Casual Conversation

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 :)