybe it’s only occurring in major cities because SC & NC seems to have the “Love Bug” biting everyone everywhere here. If it is possible ladies & gentlemen should consider relocating here. God bless you all
It gets harder in some areas and easier in others the more time passes and the older you get.
I’m 30 and still finding trouble.
It gets harder because you don’t have as many forced opportunitys to find someone that you have things in common with. High-school tends to put you right in the same areas as those that have like mindsets. But as you get older you have to force yourself into those situations and it’s not always easy in today’s world. Mankind has started to become more isolated from one another with the advent of new technology’s. Social media is one such curse.
The ways it get becomes easier is that you become more in tune with yourself the older you get. You will start to realize what you are actually looking for as the picture of yourself becomes clearer. This narrows your potential options but makes the objective clearer.
As you go forth I’d suggest taking steps to eliminate the hardships of isolation by practicing ‘disconnect to re-connect’. Meaning: stop spending every waking hour on social media, playing video games, or swiping on dateing sites. Instead, try going to the mall and just window shopping for a bit. Go to the park and take a nice walk. Go to a museum or other such exhibit that interests YOU. and maybe along the way you will find someone that you zing with.
With age comes a deeper understanding of you own wants and needs. With that understanding you will find your place in the world 🌎 and only then will the people your looking for find you.
Good luck on your journey, and blessed be. 🙌
My boyfriend is 27, and I am his first girlfriend. I did find it a bit odd when he told me this. He’s a good-looking guy with a great sense of humor and holds conversations well. So I can share from my perspective what it has been like from the other person’s perspective:
– we had been good friends for about a year and a half before any ‘dating’ between us began. That helped me understand why he has been single all this time. I’m not sure how I would have felt about him if I didn’t know him that well and he told me he had never been in a relationship. I think I would have considered it a red flag (trouble with commitment/could be lying/maybe he gets creepy after a while). But since I knew him well and he had opened up to me in a non-romantic way about it earlier in our friendship, it was no longer a red flag. So that’s something to know, I think.
– he had a hard time at the beginning of the relationship. The inexperience of never being in a relationship showed. Things like if we are away from each other and you usually call every night when you get home then one night you just go to bed without a word, I get worried. He didn’t think anything of it, but it was a lot of explaining “we are a team, I care about you, it’s not just you alone anymore”
I’m not sure if anything else is different. The dating pool may be slimmer like others are saying. I had actually been married and am now divorced, so if things like that are a dealbreaker then it’s something to think about.
Overall just do you. You will connect with someone that understands and I think it’s great you want to figure yourself out first.
I didn’t really date in my 20s. It was more so a series of hook ups. My ex-husband was my first real boyfriend. Didn’t really know what a good relationship is/was. Had nothing to compare it to. We were together for ten years. It should have ended long before then.
I wish I had more relationship experience in my 20s. Can’t do anything about it now. Enjoying dating in my 40s and all the shit that comes with that can of worms.
At this age people have more of an idea of what they want, which sounds great but it means everyone’s a bit more picky.
I haven’t found it hard to get dates, but I’ve found it extremely difficult to find someone who wants what I want.
I’m from the UK and I just want to meet someone who doesn’t have kids and wants to move abroad in the future. I have it written on my profile very explicitly, but still get lots of guys message me who never want to live abroad.
Also I’ve never met any guys in RL because my work in heavily female dominated and most of my female friends are married or mum’s, so socail events where men are present aren’t really a thing.
32m, been in only a few relationships over the last decade. None longer than 3 months. Biggest problem is that I am very comfortable being alone. Not dating leaves you a lot of time to get to know yourself. You will either learn to like that person or you will get back to dating sooner than you plan. Once you get comfortable being alone it can be hard to give up time for someone else. My last two relationships recently were with people who wanted far too much of my time in the very early stages and I ended it due to feeling smothered. At first I thought this was my problem, and I hesitated due to my inexperience. However after the fact I realized, “no these people were asking far too much of me 1-3 dates in” and I was right to break it off, I guess those are the beginning stages of gaining experience.
Also don’t tell people you are inexperienced. It’s a big red flag.
Because of my inexperience and extreme insecurities I stayed in a marriage for 18 years.
Yes, the learning curve his high but it levels out in the end. Just get out there and keep swinging. At the worst case they say no. Who gives a fuck?
My bf & I are in our 30s and this is both of our first serious relationship. I’ve found communication a little challenging, I on one hand have a lot of difficulty opening up and sharing my feelings in general. And on the other hand he has a lot of “stuck in his ways” tendencies; making unilateral decisions, thinking as a “me” rather than a “we”. We’re also pretty comfortable with lack of communication, we usually speak every day but I I don’t get a call from him every day I don’t get concerned, which is something a few of my friends find odd.
