Does one ever recover from missing experiences as a youth?

harmonica2 · 2025-12-07T01:53:11+00:00

If it helps I'm 41 and I've been in a long-term relationship for a few years and barely have thought of my teenage lack of experiences in over a decade, if that helps or gives hope.

aslfingerspell · 2025-12-07T00:11:23+00:00

I'm not sure, and it's one of my biggest existential crises right now.

I feel like my worth as a person just hasn't kept up with inflation. In high school people said high school relationships aren't worth it, to focus on my education and hobbies to build my resume. I do so, have a great resume to apply to college, go to college.

In college, I can't find a date, and people tell me things will get better when I graduate due to having a career.

I have a career now, except everyone also does, and in spite of spending thousands of dollars on better photos, hobbies, dating app subscriptions, etc. I still have not a single date in years.

On an objective level I have improved exponentially over the past 15 years. I've achieved things that would seem impossible to my childhood self and done everything that family, society, my teachers, and my bosses told me to do.

Yet, at every single stage it feels as though my relative worth remains at 0. At every stage of life I struggle with romance and sexuality. People tell me the solution is to achieve X, become Y, or wait for Z. I do that thing, except by the time I achieve it there's always something new or more that I have to do. Hence the idea that "my worth as a person just hasn't kept up with inflation."

GGMcThroway · 2025-12-07T02:03:21+00:00

You can, but you have to be extremely intentional about it.

Turbulent-Company373 · 2025-12-07T03:07:16+00:00

For some there is a PTSD feeling related to losing it later in life. There is a definite empty gap/hole that even much sex later can't make up for it.

CybernewtonDS · 2025-12-07T00:36:09+00:00

Does one ever recover from missing experiences as a youth?

I haven't and won't expect to.

Jetpine9 · 2025-12-07T02:51:14+00:00

All the dumb mistakes people make in their teens you can also make in your 20s. And 30s. If you're lucky.

GhostXmasPast342 · 2025-12-07T03:57:36+00:00

DGenerationMC · 2025-12-07T06:08:36+00:00

It entirely depends on what (if anything) took the place of those "missed" experiences. Because those things are a way bigger part of who a person is than what they didn't have or do.

At the same token, it's a great tool to filter people in your life. If someone looks down on, pities or rejects you in any way for a milestone you "missed" then, good, the ~~trash~~ incompatible takes itself out, no matter how nice and understanding they appear to be.

OkOutlandishness6370 · 2025-12-07T00:07:46+00:00

Idk, OP, i had a girlfriend all through highschool and got married young... I was basically never out in the cold sexually. But it didn't help me.

Why didn't it help me? Because I'm just not wired in a way where I love socializing and dissecting people and manipulating. I want to just find someone I trust and love and hope she will trust and love me. But life just doesn't work like that 95% of the time.

Being a undersexed soft boy comes from some deep part of you that wants to live a peaceful, moral, calm life. That deep part doesn't go away even if you luck into a lot of sex. It's not about the experiences, it's about some kind of fundamental wiring.

MarioWilson122 · 2025-12-07T05:06:05+00:00

Well, that would be one of the reasons older men might go for casual with younger women. Since it is nice to not be expected to do more inorder to have the same benefits that the men had with the woman, when she was younger. So, I'm certain men can feel resentment from that, but not much they can do if they aren't attractive when younger, other than do the work to make themselves more attractive. So, they then can potentially have better success when older. Just one of many reasons as to why it should be socially acceptable for men to date younger women when older.

Independent-Mail-227 · 2025-12-07T01:01:03+00:00

No, you lost youth experience, it's gone: You'll never get to share with someone a first kiss nor a first time, it's gone

Disastrous_Agent9307 · 2025-12-07T03:31:41+00:00

Well, to give some perspective, I was homeschooled and sheltered. Never been to prom. And there's times I pass teenage girls who are getting gussied up for prom or buying dresses or see some tlc style show, and have a sort of wistful longing for a place I've never been and a life I never had...and then I ask myself would I change this if I knew similar to Back to the Future it would have cataclysmic potential. Am I really that unhappy with how my life turned out? And the answer is no. And I think the same about sex, my husband was more uhh miles than me (he's the only man I've been with really outside of assault and a very scared handy) while it irritates me here and there, when I wonder do I wish I'd sampled more knowing what it could have done and been, well, the answer is still no because the happiness I have is overwhelmingly good.

And I think of how you've spoken about this potential woman you could be with and how you imagine perhaps she was some wild and crazy girl and now she's not even giving you enthusiastic head. And look, I think you're just making up some nightmare scenario. The reality is, if you find a woman you connect with and are compatible with, you are likely to be overwhelmingly happy and thankful. And you will enjoy the sex even if it's not matching your vision of some poor young woman desperate for love and approval doing things she really isn't that enthusiastic about likely following more than a little drinking. Because that's most often the truth of this wild sex phase men make up. It's not genuine lust or whatever the term is now...it's someone broken and scared doing things to degrade themselves trying to feel better. And the fact so many men confuse that for a good thing...well, it half makes me hope none of you ever get touched.

And the fact you want to be with that girl and not a woman who is calm and solid in herself enough not to do things she doesn't want to and who is choosing you for who you are. Like, I dunno. The fact you can't see the win in that because "yeah, but I want beej like the guy she was blackout drunk with got". Like the devil doesn't have to do much for your soul, huh?

AfternoonTop5134 · 2025-12-08T02:56:20+00:00

No. Don't listen to whoever tells you otherwise. You missed out. That's it, No second chance. It's over.

