The Psyche of the Late Bloomer

[USMCHokie]

As I reach my 27th birthday, I'm come to realize that the vast majority of my dating life has been condensed into the last couple years of my life. I was never successful in dating in grade school, so I never even bothered trying in college. My first date came when I was 23; my first relationship and sex at 25; and a handful of dates since then. I've noticed that there are a few things about me that were shaped from my inexperience early on in life and late development in the dating game.

 

(1) Becoming emotionally attached to someone just because they showed interest in you. When you've spent all of your younger years never having experienced someone's affection towards you, you start to appreciate too much, placing that feeling at an almost unhealthy level. It's almost as if you "fall" for that feeling of affection towards you and not necessarily the person. It also causes you to become emotionally attached much too soon, before you truly get to know the person. Again, it's that feeling of being loved that you become attached to before you become attached to that person.

 

(2) Difficulties dealing with a girl's past. A lack of dating, relationship, and sexual experience will make it seem much more important to you. If you're dating someone that has significantly more experience, it makes you feel like you're somewhat less special to them. It's like you're just "another guy"...this was something I previously had a great deal of difficulty dealing with in my first relationship...but then I was able to pull my head out of my ass...

 

(3) Being "blind" to women who might actually be interested and ignoring the signals. If you grew up accustomed to getting little to no attention, you learn to expect that you won't ever get that attention. If a friend tells you that someone is checking you out, you brush it off and say that they're full of sh*t.

 

(4) You don't value yourself as highly as you should. Many of us seek external validation and value ourselves based on how others view us, especially when we're young. If we were unsuccessful with dating from an early age, we see that failure as a reflection of our own inferiority. It's hard to break that habit...

 

 

I will admit that these are some of the faults of mine that I attribute to being a late bloomer. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of at the moment. But of those of you, male or female, who may have started seeing dating "success" later in life, is there anything about you that may have been influenced by your "late bloom"?

 

Any other thoughts...?

[TouchedByViolet]

I like this thread. All four of your challenges I can relate to and deal with to a certain degree.

 

On a positive note, it can only get better! The more late bloomers learn about dating and relationships the more natural and healthy their relationships will become. It can definitely be a difficult up hill battle and thats just life sometimes.

[PJKino]

Im in the same place at 30 except i havent had a relationship yet

 

The one that im pretty sure id be victim too if i ever get in a relationship is the first one

 

When you go all that time without effection or validaiton id imagine any girl that would show interest in me id probably get overly attatched to its human nature..Id be thinkign who knows when i can get another one

 

Id also be hesitant about telling the women my past and might embellish things a little..

 

You can say what you want but telling a girl that at 30 ive never been in a relationship or had sex isnt gonna be a plus in her eyes..

[Eeyore79]

I'm female but I was also something of a late bloomer. I wasn't exactly ugly, I just wasn't popular at school, so I developed a shy and introverted personality. I never expected anyone to want to date me, and when a guy eventually asked me out I thought he was just having a laugh at my expense. It took months for him to convince me that he genuinely liked me!

 

Being a late bloomer made me hungry for the affection and attention that I'd never had, so even if guys were interested in me for all the wrong reasons I was still grateful for their interest. This led to me being used and abused on a number of occasions, because I confused sexual interest with genuine interest in me as a person.

 

I think I became less picky than I should have been, because I received so little attention that I was interested in any guy who was interested in me. It didn't occur to me to consider whether I actually liked the guy in question - all I thought about was whether he liked me, and if he liked me I was so grateful for the attention that I'd date him. Of course it didn't work out, because in the majority of cases I wasn't really interested in the guy, I was just dating him because I was so grateful for his attention.

 

I also think that being a late bloomer made me somewhat clingy and insecure, due to my already low self esteem plus being mistreated by men who I'd dated in gratitude for their crumbs of attention. I get attached easily because I don't receive a great deal of affection or attention, so when a man shows me some kindness it's very easy for me to get attached and start imagining a future with him. I had no expectation that a relationship could ever work out for me, or that a decent man would ever want to be in a lasting relationship with me, and I still suffer from such insecurities on some days.

 

I am still working towards addressing these issues - trying to increase my self esteem and feel like a decent, worthy woman whom a decent man would want to be in a relationship with, plus being more picky and only dating guys who I actually like instead of dating anyone who shows me some attention.

[johan]

All these things might be true. And there might even be more, and more critical issues you didn't consider. The fact is you're going to have to figure out how to have a successful relationship at some point. That leads to the question: how do you propose to get to that point and then succeed?

