Am I... scared of sex? A prude?

[Tortuga]

MY FIRST POST

About me: I'm 19 years old and a sophomore in American college. I'm a virgin, and while I've had plenty of prolonged relations with cute girls who've liked me hard, I've never really had a girlfriend (one month in 6th grade with naught more than one quick peck on the lips notwithstanding). I've been aware of this site and its content for at least a year, reading it fairly often until recently; now I read it almost religiously. I go to the list of Chase's articles, all the way to the end by chronological order to 2008, and read around 5-10 articles a day. Almost done with 2011

Anyway, I've made virtually no planned approaches (it feels better to do something major when I have at least some idea of WHAT I'm doing), but last Friday afternoon, during a giant daytime outdoor college party, I turned a fairly benign interaction with a cute freshman into a pickup - I'm not a social person by default, but I find it very easy to talk to strangers, girls even more so for some weird reason. That, and I have a way of speaking that's very... animated? It's like... disarming, friendly, quirky, and teasing all at the same time, and I'm pretty good at sexy facial expressions. Despite the two of us running into her new "friends" left and right and the incredibly loud environment, the chaos gave me plenty of opportunities to lead her, and I used a lot of incidental touch. It started getting awkward towards the end of the interaction, which lasted for a total of about 20 minutes total, when we were forced together in a noisy crowd. But I still did my best to propose (or at least suggest) a near-future date and work out a few logistics issues then and there. Then, I casually grabbed her number, talked a for a little more, then made my excuses and left because I had business to attend to.

As for texting, I did it all by the book: texted an ice-breaker 3 hours later, then on at 1 AM Monday (sub-optimal, I know) to check up on her and follow up on the date suggestion over the course of two texts. Pretty much exactly like Chase's 20 Texting Tips final conversation. She didn't reply until Tuesday morning and said she'd be free this Friday between 2 and 5. She commutes 20 minutes by car and I commute 10 minutes by bike from a different location, so neither of us is ending up in the other's bed anytime soon... right? I did the best I could to not take forever to decide on a date and set up a meet on campus for some cheap lunch and ice cream, to which she not only agreed but seemed pretty enthusiastic about. It's going to be quite public, making sex seem pretty unlikely to me. Oh, and throughout the whole text conversation, I often took unpredictably long to respond to her texts (I would be busy reading the relevant GC articles, then remembering that I was texting her LOL).

But there's a bigger problem: I can't believe I'm saying on THIS forum... but I think I'm a prude. Like I said before, I'm a virgin and I've never really kissed a girl, despite having lots of opportunities to do so. Sex and passion are like... not real to me, they've never happened for me. Maybe it's because my parents didn't like each other much, and when I almost walked in on them it freaked me the f*ck out. I definitely like girls and even occasionally get erections. But I've never masturbated and never watched porn, and never ejaculated at all beyond the occasional nocturnal emission - often had when I've gone to sleep thinking about a girl or girls. I was at the grocery store earlier today and I passed by some condoms. I had never bought condoms before and I started to reach for them to put in my basket, but then I suddenly got really, really f*cking nervous and scared, in a "Am I REALLY about to fucking do this" sort of way, like I was about to jump into a barrel and go over Niagara Falls. I didn't buy them because I remembered that I could get some for free from my college's health center. I'm pretty sure I could get behind making out because I fantasize about that, but I've rarely, if ever, fantasized about having sex. I looked at a few cartoon drawings of sex positions earlier on Google and immediately my face contorted into a shocked, "WTF" expression. Do I just have a low sex drive or something? What's wrong with me?


TL;DR: There's a mediocre/halfway-decent chance that I could make out for the first time and lose my virginity in the very-near future, and for the most part, instead of being super excited, I'm super stressed, nervous, and terrified of the whole thing. Does anyone have some reassurance, advice, personal yarns, or other kind words for me? 'Cause I got anxious just writing this out. Thanks in advance!

 

[Bboy100]

Unfortunately, i can't really help you in terms of your lack of desire to have sex. That's never been an issue for me. But I guess one thing to note is that you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to fuck. So clearly on some level, you definitely have a desire for sex.

In terms of your first date, don't overthink it. Once you're already on the date, there's not much you can do other than behave the way you normally would then reflect on what you did well and what went wrong after you're done. And frankly, given that this is your first date, I would forget about GC and just focus on having fun. After that, go back and think about what you're naturally good at, and what you did wrong. Think of it like a test of where you are right now/what your baseline is. Plus, if you focus on having fun, your chances of getting anywhere with her increase exponentially. Especially as a beginner. <---This is what I did, and I got laid on my first date ever (before that night, I had also never kissed a girl and was a virgin). After that, I actually tryharded in applying GC material for the longest time, and I ended up repelling the next 10 girls I went on dates with. Once I shifted my focus back to having fun, girls loved me again.

