To say it’s unusual to have not had a boyfriend by 24?

[ThisUmberCoat]

My DD is 24, and a lovely girl- kind, bright, good job, nice friends, lived away for uni in a different city, generally well-rounded. She’s confided in me that, apart from a few kisses and awkward dates, she has had no real romantic experience. She’s sociable, and not unattractive, but just seems to have missed that part of life somehow.

She mentioned that she’s starting to feel quite down about it now and worries it might never happen for her. I’ve tried to reassure her, but I can tell it’s weighing on her that most of her friends are in relationships, and I had met her dad by her age (by chance!) so no real advice.

She’s getting twitchy that she hasn’t had at least one boyfriend by now so no ‘evidence’ that she’s lovable (which is ridiculous of course, but that’s how she feels!)

FWIW, it does look a bit weird from the outside looking in- she’s probably objectively an outlier for having so little experience, but there doesn’t seem to be some big reason, it just hasn’t happened. But that also makes it harder to ‘fix,’ because there isn’t anything wrong, per se.

She has hobbies (photography, yoga, languages) but groups for those things are hard to find for her age, and she does go out to pubs and clubs but never seems to meet anyone there either (and I’m not sure club-goers would be her preferred demographic!)

Does anyone have any success stories of ‘late starters’ finding their feet and a lovely relationship closer to their mid-twenties, or anything that helped move the needle a little bit?

I think most people meet partners on dating apps these days! Definitely in the last few years all of my friends who have met new partners have met on Hinge. We are in our mid 30s but this is also the case for friends who met partners in our late 20s. Has she tried anything like that?

My son is 21 and never had a GF. Im not sure if he has even had a kiss. He is a lovely boy and everyone says he is handsome. He is! He is very shy and just hangs out with a few male friends and not often.

I strated having boyfriends at 15 and I felt like I was the last in my year to date!

I think its more usual now.

Good point about Covid and lockdowns and online life - I hadn’t thought about how different things are now.

But to answer your question- I dont think this is particularly unusual! I can think of multiple people I know in their early to mid 20s who have not yet had a 'proper' relationship. All lovely, attractive, educated people and certainly nothing wrong with any of them! They are just having fun, building careers and focusing on friendships etc.

I think Hinge is the only way forward. My daughter is a similar age, she has only ever met men through apps. I think sexual politics has changed ( for the better) and she says only creepy and often older men would approach her in a bar/ club.

Not weird at all. I think a lot of younger people are pretty unrealistic about what its like to meet a partner, they are expecting to be devoured by lust or swept off their feet in a movie-like meet-cute, and they don't notice the ordinary but funny/sweet lad whos offered them a coffee after lecture every single week.

I do reckon as well that some younger people's social skills really did take a beating through covid. They don't seem to go meet friends much. I get it that younger people don't go drinking and what have you the way people did when i was 20 (as many years ago) but a lot of the ones at my work seem to go home & just keep to themselves a lot and find life/other people exhausting. If you're not getting out and about much and meeting friends of friends or that girl you've always noticed from payroll in the pub after work, your best mates work colleagues at that summer barbecue or your cousin's uni mates when you join them at a gig, you aren't standing much chance at meeting someone are you?

Thank you for so many lovely, thoughtful responses. I'm reading each one.

@BerkleyChoo I don't think she's gay- she's never mentioned being attracted to women, and we have had general conversations about the impact on women's careers, in the context of straight relationships/marriages, when they take mat leave etc. Maybe that's put her off men, who knows! It would be a non-issue for us but as it's something she's never brought up I don't think that this is the case.

It's good to hear that it isn't considered unusual nowadays, but certainly in her experience she seems to be the only one out of her peers who hasn't had many of these experiences- her friends are also ambitious, went to uni and are in further study/jobs and have travel plans like her so it's not like she's in a very conservative milieu.

@Hithismyname that gives me hope, thank you! She isn't looking for a perfect prince, she's very pragmatic and reasonable so I wouldn't say it's a case of overly high expectations or anything like that.

@Thegrassroots26 I know what you mean and I have read the same about this generation being more online. She isn't out perhaps as much as I was at her age but she does make an effort to see friends, go out etc. I think partly she just sees the same friends without necessarily introducing or meeting someone new in the mix, and when they're out they seem less inclined to e.g get chatting to another group next to them, preferring to catch up with each other instead.

@ShyLilacBiscuit Thank you- we are close enough to talk about these things but it is a very sensitive topic for her so she shuts off after a certain point, and the discussions stop being productive and are more upsetting, so it's hard to get to the very bottom of what she actually wants.

@Cakeandusername that's exactly it- she has been hinting at being upset about this for a little while; while I won't be frog-marching her to a singles meetup, I think it's an interesting conversation to have more broadly about why some of the young people of today seem to find it a bit harder to meet someone (although again, few of DD's friends seem to have trouble, but this kind of "loneliness" is something I see articles about quite often). She says there's no one at work (she does a standard office job) but young professionals events are something I will suggest to her, although I'm not sure she's specialised enough to attend those.