 

You don't have to be perfect to have a relationship. You can be insecure and screwed up and get married and have kids. Look around you and you'll see it happens every day. You don't have to have a perfect body either. You don't have to be good-looking. So chances are, all you need to do is two things: 1) forgive and accept yourself, and 2) try.

[USMCHokie]

All these things might be true. And there might even be more, and more critical issues you didn't consider. The fact is you're going to have to figure out how to have a successful relationship at some point. That leads to the question: how do you propose to get to that point and then succeed?

 

I absolutely agree. And you figure out how to be in a successful relationship by getting into relationships, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and applying that to new relationships. I believe that experience teaches best, so it's a matter of doing... And some of us just started later than others and have a few hurdles that affect how we approach relationships.

 

There's a HUGE difference between a 14 year old in his first high school "relationship" and a 25 year old (or 30 or 40) in his first relationship. The older person will have much more life experience under his/her belt and have a completely different outlook and maturity from the kid. So the older person will certainly react differently to relationship "firsts"...

[Surrealist]

Good thread brother. Props. I was a later bloomer as well and can identify with your points. My first gf was at 26 years of age and I married at 27. Married for 8 years. At the age of 40 now looking back, I see the marriage was certainly not wasted. If I was at my current age, with no relationship experience or history I think I'd be screwed. The marriage taught me a lot of things, both good and bad, about myself! I hate to say this, and it is only from my personal experience, but it doesn't seem to get any easier as you get older - despite what I have read and heard from other guys. In fact, I think it gets harder and yet, I feel I look good for my age without a doubt. I think other life challenges apart from dating, or lack of in my case, have contributed to this though. In my personal opinion, as you get older, certainly beyond 35, you will want to make sure you have a pretty bloody good job and income as these will begin to impact more on your life and how you feel about yourself and maybe how others see you.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Surrealist

[Star Gazer]

There's a HUGE difference between a 14 year old in his first high school "relationship" and a 25 year old (or 30 or 40) in his first relationship. The older person will have much more life experience under his/her belt and have a completely different outlook and maturity from the kid. So the older person will certainly react differently to relationship "firsts"...

 

I'm honestly not sure this is true.

[johan]

A lot of older men act like idiots when they fall for a woman. There probably isn't a lot of difference between them and a high-school kid. Except the older guy can drive and has the resources to cause more trouble. Even married men will make fools of themselves. Men with careers will sacrifice them. Obsession is obsession. It feels the same no matter how old you are.

[Green]

I didn't get my first gf until I was 22. Then I got another gf and dated her casualy for like a year. Then I dated around. and finaly ended up with my current gf who I've been with for 2 years now. So it is an interesting path to take.

 

I did feel like a bit of a fraud to have no experience yet want it bad but be afraid to really TRY. But once I started TRYING it was very easy. Like I would always ignore womans interest...

 

But I got past that had my first relationship and got dumped and survived... and suprisingly I brushed myself off and found a new gf easy. And the girls I was going out with were very pretty and very into me (atleast when they were dating me)

 

If my mother hadn't have died when I was 13 it might have not taken me so long to try dating. It didn't help that I was a nerdy type of guy that doesn't enjoy drinking or partying and mostly loves books, movies, comics, video games, sci-fi stuff like that.

 

What I learned when I was finaly with a woman is that its no so great (yet it is so great) hard to explain. point is you still are the same person, but knowing you still are the same person after you have a relationship makes a difference...

[hearttobreak]

As I reach my 27th birthday, I'm come to realize that the vast majority of my dating life has been condensed into the last couple years of my life. I was never successful in dating in grade school, so I never even bothered trying in college. My first date came when I was 23; my first relationship and sex at 25; and a handful of dates since then. I've noticed that there are a few things about me that were shaped from my inexperience early on in life and late development in the dating game.

 

(1) Becoming emotionally attached to someone just because they showed interest in you. When you've spent all of your younger years never having experienced someone's affection towards you, you start to appreciate too much, placing that feeling at an almost unhealthy level. It's almost as if you "fall" for that feeling of affection towards you and not necessarily the person. It also causes you to become emotionally attached much too soon, before you truly get to know the person. Again, it's that feeling of being loved that you become attached to before you become attached to that person.

 

(2) Difficulties dealing with a girl's past. A lack of dating, relationship, and sexual experience will make it seem much more important to you. If you're dating someone that has significantly more experience, it makes you feel like you're somewhat less special to them. It's like you're just "another guy"...this was something I previously had a great deal of difficulty dealing with in my first relationship...but then I was able to pull my head out of my ass...

 

(3) Being "blind" to women who might actually be interested and ignoring the signals. If you grew up accustomed to getting little to no attention, you learn to expect that you won't ever get that attention. If a friend tells you that someone is checking you out, you brush it off and say that they're full of sh*t.

