I’m having one of those phases where I feel like a freak.
I’ve never dated. I’ve gone to a movie and dinner before with a guy, but there was no ‘date’ stuff - no hand-holding, no kissing, no, um, beyond that. Why, yes, I am socially slow. Now I’m 26 and don’t know how to do anything besides flirt, and I’m not that good at that.
At Faire last weekend, a honorary guild member ‘volunteered’ to teach me, but uh, it didn’t go well, I’m embarrassed to say. (Basically I’m shy and late at night is not the time for me be trying to figure out complicated things.) dear lord, I’m a dork
So, make me feel better, please. Somebody else has to have started dating later than me.
I started dating at age 16, so no help there. But maybe this’ll make you feel better: I haven’t had a date for over ten years. Beat *that *for dorkitude!
I’ve never dated formally. I wasn’t allowed to as a teen and I got into my current relationship when I was 21, so haven’t had to. I wouldn’t know how, either.
I started dating at 16 as well, but I don’t think that in any way spares me from being a freak. I’ve spent all of my dating episodes a nervous wreck because I was afraid of finding things I didn’t like about the gentleman in question. Needless to say, I always found them.
I found an article on MSN about a fellow who hadn’t dated at all until he was 24. That’s not so far off.
I must have been 12 or 13. Her name was Cheryl. We dated for a whole week, then it ended really badly. Then there was Laurie. Then Carolyn, with whom I had my first sex experience.
I didn’t actually start dating until I was probably 25. I had been in a relationship previous to that age, though that sort of fell in my lap. I liked him, he liked me so at some point it went to friends to boyfriend and girlfriend. No real dating. So once we broke up I learned the hard way about the “rules”.
I went out on this date with this really great guy, things were going great with him… So I slept with him. I thought… “wow… he will really know I like him. I never do that…” and stupidly where I thought sex was special back then, that I would get flowers. Love letters. It was a rude awakening.
I am sort of dating two guys right now (they know about one another) and its tough. One is a romantic and sweet. I really like him. The second one has these views on dating that I am not sure I agree with. We are trying to find a comon ground. 2nd guy believe sex should always be on the first date to see if we would be sexual compadabile. He was dumbfounded when I refused. It has been 3 days and I still haven’t slept with him. The way he talks about it isn’t something that I am comfortable with.
The first guy I would like to be exclusive with, though he informed me last night he isn’t sure he is ready for a relationship. It sucks.
Just be yourself and relax. Dating can be fun. Just don’t have two drinks before you actually order your meal. Exspecially when you haven’t had a drink in almost a year. You tend to get a little tipsy. It was a wake up call to me, If I have to drink out of my norm to relax with a guy… there is something wrong.
I didn’t go on my first date til I was nineteen. That’s really the only “date” I’ve actually been on, now that I think about it.
I was in a relationship from 20 to 28 (Not with that guy though) and now I’m a year into another relationship. (I just turned 30.)
And honestly I didn’t “date” either one of them. They were both friends of mine beforehand. So we didn’t do the awkward “first date I don’t know you let’s see how this goes” thing. I’ve only done that once. Kind of odd now that I think about it.
Either 20, or never depending on how you look at it. At 20 I had my first girlfriend, but we were friends first and didn’t have the same dynamic that you’re probably thinking about. I’m 24.
I don’t think you’re a freak and if it’s something that you want that works out at some point, that’s great. I had my first kiss at 18 (junior year on college) only because a friend who was dating someone else at the time (don’t get me started) asked to and I was naive enough to go along with it. But I only ever hung out with men who liked me first and made the first move, so it’s only chance that that happened.
Since then it’s been many many years since I’ve done any of that stuff.
Is dating very commonplace among young people nowadays? I only know that my son used to groan when he was seeing a girl and I referred to it as a date. He used to reply that they were just hanging out. He got to hang out with a number of girls before he got married.
I’m from a dating generation, i.e. older than most of the people on the board, so my personal experience would be meaningless for the OP.
I don’t know why we get the idea that a Real Date is like something on TV or in the movies. Out of the blue, the telephone rings and it’s Him! He asks you for a date, picks you up at 8, you come down the stairs and the night is magic. I went out with big groups of kids in highschool and college. One particular guy would hang around more than the others. In college, he’d sit on my couch and we’d watch tv. One night at a party, he kissed me. I was 19. I didn’t have a Real Date until I was in my 30s. Mostly it was “Do you want to do dinner?”, meet you at Restaurant, let’s see a movie, let’s see what develops. I’m 45 and have had more Real Dates this year than ever before in my life. Scheduling is a big issue at my age—work, family, all that.
Well, here’s the thing. I kind of did it backwards.
I lost my virginity at 18 to my best friend of 14 years. He and I slept together for a while and then that fizzled out. Then I ended up sleeping with yet another friend I had known for years for a few months before that ended. Then I went on my first official date at 20. He and I ended up engaged to one another but then that ended when I was 22. And so forth, etc.