If I may, would you care to explain to me why you wouldn’t be in a place to date until your late 20’s/early-mid 30’s?
Imma yr older than you & I’m a bit fascinated why you’d proclaim a conviction like that when we’re in the glorious yrs of our mid 20’s.
I got really hot when I turned 30, at that point most dating was online and no one puts their age preferences above 30, so I get approached a lot in real life, but my dating apps are ghost towns. No one ever guesses my age correctly, once they figure it out they make a big deal out of it because I look great. Thanks for letting me brag.
34. Never had any success in my twenties, I had several people tell me that a 34 year old without experience is a dealbreaker, and my friends admitted they didn’t want to be training wheels at this age either.
So yes, some people are put off, on top of whatever didn’t work before if you tried.
Good luck to you, hope you find what you’re looking for.
*taking notes from the replies mr Bean style*
I kinda fit this. I’m about 30 and have only had 3 real relationships only 2 of which made it to the 6 month mark.
A couple of roadblocks I’m noticing. It feels like I missed out on a large amount of development in the area of dating and relationships, furthermore; I think I’m badly hindered by my natural awkwardness. People seem to be tolerant of being awkward or shy when you’re younger, but at this point I feel like it’s a major turn off for potential partners. Honestly, it’s pretty rough, made more difficult by not having a large dating pool where I live and by having a very small and not very socially outgoing friend group.
Honestly I wished if I started dating earlier so I’d get used to whatever happens during the dating time / relationship. It feels like I don’t have any tolerance against any emotional pain and everything leaves me so surprised and confused. Wishing if I understood what I wanted way before dating because I started dating when my bars were too low which actually hurt me in return. Explore as much as you can in your teen years so you’d know what you want in your 20’s and 30’s
Does anyone else gets shamed for not being in relationship or married yet? I am 31 and My friends kinda speak in a pity way regarding me not being in relationship or not married yet. And whats surprising is that these friends are younger than me, like I did not expect the younger people to have this mentality. I am perfectly happy the way my life is ,of course I want to be in relationship or married as well but I not going to just marry anyone I find right. I want a partner who has same mindset. Am I wrong?
Early 30s here – there are some very big problems with being late bloomer:
1) Naturally – family (if you want of course – for not so bright redditors, who might take this advice as requirement for everyone). Your window is closing really fast. You also dont want to have kids in late 30s, no matter what extremists of reddit will tell about about their success of giving birth in their late 50s. If about both having healthy baby and having enough energy to raise them. Middle life crisis + crying baby to take care of = skyrocketing suicide rates. Good for you if you can afford 24/7/31/366 nany.
2) Point 1 leads to artificial dating experience, where you move too fast, and try to have a family with a stranger. Having 3-4 years of dating same person is minimum i think before trying for family. This leads to minimum mid 30s. Hell, add another 2-3 years, as we talking about people with no experience – i dont even know what i want or like, dont know what there is, or any of possibilities. This already makes thousand question marks appear over my head every time i see people 30+ on dating apps. While they might be ready to settle, to me, everything is a question mark still.
3) Everything is very clouded as you dont have any experience, and you want to explore everything slowly, you dont want to just jump into relationship with stranger, you dont want to be disappointed about not having done this and that.
4) Dating scene is already 90%+ divided into 2 groups – people with too much experience and big baggage, and people with little to no experience. The rest 8% are fine being alone or chasing not existing perfect creatures with their “you must have eight 8s – salary, height, armies owned…” requirements while providing potato personality themselves, and maybe 2% could be ready for healthy try for relationship. You can try dating younger, but it is extremely difficult, as they are still on that hype train, only caring about traveling and other bullshit.
5) Life isnt meant to be lived one thing at a time, you must multitask if you want to achieve multiple things. Start dating and finding relationships while young, or later you will regret everything.
6) Im wayyy overhyping in my mind about what i want and what i would do/achieve if i found relationship. If any of these things would fail, there would be no point in relationship for me anymore, no matter whos fault would it be.
7) Its also very hard to do anything that would make you more “relationship” material. As a single person, im focusing on my life as single person, not to become someone that more people would like. Me being/living as single person and me being in relationship would be 2 different people, but there is no way in hell i would gamble all my money on getting relationship and invest everything in that, chances of that happening are worse than winning 100.000.000$ lottery. I want to win the lottery before buying 100.000 tickets. After winning, those tickets would look like nothing, but before winning, getting them would ruin my life, even more so if i dont win. At least if i dont try hard, i will feel better myself.
Those are my notes about “dating”. Dating in late 20s/early 30s looks similiar to front line of war.