 

(4) You don't value yourself as highly as you should. Many of us seek external validation and value ourselves based on how others view us, especially when we're young. If we were unsuccessful with dating from an early age, we see that failure as a reflection of our own inferiority. It's hard to break that habit...

 

 

I will admit that these are some of the faults of mine that I attribute to being a late bloomer. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of at the moment. But of those of you, male or female, who may have started seeing dating "success" later in life, is there anything about you that may have been influenced by your "late bloom"?

 

Any other thoughts...?

 

So true dude. I never really dated in HS or college. Too busy working to pay bills. I first real girlfriend was when I was 31 and lasted about 8 months. Since I never experienced that before, I had (and to a point still have) a problem dealing with the break. Since no one cared about me like that before, and that I lost my virginity to (she didn't know that) it has been grueling dealing with the break. And I am the one who broke it off. I put up with mood swings, taking her kid on date night, financial issues, emotional issues, she was abused by her last two husbands, etc. I stayed with her cause I was determine to make it work. Then she tells me I do not want anything serious now, months into the relationship. I really do not seeing this leading anywhere serious. So I left. A month later, she jumps into bed with another man. Like I was nothing. And she was the one who pushed for a relationship in the beginning. She's telling everyone that she broke it with me cause I was jealous of her relationship with her daughter or something. Not sure where that came from. I invited the daughter and her friend or three everywhere we went. In the end, which I am still fighting with, she was just looking for sex, nothing else. She's basically a slut with a new man after I left and a teenaged daughter sleeping in the next room.

 

I threw all my standards out the window cause I thought she actually cared for me and we can build something. I feel like a complete moron. It still hurts that she started screwing another man a few weeks after I left. I find that just insane. I went back to my standards again. Less dating, but a higher quality of woman.

[deebeechrisyo]

Man I feel exactly the same way, especially with #2. The girl was/is extremely special to me but I'm just <insert guy here> to her. I still have difficulty with this, perhaps you have some advice for me?

 

What's funny is that before my first girlfriend, I had no problems living alone and single. After the relationship, the single life is depressing me more and more. It's probably the thought that it took so long to get my first girl, the next one won't come along for a very long time.

 

The good thing about being a late bloomer is I think we don't have the baggage that the hardcore dating warriors have after years and years of failed relationships.

[USMCHokie]

I'm honestly not sure this is true.

 

A lot of older men act like idiots when they fall for a woman. There probably isn't a lot of difference between them and a high-school kid. Except the older guy can drive and has the resources to cause more trouble. Even married men will make fools of themselves. Men with careers will sacrifice them. Obsession is obsession. It feels the same no matter how old you are.

 

Hmmm...good point...I see what you're saying...I suppose the reactions might be the same, but the consequences are different...which is what I must have been thinking...

[USMCHokie]

The good thing about being a late bloomer is I think we don't have the baggage that the hardcore dating warriors have after years and years of failed relationships.

 

This is true...but we also haven't made those mistakes that the "dating warriors" have made and are bound to make those same mistakes later in life, when it actually matters...there is no greater teacher than experience...

 

Add another to the list:

 

(5) You have a harder time letting go and moving on. When you've always had difficulty finding people interested in a relationship with you, you are prone to see a someone that left you as your "last shot," so you tend to stay attached to that person and that relationship longer than you should, thinking that it's all you'll ever have.

[USMCHokie]

(1) Becoming emotionally attached to someone just because they showed interest in you. When you've spent all of your younger years never having experienced someone's affection towards you, you start to appreciate too much, placing that feeling at an almost unhealthy level. It's almost as if you "fall" for that feeling of affection towards you and not necessarily the person. It also causes you to become emotionally attached much too soon, before you truly get to know the person. Again, it's that feeling of being loved that you become attached to before you become attached to that person.

 

I'd actually like to clarify this point. I don't mean to say that I'm interested in a girl only because she's interested in me. That'd be silly, and if that was the case, I'd never find love. If I'm interested in a girl, of course I want to get to know her better. But as soon as she shows that she's truly interested in me, I prematurely start to get emotionally attached to that "feeling," instead of holding my emotions back and gradually attaching to the person as I learn more about her. It's almost like an on-off switch for me, and it usually gets turned full on too soon. This generally creates unnecessary early pressure on the relationship and on the girl, which often causes her to leave. That has actually happened a couple times for me...

 

Being a late bloomer also feeds false expectations of what a relationship is and should be in our minds. Again, this creates pressure on the girl to fulfill the requirements for the delusion of this "ideal" relationship that we carry with us.