@GreyCloudsLooming similar situations, by the sounds of it. Out of interest, where did your DDs meet their partners?

I think it's an interesting conversation to have more broadly about why some of the young people of today seem to find it a bit harder to meet someone

I think its lack of interconnectedness of community. In the past you met someone whom you had an indirect connection to, lots of people were introduced/met via mutual friends, colleagues, extended family. No one is sociable with these less well known people any more.

It's not unusual. Not everyone is ready, male or female or rush into a relationship. I know several who haven't had relationships in middle 20s

It's really normal, but I remember friends of mine being so stressed out by their parents speculating about their lack of boyfriend and reassuring them it was fine if they were gay, rather than just minding their own business!

Very good points here. I would say DD is decently extroverted but keeps to her existing friends, so even though she does go out and meet new people the connections are fleeting, superficial and don't take 'hold' so almost back to square 1 there.

@Rubes24 she says she finds Hinge slightly abstract ('a menu of people'!!) but she does have a profile. She hasn't met anyone off there as far as I'm aware but from what you and others have said she may need to push herself to, if new connections are something she wants.

It's reassuring that there are posters aware of other young people in a similar situation- she feels the odd one out and doesn't know anyone else in a similar situation, which doesn't help matters and makes it a bit of a vicious cycle as her coupled-up friends aren't really interested in getting to know new people on nights out etc.

Dating apps are the norm now, if she isn’t using them then that is likely the missing puzzle piece here. If she wants a relationship she needs to be proactive about it

I think these days things are much harder. It is actually pretty difficult to meet people as people don’t socialise like they used to. I was lucky I met my DH as soon as I started Uni but I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn’t. I was quite shy and after uni I was working long hours so would have been difficult.

Most of my friends did a lot of internet dating and found their partners that way. One friend married her next door neighbour. The only way to find someone is to put herself out there as exhausting as it sounds and gain dating confidence. It will happen but unlikely to fall in her lap these days

To look at it from the flipside, it's a positive she hasn't felt pressured into having a relationship with someone just out of a perceived need to prove something to peers/family etc (as I did, admittedly many moons ago).

I don’t think it’s that unusual in this day and age.

in my place of work we have about 10/15 young girls aged from 18-28 and only a couple of them have had a boyfriend or are in a relationship. Most of them haven’t had a boyfriend.

my own ds is very focussed on his career goal and apart from a girlfriend for a couple of months when he was finished high school he hasn’t had a girlfriend. Too busy out having fun with his friends and focussing on his career.

Really? Someone who is single must be gay? What an awful attitude.

my DP was 25 when we got together, he'd had 1 previous relationship when he was like 16/17 that lasted about a year, then nothing until i came along.
weve been together 4 years now.

Not at all unusual- maybe she’s just got high standards.
DS is the same age and started seeing his first girlfriend about 4 months ago.

It’s not unusual at all. I had no long term relationship at that age. I met DD when I was 34. Most people I know met their current partners / husbands in their early 30s.

No, not at all uncommon to get to your mid-twenties and not have had a romantic relationship. Unfortunately it's also part of being in your mid-twenties to have anxiety about it.

Please tell her what I wish somebody had told me back then: you may meet somebody, you may not, but if you think you're unlovable you need to learn to love yourself anyway. You're the one person you're going to be with for the rest of your life, nothing else is guaranteed.

Appreciate he’s a lot younger but I foresee my 16 year old DS will be like this. He is just not interested in relationships and has a maturity beyond his years. But his dad was the same, met me at 23.

Hope you don't mind me replying as a 40-something male, but I have a couple of questions and a possible suggestion.

You say she lived away at uni, so does that mean she's now living back at home with you?

And was her degree in (modern) languages?

Because if both are accurate, has she considered taking advantage of her freedom / lack of ties to try living abroad?

As someone distinctly average looking, I know my level of attractiveness was greater to the opposite sex during my time abroad. Helped in no small part by the fact that I also spoke the languages of the countries I lived in, even if I was very much still learning them.

Her interests also sound like they might be more aligned with young society elsewhere.

I realise it's a bit of a jump and undoubtedly based on my own experience (and regret at not spending more of my life abroad), but just a thought or two seeing as I can't offer any specific advice as such.

Dd is 30 and has never had a relationship

My DS’s are 25 and 27 and never had a girlfriend or boyfriend, I sometimes wonder why and hope it will happen in time.

My dd is slightly younger at uni and says apps are all the rage, hinge is where her friends have met people. As an older person it boggles my mind, there’s thousands of them at uni together but maybe something in what another poster says about online app being safer, you know other person is looking to meet someone v olden day’s approaching someone in uni nightclub (where indeed I got together with my husband)
You mention friends coupled up, any opportunity for meeting up with wider group eg if her friend’s boyfriend has friends.