Hi,
I guess I just want to know if I'm being reasonable.
So, I asked out a woman I had a rapport with a few months ago, July to be exact, and we have been dating exclusively since then. (Honestly, exclusively is the only way I date. No time/energy for deception and juggling.)
Things were going well. We share a lot of core values, and I respect her intelligence and appreciate her personality, but we had the intimacy talk in mid- to late-August, at which time she informed me that she was celibate (for religious reasons). I've since learned that means celibate until marriage . . . and that she is a virgin. She senses that this issue makes me distant from her at times. When I'm most frustrated with the reality of the situation, I retreat into myself a bit because I don't want to seem as though I am angry of frustrated with her because I wholly respect her religious principles and what she is trying to adhere to.
But last night, she got a little frustrated when I wouldn't make out with her. For her, making out is kissing and petting. (She says it means "everything except sex," but in my head I think "well, that actually isn't all that much. Oral sex is sex to me, and would be a violation of her vow. So, I don't even think that is a possibility. But, anyway, I honestly don't want to kiss and pet someone for two years . . . and I don't think she understand why that might not be desirable to me because she is a virgin. She doesn't know what the other side is like. And it is hard to find a way to explain that to her without sounding like I'm being dismissive of her perspective because she is a virgin.
So, I can manage, or attempt to manage, the situation as long as the mutual understanding is she doesn't want to have sex and I don't want to kiss and pet forever (which is actually stressful on my body). But if my lack of desire to "safely" make out is going to frustrate her, enough that she expresses it around me, I don't know . . .
Am I being unreasonable?
(Another block for me is that even if I was to ride this out and marry her a year or two from now, I don't want to be breaking in a virgin at this point of my life. It is something that I've done in the past. Something that I understand the gravity of and have attended to with patience and caring, but at thirty-one I feel as though my desire has settled on wanting a women who knows and can articulate what she likes sexually. I don't know. It's just absolutely amazing how much the issue of intimacy can complicate and unsettle an otherwise strong romantic rapport--but if there is no intimacy of any degree, maybe it isn't romantic. I don't know . . .)