My first “girlfriend” was in sixth grade. Though at the time, I wasn’t exactly sure whether she was my “girlfriend”, until she introduced me to her mother and referred to me as “my boyfriend”.
In middle school, it’s not remarkable for a kid to not have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and probably more middle-schoolers don’t than do, but neither is it remarkable to have one.
My public school had a class that taught basic sexual anatomy/ functions, discussed relationship pressures, held mock weddings and had guys carry eggs or something fragile they had to care for and look after. Household finances were also discussed. Birth control was definitely discussed.
It’s been my experience the boys and girls who paired up at a young age like elementary school had parents who normalized to them the idea of dating and falling in love and flirting and teasing about who’s your boyfriend/ girlfriend. All in innocence I’m sure, but I thought it was weird.
I work with a woman who was exclusive with one boy in HS when she was a freshman and he a senior and they got married right after high school. Lucky. I could not imagine marrying my 9th grade crush/ boyfriend. Ew.
Agreed, and that lines up with my experience. The popular kids seemed to cycle through having each other as boyfriends/girlfriends, while the less-popular kids generally weren’t involved.
If it’s a hugs, kisses, hand-holding, passing notes in class type boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, I would be utterly relieved.
I see way too much crazy stuff at work (juvenile detention), where kids in relatively age-appropriate relationships seem a bit uncommon. Worst-case example: Our nurse has a list of routine health screening questions for each kid when they are admitted, one of which is “Are you sexually active?” She was surprised when a kid looked at her like that was a dumb question and responded, “Well, yeah, I’m twelve!” (Kids that age are rarely detained, but this one had stolen a car and been involved in a high-speed chase with the cops.) Over the next few weeks we found out he had an uncle who was a drug dealer. The uncle sometimes took payment in sex from female buyers who had no money. He used the kid as his delivery boy and stolen cars as delivery vehicles. The uncle liked to keep most of the money for himself, and made female buyers have sex with the kid as his payment. Over the next few years we saw the same kid in and out of detention several times. There were 30, 40, and 50 year old women sending him love letters, “You’re my king”, “I still sleep in your shirt because it smells like you”, etc. We kept reporting them to DCFS and the police, and some got charged over it.
If your tweens or young teens (or their friends or acquaintances) are in fairly innocent not-yet-sexual relationships, whether straight or LGBTQ, be grateful. There is a whole world of terrible stuff that could be going on. Worry about avoiding that stuff instead.
Unless you work for Nickelodeon or Disney.
OK, yeah, THAT’s definitely a problem. Just keep remembering that the cross-section of society you see in that job is not representative of the population as a whole. Some nonzero number of people are going to be screwed up, and someone has to be the one who deals with that nonzero number.
Yes, I am in 7th grade, I have no girlfriend. I haven’t had a ‘girlfriend’ since kindergarten when it was nap time and this girl liked me because I let her borrow my Thomas the Train blanket.
Don’t sweat it.
I’d guess your situation is common for kids your age. It is absolutely not something to be concerned about.
In the end, having a girlfriend is about being best friends with a girl. So, focus on that part of it; learn to be friends with girls, in addition to your guy friends.
Because, if you are to be successful at dating as you grow up, the key is to realize that women are people, with thoughts and feelings and emotions, and not some exotic thing. They may be pretty, and they may elicit complicated feelings in your gut, but they fart and burp and get insecure and like to laugh and all the other things that you see in your guy friends.
Learn to treat them as your peers, and dating will come in due time.
It’s also entirely normal not to have a girlfriend in 7th grade. Or in 8th, or 10th, or later, for that matter. 7th grade is starting early. Some people start early, some people start late, some people start inbetween, a few people never want to at all. All of these things are “normal”, though some of them are more common than others.
Quoted for truth, and with vehemence.
And sorry that so many of us leapt to the conclusion that you were the parent of a seventh grader!
Yeah, sorry about that. I was going along with everyone else’s assumptions, since I couldn’t tell.
Yeah, it’s also very normal not to have a girlfriend in seventh grade. There’s a reason I didn’t say I had one. I’d say most 7th graders didn’t have boyfriends or girlfriends. It just also wasn’t unusual for someone to have a girlfriend.
There is absolutely no reason to worry about it, or feel bad if you don’t have a girlfriend. If anyone is giving you a hard time about it, they’re wrong.
All of the above (including my apologies to @SaSaLeLe2011 for assuming he was a parent). As I noted upthread, when I was in 7th grade and 8th grade, it was a minority of the kids (again, the “popular crowd”) who were dating, and “going out” with each other as boyfriends/girlfriends.
Totally normal and typical for a 12 or 13 year old to not have a girlfriend.
Holy cow.
Sorry to assume your age was older.
Have you talked to a parent or trusted adult about this?
We’re mostly a bunch of oldsters who barely remember 7th grade.
(Oh, lord. Are we safe for 13yo to read. 
)
I remember portions of 7th grade all too well.
ETA: 13 is the minimum age for joining the board. So a 13 year old is entirely entitled to post here.
ETA: And sometimes it’s easier to talk about things with people who don’t know you IRL*; even about things it might also be good to talk about at some point with some who you do know directly.
*In Real Life; that is, not on the net but in physical person – this may be standard terminology also outside the boards, but it occurs to me to spell it out this time, just in case it isn’t.
Mostly, but 13 is our age barrier. so no need to worry about it. A 13 year old on the Internet has access to far worse than the SDMB.
As they say, “The past is a foreign country.”
I had a girlfriend in 6th grade in the early 60’s. Mind you, it was a chaste kissing Beatles song kind of “love” but it felt pretty damn real at the time.
My Mom radar is pinging.
I feel slightly responsible for our OP.
In 7th grade I was 11-12yo.
Thrown in with older kids.
I couldn’t have been less ready to have a boyfriend.
Mostly I walked around afraid someone would talk to me.
I know today’s kids are a gazillion times more sophisticated than I was. And certainly more used to tech being the go-to for big questions.
I’m hoping they have aware parents. A counselor or coach they can talk to. Please let that be true.
@SaSaLeLe2011, good luck to you. Being curious and thoughtful about this issue shows your maturity.
I am a middle school teacher with 18 years experience.
Yes, it’s normal. That is the answer.
It’d also “normal” not to.
(And lots of the kids talking about the girlfriend they have - “you don’t know her. She goes to a different school” - are making up stories to try to sound more mature).
I was 15 in AP biology when that was addressed.
And as you say, what wasn’t addressed was everything beyond microbiology. Which means the swueamisy skipped 100% of the important stuff.
Yeah, ^^^^ to everything you just said, other than I dunno WTF is “swueamisy”