Podcast: Play in new window
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In today’s video, I respond to a YouTube comment from a young man who writes “Help! My girlfriend has more sexual experience than me.” Nathan writes:
My girlfriend has more sexual experience than me. Why do I see it as not fair that my girlfriend had sex with other people because she’s the only girl I’ve ever dated, let alone had sex with.
Okay, this is the first comment, but I want to read another one that is closely related. Vee writes,
How to overcome the grief of missing out on life. My girlfriend has more sexual experience than me, and had sex when she was 20 and I lost my virginity in my 30s. I never had the opportunity to be with a young woman, which makes me incredibly sad. This is my retroactive jealousy obsession.
Okay. Nathan and Vee, I’ll respond to both of you.
I get this kind of email from guys quite often where there’s this sense of almost envy and resentment toward their partner because their partner has had experiences, perhaps sexual experiences, which they haven’t had and which they regret missing out on.
So I might come off as somewhat harsh in this video. I don’t mean to, but I do think this is an important idea for a lot of people to wrap their heads around, men and women alike.
The first idea I want to introduce is that you have the power to shape your life.
Your girlfriend is not dictating your sex life.
The girls at school who may be rejected you when you were younger, they don’t hold the power over you now to make any decision you want to make.
You are the director of your own life.
And until you really accept that and accept that responsibility for directing your life and accept that responsibility for owning your choices, good and bad, past and present, you’re going to suffer the more you neglect this responsibility, this ownership of directing your life.
Some people, from the outside looking in, will look at what you have in your relationship right now, and be incredibly envious.
There is someone out there having one-night stands who might look at you and say, “Jeez, I’d love a deeper connection with a woman like that guy’s dating. I’d love to have that.”
And this isn’t to simplify everything and to turn this into a merely a grass is always greener type argument.
But the simple fact is, I think you can have most of what you want in life, but you probably can’t have 100% of what you want in life.
Thus, it becomes a process of deciding what’s really important to you, deciding what you truly want, and accepting responsibility for those decisions and accepting the fact that you might not be able to get 100% of what you want in every area of your life.
There is no such thing as a perfect partner. There’s no such thing as a perfect relationship. There is no such thing as a perfect sexual history or dating history or anything like that.
And if you go looking for perfect, or if you want your own life to be perfect, if you want your own dating life be perfect, you’re going to be constantly disappointed because perfect does not exist.
So this leaves you, gentlemen, with a choice.
And I do think it’s very important that you see it as a choice. The choice is, do you want to stay in your current relationship, or do you want to pursue relationships with other women?
Are you going to continue to be obsessed by the thought “my girlfriend has more sexual experience than me,” or are you ready, willing, and able to move on?
Because you have this power, you have this choice, and I really encourage you to take some time to yourself, meditate on it.
Maybe you can go on a men’s retreat.
You can do whatever you need to do to gain that clarity about what you truly want and then own what you truly want and accept your decision, whatever you choose.
I don’t think there’s any shame whatsoever in being a young man and saying, or being an old man for that matter and saying, “I want more dating experience. I want more sexual experience. And that’s important to me as a man and I’m going to go pursue that.”
I’m not saying it’s always easy to gain the experience that you want to gain. I’m not trying to say it’s easy at all, but if you put in the necessary work, maybe to make yourself more attractive, to learn about social dynamics and et cetera, you’ll probably fail a lot, but eventually, you’ll get there.
And if you feel that’s really important for you, then you should go pursue that.
You should be really gentlemanly and break up with your partner in a way that is respectful and kind and consider it.
But in life in general, whether you’re a man, woman, old, young, I don’t care. It’s important that you own what you really want, that you own what’s really important to you and make decisions accordingly.
On the other hand, if you decide to stay with your current partner, you should own that as a decision.
You shouldn’t think of yourself as a victim. A victim because you haven’t had all the experiences that you want to have, because again, you are making this choice right now that what is most important to you is being in a monogamous relationship with your girlfriend.
Nothing wrong with that choice, as long as you own it as a fully conscious choice.
And just remember that you are the director of your life. You have the power to decide what you do and don’t want in your life. You have the power to dictate your future to a considerable extent, more than most people realize.
Just constantly owning the fact that you are making conscious deliberate choices, I think will eliminate a lot of the stress, a lot of the anxiety, a lot of the prep self-pity that a lot of guys are prone to.
Shaping your destiny as a man and making conscious choices about the kind of life you want, I think is very important.
And just always remember that you are making choices, and to some extent, the grass is always greener on the other side.
If you break up with these women and you’re single, I promise you, you’ll have moments of regretting that decision and missing the comfort and stability of your relationship.
So just remember that there’s pros and cons no matter what kind of life you’re living, whether you’re in a relationship, whether you’re single, whether you’re a virgin, whether you’re sleeping with everyone.
Whatever you’re doing, there’s always pros and cons.
And just always remember that you have choices and it’s on you to constantly reflect on what is most important to you. Because again, I think in life you can have most of what you want, but you probably can’t have 100% of what you want. And I think it’s important to keep that in mind.