I’m very glad it was helpful! I study psychology, so always happy to be able to share a bit of knowledge :) Best of luck to you!

That is actually impressively dumb

Like seriously, I think he really really put effort into being dumb here. You can’t be just randomly that ignorant here, I think

Isn’t that kinda satire?

Yes, I think I can relate very well. What I try to bring across to people is a model Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, has proposed for how exactly emotions come to be. Basically, the model has three layers:

A- Activating event (e.g. a friend tells you how amazing it is to have a GF, you lay in bed and think that you’re still a virgin) B - Belief (I MUST already have had sex, I MUST be able to relate, I MUST have succeeded here) C - Consequence (you feel shittily, because you couldn’t fulfill your beliefs)

The model is also called the ABC model, for short.

The nutshell is that the event in ITSELF (aka that you’re a virgin) doesn’t make you miserable, but your beliefs and relation towards it. For example, imagine someone who wants to be a monk. They would be happy to still be a virgin, right? Or imagine someone who wants to wait until the right partner comes along. Imagine a devout Christian, who wants to wait until marriage, or an asexual person.

In short, many people would perceive being a virgin as GOOD, as something very nice and positive. That does not mean that you have to feel the same way, by all means - but it means that your personal beliefs, convictions and motivations heavily shape your perception.

Or, to put it differently - you really seem to have put a lot of effort into improving yourself and working out, right? You did everything one reasonably might suggest to do. So perhaps it is a good thing to take a step back and remind yourself that the reason you feel so bad about it is partially connected to your personal beliefs about what you should do and how to be. You don’t feel terribly because you’re a virgin, you feel terribly because you think you MUST NOT be a virgin.

By no means do I want to tell you that it is wrong - I personally definitely struggle with this concept. However I think it is good to simply keep this in mind to be able to exercise a bit of self-compassion, that the reason you feel bad is because your beliefs bash down on you and tell you “you’re a worthless piece of shit because you didn’t fulfill xyz” You are not a bad or worthless person by not being a virgin, I honestly believe it.

And besides - my personal story is, I am very very happy to have waited for my first kiss until my current partner. I have felt terribly that all the other people around me already had relationships, and I didn’t. Nowadays I am very happy to have waited, because it makes my physical relationship with her very very special. She is the first person I shared myself on a physical level with, and I wouldn’t trade all the nice girls in high school for this bond we share now. Perhaps that’s something you can also reframe for yourself: assuming you will find a partner one day (which I presume you’ll be able to do), the fact that you’ll be able to know she’s your first sexual contact will be very special - for you just as much as for her.

I hope this makes sense or may be helpful. If you have any additional thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to reply :)

I think I’d love to offer a bit of a different outlook personally. Most of the comments I see here are going in the direction of “don’t stress yourself about it too much, you will be able to do it/ it is cultural pressure”. I personally experience that for me it doesn’t help at all - like yk, I know I shouldn’t stress myself too much about it anyway, but I still do. And my personal opinion is that every emotion is incredibly valuable. If you feel insecure about it and if you feel you should make a fuss, these is something important your emotional system is trying to convey to you.

Most of the time, emotions aren’t shallow, but rather a bit deeper. In this case I presume the issue for you probably isn’t just that you are a virgin, there is something deeper connected to this feeling. For example, maybe the fact you are a virgin also means that you don’t get the sexual validation you need and deserve to feel confident in your body. Or maybe it is connected with the need to belong: you want to be able to experience what other people feel, and you don’t do so right now. The feeling of not belonging is a very powerful one.

I will be honest - when I was younger, it really sucked. I only has first sexual contact in university, so pretty late for the metrics of my surroundings. Until this time, I felt very insecure and also to some extent worthless - why is everyone able to have it and I’m not? Am I broken or wrong? I presume some of the same thoughts plague you as well.

Probably you already know common strategies for dealing with this feeling. In case you don’t, pretty good ones involve working out, meditation, good sleep and nutrition, therapy, talking with a friend about your struggles, or reading a book about the topic and how other people related to it.

I’d like to offer you different psychotheoretical viewpoints of your feelings. I can’t testify which one apply here the most, but maybe it can help you to understand a bit better what the source of your struggle is.

A cognitive therapist would tell you that your feeling is, as most of the other commenters wrote, a result of your learning. Aka, you learned that during college people need to have sex, and you didn’t - so you feel that you failed because your learning says so. Thus, the best procedure would be for you to recognize that you don’t NEED to have it, e.g. by talking to people who also stayed virgins, and “reconditioning” yourself.

A rational emotive therapist would expand upon the thought of the cognitive therapist by adding that you feel the NEED to conform. Aka, you have the thought in your head that you MUST be perfect and you MUST perform and you MUST excel, or else you’re a worthless pile of trash. Thus, an REBT therapist would advise you to work on your deep-seeted belief that you MUST be perfect, and instead accept your imperfection - in this case, accept that even though you’re a virgin, you’re still a worthy human being, worthy of love and self-worth. This you can achieve by self-disputing, imaging how it would be to be a non-virgin, etc.

A psychoanalyst would tell you that your struggle is a result of early childhood experiences. For example, early on you maybe felt self-concious about your body, or you didn’t really belong to a group. Orthodox psychoanalysts would in fact say that this is directly connected to your parents, and that a trauma before the age of ~6 is the reason you feel so bad now… And this early trauma now gets reactivated, simply I a different context. The key to healing would thus be to work through your trauma, recognize and accept it, and thus prevent this issue from “popping up again” later in future.

