dating apps, being single in your twenties and the hookup culture
and why i’m still a virgin
how dating went for me
By the time I was in college, besides the whole concept of ‘adulting’, my mind was set on one particular thing: find a boyfriend. Now, almost nearing the end of my five year college course, I am still very much boyfriendless and well, a virgin.
There’s so many layers to this honestly, but let’s go step by step on how I turned into someone desperately seeking sexual experiences to becoming someone who wants their first to be their last.
I think it somewhat takes its roots in the fact that I was, if not entirely, but mostly uninterested in romance from middle school to high school. I had crushes of course, but there weren’t many instances of that, given that I had a longtime crush on a singular person. Maybe I couldn’t have been able to fathom what this would mean as I transitioned into my college years, but having zero dating experiences and relationships did not vastly affect me as such.
I was not constantly hounded by the necessity or eagerness to find a boyfriend. Having a crush and not acting upon it was sufficient, giggling over coincidental run-ins with my friends was something only the teenager me could have withstood.
For some reason, I feel like back then, I had time. I had time to mull over puppy love crushes, giggle over shared moments and not worry about never finding a guy. Fast forward into college life – well, it’s been a euphoric moment.
Fresh out of high school, I am excited to start this new journey; I have my resolutions set – I’m going to have fun, make friends, and I’m finally going to get a boyfriend. But it’s 2020, and I’m stuck for almost two years doing my course online, behind a screen and with minimal social interaction. Sorrows, prayers.
The height of loneliness and lack of socialisation are not just predicaments affecting me, but every generation as a whole, forced to stay shut inside our houses for the better part of the two years that follow the aftermaths of a pandemic. Such history, at least we laugh over how this is going into the school textbooks soon.
Regardless, I am still mostly unaffected by the lack of companionship, even though I swipe through my friends’ (old and new) insta stories with their partners. College finally opens up the conversation of sex, hookups and relationships.
Most of my peers are no longer virgins; they’ve had their firsts and now it's starting to affect me. Well, ‘affect’ would be a word for the lack of a better term, but it has certainly raised a sudden longing within me – a need to be intimate. I hear stories about hookups, about situationships, of girls crying over troubles in their relationships and a part of me wants it. A part of me wants to go out there and explore. All my twenty year old single ass wants is to have my first with someone, anyone. Or is it just anyone? (I’m laughing out loud at this because my own thoughts tend to amuse me sometimes)
At twenty, I am willing to hookup with a stranger, so now I’m on dating apps. My friends and peers seem to be doing it, why not me? Disregarding the fact that I have somewhat conservative parents and am scared shit of the consequences, I go ahead and make my first dating profile.
It’s fun. At first. I’m swiping and matching with some decent guys and the conversations are not that dry either. It’s great to know that guy A is an astrophysics major and has amazing conversation skills. Guy B is here to get over an ex – I listen to his short lament, his directness while telling me he’s here for a ‘fun time’. Guy C is cute, but he’s dived headfirst with innuendos that I couldn't care less about.
And then it's a cultural shock, because it seems that even though I share the sentiments of a majority of the guys on these apps – of having a ‘fun time’ – it’s surprising how quickly it turns me off when the conversation starts drifting into areas about sex and allied topics.
By no means am I a prude, I talk about kinks and preferences but I am clear in letting them know that I’m a virgin. It doesn’t bother them, they really don’t seem to care. And I think that’s great. But then follows a similar circle of conversations, the first two days getting to politely know these people and the third conversation almost always ends up about sex.
I should probably mention a few things at this point:
It's somewhere along these conversations that I start to make it clear that I do not care if they talk/see other people, because of course I intend to do the same
I am clear on making sure that I am absolutely NOT looking for serious relationships
I finally go out on a real date with a guy
Yes, it happens. He’s a decent guy, he’s mindful, respectful and well, he’s also good looking. We make plans, and this is the first time I go through with the daunting task of meeting a practical stranger. But it’s fine, I suppose, I have shared my location with my friends (haha).
We continue talking over texts and calls and in the six months we ‘see’ each other, we only physically meet up a grand total of three times. Sure, I justify my reason for not putting in efforts to meet up more often as me being busy with a tight schedule and his being busy at his job.
The second time that we meet up is when I finally have my first kiss – ever. And say what you will, I went with low expectations, a somewhat jittery feeling running through my bones and the reassurance that this would be his first kiss too.
It’s majorly unexciting. That’s all I can say; it did not do much for me.
Why am I saying all this? Why am I boring you with my insanely dull recounting of my first kiss? It’s because this is when things start to change – gradually, but consistently.
I realise that losing my first kiss to someone who I later realised I hadn’t liked as much may not have been a big deal, but do I really want my first time going further than that to be an experience and aftermath similar to this feeling? I was starting to justify my actions and make peace with the residual aftereffects it left – I had not liked the guy as much as I should have, I simply did not have a strong emotional connection with him, all I had to do was get to know him even more and spend more time together.
But I quickly realised that my own internal conflict was pulling me back from acting upon these thoughts until I finally decided that this was not it for me and I ended up calling it off a few months later. Mostly because I thought that leading on someone was something I would never morally abject myself to, but also because I was left with no desire to follow up on whatever it was that I had gotten myself into.
Whatever it was, I was now more sure than ever that I did not want to drag these situationships any more, but more than anything – I was now majorly confused as to what it was that I actually wanted.
how media started shaping my ideals for dating and love
For a while, I kept an on and off relation with dating apps.
At one point it became a source of validation for me because I was suddenly only finding guys that would only talk about sex and hookups from the get go. It was now ironic, how the one reason I had joined those damned apps had become a source of disappointment and general discomfort for me.
