First of all, I would like to apologize as english is not my first language and I might commit grammatical or ortographic errors.

I am a 22 years old virgin. I am not an introvert, nor I am socially awkward. I am actually pretty outgoing and a fun person to be with even if it is quite difficult to get in my humour. This is specially confusing for me, because my personality seems to attract a lot of people to befriend — but none of them are girls. I grew up being very centered around my male friends and never really tried to go out of my comfort zone and try talking to girls (I was told years later that there were a couple cute girls that liked me a bit). I always took for granted that the perfect girl would just fall from the sky onto my arms, and that my only preocupation was to think about "when will that girl come to realize I am an incredible match". Yes, I might sound overconfident, and I think that is in part the problem I had as an adolescent: I was way too used to win at everything with no effort, be it studies or extracurricular issues like writing concerts or music shows. I was used to be the protagonist.

I always had this kind of idea of me being protected by some kind of plot armor. "It is not necessary to really make a huge effort, it will eventually work out". I don't know if it was sheer luck, but I always obtained what I wanted. When I came to realize, I was 18 years old and never had even kissed. I was not the kind of kid to go to clubs or to parties, but I did have a couple of big and loyal groups or friends, and most of them already had girlfriends or at least female friends. But, somehow, none of the girls in any friend group was close to me in any manner. The natural "friend to couple" development I assumed would happen could never occur in this context. That is when I finally decided to start making more moves: maybe going out partying is not as bad as it seems. At first I disliked the idea as I hated loud music, but I was able to make it through and started enjoying clubs and partying. I then realized that girls would not approach me; maybe then I started noticing hints by girls on the dancefloor, but was just too coward to approach them.

Why didn't I try? I was 18 years old with no experience talking to women. I was prideful. I could not stand to imagine rejection, and the idea itself made me feel incapable of approaching women. I told myself that I didn't want to bother a girl who is having fun by herself. To this day I still think this is partially true: I have been approached by men, and I found it displeasing. Even if it completely normal for another person to go try talking to somebody they like, I feel very uncomfortable having people I don't like trying to have my attention and distracting me from my friends and the fun. That is a projection I usually make, thinking that in the case the girl I try to approach is not attracted to me, then I am making her uncomfortable even if I am polite in all manners.

This way, I continued long years of college with little to no female interaction (I majored physics, so the amount of girls in my everyday interactions was rather low). I did make a very good female friend whom with I have now an unbreakable friendship, but neither of us developed any kind of romantic attraction, and it is more than unlikely for this to happen. During this years I tried opening my mind and even downloaded Tinder. Well, I find myself more-than-average attractive, but dating apps delivered a very hard blow to my "romantic confidence". I would not say it affected my self steem, as I think very highly of myself, but it is true that I developed this sense of inability in the romance field.

My first kiss came in a party I threw at my student flat. A friend of mine brought some girls, and we played the typical drinking games. To the end of the night, the games started becoming spicier, and in a certain moment the drinking roulette told me to make out with one of the girls. I did, and I was not nervous. I was not panicking, and I decided to try my best. The girl was beautiful, but I didn't really like her personality, neither did she like mine. It was... disappointing. She told one of my friends later that it wasn't a good kiss, but that really didn't matter to me because I had literally zero experience and had no way to know better. I made out with another beautiful girl after that. Didn't make me skip a heartbeat. It was just like bureaucreacy, just like something I had to do as a human being to be normal. It wasn't great. Well, for sure it wasn't bad, but now I may even regret it.

It's been more than a year since then. I have continued making friends, going to parties, getting acquainted to new people, but it is to no use. I have been struck by loneliness a couple times, and my sex drive became high as never before even during puberty. Still, I am always confident. "This will be my year" I tell my friends with no doubt. They don't ridiculize me even though most of them are very popular with girls, and they always give me all the support they can. Well, one of them is an actual womanizer; he is one of those guys who can just post an instagram story saying "sex" and 20 girls will immediately reply. I even tried talking to some of those girls (we made a kind of joke, we exchanged accounts), but what I found was very disappointing too. They were bland, dull and boring. I felt like I was talking to a dog instead to a person.

I don't remember how, but I got to talk with a girl who was interested in my. She was from a city near my hometown, and she found me attractive and my virginity was something exciting for her. She was actually hot, and she kept sending me pics and videos of herself. She defined herself as a slut, and I thought it would be just fine to have sex with her even if there was no romantic attraction. I was going back to my hometown for a holiday, and I even planned to meet up with her, but... I chickened out. She was offline one day I told her I was available, and when I noticed she wasn't on, I even relieved myself. When she connected again, she begged me pardon for being offline and that she was still intending to meet up. I told her I would not be available anymore, even when I knew that wasn't true at all. I felt like I didn't want to lose it to a stranger. I felt like, given that I am a 22 years old virgin, I should just wait until I found the correct girl.

The truth is, something a bit similar happened a couple weeks ago. I went to a club with some friends and there was this couple of hot girls who were all flirty with us. We noticed they were very receptive and were looking a lot in our way, smiling. While my other two friends were already planning out how to get a taxi home and invite them over, I was thinking to myself "I don't like how they are so pick-me" or "They are not totally my type". At the end, they did something a bit strange and left the club in the moment the things were going best, maybe expecting us to go after them to invite them to our house. But in a mix of pride and confusion, we stayed and lost our opportunity. I again felt a bit relieved.

There was this other girl. I didn't know her in person, but we used to chat and roleplay online. I don't believe in long-distance relationships, so I never thought of this girl as a romantic interest, but I felt we connected somehow. I liked talking with her, she was intelligent and had a lot of deep knowledge on fields I am interested in. She was a very high quality writer and roleplayer, and I enjoyed every moment I spend online with her. She had some personal issues and she has been offline for a couple months, but I still think about how fun was when I was roleplaying or just talking to her. I think I might be biased now, that I will not be happy until I find a girl like this in real life. That I have pretty high standards for being a virgin. I don't even know what I want anymore. I want to have sex, because my body feels like it. But I want my first time to be special. To lose my virginity to a girl I actually love. To somebody who will be happy, to connect with me in a more intimate level. I don't want to feel disappointed anymore. I don't want to look at my past decisions and say "maybe it wasn't the right time after all". But I still want to have sex. I'm confused.

Well, this post was actually pretty long. I know that maybe I am not in the position to be complaining as I am still pretty young and still have confidence in some way. But I thought maybe writing all this down could help me getting myself together for a while.

TL;DR: I am a 22 years old virgin who had a couple opportunities to lose his v-card, but a mix of panic and indecision made me realize I don't really know if it is the best to have sex with somebody I don't love or if I will regret it.