I’m a 40-Year Old Man Who Has Never Had A Girlfriend Or Sex.

First off, I’m glad to have found your site. Your advice is thoughtful and reasonable, unlike many others out there. Suffice to say, you’ve given me a lot to think about. So here’s my situation. This year, I will turn 40. Despite my attempts since I went to college, I am still a virgin. Yes, I’ve seen the movie, and I won’t lie: I’m afraid of becoming the archetype of that fictional character.

Over the years, I’ve learnt—albeit slowly, it seems—about many mistakes I’ve been doing. Not paying attention to women’s body language, not trying to go in for the first kiss, it’s a long laundry list of things I go “Crap, I should have done that!”.

But despite my efforts (and the assistance of friends over the years), I have never had a girlfriend or sex. As of recently, I try to find women between 25 and 42 years old. I’ve read a lot about what you’ve said about “Ineffective versus Effective” and “What I want in a woman versus what she wants about me”, and I guess I’m still a bit confused. I think that my situation (and that of other virgins in my predicament) is a little different in some ways, but also the same in others when it comes to relationships, sex, et cetera. I am an only child, and my parents are kind of old fashioned and raised me as such. I don’t usually try to go for/get a kiss on the first date, and I don’t try to force sex to happen right away.

Friends and coworkers alike have given me a huge span of advice and suggestions, from “sowing my oats” with a professional escort/hooking up with an “easy” college girl, to being persistent and trying to find that “special one”.

Eventually, I want to buy one or several of your products, but anything constructive you can offer me would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mo

Dear Mo,

As a dating coach for women, I rarely run letters from men. But maybe I should do it a little more, considering that 54% of my readers (according to Google Analytics) are actually men. And if you’ve been reading for a while, Mo, you know that I do two things with each reader question:

1. 10% of the time, I’ll provide validation that the reader is 100% correct in her assessment of things. That generally means saying something like, “He’s a jerk. Dump him. Move on.” The problem with these questions is that they’re boring. There’s only so many ways to say, “You’re right!” which make for a boring advice column. Which is why most of my advice veers towards…
2. 90% of the time, I’ll let you know what you’re doing/thinking/believing that is not getting you results. Either that means shining the light into a blind spot and giving you an idea of what you can’t see, or it’s telling you how to conduct yourself differently to get different results.

In your situation, I have a feeling you already know everything you have to do. You’re just not doing it.

I have a feeling you already know everything you have to do. You’re just not doing it.

That makes giving unique advice a little bit tricky, you know?

Now, I’ve written about this stuff before.

I’ve talked about how passionate, competent guys get the girl.

I’ve talked about how nice guys (with balls) finish first.

I’ve talked about how women should value nice guys a little more.

But it doesn’t really matter what I say. Telling women to value nice guys more is like telling men to value older, heavier women more. People want what people want. At the end of the day, we all have two choices: stay exactly as we are right now and wait until we find someone who appreciates us, or adjust who we are to become appealing to more people.

You’ve had a lot of time to think about this, my friend. You’ve gone over the laundry list of things you could have done differently over the years. You may have valid excuses in how you were raised, but it really doesn’t matter if you were raised old-fashioned. You’ve been on your own for 20 years now.

So what constructive advice can I offer you? Should you lose your virginity with a pro just to get it over with? Should you hold out for someone special? I would suggest no to both options.

In fact, the biggest problem you have surrounding sex is that you’re making WAY too big a deal about it. Apart from the fact that sex can create babies, in 99% of cases, it’s just a fun thing that people do when they’re attracted to each other. By not carrying yourself with confidence, not asking out more women, not making the first move, not pushing to go further, and not seeing yourself as a sexual being, you’ve projected yourself to women as safe and asexual as well. It’s time to reboot and start from scratch.

We all have two choices: stay exactly as we are right now and wait until we find someone who appreciates us, or adjust who we are to become appealing to more people.

You don’t need to have sex tomorrow.
You don’t need to have sex with someone you love.
You need to make up for lost time and catch up with what everyone else was doing from 14-21.

I rarely plug my own products on here, but you should begin with Finding the One Online, my online dating audio series. It’s much easier and more accessible (for nice guys) than going to pubs to hit on hot 27-year-olds. Despite the sales page being written for women, Finding the One Online is actually a unisex product, created in 2008 for both men AND women. It’s helped thousands of people choose a dating site, write better profiles, post better photos, understand the opposite sex, and learn to move from email to the phone to the real life date.

Instead of skipping steps and worrying about getting naked with someone, you just need the experience of being around women, learning to act on your attraction, and demystifying this sex thing that you’ve built up in your mind. One step at a time. Go on a bunch of dates. Build up your dating skills. Get more confidence. And when it’s time for you to have sex, you’ll be as ready as any man ever was.

Click here to learn more about Finding the One Online and how it can attract more, high quality prospects on your dating site than you ever imagined possible.