Genuine question. This might have come up before but not all guys who haven’t had sex hate women, or blame them for their own problems. The same way not all women who haven’t had sex hate men. Surely there’s a middle ground here, of respecting women and knowing their boundaries, whilst still wishing they could have a girlfriend or some kind of sexual relationship. I see many guys call themselves incels because they are, in the literal sense, involuntarily celibate people who don’t blame their issues on other people. I take full responsibility for my own actions and life, but I still hate the position I’m in and don’t really know how to make progress. If you call someone an incel, there is so much negativity and hateful ideology associated with that word, but not everyone who calls themselves an incel has that hateful attitude at all. Just something I was thinking about

Minorly NSFW, but I'll of course leave out anything gross.

I am 25, this happened about 3 months ago. I met the perfect girl who was into me through a mutual friend. We dated for a total of like 6 months, she lived about an hour away from me so we didn't see each other every day, but did every other weekend. I thought I had finally found my person.

Issues arose when we tried to have sex. I didn't tell her I was a virgin as I thought she would start being icked out since I'm 25 and a virgin (this turned out to be correct). The first time we had sex it was really bad. I didn't know what I was doing at all. She was upset and I was more humiliated than I ever have been. After that I told her it was my first time. She didn't really react. From then on she wasn't as eager to have sex anymore. She was really the one pushing for it but since we weren't in a relationship I was hesitant because I figured this would happen if we were only in the early stages.

We had sex twice after that, she didn't really tell me what to do or what she liked. She just didn't seem into it, so we stopped. In the last month we were seeing each other she called me and said we should just be friends. When I asked her what went wrong, she said that she doesn't think we're sexually compatible but she had a good time being with me and wanted to stay friends.

I was heartbroken and we haven't talked since. Now recently, I heard through our mutual friend that she was "shocked" that I was a virgin at such an old age.

It just feels like this is impossible and that this is just a pattern that was bound to happen. Women my age have likely already had a ton of amazing sex, and if they like me they'd have to sacrifice good sex for me, when they could probably with less effort find a guy that knows what he's doing.

I started so late and now I'm too far behind to catch up. This gets me to the crux of what I need advice on. I don't know how I'm supposed to learn if no one wants to teach. No woman has an obligation to teach me just because I was a loser who couldn't find a woman that wanted to have sex with me, and I doubt any woman wants to spend months having bad sex with me in order to learn.

This feels like Sisyphean task of learning how to be good in bed when 1. i probably blew it with one of the maybe 3 women alive that would even want to sleep with me, and 2. of the last 2 women, they probably also want good sex and that's not something I can do.

I know this is a big ask but advice tends to be “go to therapy/go to a doctor” when someone has mental health issues for obvious reasons but I’ve been working on them for years and I’m scared because it doesn’t seem like there’s any proper solution afterwards. Diagnosed major depressive disorder, on Cymbalta currently after trying a few different SSRIs/SSNIs. I’m not some stereotype rambling about Stacy and Chad or hating “foids” or whatever but whenever my loneliness come up in my appointments my therapist and my psychiatrist just don’t seem to know what to do, it’s like it’s completely impossible for them to even imagine being so isolated. I don’t need help taking apart the black pill but my doctors just seem to not get anything.

Essentially it comes down to me saying something like “After trying for years to cultivate friends and acquaintances and hopefully a girlfriend it is 99.999% not going to happen and I’m scared because life without these relationships feels completely hopeless. This fear has been validated by how empty and depressed I’ve been feeling most of my life.” Usually either doctor is kinda taken aback and either doubles down on “well you haven’t exhausted every angle of socialization yet” or “come on don’t you have some friends that text you” when I’m close to exhausting everything in my county to the point that I’m probably “the weird single guy that always shows up to online things” and ”no, I do not have a single person outside my parents or my boss who would know if I’m dead or not if I just disappear for a few weeks.”

I’ve been forcing myself to try and be social for years and I’ve spent probably $15,000 between all the pills and appointments, and an average of two weekends a month on every little meetup group, social night at a bar, class, volunteer opportunity, etc. I’ve absolutely wrung things dry and I don’t have anything to show for it. Short of lowering every other part of my QOL by moving to NYC or LA or Chicago I’m very soon going to run out of things to do in my region.

My success: my social skills have moved from extremely poor to simply worse than average. I estimate someone who just met me could think of me as somewhat normal in short conversation. I feel so alienated that saying I always have empathy might be a stretch, but I have deep sympathy for other peoples’ problems, particularly the homeless and animals. I volunteer a decent amount and that’s probably the only reason to look forward to the future.

My failures: just about everything else.

I’m 34, male, and never had a gf. But I feel like half of my reasons for wanting a gf involve mindless fornication with a pretty lady, and the other half is about validation and approval from a group that doesn’t actually exist among my peers.

Instead, the ostensible “group” is just an illusion, pushed by Hollywood movies and the music industry. Jokes about virgins, plotlines ending in “getting the girl” - could it all be based on lies?

In reality, I don’t even know if I’m willing to set apart the time, energy, and possibly money for romance in any capacity. I think I just want to play “catch-up” so I can feel less embarassed about myself. I want to feel capable of doing anything that neurotypical people can, rather than admit I’m disabled in some way.

Or, maybe I’m just saying all of this to myself to avoid admitting I’m just not that appealing in general, especially since I’ve tried mixers, dating apps, and speed-dating without making any progress at all, and maybe it is because of a disability. (I do feel like I have a lot to offer, though.)