NiaMiaBia · 2025-12-06T23:46:44+00:00

Nope. You’ll never “recover” - those BJs you seem obsessed with are long gone.

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Turbulent-Company373 · 2025-12-08T12:08:59+00:00

I remember as a kid of around 10 in the 1970s seeing this as scene of a show on TV that stuck with me for years. It appeared to be a British show and there was a girl lying in a bed covered in a sheet. She had a group of guys who were having sex with her one at a time taking their turns. They appeared to be private school teen guys in their school uniforms. Then, when it came to one guy she refused saying something along the lines that he was too good. Of course this confused me at the time but it is something that seems to have never changed.

Turbulent-Company373 · 2025-12-09T18:28:18+00:00

This reminds me of a girl who has had sex with anyone and everyone except one who happens to be the only one who really likes her. It can be devastating. And this has happened to some. Others have been after a girl who they like and are trying to have a relationship step by step with only to have the girl go behind his back and sleep with a random guy as a flex.

Amazing-Telephone-39 · 2025-12-10T21:29:06+00:00

i don't believe there is a right way to live life, as humans we are after all just animals, our anscestors had no "script" to live, i'm pretty sure if you have shame about it or percieve not having sex as a teenager as a flow that might get you socially excluded you will internalize it as shame, this would happen if you keep getting a message of "if you didn't do this you are bad and you will be excluded from social groups" same reason why some fat guys have shame about being fat and other fat guys don't it's the belief that they hold that being fat is a social threat or not, if you believe not fucking young is an info if released might lead you to being socially excluded you will have shame about it.

we will never be perfect, all humans have insecurities from believing they hold traits that could cause them to be excluded, especially now, social media companies are literally rewiring our nervous system to hold so much shame.

aleknovy · 2025-12-10T22:32:01+00:00

It's actually easy if you have an above average dating life.

I made up for it by doing better than 99% of guys. So at that point it's like (so what if I missed out on average in high school, I get to experience stuff those guys could dream of).

That might seem like a difficult feat, but it's not. If you put your mind to consciously controlling your results, it's easy to have way above average results.

You have to understand that the average guy lucks into a "barely better than nothing" dating life. He can't control it, increase it or decrease. If however you as a guy who had nothing take conscious control it's literally like having a dial that you control.

bafun13 · 2025-12-11T13:37:57+00:00

Not really. When you are young it is full of passion yk

TheRedPillRipper · 2025-12-07T00:01:50+00:00

is it possible to recover from this or does this predestine you

The key to traversing adversity is to broaden one’s perspective out sufficiently. To first accept the past then use that acceptance to inform future decision making, and subsequently future outcomes. It is that simple.

selecadm · 2025-12-07T07:51:24+00:00

In my teens instead of love I got

• SA

• CSA

• hypersexuality (my own)

• hypersexuality in female peer

• peer pressure to have sex since 13

• sexual orientation disorder

• classmate bullying me to the point some female classmates didn't even talk to me and he then laughed at me and didn't understand why I thought girls won't have sex with me, then criticized me for not wanting children. As OP mentioned BJs, that classmate ruined my confidence then told me he can convince a woman to suck my dick. But I don't need his service after what he has done

• female classmate attempting to help me choose clothes and telling "you don't want to stay a virgin, do you". Good faith but at that time it felt like mental abuse

• first girl who I was in love with, in HS she contacted me first, hanging out and hugging initiated by her, but in the end she directly told me she has sex with her boyfriend, scammed money from me, and didn't even notice me on the street (i looked back but she didn't)

• In uni female classmate asking me whether I want to have sex, but after two girls had friendzoned me and in a friendzone told me how they have sex with other guys, I didn't believe and didn't understand. I answered awkwardly, her friend made a joke about me and they both laughed. She asked in a class full of people. For 13 years I thought I was laughed at for being a virgin at age 17. It took me 13 years to consider the possibility she was into me. To this day there are still people, both men and women, who think she just bullied me. Though asking people for my pic then liking all my profile pics gives a clue. There were also some other signs. But before asking me whether I want to have sex she knew I was a virgin and from my understanding women hate male virgins. What I did is called "projecting insecurities". People who seemed to laugh at my lack of sexual experience, I don't consider them potential sexual partners. Back then I didn't like her personality and I am not a fan of hatefucking.

Even all written above is just the tip of the iceberg.

Why did all of this happen? Because my parents advocated for me not having sexual experience as a minor. Their wish was granted.

https://np.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1pfvd3d/does_one_ever_recover_from_missing_experiences_as/nspz2u9/

It entirely depends on what (if anything) took the place of those "missed" experiences. Because those things are a way bigger part of who a person is than what they didn't have or do.

https://np.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1pfvd3d/does_one_ever_recover_from_missing_experiences_as/nsp986q/

For some there is a PTSD feeling related to losing it later in life. There is a definite empty gap/hole that even much sex later can't make up for it.

alphachad00 · 2025-12-07T04:19:29+00:00

I started after college and wish I’d have waited even longer. I miss that innocence.

NoShortMen4Me · 2025-12-07T19:18:49+00:00

No BJs is substandard? 😐

Title	Does one ever recover from missing experiences as a youth?
Author	SituationPure6245
Upvotes	32
Comments	87
Date	December 6, 2025 5:52 PM UTC (8 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1pfvd3d/does_one_ever_recover_from_missing_experiences_as/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/does-one-ever-recover-from-missing-experiences-as.1568210 https://theredarchive.com/post/1568210

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