A
male
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:In a nutshell, this is my situation: I'm 29 years old and I've never had a relationship with a girl, never been kissed, never held hands, never been on a date, never even asked one out, and it's suddenly just hit me that I've basically wasted my youth.To elaborate, I've always been a quiet, studious sort since school (I'm a physics nerd). I went to university, but for family reasons at the time, I lived at home throughout, so never really 'joined in' with normal studenty things - going out to pubs and clubs/drinking etc. This is something I now totally regret not doing. When most people were going out, I was sitting in the library doing work. This didn't bother me at the time as I was just interested in getting my degree. I made a few close friends from my course but have always felt that they 'tolerated' me rather than actually liked being with me.I'm an only child, but my parents both come from large families. I'm the only person in my whole family ever to go to university let alone earn a PhD, through this I've always been labelled as the 'brainy' one.Because I enjoyed the research part of my course, I applied and was accepted to do a PhD at the same university. During my PhD I threw myself into my research, I still lived at home, and was working 14 hours a day in the lab 7 days a week, even during public holidays. I recently completed my PhD and have got a new job somewhere else which I hope to enjoy and do well in. I'll finally be a research scientist which is what I've been working all my life towards. I'll have my own place to live, but it's suddenly hit me that my life is totally out of kilter with most of my friends and indeed people of own age.Because I've worked so hard and long during my PhD I feel completely cut off from 'having a life'. I rarely go out, and most popular culture has passed me by. As a result, my social skills aren't probably the best (even for a scientist) in fact I'm practically a walking sterotype of an nervous unworldy academic, it's eating me up and I haven't a clue what to do about it.Over the past couple of years friends have been getting married or have found partners and are in relationships and I've thought to myself 'that's nice for them'. But now I realize I'm in a real minority as I have never been in a relationship with anyone ever. My usual course of action is to retreat into my work, and I can see myself doing this so easily in my new job which can only make my situation worse. I'm beginning to question whether I'm even worthy of a relationship, if there's something intrinsic that means I'm unable to communicate with anybody about anything outside my research which means I'll be on my own forever. Thinking about this great chunk of life experiences that I've missed out on is really getting to me, and it's driving me to tears. I mean what's the point of all the knowledge I've gained if the rest of my life is so so empty?I'm not really sure what question I'm asking. I'm thinking of attending some sessions of counselling to try and address some issues I have with socialization, what do others think. Does this seem like a worthwhile course of action?
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reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2010): I stumbled upon '29 yrs old never had a relationship' as I was googling '29 yrs old', in order to compare my situation to others who were also 29. I wasn't too sure what I was looking for. I know people always say to go out, call some friends, and relax. That's always their answer. It is a depressing response. What if visiably fitting is as difficult as aquiring PHD is for them? What if you would trade it all to feel at ease? It's all to easy to say. 'You'll find the right girl'. Not that I doubt you won't. But personally, what about right now? My cell phone will go days on end no call, no text. Lonley. In 100 years, what will our success be measured on? If taken into account by anyone at all? It's all vanity. In the blog written by anonymous 'two pense', he pointed out how fickle people & friends really are. Espicially when one is (or becomes) socially enept. But you know what? Being socially awkward filters those who walk through your life. Nobody cares for the 'inner mechanics', except a few who may be worthy of your attention. Because you spent so much time of your life being reclusive, the energy that will be directed towards others will be of more substance. But I too know this pep talk is words, and life is still lonley when you turn off your computer. If not more lonley. "but I coulda told you Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beauitful as you"
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (1 July 2010): To add my two pence worth, i will give you the old, 'it could be worse' story. I always suffered from crippling shyness,which came and went in waves, but during my late teens i discovered the beauty of logical reasoning and went back to college to get the gcse's and A levels which i missed following a period of truancy and then several years of delinquency. The studying gave the world clarity, reliability and importantly, crowded out the shyness/panic attacks. I did better than expected and ended up reading philosphy at Cambridge. During those Uni years i was popular, outgoing, held positions and lived like i've never lived. Then, one month after i graduated, my entire life changed, or rather my personality did. Literally in a few days, my entire character involuntarilly changed. I went from a kind, funny, very at ease, confident and well liked bloke, to a socially awkward, nervous twitching, compulsive lying, erratic, egotistical, paranoid, effeminate, acutely nervous weirdo. People i had a real connection with, started to double take when they looked at me. Something had changed, in my mind and my outward appearence. I developed a long list of muscle/neurological symptoms as varied as horrible eye pain, painfully clenched muscles, to things like tremor, facial numbness/tingling and a very clumsy/strange walk/gait. Bizarely, formerly i was the most masculine guy i knew, but friends repeatedly started to ask if i was gay. Eventually people who i thought were