10 Keys To Becoming a 40 Year-Old Virgin

If you’ve been following my blog for a while (and really, who hasn’t?) you may have noticed the title “40 Year Old Virgin, Father of Four.” And you may have thought, “Well, he’s talked about being a father, but what’s all this about the virgin thing?” Today's post is for you. (I covered this subject in a blog once before, but that was over six years ago, so I thought it was time for a refresher.)

You may be asking yourself, “How exactly does someone become a 40 year-old virgin?” Well, it’s pretty simple: don’t have sex until you are 40 years old.

For me, this was very easy to accomplish. When it comes to virginity, I was a natural. I was a virgin from a very young age. And, as I grew older, there were a number of factors that helped keep me a virgin. I call them my:

Ten Keys To Becoming a 40 Year-Old Virgin!

1) Be shy. If I’m in a large group of people, my preference would be to just blend in with the wall. My philosophy being if I don’t say anything in front of a bunch of people, then I won’t say anything stupid or embarrassing in front of a bunch of people. It’s hard to get noticed by women if you never do anything noticeable.

2) Don't be particularly attractive. If you are good looking enough, women will be attracted to you no matter what you do or say. (Or even what you don't do or say.) I am not that good looking. (I’m not particularly ugly, either. My thought is that if you were to gather 50 men at random, I would not be one of the ten most attractive, nor would I be one of the ten least attractive. I would be one of those 30 non-descript guys in the middle.)

On my way to becoming a 40 year-old virgin!

C) Be a nerd. How much of a nerd? Well, I had several thousand comic books, and I’d been to more than one Star Trek convention. (This was back before Comic Con became a socially acceptable event.) Oh, and did I mention that I didn’t have sex until I was 40? (‘Nuff said.)

4) Be socially inept. Over the years there were times when, despite the overwhelming odds against it, women were actually attracted to me. Only I was too dense (stupid) to notice until days, months, or even years later. (Once, in high school, a girl I kinda liked actually asked me out. I couldn’t go with her because of a scheduling conflict with a family vacation. But, it wasn’t until years later that it dawned on me that she probably liked me, and the smart thing for me to do when I got back from the family trip would be to ask her out. I didn’t. Because I was an idiot.)

5) Be a Mormon. Mormons are taught, at a very young age, that having sexual relations outside of marriage is one of the absolute worst sins you can commit. Combine that with my social ineptitude, and I was figuratively scared to death of girls. (Not literally, or I would actually be dead.) It was pretty simple: get married or be a virgin.

6) Be from a small town. I’m from rural Southeast Idaho. (As opposed to urban Southeast Idaho.) The town I’m from, Arimo, has a population of about 300 people. There was literally one girl my age in the whole town. (Yes, literally.) They had to bus five towns together to get enough kids to make up a high school. At least 80% of the high school population was also Mormon, so all those girls were taught the same “pre-marital sex is sin” lessons that I was. Many of them were as afraid of me as I was of them.

7) Be a child of divorce. Here's a serious topic. After 26 years of marriage, my parents got divorced. I was 19 years old. The last few months before their divorce, as they yelled and argued with each other, were some of the worst times of my life.  I decided then and there that I would rather be single than ever have a relationship like that.

8) Be indecisive (Maybe.) Sometimes I'm indecisive. Sometimes I'm not. I thought about putting indecisiveness as one of my Ten Keys, but then I thought I shouldn't. But, eventually, I thought it was fairly important. What do you think?

9) Be overly cautious. I don’t like to get hurt. I don’t want to get hurt. So, I avoid situations where I might get hurt. Was I slower learning how to ride a bike than everyone else? Yes. Did I learn how to swim at an early age? I did not. Skydiving? Umm, no. So, where dating was concerned, I was so afraid of getting dumped by a girl that I never put myself in a position where I could get dumped.

10) Don't get out much. If you stay home all the time watching television or playing on the internet, it'll be very difficult to meet girls. If you don't get out, your only avenue for meeting women will be friends setting you up on blind dates, and we all know that those never turn out good, right? (Well, okay, there's a slight chance that you'll meet someone on a blind date that you'll actually like, and then the next thing you know it's ten years later and you've got four kids!) (But that's not very likely.)