EDIT:
8) Every like you get on dating apps feels fake (and it is), like they couldnt get anyone better, and now trying to settle for you, so it really isnt helping.
I sort of feel a similar way. 25, half way to the next decade of living and I feel like I’ve made no real meaningful connections outside of the on again off again bad relationship I had. It sucks but I’ll remain hopeful that I’ll one day meet someone someday.
if you’re male its ok i think just work on your body and confidence. And money. Just made up excuse like you’re not confident and fat when you were younger for the inexperience part. Build your assets and women will just naturally attracted from you. But at the end of the day practicing talking to women is the first step.
If you are a women then its ok to be inexperience since most guys are welcoming unlike some women who prefers veterans in the bed. I think its just bad on the being pregnant side since most women drop fertility rate as they grow older so having a child will be difficult. Also work on yourself and your assets.
My husband is my first everything. We met when I was 23 and started dating when I was 25.
The short answer is that no, being a late bloomer didn’t negatively affect my relationship. I’d argue that it only have positive affects.
While I was single, I spent a lot of time evaluating other people’s relationships, IRL and fictional. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I’d do in their situation.
I experienced two phases of singleness. In high school and the first half of college, I was a desperate pick-me. My opinion of myself was what everyone else thought I was: so easy going that I could be happy in any relationship because I could adapt to any situation. I’m EXTREMELY glad that I was too shy to actually date because it would have been a disaster.
At some point halfway through college, I found my spine and my inner-bitch. I’d finally experienced enough to know what **I didn’t like** and what stuff just pisses me off. I started recognizing personalities that are incompatible with my own. I realized that I wouldn’t be happy dating most of the people I met. Instead of imagining a relationship with every cute guy I met, I started getting to know the real them and seeing that while they might be cute, there was something about their personality or lifestyle that just wouldn’t work with my personality and lifestyle.
The moment you’re capable of turning down a date because you know it’s a waste of time, you know you’re ready to date. Feel free to go on those dates despite knowing it’s a waste of time! Have fun!! But, you know you’re ready to date when you know you don’t HAVE to go on those dates. Yup, exactly like Harry Potter’s prophesy.
Along with all of that introspection, I also worked on my communication skills and sorting out my hypothetical boundaries on sex.
When my husband and I started dating, I laid all my introspection and boundaries out for him to either accept or reject. It was his choice to either play by my rules or bounce. Nearly 9 years later, we’re still going strong.
If you just focus on yourself and your self-development you’ll have more money, look better and feel better but still without any experience under your belt. I’ve fallen into this self-development trap before.
Work on yourself but also meet other people, go out with them and just take action.
I’m 28, M, and I really don’t like it. It seems like everyone just looks for a hookup. Either that or they want to move into a relationship asap or you get ghosted.
I just want to find someone who gives me the time I need to open up and fall in love, but it seems no one got time for that
I started dating my boyfriend when I was 26. It’s my first relationship (and first everything just about). He didn’t care about my lack of experience at all, which was a relief because the older I got, the more worried I was that someone wouldn’t want me because I had no experience. He helped me understand that i had been equating it to a job. Dating and falling in love is not a job, you don’t need experience to get it. And honestly, I suffered from severe insecurities about my body when I was younger and now that I’m older, I have more confidence and feel more comfortable in my skin. I’m actually quite happy now that I can share all these firsts with him while feeling so comfortable and confident. I hope this makes sense. You’ll be fine. Love isn’t a race or a competition.
Personally I think the biggest learning curve is probably watching out for red flags that are harder to identify in real life vs on paper/in movies etc. For a late bloomer getting into a relationship, I think it’s important to partner with someone with experience, but who also has been working on themselves as you have while you’ve been single.
You can pretty much do all the ‘catching up’ you need to do in your first relationship right out the gate, and you’ll be on the same level as people who’ve been dating around for years. But, you’ve got to be vigilant about avoiding someone who could potentially very damaging for you and make relationships much harder.
I posted something yesterday here about my fear of never being able to find love now that im older (26) and a lot of these comments are proving my point and im terrified. Actually crying now lol
I would say yes, there were some issues. I had my first relationship at 24, and she was a bit older. At that age, people are a lot more sure of what they want while you’re still just starting to figure it out. To me, she was a soulmate while I was a passing crush that turned serious. She ended up marrying someone else while promising the world to me, suffice to say, I’ll never forgive her.
The pond is a lot smaller the longer you wait.😅
Having no experience and not knowing what to do
for me i had no real problems with the physical or logistic side of things once i decided to start dating (late 30s). of the long list of reasons why a person might not like you, you being inexperienced is pretty low on the list as long as you don’t make it a problem yourself.
my problem was and is i have no real sense of what’s me “loving my gf” vs me “loving the intimacy and affection a relationship provides”. since i haven’t seriously been in another relationship the two things are entirely conflated at the moment and it’s intellectually tempting to date someone else just to see what parts belong to what.
