Inexperienced males vs females with too much experience

[LTP]

Anyone else find it kind weird that experienced people look down on inexperienced people but hate it when people look down on the experienced person's experiences?

 

I knew this was the case among males, but based on this thread it may well be the case among females too. I wasn't expecting that to this degree. Sad.

[Emilia]

 

As for inexperienced men, well regrettably you're right. Speaking from my point of view, I am highly knowledgeable about things, but am not worldly and didn't go out as much as I should have (lack of money, autistic, anxiety, fear of rejection etc). I recognize these are traits that have greatly damaged my life in many ways, not just relationship wise.

 

I have many words of advice and encouragement for other men in my position, but I cannot guarantee that other men will have my same outlook, self-awareness and optimism for their future.

 

It is something that can be turned around with self-awareness. I know it's not easy to be outside of mainstream society, especially for a man but there are women out there that are comfortable with it. Self-awareness is half the battle in my opinion.

[Emilia]

I knew this was the case among males, but based on this thread it may well be the case among females too. I wasn't expecting that to this degree. Sad.

 

Unfortunately it is seen - rightly or wrongly - as an indication of someone's social skills. That's why it isn't advantageous ever to lag behind your peer group. You can catch up however if you want to.

[Emilia]

Anyone else find it kind weird that experienced people look down on inexperienced people but hate it when people look down on the experienced person's experiences?

 

Don't hate it I just struggle to understand how you can judge something you have no experience of. Experienced people know what it's like to be inexperienced since we all start somewhere but it doesn't work the other way round.

 

I suppose we see inexperience as something we have conquered already.

[Emilia]

Why does it matter so much what somebody did when they were younger? You are dating the person now, not who they were 10 or 20 years ago.

 

Because they probably haven't grown as much as I have as they have not experienced some of the major and character-forming milestones in life. Unless they were just late starters of course and they have 'caught up' since. I never ask a man how old he was when he got his first girlfriend though I can probably guess.

[DepressedinDenver]

Anyone else find it kind weird that experienced people look down on inexperienced people but hate it when people look down on the experienced person's experiences?

 

haha so true. Its pretty damn funny.

[LTP]

Not a different amount, a considerably less amount than is average/expected by society for their age.

 

That's because it usually indicates lifestyle incompatibilities and a different value system. A 21 year-old on average will have different amount of sexual and/or relationship experience from a 30 year-old. If a 30 year-old has very little or none, you ask why that's the case. What has the 30 year old been doing all this time instead of building satisfying peer to peer relationships?

 

Why is it so important to do what is expected by society? That galls me that people expect that. You can't assume that means "lifestyle incompatibilities". A 30 year old can have little to no experience for a million reasons. He or she could have put education or career first, believe in waiting for marriage or a serious relationship, be choosy, be shy, get turned down a lot, be discouraged or simply want to wait to name just a few. Some people change over the years and some don't. You don't know and to make broad based assumptions to me is foolish.

[Emilia]

Why does it matter what the "norm" is? Some people have many partners before marriage and some none. Everyone is entitled to decide for themselves if they want to have sex within minutes of meeting, wait for marriage or something in between.

 

Of course. You can do what you like but I don't have to like it as a partner. The 'norm' is what most people would ideally like to experience in that particular post's context that you quoted.

[lululucy]

It is indeed a compatibility issue. But a "red flag" stated like the way it was (so widely-generalized), it could be universally "assumed" to be a lot of things that weren't true for a lot of people like us.

 

Yeah, I know I'm at a disadvantage... and not happy due to peer pressure i suppose. Maybe I will end up a crazy cat-lady... (Well, let's hope loveshack creates a cat forum in the future at least...).

Thanks!

 

lololol

that reminded me so much of

~ please don't become this girl hahaha

 

In all honesty, I agree you're putting yourself at a disadvantage and maybe you might want to reconsider if you're not meeting the kind of guys you want to be -- the same way you're saying don't write off someone for lack of experience, don't write off someone for having that experience.

 

Not a different amount, a considerably less amount than is average/expected by society for their age.

 

That's because it usually indicates lifestyle incompatibilities and a different value system. A 21 year-old on average will have different amount of sexual and/or relationship experience from a 30 year-old. If a 30 year-old has very little or none, you ask why that's the case. What has the 30 year old been doing all this time instead of building satisfying peer to peer relationships?

 

I knew this was the case among males, but based on this thread it may well be the case among females too. I wasn't expecting that to this degree. Sad.

 

I want to be with my equal, not someone I have to guide through every part of a relationship. With inexperienced men (either sexually or romantically), there has always been, in my personal experience, a big reason why.