There is no right or wrong age to start dating. Just do what you feel most comfortable with and you can’t go wrong.
1950’s style dates? Tried it a few times for fun - but hanging out with a member of the opposite sex who I have an interest in romantically… I was 12, I met a 14 year old boy at the wave pool, and from that moment on, I have “dated” oodles of boys, and later men… I rarely have been single and often dated more than one man at a time since then.
I never saw dating as any more difficult than being friends with someone. I think it is because I was still in my preteen tomboy phase, when a boy first showed interest in me, and because I had been hanging out with boys when I was younger, there was no fear. I assumed if you like someone of the opposite sex (assuming you are hetro), why should it be any more difficult than striking up a conversation with someone of the same sex?
My dating experience was fairly minimal (read: pretty much nonexistent) until I was in my 20s, and now I’m happily married, so there’s hope. I hope you don’t mind if I make a few suggestions. (I’m assuming that you want to date more, and that your issues with dating are similar to what mine were. If not, feel free to ignore everything I have to say.)
(1) If you’ve never really dated, it can make dating a much more high pressure situation. There’s the feeling of “Oh my god, this may be the only person who ever likes me! I better not screw this up!” Ignore that feeling. Don’t even let yourself worry about whether or not it works out with this person. Just tell yourself that the purpose of dating is to gain experience with dating. (And, in theory, to have fun, but that may not come until you’ve gained enough experience not to find it all overwhelmingly stressful.) If you happen to meet the love of your life in the process, that’s great, but if not, remember there will be plenty more opportunities in your future. The reason you aren’t having those opportunities now is because you don’t know how to initiate or pursue a dating relationship. The more you learn how to date, the less of a problem this will be.
(2) Corollary to number 1: If you realize you don’t really like a guy all that much after a date or two, don’t keep dating him. There are other fish in the sea, and you will get better at finding them with practice. The point is to get experience dating, but not by forcing yourself to keep dating jerks. And dumping someone is also a valuable skill to learn.
(3) Ask guys out. Some women think “Oh, guys prefer to be the one’s asking.” Nonsense. Anyone who’s at all interested in dating you will be thrilled to find out you’re interested in dating them. And if someone is not interested in dating you, better to find out right away so you can pursue someone else instead of sitting around wasting time waiting for them to ask you.
(4) Try the internet. Online personals are great for shyer people, because you know right off the bat that the person you’re talking to is seeking a dating relationship. And if someone turns you down or doesn’t reply to your messages or whatever, you never have to see them again.
I’m 23, and I guess I still haven’t been on a formal “date.” My first and only girlfriend I met online when I was 21. It was a long-distance relationship, so we’d really only see each other once a month and she would usually visit me at college or vice versa, so the fact that we were staying with each other didn’t lend itself to “date” atmosphere anyway.
I’d call that a date. You don’t have to be all over each other on a first date. I’ve had many first dates that involved nothing more than a hug at the end of the night.
(Oh, and I think I was around 19 when I first started dating. It’s not that big of a deal to be a late bloomer. You’ll catch on fast if you don’t give up and keep meeting new guys).
The only dates I had in high school were in exchange for writing papers or help with math prep, and a week-long relationship where I was (unknowingly) a sub for a bloke who’d was out of town on a family vacation. College (an engineering school) wasn’t much better, ending up in an ill-advised marriage with someone completely incompatible and not just a little bat-shit insane. Post-divorce, dating has been a juddering, halting, smoke-spewing experience with one year-long interlude of relative calm and happiness followed by a cataclysmic plunge into despair and hopelessness. In the last few years it has been once or twice a year, at most, and over half of those result in standups or similar bullshit (i.e. “thanks for the drink, but I can’t hang around 'cause I have another date.” Seriously?)
I have a friend who we are trying to encourage to date, owing to her desire for kids, et cetera. She puts up a profile and within the span of a couple of weeks has five or six unsolicited responses, in which she finds irreducible flaws in every single one, even the guy who responds to specific items in her profile and made her laugh with his response to her initial rejection. “Oh, this is so hard; I wish I’d never done this,” she moans, while I’m trying to resist strangling her in Homer Simpson-esque fashion while yelling, “It took me three months of actively sending out dozens of messages every week to get that many responses!”
But whatever. I’m calm. I like my time alone. And walks on the beach are really, really annoying, anyway; that sand gets everywhere, and it never really comes out of the car mats.
Anyway, you might enjoy an old thread: [thread=297436]Scared of dating – am I normal?[/thread]
It was a wake up call to me, If I have to drink out of my norm to relax with a guy… there is something wrong.
You don’t have to be all over each other on a first date. I’ve had many first dates that involved nothing more than a hug at the end of the night.