I went on these apps to remind myself that there would be something better out there for me – again it was a shameful justification (excuse) for being chronically unable to get myself off the addiction of dating apps and the whole motley of misplaced validation it rewarded me with.
It’s around this time that the concept of tradwife was starting to gain momentum and as one thing led to another, I was now devouring content on post girlboss era, on finding true love, on the correlation of feminists and being sexually liberated…these are heavy topics, ones I would touch upon in some later posts, but for now, I was turning to a different kind of media for validation.
A quick disclaimer here – although this media driven frenzy had been a significant contributor in shaping my ideals, I have never succumbed entirely to the grasps of online third party views into influencing my entire lifestyle. As such, these were views that were already starting to take shape in microdoses, and the content I seeked out was majorly autonomous.
I was slowly starting to familiarise myself with my own values that I had only just started putting out, rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon that was the entire hookup culture. Sure, I still craved intimacy, I longed for companionship, but I was keeping the urge to do so with the first person I could find at bay. I did not want my first to be with a stranger because even the thought had started to feel shameful to me.
Someone reading this might want to put two and two together about my previous comment about the tradwife era and my recent evolution of values and say, maybe I was transitioning – politically, culturally and romantically. Maybe I was, I will not deny it, but I won’t talk about my political standing yet because I still find myself fluttering somewhere along in the middle ground. But were my values as a woman who longed for meaningful relationships evolving? Yes, they very much were.
I was starting to put more energy into friendships, old and new, and I was starting to be less bothered about my dating life. I figured, anything was better than meaningless conversations with strangers on the internet whose entire personalities had been reduced into a thirty second read profile. I was NOT going to meet someone this way.
Come 2024, I had new resolutions – I would give up entirely on dating apps. It’s been eight months since, and I am absolutely free of those self imposed shackles. Now, here’s a list of a few more things that happened during this time that lead to this gradual change:
Number one:
In the midst of the third month of my celibacy from dating apps, I had a fair urge to just try it one last time. Well, I’d be damned if I let myself go through that again so I went on google and searched up what I wanted to hear the most at that moment.
I stumbled upon this article by Leah Fessler, titled, ‘A lot of women don’t enjoy hookup culture—so why do we force ourselves to participate?’.
To summarise, it quenched my derelictions by a substantial amount and I might have cried reading it. It was insane how relatable this singular piece of media had been and if I were to quote on the sayings in this article, it would be this: “True feminists, I believed, not only wanted but also thrived on emotionless, non-committal sexual engagements.”
It felt like I was a bag of cotton, drowning in heavy, heavy water… “emotionless, non-committal sexual engagements” … it was basically the personality I had reduced myself to. I have nothing, in fact, against people who can thrive in the sensuality of their sexuality and maintain their borders while pursuing such relations – I had started off as someone like this after all – but I had indeed conditioned myself to believe that being sexually experienced would somehow bring me the satisfaction of having achieved something great in life.
Something similar to what I finally deduced was addressed in this article and it was the fact that in reality, I don’t think I would've ever found freedom nor validation in emotionless, non-committal sexual relations.
Number two:
Meeting guys through dating apps almost felt like I was forcing myself to get to know a person rather than just naturally growing feelings for someone. I got really frustrated and even more desperate to have intimacy with someone.
I thought that I could be intimate with just about anyone, but in my own ways, I started to realise that it wasn't the case. My friends talked about being intimate with their partners, and it made me crave that feeling too. But I realised that these friends had been in committed and exclusive relationships for at least 2-3 years -- they had partners who they felt comfortable being intimate with after building that trust over years.
Whereas I was looking for a way out to just have any sort of connection. It almost made me feel shameful and guilty, wanting to partake in this culture. It's not been long since I've started to accept this fact – intimacy for me is not easy, nor desirable, unless I have an emotional attachment with my partner, am exclusive and most importantly, trust him.
It felt almost scary and shameful to admit that the thought of sex makes me feel vulnerable, not when all I've done most of my college life is talk about how much I want sex and hookups. Sex scares me, more so with a complete stranger; but I find a part of me wanting to be vulnerable with the right person. The one, you know?
i’m in my hopeless romantic era
My friends don’t judge me (they do judge my lamentations of wanting a boyfriend) but it turns out, it's never been a big deal. I am thankful for that, but it is a big deal for me; in a good way. Because now I’ve fully immersed myself into my hopeless romantic era and though the pangs of longing persist, I am thankful I did not lose this part of me to some rash decisions (uhh, no judge to anyone, this is an opinionated piece)
Now when I tell people I’m a virgin, they seem shocked or surprised. It doesn’t offend me, it doesn't even bother me. I laugh it off because it is laughable how I seem to have an image of someone who’s had some sexual experience. Well, to each their own.
I've been chasing after the notion of a relationship, realising now that the more I look for it, the less likely I am going to 'find' it. I've started to ease myself into stop looking, but there's also a part of me that regrets not having a relationship, even though I'm almost done with uni. I'm worried that the future me would regret not dating more, not finding someone special, but that is a different story altogether.
Being single in my twenties is definitely majorly a decision by choice, I don’t want to make it seem like a bad thing, because it truly isn’t one in my opinion. For anyone telling me otherwise, I will pay heed to their words, but not whatever underlying concern borders it.
I don’t need to read books to placate myself, because I know there’s men out there – the kind of men I’m looking for, longing for. I know there’s a possibility of finding that emotional connection I so yearn for, but the less I ‘seek’ it out, the more I ease myself into a happier state. While I still find myself trying to grasp onto pieces of affirmations, I think I’m listening to my friends talk about their dating lives without feeling the need to actively chase one for myself.