SquareWheel

I would suggest that you begin by being sure you're talking about shyness. I've been saying that I was shy for most of my life, but looking back, I realize I was actually deeply sensitive in ways that made me behave as if I were shy. But there is a difference. I suspect plenty of other people are the same way. Very high sensitivity can cause behavior that looks just like shyness. Very sensitive people are more deeply affected by their experiences than most people, and this can cause them to become socially avoidant.

Yep, Quietgrl, I did meet one woman from AFF and we had dinner to check each other out. But we didin't feel like a good fit. She was very short, just under 5 feet. I'm six-foot-three, so there was a big difference in size, and she was a little uncomfortable about getting intimate with a guy so much bigger than herself. I was a little creeped out by her childlike appearance (she was around 40). But as I say, this definitely proves that despite the rumors of bogus profiles, you can can meet real people on AFF. And one of my ICQ chat friends, a woman in Florida who is very involved in the adult entertainment industry, has told me one of her male friends has gotten laid with several women from that site. Hahaha! Ghost69, nope, dinner is hardly the purpose of AFF. But even the fairly liberated women who advertise openly for sex won't generally want to jump in bed on the first meeting, and I'd certainly want to check her out a little myself. You can only tell so much from a photo, after all. And AFF isn't about dating, it's not your regular dating site. Anyway, I'm disappointed that no women really wanted to seize the rare opportunity to have a real 40+ virgin, but I'm still excited about taking a new direction. I've also gotten into PM/e-mail correspondence with a couple of very nice women from other forums, but no romance so far. Oh, well... I have a new idea in the works for meeting women off-line. I'll post a really excited progress report if it gets me anywhere. Stay tuned, folks...

Yeah, there are some fake profiles, some are escorts and some are come-ons to lure you to other sites. But AFF really does try to weed those out, and there are definitely some real women on there too.

Thanks to everyone who replied. And my experience on AFF hasn't been as disappointing as it may sound; if nothing else, I've confirmed that at least some of the profiles are positively genuine. (There are persistent rumors that they're all phony, and some certainly are come-ons from escorts and other sites, but I've proven that you can definitely meet real women there too.) So that's something in itself. Now I know that success is just a matter of sending the right introduction to the right woman. I've just taken some new photos sporting my snazzy new goatee, and I'm going to step back for a while and re-write my profile blurb and intro e-mail from a very different POV with no mention of the V-word. Now I think about it, my resume did land me one interview, and if she'd been a little more appealing and hadn't been put off by the 16 inch height difference, I'd have finally found the experience that I so deeply desire. After all, she was very open about enjoying intimacy and she was surprisingly (and a little titillatingly) open about it. So I'm not really as discouraged as I may have sounded; the glass is at least partly full. And Luke, yes, I'll want a decent, respectable girl, in time. At least... I think I will. Having been a shy introvert all my life, I can't say for sure that I'm relationship material. There are some things you just never know until you're in that situation. Anyway, first I want to taste a little of the freewheeling adventurism that most people seem to get in their youth. Although, more experienced people have joked that I'll probably fall insanely in love with the first woman who leads me to her bed, and they may be right. Only time will tell. And in the meantime, I can fantasize about standing in the middle of the bicycle trail on the River Walk...

Bad people who engage in good habits... Hmmm... clever insight.

Okay, just a little follow-up to my last progress report. Nothing as exciting as last weekend, but I did get another HI on the River Walk, from a very attractive young woman sitting on a bench outside a public bathroom when I stopped to unburden myself. Wow, the River Walk is a surprisingly friendly place! Having lightened my load, I started back. As I approached Uptown, in the semidarkness ahead I saw what looked like a very wide four-legged person standing in the middle of the bicycle trail. Hmmm... I was puzzled, until I got closer and realized it was actually two people standing so close together there was no gap between them. I got closer and realized that they were actually standing in the middle of the bicycle trail, hugging and kissing! Actually making out! Yikes! I'd heard rumors about people doing that, but I'd always doubted there was anything to them. But there it was, happening right in front of me, big as life. They were stuck together face to face, and the male one was actually reaching around and putting his hand on the girl's bottom. Blatantly touching her posterior! And she was letting him do it! I was amazed. Wow... I mean, fantasizing is one thing, but it boggles my mind to contemplate what it must feel like to do it in real life. God life is good for some people. And... there's also an update on my online project, my long-delayed quest for that one first woman to release me from my virginity. I've tried conventional dating sites with no luck. Having been a shy introvert for so many years, I don't know if I'm relationship material, but I still hope to try someday. So I've recently been using Adult Friend Finder, which is an adult dating website where people advertise expressly (and explicitly) for intimate encounters. I've been openly marketing myself as an adult virgin, and I've e-mailed well over 200 women so far. In the past few months, I've corresponded with several women who seemed interested, but with one exception, they've all fizzled. I did actually meet one woman for dinner, but we were mutually unimpressed. I've now decided that the women who corresponded with me did so only because they were intrigued. That surprised me, because I'd always believed there'd be plenty of women who'd enjoy having a clean, untouched male without having to resort to cradle-robbing. Or that maybe there'd be a little devil out there somewhere who'd get a kick out of introducing an unsullied country boy to the worldly vices. I haven't given up believing that, but I now suspect most of the women who got my e-mails either didn't believe me (why would they'd think I'd make up such a thing?), or thought there must be something wrong with me. (One woman actually e-mailed me and said, "If you're a virgin, I'm Mother Teresa, and she's dead!") So... with great reluctance, I've decided to stop promoting myself as a virgin. I'm a bit sad about that, because I felt great about being totally open and honest about my special situation, and I'd really, really been hoping to have my first time with a nice woman who understood, and was willing to be a virgin guy's first. I have a need to be understood that compels me to be more open about myself than a person probably ought to be. I guess I should really try to get over that. Oh, well... that's my progress to date. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.

