Why Some People Wind Up Becoming 30 Year Old Virgins

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Nobody winds up involuntarily celibate for one reason, rather it's a combination of negative traits that come together that can make dating incredibly difficult for certain people. Think of your overall dateability like a grade in a college class. If you've taken a college class before, you understand that there are multiple assignments that determine your overall grade in the class. If you do bad on one assignment, you can still do fine in the class if all of your other assignments are good. Dating is very similar; there are many traits and variables that come together to determine whether or not you'll be successful in the realm of dating. And for some people, they have several major negative traits that come together that makes dating a lifelong struggle for them.

The truth is that there are so many traits and variables that can come together to determine your likelihood of winding up being a 30 year old who's never dated before. And although looks are an important piece of the puzzle, there are still plenty of conventionally unattractive men who do fine in the realm of dating and manage to find a wife if they can make up for it in others ways. A fat and ugly man who's fairly sociable, financially well-off, and who's willing to lower his standards a bit, will likely find a girlfriend.

Below are a list of variables that I believe can influence your likelihood of how successful you will be in the realm of dating. Some of these things will be more important than others.


Overall physical appearance.
This is the component you have the least control over and how successful you will be in this section mostly comes down to your genetics.
- Your height (especially true if you're a man)
- Your face
- Your body type
- The sound of your voice
- Your clothing style
- Your personal hygiene.
- Your gender

Personality and social skills
- Your personality type.
- Whether or not you're extroverted or introverted.
- How comfortable you are with taking risks.
- Your level of charisma.
- How sexual you are. Do you have a high sex drive or low sex drive?
- Whether or not you have the ability to emotionally connect with others.
- How empathetic and caring you are.
- How social you are.
- Whether or not you come off as warm and friendly or cold and aloof.
- How well you handle rejection.
- Your willingness to try and experience new things.
- Your anxiety levels
- Whether or not you have mental disability which affects your ability to socialize with others, such as autism.

Your lifestyle:
- How much money you make.
- Whether or not you still live with your parents (especially after the age of 30)
- Whether or not you're financially stable.
- Your hobbies and what you like to do for fun.
- How high your standards are. (this one is important)
- How hard you're actually trying to find romantic or sex partners.
- How often you go out and try to meet people.
- Whether or not you have friends and a social circle.
- The size of the town you live in. (bigger towns means more opportunity to meet people)
- How well you bounce back from rejection and keep going.

I think the most important factors are:
- social skills
- putting yourself out there, meeting people (not spending 5+ hours a day at home online)
- having the courage to make a move and express interest.

These are advantages but not always hard requirements. There are plenty of imperfect people who have sex lives. They keep their standards realistic, and they find someone who they have romantic chemistry with.
You don't have to please everyone. Even if the majority of people aren't interested, you only need to find 1.



This helps. People meet friends through mutually friends. You may meet someone and not get romantically involved with them, but they might introduce you to a new social circle where you might meet a partner.

Incel stuff? Seriously?

I wouldn't say Incel, more like Forever Alone kind of thinking. Incel would be more about blaming women, hating women, talking about how women have it better than men, that kind of stuff. What he listed really can apply to both women and men(some things "score" higher depending on gender but, I don't want to open that can of worms).

My biggest issue though with these kinds of threads is that the first few sentences will always include "Being a virgin at *insert age here*, "I wish I didn't have sexual urges" or "Why can't I get girls like the top 20% of men", with "get girls" usually meaning "have sex with girls". Too many men in threads easily lead people to believe that said man think a relationship or a date = sex. Sex is like a cherry on top of a cake, can't put a cherry on a cake if there is no cake. Also said men also forget all the little ingredients that come before the cherry as well, such as: How well you get along, your goals and values and how they come together, the situation of each of your lives at the current time, etc(The list could go on and on).

Last edited by AquaineBay on 18 Mar 2021, 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm sure there would be people who don't get to experience romantic or sexual affection purely because of one trait. You could be an otherwise well-adjusted, sociable, charming individual who makes a decent living, but nobody's interested in you romantically because you have a severe facial deformity. I'd dare say there are probably also people for whom the only reason they can't succeed romantically is because of severe social deficits arising from autism.

I'd define somebody with one trait responsible for their lack of romantic success by imagining if that trait became average, whether it seems reasonable to infer that they'd be able to get a romantic partner. So in the case of the well-adjusted, sociable, charming individual who makes a decent living but has a facial deformity, if his face became average, it seems pretty plausible that he'd be able to find a partner, ergo, it is just one trait that keeps him trapped where he is.

People who end up chronically single often get nitpicked to oblivion by others who learn of their situation and are trying to find a justification for it, as well as themselves, trying to figure out why they're in the position they're in. The result is that we're acutely aware of our negative traits, but that's not to say that all of our negative traits are equally responsible for our situation.