[Emilia]

Why is it so important to do what is expected by society? That galls me that people expect that. You can't assume that means "lifestyle incompatibilities". A 30 year old can have little to no experience for a million reasons. He or she could have put education or career first, believe in waiting for marriage or a serious relationship, be choosy, be shy, get turned down a lot, be discouraged or simply want to wait to name just a few. Some people change over the years and some don't. You don't know and to make broad based assumptions to me is foolish.

 

This is all viewed from a personal point of view. You asked me why experienced mattered to me, not why experience mattered to society (though the answer might not be that different).

 

Experience matters to me because I like dating men with sexual and long-term/short-term relationship knowledge. Sexual compatibility matters to me a great deal. A man who has 'average' experience (whatever it is in given society) is assumed to have adequate social skills to achieve what he wants since in relationships good social skills are mandatory.

 

I also remember what it's like to have awkward sex as a teenager and I do not wish to repeat that. I had to when I dated inexperienced men and I didn't enjoy it as I value sexual intimacy highly.

[LTP]

Because they probably haven't grown as much as I have as they have not experienced some of the major and character-forming milestones in life. Unless they were just late starters of course and they have 'caught up' since. I never ask a man how old he was when he got his first girlfriend though I can probably guess.

 

How do you know they haven't grown as much as you have? Maybe they grew in different areas and maybe one area they have grown fast in is ability to resist temptations. They may have wanted to have sex at the animal level, but they may believe in waiting for the right person. That is a very admirable quality.

[Woggle]

It's funny how people who are more traditional and old fashioned these days have become the new radicals. There was a time when people slept around to thumb their noses at societal norms and now it is the complete opposite.

 

Sex is a great thing but it is a only a part of life and a person is not lesser because they have not slept with a whole bunch of people.

[LTP]

It is indeed a compatibility issue. But a "red flag" stated like the way it was (so widely-generalized), it could be universally "assumed" to be a lot of things that weren't true for a lot of people like us.

 

Yeah, I know I'm at a disadvantage... and not happy due to peer pressure i suppose. Maybe I will end up a crazy cat-lady... (Well, let's hope loveshack creates a cat forum in the future at least...).

Thanks!

 

You have a long time. 27 is still young.

[LTP]

Of course. You can do what you like but I don't have to like it as a partner. The 'norm' is what most people would ideally like to experience in that particular post's context that you quoted.

 

This is exactly what is wrong with society. I'm not looking for someone who coforms to norms of society. I'm looking for someone who has a special bond with me regardless of their past.

[Emilia]

How do you know they haven't grown as much as you have? Maybe they grew in different areas and maybe one area they have grown fast in is ability to resist temptations. They may have wanted to have sex at the animal level, but they may believe in waiting for the right person. That is a very admirable quality.

 

Zengirl has described it beautifully in her post, I'll quote it in a second when I find it.

 

To me - again I can only speak for myself - people have a very high place in my life especially a romantic partner. If someone is happy to spend their adult life without being intimately close to someone, ie don't put as high a value on love as I do, we will not have a compatible value system.

 

Also, he will not have any relationship experience and will not appreciate what it is to work for relationships. It isn't something you can understand or comprehend intellectually without spending your late teens and your 20s painfully working through it like the rest of us. Being in a romantic relationship isn't something you can learn from a book and if you don't know how you do it and never had the desire to learn, it means your outlook in life will be vastly different from mine. You can have a PhD in anything you want but you will have an inferior understanding of human relations to the majority of people.

[Emilia]

This is exactly what is wrong with society. I'm not looking for someone who coforms to norms of society. I'm looking for someone who has a special bond with me regardless of their past.

 

But your present is a derivative of your past. You place yourself outside society because you don't understand it.

[Emilia]

 

Sex is a great thing but it is a only a part of life and a person is not lesser because they have not slept with a whole bunch of people.

 

Of course not but the question is why some of us don't want to date them and I'm giving my point of view as asked.

[Emilia]

While you make a good point that other types of relationships matter, there are LOTS of skills/traits/behaviors that only exist in romantic partnerships besides sex (and sex exists in many other things than true relationships!). The biggest one is sharing your life. Sure, some cultures share their lives with their families, but that's not modern, Western culture. Sacrificing parts of yourself and yourself for another are only found in two types of relationship typically today -- people do it for their spouses and for their children. Some people still do it, on a smaller level, for their families (parents, siblings), but it's getting rarer and rarer. Also, living with someone day in and day out -- and not in a roommate situation but an emotionally charged situation -- is not something adults typically do without romance involved.

 

When people stay single, live alone, put their own priorities first, they are actively learning to be bad relationship partners whether they know it or not. Granted, having a wide array of friends (both genders, different backgrounds) and good friendships can help soften that, as can having strong familial ties, but neither can substitute for romantic experiences in most cases. Most people simply don't sacrifice much for their friends, and they don't choose their family. That's what makes romantic relationships (serious ones!) different---it's not just the sex; it's the fact that it's the first time you really CHOOSE your family, as that person can legally and in the eyes of society become your family, through marriage, if you get serious enough. At least that's how I see it.

