Love, Lucy is the New School Free Press’ weekly advice column, where writers anonymously share thoughtfully researched solutions to questions about your life. Send submissions via email to nsfplovelucy@gmail.com or through Love, Lucy’s official Google Form.

“I’m a 23 year old virgin who’s never been in a real relationship. I’m funny, smart, kind, personable, outgoing, understanding, I care so much for my friends, I’m confident, and I go on the occasional Hinge date, but I’ve been told by a guy friend that I exude an ‘untouchable’ or just unavailable vibe. I’m a hopeless romantic and all I hear from people is “it’ll happen when you least expect it” but I’m ALWAYS expecting it. Every day I wake up with the intention of meeting The One™️. So I guess my questions are: are they all right and do I need to stop thinking about it OR how can I make myself more approachable? Most of the time I just pin it on the dog shit dating scene, but I’m constantly around serial monogamists — how the hell do they do it???”

Dear Reader,

First of all, I’d like to respectfully and politely say fuck your guy friend. You should never let the out-of-pocket judgments of someone who’s supposed to support you dictate your self-worth, sexuality, or idea of your own “fuckability” per se. Words leave marks that can morph into some pretty ugly bruises over time. 

I also don’t love the connotation of the question “how can I make myself more approachable?” I’m more than sure that you’re lovely, Dear Reader, so maybe the question should be “how can I make the right approach?”

This primarily seems like a matter of changing your perspective. For better or worse, you’re really not that special. Hear me out. 

In a National Health Statistics Report published by the CDC in 2011, 12.3 percent of females ages 20-24 were still virgins, with that number jumping to 14.3 for their male counterparts. So nearly 15% of your peers could be walking around feeling the same pressure that you do, and that should hopefully be somewhat of a comfort. 

Pressure of that nature isn’t something you necessarily need to feel. It’s always easier said than done, of course, but letting go of any self-judgment you might be feeling is really important for being able to authentically connect with others in a way that doesn’t feel guarded or predetermined by your insecurity. It’s okay to be wherever you are on your sexual journey — they’re definitely not handing out medals for finishing first, at the very least. 

Maybe also try to think of losing your virginity as something that exists on a sort of continuum: some people are on one far end, some on the other, some in the middle, but no one’s experience is solely defined by their spot on the sex timeline. People are having all kinds of firsts every day — first day of school, first date, first solo plane ride, first time trying sushi  — these firsts are, arguably, what make life so worth living, what expands our horizons and what shapes us as individuals. 

This particular first is socially and culturally imbued with a heck of a lot of pressure and value, but there are just as many ways to feel about losing your virginity as there are opportunities to lose it.

Lots of people actually regret losing their virginity at younger ages. Lots of people also don’t have the romance-novel-like memory of their first time you might imagine. It can be a messy, awkward, fumbling experience, and building it up to be a cinematic wonder might only lead to more disappointment and confusion. 

Plus, strictly scientifically speaking, adolescent brains aren’t fully developed. You’ve heard it a million times before but the part of your brain that controls executive functioning, decision making, logic, reason, trust, doesn’t fully mature until about 25. That’s great news for you because it means you’ll actually have way more of a handle on the situation than you would have been able to in your teens.

Those extra years that you’re seeing as a disadvantage may actually be the reason your experience is more thoughtful and less likely to end in regret than your peers. 

As a firm believer of the idea that we don’t get what we don’t ask for, and as a seriously sappy twenty-something woman who grew up watching 2000s romcoms and hoping the perfect, messy-haired girl or boy next door would come waltzing in to my life simply because I willed it to happen, I get where you’re coming from. But I also get the feeling of realizing none of those expectations are being filled, and maybe they won’t ever be — partly because they’re informed by false Hollywood-manufactured realities, and partly because rarely does anyone get the important things in life without having to put in sustained and imaginative effort.

And as that seriously sappy 2000s-coded young woman, I can shamelessly say that one of the most apt pieces of advice in this instance does in fact lie within a 2010s romcom — but not how you might think. 

No, I’m not going to pull a “She’s All That” and recommend you make yourself over in any manner, nor am I going to suggest that you go undercover at a boys’ soccer academy to gain some leverage. Instead, I’m going to point to towards the knife-like words of Stephen Chbosky from 2012’s “Perks of Being a Wallflower”: 

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

And, Dear Reader, you deserve so much more than you think you do. You are worthy of the deep, profound, unconditional, soul-binding love that you seek — and you will find it, though you might have to stop watching and waiting for the pot to boil no matter how tempting it is. I can’t tell you when, or how, or where, or really answer any important question except to validate that the dating scene is, in fact, dogshit. 

But I can tell you that when you do find it, you’ll also have squashed any glimmer of doubt about your openness or worthiness of receiving it. To your future person, you are the definition of approachable, the universe just hasn’t given them the chance to approach yet.