Also, kind of unrelated to your question, but it sounds like you're doing a LOT of reading and taking relatively little action. I only mention this because I made the same mistake. I started reading PUA stuff when I was 18, and in my desperate attempt to "know everything and have it figured out before I even start", I didn't actually get a date till I was 20. In hindsight, I would rather have read nothing at all and been dating all throughout. I'd probably be a lot better at this right now if I had. And tbh, my excuse of not knowing enough was just that...an excuse. The truth is pickup is just hard and I needed a reason to avoid getting started (although I didn't know this was the case at the time it was happening! At the time, I genuinely believed I didn't know enough and it would be in my best interest to keep reading instead of approaching). I'm not necessarily saying this is you, but its just something to think about.

You know enough to get started. If I were you, I'd go out there and start approaching. Cause if you think about it, nothing on this site related to anything beyond the initial approach is relevant to you right now. Cause for the most part, you're not going to get too many dates till you get at least somewhat decent at the approach. So 70% of the stuff you've read is probably useless to you anyways. If I were you, I would quit reading GC entirely until you feel like you've made some level of progress (i.e. maybe once you're consistently getting phone numbers, you can go back to reading GC).

Good Luck!

 

[HellAtlantic]

Get your testosterone checked mate. Low testosterone makes guys get apathetic towards sex.

 

[ray_zorse]

hey Tortuga,
Bboy's advice is very sound. As to the rest (haven't masturbated or looked at porn, thinks WTF when seeing pictures of sexual positions, the anxiety etc)... don't worry about it, what you're describing is probably more common for girls than guys (as HellAtlantic says, your natural hormones and sex drive often impel you to at least curiosity towards girls and their bodies), but I am sure it is quite normal for a guy who has been brought up in a more sheltered way, hasn't been encouraged to be sexual or express sexuality, or been given much information about what girls and guys do for pleasure... luckily, you have Girlschase. In a way, you're lucky as you haven't picked up too many preconceived notions (e.g. by looking at porn which is generally quite an unrealistic depiction of actual sex) that you will have to unlearn. You're good mate. I'm fairly certain that when the moment presents itself, you will know what to do. After all, girls and guys have been hooking up for millions of years, and somehow managed to figure out how to do it successfully. As to the anxiety, well that's super normal, we all get it, even experienced seducers, although luckily it gets less. You just have to power through it and do the best you can regardless. I hope you enjoy your date.
Ray

 

[Skid]

Hey dude ,

Lots of good advice from ray and bboy especially the parts where its suggested you don't read more than you take action. Alot of the reading you don't really understand properly until you've had real life experiences and you can relate it so if you intend to take on cold approaching definitely start asap. Also your story about you buying condoms for the first time resonated with me since I had a similar experience when I did don't let it worry you too much its just the same with anything that you aren't comfortable/used to doing but once you've done it a bunch you don't even bat an eye. It also could be that you've come from a conservative/religious background which made purchasing condoms an uneasy experience for you.

As far as your fear of sex I'd put that down to performance anxiety and this is DEFINITELY the result of too much reading and too little action. I know because I'm quite a knowledge freak myself - when you start reading articles on gc on how to blow her mind in bed give her multiple orgasms and as well as all the articles that tell you a girl will drop you in a heart beat if you don't perform in bed and blow her mind : when you read that and you've NEVER done anything sexual with a girl before you've just suddenly put a shit load of pressure on yourself which really makes an already daunting task a million times harder and because of this I've struggled with an escalation fear for a long time due to perfectionism. So you end up sorta focusing on how it's "meant" to be happening rather than enjoying something which is meant to be enjoyable. Everyone has the story of that one girl they lost because they escalated awkwardly because they were in their head too much or even worse they didn't escalate at all. Some pieces of advice that have helped me :

- Focus on how much you want the girl / to touch her put your hands all over her

- Have a rough escalation model
ie
1. set next to her legs touching
2.find ways to touch her hands
3. go for ears (ask to see ear rings) or hair (compliment)
4. touch her legs
5. kiss
so on....

- Have fun with sexual tension

I personally usually find it really hard to escalate when girls give you the "neutral look" they comply and isolate with you but they don't make strong eye contact or give you anything that they want to be seduced. I suspect its because all the experience I have is from cold approach and they just find it really intimidating?

-Skid