Physically: Tall, short hair, dark hair, tattoos, exotic/vampy appearance. Non-physically: Aggressive, adventurous, uninhibited, confident, pursuer/initiator, eccentric/offbeat, provocative/sexy dresser, tomboyish. I seem to be in the minority, but I have a near-fetish for short-haired women. And the more aggressive and uninhibited, the better. I have a special appreciation for eccentric women. And being from the 1970s, I'm still waiting for the bra-less look to come back.

Okay, not sure how much progress this represents, but it's big news for me. This is a week late because I've been soooo busy lately. Anyway, last saturday was a big day for the ol' Square Wheel. There's a nice, attractive woman in a thrift shop I visit regularly, and we've been chatting from time to time. Well, I caught them without any other pesky customers around, and I asked her out. Okay, she declined, said she had a boyfriend. But I still felt pretty good. And my conscience won't be able to bug me for not trying. With my sheltered life, I get a chance to ask a woman out about once every three or four years, so every attempt is a big deal for me. But then, I went to another thrift shop, and found myself exchanging glances with another attractive woman. We didn't get the chance to talk... but then later in the day I saw her again at a different shop, and she spoke! She commented that she'd seen me in the previous shop. I was so flattered that she'd noticed me and remembered me. She was heading out the door at the time, so I only had time for a quick friendly reply. But it was still a great feeling. And as if that weren't enough excitement for one day, I went bicycling on the River Walk that evening, and a very pretty young lady walking toward me spotted me glancing at her, smiled at me, and said hi! I returned a cheery hi as I passed. Wow, what a day! I was walking on clouds the rest of the weekend. So, I'm still no closer to my first date... but having two attractive women speak to me in one day was hugely encouraging. I must have been doing something right! Just need to figure out what, so I can do it every saturday. Anyway, there's another nice saturday coming up tomorrow... can't wait to see what adventures tomorrow holds! Wish me luck!

I had the same problem of fading memory, and I've experimented with various trained-memory techniques. The original memory system was the ancient Greek system of memorizing buildings with many rooms, and putting in quirky, memorable images of things you want to remember that you can recall as you mentally walk through the rooms. That was the first method I tried, and it takes a while to get good at it, but even without practice it works better than rote memory alone. The ancients actually created special imaginary structures in their minds, and could memorize vast lists very quickly, but, being illiterate, they grew up training their memories. If you don't have a long list of things to remember, you can put pictures in the rooms of your house. If there's a school or hospital that you know well, those work well because they have lots of rooms. That's because the mind remembers images, and especially quirky or funny ones, better than abstract thoughts. Linking is an other easy method that doesn't require any special setup. If you have a list of things to remember, just begin with a funny or weird image of the first two items interacting in some way, then another image of the second and third images, and then the third and forth images, etc. If you forget part of the chain, you can usually work backwards or forward from the bit you remember and reconstruct the missing parts. The thing about any trained memory technique is that it requires deliberate use; you won't retain things automatically. But if you often need to memorize a number of things, any good memory method is better than raw rote memory. The best book on the topic that I've found is The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas. Here's a link to a page with very basic info on the various memory techniques; it's pretty elementary but there are better ones if you search. link removed

I have a GED, and I'd like to give you some warnings. First, while the GED is legally equivalent to a diploma, it's not equal in the eyes of employers. It's not about education; it's about character. The view of dropouts is that they're probably flawed in some way; lazy, or immature, or irresponsible, can't work with others, can't finish anything long term. And those biases carry over to GED holders, because after all, a GED holder is a dropout who had second thoughts. The military (which originally instigated the GED) now has limits on the number of GED holders they'll let in because they've discovered that GED holders fail at the same rate as dropouts. In fact, studies have shown that GED holders have the same life outcome as dropouts. That alone should discourage you from taking the shortcut. In my experience, it's not hard to get one, just a few tests that weren't too terribly hard, but I'd only recommend going for one if you're positively going to get further education afterward. That *might* overshadow your failure to stick out high school.

I eat out by myself all the time. I enjoy sitting in the food court in the mall, eating some good junk food and reading a good book or magazine or newspaper. I also carry a lot of e-books in my PDA and read those.

Personally, I'd want to find a full, natural bush, but I seem to be in the minority nowadays.

It certainly would be, for me, but in a good way. If you're thinking about it, I'd say go for it.

Speaking only for myself, I'd love it. Nothing could be more flattering than to have a woman show interest in me. Don't know how typical I am, and of course there's no predicting how he'll feel, but I would think he'd like it. Heck, in these more open and liberated times, I'm very surprised that women don't do a lot more such approaching than they do.

Steven - Well, it might be good for me to be with another virgin, but really, I've always been attracted to experienced women. All through my teens and twenties, I was so bashful that I really needed an aggressive woman to come after me because I couldn't make myself openly pursue them. I spent 20 years waiting for that to happen, and of course it didn't. I've changed since then; I'm no longer as embarrassed as I used to be. But I still have a special attraction to aggressive women.