friends, took the piss behind my back and then to my face. Friendships are very tenuous and based on selfish motives, i've learnt that. People often hold on to the idea that people are how they are, i.e. born normal=stay normal and that you can never cross over, which is wrong entirely. I could no longer have a conversation with close friends whom i had know for years. Even 'being' in a room with someone, is a complex skill, which you don't know you have, until you lose it. All my fashion sense left me. I had been a very street wise lad who wasn't averse to a fight just for the hell of it. In a second i started acting as if i was a lifelong weak nerd/geek, falling over myself and attracting attention wherever i went. I later discovered that 4 years of malnutrition had damaged my nervous system to the point where social and cognitive functioning where starting to come apart at the seams. Poor food, lager, smoking do eventually have a real physical effect on your ability to be who you thought you would always be. You take your nervous system for granted, i for one didn't ever think that food could ever have anything to do with my smile, mood or ability to be calm. Apparently the same thing happens to alcoholics after many years, they start to destroy their nerve pathways, and can never be relaxed and natural ever again. Anyway, obviously i had a total nervous breakdown and had to come home to live with my parents. I didn't want to do this but it was necessary because even just talking to someone was enough to make them freak and recoil from whatever they were seeing. I started then to attract prolonged staring behaviour from anyone i passed or worked with. This told me something wasn't right, visibly. After asking some (soon to be lost)friends, they told me i had totally transformed into an unrecognizable person, almost like i had had a stroke and woke up as someone else. Through playing on old contacts i made during my teenage years, i managed to blag an agency job as a labourer and then got taken on as a forklift driver. Work was hard because ridicule and awkwardness became the norm. It was at this point that i realised that i was now living life from the perspective of the outsider, who we all regard with such relished separation when we are healthy. This lasted till i broke my arm in an industrial accident and then, after the firm relocated abroad, i got made redundant. This all happened in 2003, and basically i'm nearing 38 and have been an agoraphobic, with accute social anxiety, for 7 years. To top all that, i didnt' mention that i am severly 'loveshy' as it is now called. I was born unable to have any kind of romantic relationship(that's right, ever) or even think about having sex, that part of who i am, is just missing. I blagged not having a girlfriend through school and then college years. However, when you turn thirty, society does not permit solitude since it detracts from social conformity and makes you a potential threat since you've not got anything to lose. Trust me, being single when you are middle aged is a major issue that everyone subconsciously works to punish you for. I am regularly called a queer, so i must look gay, despite being straight as a die. Just after the breakdown, my voice mysteriously went from being very deep, to gayboy, natures way of telling others i'm not a good specimen any longer, ha. People have actually laughed at me and made gay jokes on the phone, yeap that's right, try being a 6ft 3" tough rugby playing meathead, who then gets labelled as a poof even without physically meeting someone, it sucks. When you are young, you never grasp just how 'breeding' obsessed life is, it pervades everything. People just aren't aware of how much behind the scenes machinery they have, which directs them into wanting and maintaining a sexual relationship. I spend most days in one room, but maybe once a week i get the courage up to answer the door or put the rubbish out. I have left the house about 10 times in 7 years, i've never had a relationship or sex and i have evolved into a visually obvious stereotype of strangeness. I'm unemployed, but have never claimed benefits through misplaced pride. People regularly think it acceptable to openly ridicule me. On a visit to a garden center in 2009, the lad at the checkout, coughed into his hand and said 'freak', with me standing right beside him. He was lucky. I'm now in the position where, i have no job or any prospect of ever getting one, thus as per the law of human breeding, no job equals no function as a breeding unit, so no possibility of fulfilling the meaning of life. If you have a job and a set of reproductive organs, then you will in all likelyhood be successful in achieving breeding or 'love' as some deluded monkeys like to call it. Just remember that relationships and love are just an evolved mechanism which has been selected because it leads to successful fertilisation and procreation. It is and always has been that simple. Any other way of looking at it is just part of the illusion that nature created to get us to do something, which we probably wouldn't do if we thought about it in a bare rational way. Getting back to my point, you have a Phd/job, which is a massive stamp of approval as to your suitability in being a successful human. If you weren't made of good stuff, trust me, they wouldn't of hired you. In the same way, women delude themselves as to why they choose their partner. Fact is, they settle with the least worst healthy sperm carrier, who also must have the necessary resources and power to maximise the chances of their breeding success. Your unhappiness is just a natural motivating mechanism to try to get you to pair up. My life shows that some are just born to dysfunctional failure, but your life most definitely has all the things it needs to succeed in the near future. Just remember, we are objectively just monkeys, get the visible resources and the breeding will follow. Hope that in some way helps, cheers.
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female
reader, celtic_tiger +, writes (13 June 2010):
 You are not less of a person because you lack experience. I know I say that all the time too, but it isn't true. It just feels like it is.
