WJKCasual Contributor
Dealing With My Virginity as an Older man
Hi there. I am feeling like I'm taking a huge risk by posting this. I am a 50 year old virgin. I am still not 100% about how I got here. Apologies for the very long post by the way.
I think the issue started when I was in primary school where I was pretty much bullied from year one though to my final year of high school. From this I really, really developed a mistrust of everyone except my immediate family and shunned social situations like the plague.
This really carried on into my working live when I shunned social situations for the most part. I was interested in sex when I was a teenager for sure, but never really entertained the idea of have a girlfriend ever. It turns out I had undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome, which I would not discover I had until I was 30. So even when I was in social situations, I think I never picked up the non-verbal cues.
When I was 20, I met a woman at work and I don't know if it was love, but I really fell so hard for her, like I could never get thoughts of her out of my head. But I just felt frozen and didn't know what to do. After I left that workplace, I fell into a deep, deep depression which lasted for around four years.
I went and saw counsellors via the EAP program at work, but I felt like they just dismissed my concerns or gave me terrible advice. Afterwards I eventually saw a real psychologist when I was about 30 who was very empathetic, thought I had Asperger's and sent me off to a specialist who diagnosed me straight away. She offered to help me with the relationship issue, but I think I was utterly overwhelmed at how big everything was to tackle and was trying to cope with this diagnosis and I didn't want.
I think at this point somehow psychologically I had made sure I never fell in love again. It was like I had compartmentalised that side of my emotions off and locked it away. In the decades after there were a couple of times at work where I think a couple of women were interested in me, but I know really stuffed it up on one occasion, I think mostly because I had no idea how any of the social stuff worked. In addition I read this book about Asperger's and love written by a woman who was a partner of man with Asperger's. It really read as if it was the partner of the Asperger's man who took the brunt of the issues with the relationship and they always found it difficult. I was horrified and felt I really couldn't do this to any potential partner.
Literally, it took me two decades from there to figure out the social rules for talking to people. I think my the time I was about 40 or 45 I felt really comfortable making conversation, though sometimes I stuffed up. However I still shunned most social outings and felt happier being at home by myself.
However the depression and anxiety cause by my workplace reared up and with that feeling of utter sadness about the lack of relationship issues, more so as I got older and older. When I left that workplace and was bullied by some of the staff at my new workplace six months ago, the depression came back big time.
Along with me turning 50, something snapped. I went to the psychologist again but after a couple of sessions found her frustrating. However at the same time I sort of confided in a friend/work colleague a bit, but before then I think realised my predicament and sort of hooked me up with one her friends in December. So far we have had two dates, things seem to be going OK and she texts me reasonably often. I am literally making it up as I go along in terms of the dates, but everything seems fine. I am going to try and sort another date out once she gets back from the Elvis Festival this weekend.
In addition, I got sick of psychologist and decided to see a sexologist. I think she gave me some great advice, some of which I haven't taken up yet like using that Meetup app, but I asked her about going to see a sex worker, to demystify the whole process and honestly to take the virginity, and she said it might be a good idea. She gave me the name of a sex worker at a brothel.
So I pondered over for this a while and decided to take the plunge. The lady wasn't working that week, so last Wednesday I booked someone else, I just picked someone who was my type really. I went in, I could not believe how calm I was, got taken to the room.
TW: Sex
Initially I don't know if I was happy that this had happened, but I felt zero emotion to all of this. Then soon after, so many questions, so much confusion; was I asexual? Did I not like having sex with women? Am I man that hates bjs? Am I even a man anymore? I pretty much immediately booked another appointment with the sexologist, but I can't see her for three weeks.
Since Wednesday, I have had a flood of emotions and have been so upset. This was meant to be an easy win for me, to have sex with a really beautiful woman who takes my virginity and try and help with my really low self esteem. It's just done the opposite instead.
I confided in my friend/work colleague who knew I was doing this, but she has been giving me terrible advice lately, doesn't believe in getting psychological help or medication and has been pushing me and pushing me to do stuff that is way beyond my comfort zone. As I result I feel the relationship is becoming strained and she is making me stressed.
At the moment I fighting my very, very deep seated beliefs that people cannot be trusted and will betray you if do trust them. And it is so, so very hard for me to overcome that, it has such a grip on me. My friend/work colleague has dismissed how I felt in regards to this and how horrendously hard it is for me which has made me even more depressed. It got so bad I rang Beyond Blue last night, which did help me a bit.
I still want to go out on a third date with this lady I've met, but now I'm very confused about my sexuality, my relationships/lust/desire for women and if there will be any reward for all this pain I'm going through. I just feel utterly miserable and wondering if the this journey of self improvement was a good idea at all.