It's plausible that you could be autistic and have an unattractive nose and a lazy eye, and it would be easy to infer that all of these things are contributing to your lack of success with dating, but it's also possible that it's really just the social deficits caused by autism. Perhaps if you didn't have those social deficits, the unattractive nose and lazy eye wouldn't be enough to stop you from ever being able to find a partner, and conversely, it's possible that the social deficits would still stop you from getting a partner even if you were still autistic, but your nose was average and you didn't have the lazy eye.

Of course there are some people who have multiple traits that contribute to their situation such that even if one of the traits became average, another one would let them down, but unfortunately it's impossible to know for sure which traits are specifically causing the problem and which traits are merely adding to it.

If you think about being "forever alone," and don't think about anything else, you will probably be "forever alone."

If I stayed the same way I was in my early 20s, I probably wouldn't have a mate right now.

I was stuck in a rut; the only way I got out of it was by radically changing my thinking pattern. I started not caring if I ever get a girlfriend again. I emphasized, in my mind, my interest in meteorology, archaeology, etc., I derived pleasure from studying these. And I derived pleasure from reading classic novels. I put "getting a girlfriend" on the back burner.

If one continues to speculate as to "why I can't get a girlfriend," and read statistics on it, and talk about the ratio of men to women in their town or whatever, that one will remain stuck in a rut.

Yeah, but not caring about women is really really hard for some guys.

In my early twenties, my sex drive was sky high and I was basically a walking Viagra. If you asked me to not care about women, that was impossible for me to do. I was flat out OBSESSED with women and can you blame me? I was hormonal af and women were always on my mind and I simply couldn't help it. My peak sex drive was between the ages of 20 and 23 and not caring about women would have been impossible at that time.

I'm 26 and my sex drive has only recently started to die down a bit, so it's a bit easier to not care about women and care about other more important things in my life such as my hobbies and own self interests. But when I was younger? Impossible!


Being a young man with all of the sex drive in the world but being unable to find romantic partners is tough! Sexual frustration is a real thing and was definitely a big source of my depression in my early twenties. In fact, most of my depression during that time period is a result of not being able to find a girlfriend or a sexual partner.

So I don't really blame some men for turning into incels. You've got young men with a crap load of sexual frustration but for whatever reason, lack the tools or traits to be able to find a partner. Tinder has definitely made it worse! Tinder is a crap shoot for men who arne't in the top 10% of looks, and it can really harm your self esteem.

I didn't say not to "care about women."

I said to change one's priorities.

I was a horny bastard even while keeping my pursuit of women on the back burner.

I think you probably know what my solution was.

No...if you become an Incel, the game is lost....period.

I’m not in the top 10% in looks....

I knew the sex drive and hormones and whatnot was coming. I'm 27, never had a girlfriend, never had sex, and you know what keeps me from getting a girlfriend? ME!

When I think about having a girlfriend I think of taking her out to dinner, us dancing together(at home mostly but sometimes other places), sitting together watching something, kissing, hugging, growing together as a couple, one of the last things on my mind is sex. I'm old-fashioned when it comes to dating and I would like to treat a girl to dinner or something else fun but I have no real income(on SSDI), I deal with anxiety, and my social skills aren't exactly the best when it comes to dating, as well as having trouble connecting with people. My pride prevents me from getting in a relationship because of these things, now some might say "you can go Dutch with a woman" but I also take pride in being old-fashioned and like the idea of treating a woman out to dinner(or whatever we decide) it would hurt me personally if I couldn't pay for whatever we were doing and to date a woman and not follow my values and beliefs would be lying to myself and the woman I'm dating.

Do I blame hormones or sex drive? No. Do I blame women? No. Do I blame society? ...maybe a little(mostly with this fast-paced world, the job market, and the current economy). But the biggest thing at fault is me. And honestly I think I could easily get a girlfriend if I had a decent job and could treat her out like I want to.

My point is thinking about all this top 10% looks, 6 feet tall, gotta have loads of money, super confidence is just wasting your time. My question to many of these men are: Do they(and you Muse933277) truly know WHY they want a girlfriend?

I'd like to ask them what it's like having wizard powers.

Same here Although my problem is more the lack of overlap between women I find attractive and women who find me attractive. Having sky-high standards sucks sometimes! I have had a girlfriend and sex though as well as friendly hugs from several relatively famous women, so I can't really complain too much.

Height of a man should not be a factor since taller guys are more likely to get cancer and die younger etc....

Height is definitely a factor, especially if you're a man. In fact, many women have a preference for big & tall men because it makes women feel smaller and more protected. Although as long as you're at least 5 ft 7, your height probably won't negatively impact your dating opportunities all that much.

Height starts becoming an issue once you get to the extremes, on both sides of the spectrum. Really tall men and really short men may start seeing some discrimination in dating for their height. A 5 ft 3 man is probably going to face some adversity in the game of dating; unless he happens to be very good looking and/or famous.

That's just heavier people in general. More mass = more chances cells can go cancerous.

I got made fun of recently by an older woman for still being a virgin at 32.