I started dating at 28, and had my first serious relationship at that time too. It ended a few months ago after 5 almost 6 years. We lived together for 2 years as well. Going through my first major break up so late is hard because this person was my first everything, and it was also so serious as we lived together. So I’ve been going through my first major break up (and first ever break up) at 33. It’s felt like a divorce at the same time, figuring out what to do with the apartment, etc. I feel like if I dated sooner, I would have seen some of the issues sooner and acted on them accordingly. I also wouldn’t have had to go through my first break up so late in life, and I feel like it would have been easier to deal with in a way.
I didn’t start dating or have sex until I was in my late 20s. I’ve only had one relationship before the one I am in now. I’ve found I have had better luck despite being a late bloomer. I had the confidence and happiness that came with living alone and being single and confident in myself while friends would struggle with being alone and immediately jump from relationship to relationship. I met my current partner when I was 31 and we have lived together for 1.5 years and are engaged.
He has had much more dating and sexual experience then me but we both have learned a lot and have found communication fairly easy (I’m weaker at it due to childhood traumas but have been improving).
I think you will be just fine. As you work on yourself and get what you want to done, just keep yourself open to dating if someone special comes along.
Yes it’s game over pretty much
I’m 27f and I’ve only tried a couple dates this past while, but they’ve all been…weirdly weirded out by me not dating. I got a lot of whys and what about sex comments, and what’s wrong with you howre you not snatched up yet?
I get that thats a them problem, but it’s definitely umcomfy when I’ve gotten nitpicked for just being happy on my own and not being ready or wanting to bring someone into my life.
Don’t wait. It’s not worth it.
Start meeting people now and dating, because your ideal partner may be vastly different from the pretend ideal partner you’ve made up in your head.
Dating through the years will help your goals change as you change, or your relationship goals may remain stuck in the past with the less mature version of you.
Dating is really rough right now and you are probably going to make it much harder on your future self by not getting at least a little experience.
I had 1 relationship over 6 months prior to dating my eventual wife at 30. The main obstacle for me was my selfishness. I was so set in my ways and routines that it was hard to deviate from that. I am not a spontaneous person.
The biggest effect it had on me (I was 28) is that I felt very inadequate as a partner because I had a hard time doing things as a team or doing things for her and not just myself. That said, our communication is fantastic and I’m a very emotionally open and honest person, especially for a man. So occasionally I’ll fuck up and do something that’s selfish but we talk it through and if I make an honest commitment to work the issue it, she notices and loves me for it.
Fuck yes! I started dating at 30 when the stakes were high and people had already gone thru trauma. Dated a narcissist right out of the gate.
I was learning at 30 what I should have learned at 16 and was in a real disadvantage in the relationship.
It’s like if I was a boxer and my first fight ever was against mike Tyson in his prime.
Far too comfortable in my solitude to really push for a relationship
I was older when I became involved with others. The thing is, sure, it can be slightly awkward, but you are also dealing with relationships at a more mature age.
Don’t worry about being on a timeline. You will find someone that is a perfect puzzle piece and you’ll be glad that your first experiences were able to be enjoyed fully as an adult.
Love to you, OP
I’d say a lot of people consider it a yellow flag and don’t really understand why I’ve never been in a long term relationship. One girl just couldn’t get over the fact I was a virgin still, like kept circling back to to again and again and ended it after that 4th date. People usually try to pry for the answer.
I think it’s better if you can explain what happened/why you are that way. I don’t recommend it, though. I often feel judged and that I have to justify that I’m a normal guy. I had the bad luck to have something traumatic happen in my life that made me unable to trust others for years (I ran from dating opportunities from fear). I highly recommend going to therapy if you have anything similar, I thought there was a stigma to it and avoided it… it took me 12 years to heal on my own. But I made a lot of progress since I started therapy this January.
The only problem I had was not being prepared for the dating world. I made so many mistakes with good people because I was not allowed to date as a young person.
Women not sticking around cuz im “inexperienced”.
Catch 22
I’m 31F and had my first BF at 26, first kiss and sexual experiences then too. The sex part was an issue (not enough experience) and then also personal boundaries/self-esteem problems. I hadn’t had enough relationships to teach me like, Hey this guy isn’t treating you right and it’s okay to leave (and living together made it confusing too). The second guy I was with, we were together for 2.5 years, and lived together. If I had left sooner, I would have felt better sooner. But he broke up with me and I later found out he had been cheating for a year. Completely devastating. But if I had had more relationship experience, I probably could have avoided that by recognizing the red flags that were clearly there very early on