TL;DR: I am afraid/disinterested in sex and cannot form romantic relationships because of my debilitating fetish and high standards.
I guess I will start by just dumping a bunch of info that might be relevant to the topic.
I am 23M, virgin, never been in a relationship (let alone kissed a girl). I grew up in a Chinese household where I was told not to get a girlfriend until university, and hence didn’t pursue relationships/wasn’t interested in relationships until a bit into university (~20 years old). People have told me that I am pretty attractive, have good sense of style, relatively fit/slim, and are surprised when they hear that i’ve never been in a relationship. I have been on dates with several women (all through dating apps—never asked out someone in person), most of them having gone well and half of them leading to a 2nd date, but I struggle to maintain interest/move forward with the relationship due to several reasons which I think may be related (but don’t know how to address):
- I have a *potentially* unhealthy, non-typical view of sex and relationships. Since a very young age (maybe 7 or 8?) I developed a giantess/height fetish that makes it extremely hard to be sexually attracted to anything else. Pretty sure this occurred due to some childhood cartoons that I watched with a giantess scene (seriously though why are animators putting fetish content in child cartoons smh). I grew up masturbating to this type of content and fear that I have wired my brain to only get turned on by this fetish/related fetishes and normal porn does not do anything for me. This is probably the point that has negatively impacted my view on relationships/sexual attraction the most and have never told a single person that i have this fetish as i feel very uncomfortable/disgusted by it.
- I have very high standards, both physically and personality-wise. Within my social circles and events I go to, I rarely find people attractive (I don’t approach them even if I think they are though, which is another problem in itself). Even when I find someone physically attractive, I find myself often losing interest after the 3rd date or so even if they are still very much interested. It might be something as little as not having similar hobbies, taste in music, humour, etc. In this sense I don’t understand how people find compatible partners and feels like its impossible to find the right person. Part of this might also be due to the next point.
- I just don’t know how to “escalate” the relationship in general and feel like my lack of experience romantically/sexually is making it difficult. Many of the people I have gone in dates with have had prior relationships/sexual experiences and the idea of this makes me anxious. I have never moved past the hand holding stage even after 4+ dates with one person and feel like i am being mentally restrained from making the first move somehow.
For awhile, I thought I was asexual because I did not find sex appealing, but that label doesn’t sit right with me for the reasons above and also felt it was restricting me from seeking meaningful romantic relationships. I am not necessarily sex-repulsed, just disinterested.
To clarify, I still am very much a hopeless romantic and wish that I could find someone to share life experiences with. I wish I was not this type of person to have this fetish/high standards, but I am at a loss of how to mentally re-adjust myself. All these points have made it very awkward to talk about relationships/sex when it is brought up in conversation (i usually give a generic answer or play it off humorously), and I don’t really know what I should do.
Sorry if this was a bit of a word dump, I was unsure of how else to explain my situation and have no one else to comfortably talk about it with. I can provide additional context if needed and any advice is appreciated (though the most obvious is probably seeing a therapist, which I might just do).