[counterman]

I agree that learning from experiences is the ideal way to learn. There were plenty of good points raised in this thread which leads me to ask: on retrospect, do you think it would have been more worthwhile to put yourself out there more and make more of an effort? Similarly, would you recommend a younger person who has never dated and never been comfortable with the idea of dating to just go out there and give it a go?

 

A lot of my friends have never dated before and I'm just thinking about when this will change, whether they will be late bloomers or simply not date at all. I always thought that college was the best place to just give it a go, make mistakes and learn.

[Tim The Enchanter]

A lot of my friends have never dated before and I'm just thinking about when this will change, whether they will be late bloomers or simply not date at all. I always thought that college was the best place to just give it a go, make mistakes and learn.

 

College/university is the place to hone your dating skills, in my opinion. You might be lucky to find yourself in a career, after graduating , where you encounter lots of women, but at uni you will probably never again find yourself amongst so many young, free females with similar interests to yours.

 

My lovelife was non-existent before I went to uni. When I was there I had ample opportunities to flirt and chat up girls.

 

on retrospect, do you think it would have been more worthwhile to put yourself out there more and make more of an effort?

 

Absolutely.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Tim The Enchanter

[hadess07]

well as the saying goes.better late than never..it not too late to pick up and bloom as long as you have the heart to do it.

[denise_xo]

As I reach my 27th birthday, I'm come to realize that the vast majority of my dating life has been condensed into the last couple years of my life. I was never successful in dating in grade school, so I never even bothered trying in college. My first date came when I was 23; my first relationship and sex at 25; and a handful of dates since then. I've noticed that there are a few things about me that were shaped from my inexperience early on in life and late development in the dating game.

 

(1) Becoming emotionally attached to someone just because they showed interest in you. When you've spent all of your younger years never having experienced someone's affection towards you, you start to appreciate too much, placing that feeling at an almost unhealthy level. It's almost as if you "fall" for that feeling of affection towards you and not necessarily the person. It also causes you to become emotionally attached much too soon, before you truly get to know the person. Again, it's that feeling of being loved that you become attached to before you become attached to that person.

 

(2) Difficulties dealing with a girl's past. A lack of dating, relationship, and sexual experience will make it seem much more important to you. If you're dating someone that has significantly more experience, it makes you feel like you're somewhat less special to them. It's like you're just "another guy"...this was something I previously had a great deal of difficulty dealing with in my first relationship...but then I was able to pull my head out of my ass...

 

(3) Being "blind" to women who might actually be interested and ignoring the signals. If you grew up accustomed to getting little to no attention, you learn to expect that you won't ever get that attention. If a friend tells you that someone is checking you out, you brush it off and say that they're full of sh*t.

 

(4) You don't value yourself as highly as you should. Many of us seek external validation and value ourselves based on how others view us, especially when we're young. If we were unsuccessful with dating from an early age, we see that failure as a reflection of our own inferiority. It's hard to break that habit...

 

 

I will admit that these are some of the faults of mine that I attribute to being a late bloomer. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of at the moment. But of those of you, male or female, who may have started seeing dating "success" later in life, is there anything about you that may have been influenced by your "late bloom"?

 

Any other thoughts...?

 

That's a really good and thoughtful post, Hokie. Just to add that for points 1, 3 and 4, I think they apply more generally than just to 'late bloomers', caused either by lack of healthy confidence or by unhealthy relationships, or a combination of the two (they tend to go together). Some people seek external validation their entire lives, regardless of when they had their first date or relationship. So don't put too much of this down to being a 'late bloomer', I think they're challenges inherent to being human that lots of people deal with. Feelings for other people is one of the most difficult things in life to negotiate.

 

While you may be making some of your 'mistakes' and experiences later in life than others, I agree that you are also approaching them with a significantly higher level of reflection and life experience, and I think that matters. A 14 year old wouldn't be able to come up with the kind of reflections that you're doing in this thread. It's going to help you, even if it doesn't equal experiential knowledge.

 

I'm not convinced that some of the 'mistakes' that emerge from lack of experience are that decisive. I'm sure they can be in a particular situation, but be careful not to generalise that too much. When I met my current partner he had next to no relationship experience and he was older than you are now. Yes, it brought us additional challenges in terms of leveling our expectations, but our deal breakers and at-brink-of-disaster moments are really rooted in very different things. The unfortunate reality is that we keep making mistakes all our lives, we just make different kind of mistakes than we did before

[Star Gazer]

When you've always had difficulty finding people interested in a relationship with you...

