Why do men want a relationship?

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Once again, naming the 1% as proof that the human race is like how you suggest is absurd and outlandish.

The few do not represent the whole. Though in your line of thought, they do.

Do I get upset? Yes.

Do I allow myself to suffer? No.

And I have no earthly idea how I would feel at fifty.

Ask people who are 50.

I know how I felt when I was 19 and still a virgin - I wondered what was wrong w/me. I feared that nobody would ever want me. And I do not think I was unusual.

Look - it's all right. I don't think less of you b/c you've not lost your virginity. I was merely trying to answer your question about why losing their virginity was so important to most young men. I still think that my explanation rubs along the truth very closely.

Kings who did "pretty much whatever the hell they wanted" very often ended up dead - or at least got forced to sign things like "Magna Carta." More than one king got excommunicated and wound up crawling up the cathedral steps on his knees to beg for forgiveness. Henry II took a sound flogging while kneeling before the tomb of Thomas Beckett - acknowledging that he, as king, was responsible for the murder committed by his barons ... History is very different from Hollywood movies. Kings could never simply do as they pleased. There was the Church, there were the nobles, and there were the people, all of whom had to be pleased to some degree. Wise kings very often played these groups off each other, which was how Henry VIII made himself the single most powerful of England's kings - but, w/in 100 years, one of his successors wound up on the block (Charles I was beheaded in 1649) because he pissed off the nobles and some of the bishops; that the people were horrified by the execution eventually allowed his son to sit on the throne. So, no, kings could never do as they pleased - and no king wanted to be thought a rapist. Their affairs were usually very carefully arranged, so that the women were indeed willing - they would get and keep houses and jewels and carriages and horses when the affair was over. If a mistress became pregnant, her children were assured successs. Many high-ranking nobles all over Europe were/are the descendants of royal bastards. The name "Fitzroy" means just that - the king's bastard.

You said that sex and love had nothing to do w/power. All I needed was one example - or two. I gave the most obvious ones. I could go on for days w/examples of how sex and marriage and love have to do w/power. One example - many powerful Wall Street executives hire a dominitrix to humiliate and even beat them. They get off on being made to lick boots and eat out of a dog's bowl. You figure out the psychology behind that ... And it doesn't have to involve explicit S & M. How many husbands w/beautiful wives pick up toothless crack whores? Thousands - every day ...

I brought up marriage because marriage does involve sex - and power!

Because women are women, I guess. I dunno, it gets boring talking to your male friends about cars and playing Fallout.

I dunno'... I might kinda' like that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZhFeDm2K8&feature=share[/youtube]

At all levels - from the top to the bottom - reputation is of great importance. Reputation as a success leads to more success. Reputation as a successful lover gets more lovers - just ask any man who has gone to a bar w/a wedding band on his finger. There are single men who put one on just because they know that their chances of getting laid go way up. "He must be good if someone was willing to marry him!"

Regardless, those people are not me. And I don't wonder what is wrong with me. Do I worry that I may never be in a relationship? Of course. Not because it means I may never experience sex, but because it means I may never be able to spend the rest of my life with a woman who would be my best friend and my lover. But I can't let it block me from living the best I know how to.

And I don't think less of myself either for not losing my virginity.

Sad how true this is. Gf and I wore matching rings. When she put hers on, the number of men approaching her went way down. When I put mine on, the number of women approaching me went way up. Eventually she lost hers, I gave her mine to wear, and now we both mostly get left alone. With my experience, and that of the many many guys out there who report the same thing, I have to conclude that women (or at least a significant percentage of them) really do judge a mans value based on his romantic and sexual track record.

It's easy to say that those guys who've had no luck should stop caring what other people think of their virginity. And, for those few guys who are virgins and don't care, good for you. But caring what others, especially the opposite sex, think of you is just human nature. Asking them to go against that, well, it's just not gonna happen.

I agree with those who think that the bitterness these guys display is damaging this section, and I think those who call them on it are right to do so. But any discussion of this topic will be fruitless unless a few things are kept in mind. Firstly, that their status is causing them genuine distress. Secondly, that their beliefs about how their situation affects their standing are not groundless. And finally, that simply telling them that they shouldn't care is unreasonable.