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AIBU?

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To wonder if it's age or something else that's making me struggle to be intimate with a new person

3 replies

donttouchmepls · 21/06/2024 07:29

I've been single (divorced) for 7 years. Earlier in my single life, I was very active, sexually. One night stands, casual flings, all of it. Yes I was safe and no I am not ashamed of it. I had a great time.

In about the last year, I'm really struggling to want to be intimate with anyone new.

My sex drive is very much still there.

Very very happy to sleep with a handful of people I know well - an ex boyfriend, a man I have known 5 years who flies in and out of the U.K. for work and a male friend I've known years (I haven't slept with him but it's on the cards).

However, whenever I go on a "normal" date with a person I don't know well, I never really want to sleep with them. Even 5 or 6 dates in, and even if I'm really enjoying their company.

I recently met a man I really liked and we had a great time over the course of multiple dates, but I just couldn't bring myself to be intimate with him.

It's the strangest thing and I can't work out where it's coming from. I thought perhaps hormones (I'm 41) but my sex drive is still there. A friend suggested maybe it was just maturity, but surely even mature people eventually sleep with people in the early stages of dating.

Has anyone experienced this? What on earth is happening???

OP posts:
TreesWelliesKnees · 21/06/2024 17:53

It could be all sorts of things. I used to have loads of casual sex when I was young. Eventually I reached a point where I realised I was just doing it to feel liked and wanted, not because I really wanted to myself. I tried to work on my self-esteem and not be pulled away from myself by what other people want. I've put some boundaries in place now, and so I'm pickier. It might be something else for you, but that was it for me. Sometimes I miss the old, carefree me, but mostly I am happier this way.

BluPeony · 21/06/2024 17:57

Everyone's hot when they're young, maybe you're just not into old men 🤣 try dating younger men and see how you go? I'm only half joking.

BookArt · 21/06/2024 18:28

Maybe you need more than sex. Not love, but maybe to feel safe, the possible rejection, having an intellectual intimacy where you actually know them.

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