A systemical therapist would tell you that your struggle is a result of your surrounding and your interactions with other people. For example, maybe someone from within your family pressures you into taking up a good-paid, respected job. This pressure interacts with your emotions in such a way that you feel pressure in other parts of your life as well, for example here. Thus, it would be necessary to examine your surroundings and understand what the people want from you, how they see you etc., and then change the system in a way that accommodates you better.

As you see, many different people say lots of different smart stuff about what to do and where this feeling comes from. I personally can only tell you that I really emphasize with your struggle. I felt very similar, and it just really really sucks. If you see all the other people around you being able to accomplish something you fight so hard for, and yet it still doesn’t work out - that just really, really sucks, especially if there isn’t any prospect of change. It is important for me that you know you’re not alone with this experience, and that there are others who felt the same. In fact, thank you for sharing this story - it also makes me realize that I’m not alone with my feelings here either.

I wish you the best of strength to deal with your struggles here. If you have any additional questions, feel free to pop by and ask - I always love to talk about psychology :)

Texas being Texas, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, that is the wildest thing I read in a long time since the last Trump news, but it is actually very interesting. And constitutional. America is wild.

Ahhh, good to know! I’m just in Bordeaux rn and will visit Marseille at some point in the next few months, now I know what I should look out for :)

What is up with this Marseille soap? Second time someone mentions it in this thread.

That sounds like a really good routine tbh :)

What happens when you find out it isn’t there anymore?! Do you then just like order a replacement one from Amazon?

Everything (except 8, obviously) is pretty standard practice for CBT as well. In terms of self-help, I’d also definitely add

9: Find nice people/a nice group to spend time with. Doesn’t really matter what it is: sports club, theater, study group, board game club, garden builders. Just follow your interests.

I think many people dismiss the incredible value friends bring to our life and the stabilizing effect it has on out mental health. Loneliness is one of the deadliest causes out there (some studies say it’s as harmful as smoking daily), so make sure to have people around you whom you like spending time with! And no, digital groups are not the same as real-life ones. Body language is incredibly important in communication, and with it missing orr brain processes information differently.

Tl;Dr: Get out there and find nice people.

I can’t :DDD

<arbitration clause: if you sign up, you cannot make any claims against cRazi_man. in case we fucked up, I guess sucks for you, byeeeee>

Well, he just has to have active sexual intercourse in front of the judge with multiple witnesses. What’s the problem, I mean if that’s his lifestyle he should just prove it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(/s - seriously, how more obviously homophobic can the judge be)

Ich verstehe den Punkt absolut. Meine Aussage ist aber, dass ich eben mehr als “nur” 500 Euro mehr im Monat bekomme, weil damit auch enorme Ungleichheit gegenüber anderen Studis einhergeht. Ich muss, das Geld nicht zurückzahlen, und erhalte zum Teil mehr Geld als arbeitende Menschen, ohne dabei einen signifikanten Beitrag an Gütern oder Dienstleistungen zu produzieren. Im Endeffekt zahlt die Gesellschaft gerade für mich enorm drauf - in Form vom Stipendium, Wohnheim, staatliche Uni, ÖPNV-Ticket, Familien-GKV,…

Es ist mir mit diesem Post einfach sehr wichtig, einen Einblick reinzugeben, wie einfach privilegierte Machtgefälle entstehen können. Nach dem Motto: wer hat, dem wird gegeben; wer nicht hat, der hat halt Pech und muss schauen, wie man über die Runden kommt (looking at you, 800€ BAföG).

Obwohl der Aspekt der Elitenförderung nachvollziehbar ist, finde ich, dass sobald ich mehr im Monat verdienen kann als zwei meiner Kommilitonen (die nicht ganz Höchstsatz beziehen, von denen gibt es ja einige), für genau das selbe Studium, hat das System einen strukturellen Fehler.

Genauso habe ich es auch wahrgenommen. Ich war letztes Jahr auf der Sommerakademie aller Begabtenwerke - mit Abstand die meisten waren weiße Kinder von Akademikereltern. Es gab auch Gegenbeispiele, besonders die linken Förderwerke hatten gute Durchmischung - aber die Kerndynamik war meiner Meinung nach eindeutig.

Exakt. Es ergibt absolut keinen Sinn, weil mein Stipendium ja mit dem BAföG verknüpft ist.

Hm, ich stimme Dir nicht zu. Ich bin bei einem der linken Begabtenförderungswerke, welches sehr viel Wert auf Inklusion legt. Es ist trotzdem sehr krass, wie viele Akademiker*innenkinder bei uns sind. Die Korrelation Elternhaus-Noten ist sehr gut bekannt, und bei allen Förderwerken sind Noten ein gewichtiger Faktor.

Ich finde es allerdings sehr ungerecht, dass ich zum Teil mehr Geld habe als Personen, die 40-Stunden-Wochen arbeiten. Das Problem sind nicht zwangsläufig die Stipendien an sich, sondern eher die Verteilung von Geld. Die Stipendien sind aber Teil des Probleme, weil wir aufgrund von großem politischen Willen existieren, eine wie auch immer geartete “Elite” ranzuziehen. Das Wohngeld ist auch Ausdruck des Problems.

Mh, warum? Ich habe nicht gefunden, warum er problematisch ist