Dating is hard for everyone — and it only gets more difficult once sex is involved.

INSIDER spoke to adult men and women who haven't had sex or lost their virginities at an older age to learn what dating is like for them.

Their experiences differ, but many of them face ghosting, trouble with dating apps , and incorrect assumptions on how they feel about sex.

Not having sex is rarely thought of as an act of transgression.

But once a person is past a certain age — say, around 18, which is the average age to have sex for the first time in the United States, according to the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health — abstinence, whether it's intentional or not, can seem almost radical. Particularly if that person would like to date other people who may not have had the same experience.

Dating and its various nuances, like trying to get to know another person through a series of scheduled activities, is challenging enough on its own.

And dating as a technically-older-than-average virgin (which, of course, is a title that depends on whether you consider virginity to be a real thing that a person can lose or a social construct) in a culture that simultaneously glorifies and vilifies sexual activity tends to make the already-complicated ritual of dating a little bit more complicated.

To find out about these complications, INSIDER talked with some adults who haven't had sex or lost their virginity later in life about what dating has been like for them.

Dating apps can be tough.

"For me personally, it's been terrible," Grayson G., a 25-year-old woman, told INSIDER. "Maybe I'm just messaging or not matching with the right guys because things will be fine until they find out and then they either get hostile or ghost. Not full-on hostile but hostile in tone [or] gaslighting me to make me feel bad about my choices."

Bradly V., 32, also has trouble with dating app protocol.

"Dating apps suck," he told INSIDER. "I've tried many times to have a decent conversation and men always seem to answer with X-rated pics. You chat during the day and they seem normal until that 1 a.m. message saying that they are bored and could use some company."

Part of the issue for Bradly is that, to him, the build-up — or lack thereof — to sex on apps can often feel duplicitous to a point where sex isn't even a temptation for him anymore.

Dating apps can make it hard to find the right people. Luna Vandoorne/Shutterstock

"It's a turn off when the switch happens," he said. "I could totally be digging a guy and they literally make it seem like it's not just about sex. Like you could go out on an awesome date or just have long conversations on the app. Not even a mention of sex or hooking up. Then suddenly you get a penis shot or a hookup text. The reason I don't [hook up] is because I'm at the age where I am just over that and want more."

Deciding not to have sex can get vastly different reactions from different people.

One 24-year-old woman said her decision to not have sex is rooted in being raised in a conservative, religious family. She's "unpacking" this upbringing, but in the meantime, she's learned not to tell people that she hasn't had sex too quickly.

"Usually when I deny sex or anything further I am shrugged off or they move on to someone else in the bar," she told INSIDER. "It's not the worst because I'm unpacking a lot of s--- from my conservative upbringing. But I usually don't outright say I don't want sex or will not be having it. I dance around the subject a bit and try to be more real and engaged in conversations from the get-go. I guess [I'm] hoping I'll subconsciously stand out among others?"

For Lesley R., a 25-year-old who has dealt with vaginismus (a condition that causes the vaginal muscles to squeeze shut when things are inserted and can make penetration painful), not having sex was never exactly a personal choice. But many of the people she dated didn't see it that way.

"It made things ... unpleasant, to say the least," she told INSIDER. "Lots of savior complexes out there that turned into ghosting once they realized I wasn't kidding. It's funny how shocked so many of them are that I've never been in a relationship. Then I'm like, 'Would you really want to be monogamous with someone you couldn't have sex with?' And then they're like, 'Well, no.' It's not just a thing that the 'right' guy can cure."

Sex rarely defines who a person is, but it's hard to communicate that in a new relationship.

For many people, the fact that they haven't had sex is more of an afterthought than anything else — they happen to be virgins, but virginity isn't the only thing that defines them.

"I'm 21 and fairly new to the dating world, but the times I have told girls that I've never had sex, they're surprised but pretty chill," Emily D., 21, told INSIDER. "I'm not precious about my virginity at all, which I think is counterintuitive to some people. So when I hooked up with someone (I chickened out of doing the sex, but not because of the virginity thing) she was constantly checking in to make sure I was OK, which was sweet, but I wonder if she would have done that if I had had sex before."

Emily's experience lined up with many of the responses INSIDER received. In general, women seemed less concerned about hooking up with people who hadn't had sex than men, who seemed to take it personally.

"I hooked up with men and women off of the different online dating services in my early 20s. Women were completely understanding that I hadn't had/didn't yet want to have penetrative sex. Men were not," Rachel O., 35, told INSIDER. "With men it was a lot of, 'Well I don't want to wait around and I don't want the responsibility of being your first.' I ended up doing the deed with the first man I met who wasn't a complete a------ about it (I was 24) and we are married now."

The concept of virginity is often more complex than it seems. Screen Gems

The fact that men can have hang-ups about a woman's virginity is not news to Campbell F., 24. By the time she was in her early 20s, she was pretty much over any symbolic weight her virginity might have previously held. But the men she dated balked at the idea of having penetrative sex with her, simply because it would be her first time, not because of any hesitation on her part.

"I lost my virginity at 22," she told INSIDER. "Before that, I went through a phase where I was hooking up with everyone. I would tell most of the guys I hadn't had sex but had done pretty much everything but, which was fine with them. But then they would get so weird if I brought up the idea of having penetrative sex."

In many ways, the men she wanted to have sex with appeared to be intimidated by what they perceived as inevitably becoming some sort of emotional baggage for them to bear, even though Campbell didn't see it that way.

"Most guys assume taking someone's virginity has to be this big emotional ordeal and I was at that point just like, 'I don't really want that, I just want to experience sex,'" she told INSIDER. "I ended up losing my virginity [to] a one night stand who didn't know. But it was good for me because I wanted it out of the way."

Sex — and how much of it a person has had or not had — has some impact on who someone is as a person, and what it might be like to date them. But, clearly, it can never be everything.

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