Question of the Week

QOTW: “I’m 38 and Have NEVER Had a Date.”

Settle in for this one.

The letter:

Hi Christelyn:

I would really appreciate it if you keep my identity anonymous if you decide to publicly respond to my letter.

I have been watching your videos for several months now and I really appreciate what you are doing to encourage black women to expand their dating options. I have always been a firm believer of that message since I was a little girl.

However, it’s taken me a lot of time to finally muster up the courage to write you this email. You probably never encountered a person in my situation and I never shared this with anyone besides extremely close and trustworthy confidants.

I am a 38 year old woman and I never in my life been on a date, kissed or had a boyfriend. I know you may find this extremely strange but it’s true and I wanted to change this for a long time. I am just one of those people that’s never been asked out by anyone if you can even imagine that. Before you think the possible worse of me I will tell you that I am a decent looking, educated, Afro-Caribbean (born in the states) heterosexual woman that is trying to live her best life possible. I enjoy traveling & spending time with friends.

I have been attracted to non-black men more than black men as far as I can remember. I can’t say my environment has anything to do with it because I grew up in a predominantly black community, unlike the majority of black women that swirl have a tendency to say that they grew up in a predominantly white community. So you can see automatically that I am the exception to the rule. I don’t know why I always felt this attraction. I guess it because I felt I never fit in the black community. I had vastly different interests from the people I grew up with and I mostly kept to myself for the better part of my childhood because of that.
I was really never black guys “cup of tea” anyways. I didn’t have the aesthetic that drew them in and I still don’t today. Even when I was in college where you have tons of options, I was never really approached by anyone of any race but I did have male acquaintances.
 
The only time in my life I had a guy somewhat pursued me was when I took a spring break trip to Europe when I was in high school. I was looking across a courtyard in Spain with my roommate when a very cute white guy from another school saw me. He even went to the trouble of counting the windows to find my hotel room and he found it successfully. For the remainder of the trip me made it a point to find me at every tour stop. He was definitely my dream guy. Very attractive, funny, told me that I was beautiful and we danced together at a night club on the last night of the trip. It was great to finally experience what it was like to have a guy be attracted to me and for me to have an attraction to him. I thought it was just the beginning of my soon to be dating life in college and beyond but that wasn’t the case at all. Even though we exchanged contact information, we never was in contact again once we made it back to the states.
 
Ever since then I have experienced one sided crushes. Usually me crushing on a guy that has no interest in me what so ever. I am one of those people that takes me some time to warm up to people. I always try to at least become friends with the guy before I try to ask them out in a friendly way for lunch or write out my heart felt feelings about them in a notecard. This is my attempt at flirting. I am still shy when it comes to guys I am attracted to. The rejection is so painful when they tell you that they don’t feel the same way about you as you do them.
 
So here I am nearly 39 years old and teenagers have more experience in love and dating then I do. 
 
At times I feel embarrassed and ashamed that I haven’t experienced this part of life and I am to the point that I feel too old to go through the process of dating and heartache, etc. I still don’t get approach by men of quality and worth. Like I said before, I am very much attracted to non-black guys. I am not too keen on the whole on-line dating thing. (I know it’s the dating tool that you advocate the most). I have enough friends doing that and I constantly hear their horror stories. I don’t like getting “set up” either because people that are suppose to be your friends truly don’t know the type of guy you are looking for. They try to hook me up with guys that I am not even attracted to. If I can’t even stand to look at you, I sure can’t talk to you. And once I am turned off, there is no turning back on. I am a true Virgo in that manner. Lol! Anyways, I don’t know what to do. I get sad to see all the ladies I grew up with date, marry and have kids and my life in that manner hasn’t changed one bit. I am just existing while everyone else around me is living. It’s to the point where I don’t know if I want to have kids anymore because I am getting older, but I am still very much open to love and finding that someone that will compliment me and I them. I love the concept of being in love. I admire couples in love, especially when it’s black women in IR relationships because in my heart I want that for myself. I want to experience what everyone has, but can someone that lacks so much experience in dating and relationships find it at this advance age?! I am afraid it will never happen for me. I am afraid of certain conversations that I will have to have with a potential partner; like will they be empathetic to my lack of sexual experience. All these thoughts and more paralyze me. 
 
I know I written a lot here and it’s a lot to process. I apologize for the length of this email and if my thoughts are disjointed. If you need more clarification please contact me.
 
Thank you in advance for reading my letter. I hope you help me.
Here’s my take…

 

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