 

Straight up, Hokie... you know you're misrepresenting your history. You didn't "have difficulty" in your younger years with dating and relationships. You didn't even try. You assumed no girl was interested for a myriad of reasons (some more specifically), and didn't even try to date. It's not like you were trying and failing, or having difficulty making that connection with a girl. It's not like you were an ugly duckling who bloomed into the physically beautiful person you are now either. You just didn't even try when you were younger, because of your own fears and insecurities about certain things. You've been the same person all along, it's just the past 2 years that you've had confident, assertive girls reach out to you in a way that basically and had to bash it into your head that you were in fact "worthy" of dating and a relationship. Then, and only then, did you start to "bloom."

 

The reason I say this, is because you keep saying being a late bloomer does this to you, and that to you, and makes you feel this way and that way, when in this case that's not the case at all. You're acting like being a "late bloomer" was something that happened to you, when in reality, it was really your choice to wait until the past two years to even start trying.

 

That choice was based on fear. I think you need to work on the root of that fear, rather than blaming nonexistent external forces.

[Star Gazer]

Hmmm...good point...I see what you're saying...I suppose the reactions might be the same, but the consequences are different...which is what I must have been thinking...

 

I still disagree.

[hadess07]

Straight up, Hokie... you know you're misrepresenting your history. You didn't "have difficulty" in your younger years with dating and relationships. You didn't even try. You assumed no girl was interested for a myriad of reasons (some more specifically), and didn't even try to date. It's not like you were trying and failing, or having difficulty making that connection with a girl. It's not like you were an ugly duckling who bloomed into the physically beautiful person you are now either. You just didn't even try when you were younger, because of your own fears and insecurities about certain things. You've been the same person all along, it's just the past 2 years that you've had confident, assertive girls reach out to you in a way that basically and had to bash it into your head that you were in fact "worthy" of dating and a relationship. Then, and only then, did you start to "bloom."

 

The reason I say this, is because you keep saying being a late bloomer does this to you, and that to you, and makes you feel this way and that way, when in this case that's not the case at all. You're acting like being a "late bloomer" was something that happened to you, when in reality, it was really your choice to wait until the past two years to even start trying.

 

That choice was based on fear. I think you need to work on the root of that fear, rather than blaming nonexistent external forces.

 

i definitely agree with you..well said

[tman666]

Straight up, Hokie... you know you're misrepresenting your history. You didn't "have difficulty" in your younger years with dating and relationships. You didn't even try. You assumed no girl was interested for a myriad of reasons (some more specifically), and didn't even try to date. It's not like you were trying and failing, or having difficulty making that connection with a girl. It's not like you were an ugly duckling who bloomed into the physically beautiful person you are now either. You just didn't even try when you were younger, because of your own fears and insecurities about certain things. You've been the same person all along, it's just the past 2 years that you've had confident, assertive girls reach out to you in a way that basically and had to bash it into your head that you were in fact "worthy" of dating and a relationship. Then, and only then, did you start to "bloom."

 

The reason I say this, is because you keep saying being a late bloomer does this to you, and that to you, and makes you feel this way and that way, when in this case that's not the case at all. You're acting like being a "late bloomer" was something that happened to you, when in reality, it was really your choice to wait until the past two years to even start trying.

 

That choice was based on fear. I think you need to work on the root of that fear, rather than blaming nonexistent external forces.

 

Boosh! This is a hell of a post... Since I don't know Mr. Hokie personally, I can't jump on either viewpoint with absolute certainty.

 

That said, we all do things that are based on fear, and it's hard to accept that we've let our fear control us. It's something that we're conditioned to do from an early age, and is rooted in our basic instinct for survival.

 

If this is the case, Hokie, I suggest that you follow Johan's advice and forgive yourself. You're the person you are today because of your past experiences. Only until you reach a point of clarity and self forgiveness will you be able to truly transcend past insecurities.

[krz12]

Boosh! This is a hell of a post... Since I don't know Mr. Hokie personally, I can't jump on either viewpoint with absolute certainty.

 

That said, we all do things that are based on fear, and it's hard to accept that we've let our fear control us. It's something that we're conditioned to do from an early age, and is rooted in our basic instinct for survival.

 

That seems to be the case for a lot of dudes in this boat though.

 

If I recall, USMCHokie is a pretty buff dude, and probably a marine. Pretty much the last guy I'd expect to post something like that.

[tman666]

That seems to be the case for a lot of dudes in this boat though.

 

If I recall, USMCHokie is a pretty buff dude, and probably a marine. Pretty much the last guy I'd expect to post something like that.

 

Hokie is definitely a Marine and shredded. I agree that a lot of dudes are in the same boat. I think everyone is, actually. The self realization of fears and insecurities is the first step to defeating them.