 

Granted, in your dichotomy -- someone with a string of serial monogamy and little other relationships going or someone with a strong community that they've built over time and maintained, I'd go with the person with a community too (as long as the community in question was not ALL male), BUT more often than not it's the guy who's been in relationships and is boyfriend-material who has female friends (not exes and not girls he wanted to sleep with, but REAL female friends) and a stronger, more varied community in general. At least that's what I've seen. That's because IF you have that kind of sense of community, if you can sacrifice for people and relate to them and want to be around them, then you are more likely to find a relationship whether you're looking for one or not. Unless you really don't want one, and that's a whole different problem.

 

This. Zengirl is spot on as usual.

[LTP]

But your present is a derivative of your past. You place yourself outside society because you don't understand it.

 

The first sentence is true. "Derivative" is part of that sentence and some people can and do change a lot in just a few years. The rest of what you say doesn't make sense. Just because someone differs from the "norms" of soecity doesn't mean that don't understand it. People who want to wait for sex until they find someone special is an example.

[Woggle]

Of course not but the question is why some of us don't want to date them and I'm giving my point of view as asked.

 

I understand.

 

About relationship experience sometimes it teaches you things and other times it just makes a person jaded and bitter and future partners have to pay the price for it. I can sincerely say I would be a whole lot better off if I could travel back in time and erase my first marriage from my life.

[Emilia]

I understand.

 

About relationship experience sometimes it teaches you things and other times it just makes a person jaded and bitter and future partners have to pay the price for it. I can sincerely say I would be a whole lot better off if I could travel back in time and erase my first marriage from my life.

 

However, you have an amazing wife now and who knows whether you would appreciate her as much as you do today if you hadn't had that terrible first marriage.

[LTP]

Zengirl has described it beautifully in her post, I'll quote it in a second when I find it.

 

To me - again I can only speak for myself - people have a very high place in my life especially a romantic partner. If someone is happy to spend their adult life without being intimately close to someone, ie don't put as high a value on love as I do, we will not have a compatible value system.

 

Also, he will not have any relationship experience and will not appreciate what it is to work for relationships. It isn't something you can understand or comprehend intellectually without spending your late teens and your 20s painfully working through it like the rest of us. Being in a romantic relationship isn't something you can learn from a book and if you don't know how you do it and never had the desire to learn, it means your outlook in life will be vastly different from mine. You can have a PhD in anything you want but you will have an inferior understanding of human relations to the majority of people.

 

If someone, for example, chose to focus on education and career when they were younger, should that put them at such a disadvantage? They weren't living under a rock, but didn't have the time to put into a serious relationship in their early 20s. Because of additudes like this, less experienced people will go to great lengths to hide their inexperience or even outright lie about it. Can you blame them?

[lululucy]

If someone, for example, chose to focus on education and career when they were younger, should that put them at such a disadvantage? They weren't living under a rock, but didn't have the time to put into a serious relationship in their early 20s. Because of additudes like this, less experienced people will go to great lengths to hide their inexperience or even outright lie about it. Can you blame them?

 

In my experience, if you want a relationship, you will make time for one. I know people with masters degrees at 22, and only one of them has never had a relationship.

[Emilia]

If someone, for example, chose to focus on education and career when they were younger, should that put them at such a disadvantage? They weren't living under a rock, but didn't have the time to put into a serious relationship in their early 20s. Because of additudes like this, less experienced people will go to great lengths to hide their inexperience or even outright lie about it. Can you blame them?

 

I don't blame anyone for anything I'm just not interested in men who rather have their nose in books than go out and socialise. Why should I? There are plenty of med and law students in relationships. I dated a Maths graduate from Cambridge who was a triathlon competitor and had a girlfriend during his years at university. In my experience there is always a choice and I'm sorry if someone wants me to teach them how to catch up, it's not my job.

[silvermercy]

If someone, for example, chose to focus on education and career when they were younger, should that put them at such a disadvantage? They weren't living under a rock, but didn't have the time to put into a serious relationship in their early 20s. Because of additudes like this, less experienced people will go to great lengths to hide their inexperience or even outright lie about it. Can you blame them?

I think you nailed it here. I can testify that one of the reasons I'm so inexperienced is exactly because of the fear of rejection by the more experienced men. And that's why, in defense, I'm not looking to date them either. They wouldn't give me the chance so I can sense that and reject them before they do. It's like a cycle I also ended up because of moving too much abroad and getting advanced studies like Mres, PhD etc. Lots of reasons and not because I'm socially inept or that I'm not a "whole" person and all that jazz compared to my peer group.