Hang in there, and PM me if you want to talk more. Sometimes just being able to have a long chat and let it all out helps. :)
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reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2010): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI'd like to thank everyone who's answered.
I've been dwelling on this for some time and I guess it's really shaken me up. Yes getting a PhD is an achievement to be proud of, but all the while I can't help feel as if I'm somehow less of a person because of my total lack of experience in romantic relationships.
@doughdough: this is what I hope to do. I'm moving to a beautiful new city and will hope to gain something of a normal social life, and perhaps find a woman who'll help bring this rather shy geeky chap out of his shell. I'm fairly slim, of average appearance, but I get so nervous in social situations that I tend to avoid them.
@sabrina900: it's the fact that I've missed out on what most people would judge to be basic human experiences in life that is so painful. I'm terrified that if I ever found a girl who I was attracted to, and who liked me, my lack of experience would will so obvious and she'd freak out.
@celtic_tiger: keep at the writing up, make a writing plan and stick to it; people take different times to finish, but it's a wonderful feeling when it's all done :)
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reader, celtic_tiger +, writes (12 June 2010):
I'd just like to add ... well done for getting thru the PhD. Im currently writing up, and panic stricken that I won't get it finished on time. I know exactly how stressful that is....arghh.
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reader, anonymous, writes (12 June 2010): dont waste money on counselling, hey you've got PHD thats a hell of an achievement... try linking up some of your friends that youve lost contact with and take it from there :) if not your gonna start a new job soon, which means new people, they wont know anything about you...giving you the perfectopputunity to be confident and make new friends, and have fun :)
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reader, doughdough  +, writes (12 June 2010):
 think of this as a new start. you dont have experience but you also dont have the baggage ether.if youv payed attention at all to the people around you then at least you might have learned a little bit about what goes on. most people dont truly settle down until there 30s any way. many have divorces in between there lol. have fun take chances. if you dont at some point just jump into it you never will and that scary. its scarier to think youll be alone your whole life then to actually jump in there and take a chance
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female
reader, iloveblue  +, writes (12 June 2010):
 Oh boy, if your post is true, then it means I am not alone. Well, not in the sense that I never had a relationship. I did have and am myself getting over a break-up right now. But I feel I haven't much experience like the rest of the girls around me or just in my family.The truth is, I am due to see my family as I am working out of my home country and it makes me nervous that I will go home to people who will ask me why I haven't gotten married yet. In my age I should be married, don't believe the age I wrote here though. Your age is close to mine.I could say I lost the years, just like how you did. I went to school and had too much financial problems at home I couldn't see myself with a guy and thought I will have my time later. I always say that. Now I am working and am earning, I had a relationship but its not one that could end up in marriage coz of religion and I have to let go before it's too late to let go. And now I am alone again. I have plans of taking masters then Ph.D. so I can get my dream job (teaching hehe). But it looks like i am running out of time too in the lovelife and marriage department. LOL Most of my friends are engaged or are married and have kids while I am still single. I am going home soon and I know what they will ask me. No, there's nothing wrong with you as I know there's nothing wrong with me. I decided to be that way before and this is the result. Same with you. The good thing is its not too late. I always believe in that. I advise you to relax a bit and try to socialize, join a club maybe. For sure, there will be one girl who will like you. If you feel you need counselling, ok go. Don't take it too seriously and don't pressure yourself. Good luck.
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reader, celtic_tiger +, writes (12 June 2010):
If you were a woman, I would say I wrote that. Literally.
You are not alone, all I can say is hang in there. I know how terrible it feels, honestly, and there are those on this site who will back up when I say I am an emotional mess most of the time because of it.
Everyone tells me to hang in there, and someone will come along. I just need to have faith. And Boy do I know how hard that is.
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reader, Kizhak322 +, writes (12 June 2010):
 you need to get out more and try and re-live what you never lived before.
get some of your friends and go on the town, and enjoy that you have gotten so successful.
Its better to find the right girl than the one who will play you about.
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female
reader, sabrina900 +, writes (12 June 2010):
 Well, this is just a suggestion and my opinion, but here it goes: I don't feel that you have wasted your life or that it is too late to change anything. First of all, when you did all of those things-studied and earned your PhD, all of that made you happy-at that time, isn't that what matters? You had a choice and you made it, and you dedicated your time to a worthwile cause, when it comes to earning a PhD and physics I believe that most people would envy you! Now, have you missed out on a few things too-yes, but we all do. You can't turn back the time, (sadly), but you can change now, it is never too late to make a change. Social skills-trust me, many people are struggling with them and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Go out with friends, go to a bar, meet new people. Even ask family members and friends who truly know you to introduce you to someone. There is always hope. Counselling, I wouldn't really sugges that, try meeting someone first...Good luck!
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