I never ‘dated’ in the traditional sense of the word. When I started college, I was about 19 and met someone when I went on a trip with my study association and was in a relationship with her for 8 months. It was sort of love at first sight.

After that I would meet people through my study association which was all fine but never really turned up anything serious.

The day I met my wife, I just got out of the relationship I mentioned before. It still took well over a year for us to start anything romantic. We were just okay friends, although at some point she started hanging out at my house more and more so that also kind of just happened.

I don’t regret not having to go through all the dating things. It might have been nice to meet some more new people, but I’ve always lacked confidence in these situations so I’m not sure I’d be at all comfortable with it either. If there is no click right away, might as well call it a day and stop wasting time.

Male born in '86 here. Started in high school (2002), it was young love, fiery, passionate, everything was the most important thing, end of the world, high stakes. Silly times, but formative and important to me.

Regarding your peers, don’t feel like it’s a competition and you need to rack up body count like a score. Men and women tend to care about and value different things, so just be mindful about how your choices shape your values and how your values shape your choices.

I’m about 35 now. I grew up in America, but my family is from the southern Mainland. My mother too was a tiger mom while growing up, but my father was absent. I got to date in high school, while against my mother’s wishes, but at my age, I don’t really count that as seriously dating. In my college years. I had one major girl friend for about 3.5 years. When I left college, we had a horrible break up. I thought I found the person I wanted, but she definitely was not the right one for me. Those 3.5 years was almost like a dream until I woke up to world around me.

If you are looking for any advice, I would look for what you find important in yourself and want out of someone you are with. Have fun while you can, but don’t fall into a space where you are merely complacent.

I went on a date and I hated it so I never dated again. I’m married now btw

I lost my v-card when I was 13, idk if that counts as dating but I guess that’s where I began my sexual life in earnest? Then I had a couple of girlfriends, then I moved to the West and had 1, then I enlisted and during my service I found my now wife. It’s a nonsensical thing to worry about: after clicking, if you’re a decent human being who has some emotional maturity, you will make the relationship easy; if not, you’ll find out and either work on it or not. Ofc if all you do is “have fun” and be a sexual hedonist you’ll never find out what a real connection between two human beings is, all you know is how a body feels like, so hopefully you date for love and long term monogamy and not just look for fun because your peers are doing it too and you feel excluded. And, just btw, being a thot is not a necessary part of human development, lol.

That sounds nice overall. I think, in some cases, being a late bloomer at this may be a good thing. You may get to skip immature and inappropriate behavior from people who don’t know any better since they’re barely more mature than children. On the other half, dating in your teenage years can be intense and exciting, even when it looks corny and immature from an adult perspective. And that early experience can be valuable for not making “beginner mistakes” later.

Anyways, I’m 29m now, and had my first relationship at age 15. She was in my class. The tension and butterflies were insane, a lot of passion in a way, even though we were just texting at first. When we took it to real life, it was wa beautiful thing for a while. I eventually messed it up and my world felt shattered.

I have had 7 relationships total as of today, all committed and rather long. Almost married the last one. I think I learned so much about what makes and breaks a relarionship and about human beings in general and I feel confident I’ll know what I want and what to do in the future. On the other hand, I wish I could have romantic emotions as pure and intense as back in the days. A part of it is just the novelty and not yet having been scarred by life, I guess.

Let’s see, I’ll be twenty nine in April, so… Tried for about ten years? 19 would’ve been about when I started feeling like I had my shit together enough that someone else might be interested. You know, the usual delusions of adequacy one has before life comes out of nowhere to suckerpunch you in the dick.

A decade of trying has gotten me one single “relationship” that was someone leading me on for a few months out of… Boredom, I guess? They wound up dumping me via text on Christmas morning, saying they didn’t actually feel anything for me, and pretty much everyone before or since has used me for what feels like entertainment. Turns out I’m interesting enough to be amusing for a week or two, sometimes a bit longer, but not enough to be actually wanted.

There’s one guy that was interested in me as their therapist and then wasn’t interested at all when he got on antidepressants, another that was intensely charming for weeks and then flipped off like a switch, and more I could remember and list off if I felt they were worth remembering, but they really aren’t.

I’ve just sort of accepted that not everyone gets to do everything they want in life. I’m either just not attractive, or I’m only attractive in the same way badly made gimmick Christmas toys are attractive to children; they look fun to play with for a bit, but not engaging in the long term and easily broken.

My first real relationship was in high school at age 18 with somebody who left me kinda burned out with their lack of maturity. It was a rather unhealthy relationship that ended after about a year. After that, I went out with a couple people in college but it never led to anything. Now I’m 24 and last year I met somebody really special. We’ve been seeing each other for about half a year now and I can confidently say I’m glad to have waited before finding myself in something serious. I truly feel loved and cared for with a certain stability that I didn’t have at 18.