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Ask Bish I’m 16 But Haven’t Kissed

We can often feel under pressure to do something by a certain age. This is advice about how to take the pressure off.


Is it weird that i’m turning 16 in 3 days and i’ve never kissed a guy (i’m a girl btw) i really want to but no one has ever wanted to hook up with me

Hi, thanks for your question….

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

*writes on card*

*stuffs in envelope*

WHERE’S THE CAKE?

Statistics to show that you’re not weird

The average age for young people to first have sexual intercourse in the UK is between 16 and 17. Most young people wait until they are over 16 (although they usually do kissing and non genital sex before that). Young people are less likely to regret sex if they are a bit older. Lots and lots of young people wait until they are much older before they start getting into sexual relationships with people.

So no, it’s totally not weird that you haven’t kissed anyone yet.

It’s less to do with age and more to do with being ready

So lots of people start having relationships where they kiss at around your age. That doesn’t mean that you have to go off and do this though. Just because you are ‘average age’ for people to start having kissing and sexual relationships doesn’t mean it’s the right age.

Most young people are in a ‘relationship’ of sorts with the first person they kiss. They might be boyfriend/girlfriend, or they might be friends who decide to try snogging to see what it’s like (or they get a bit drunk and get a bit silly). First time for anything can be a bit nerve wracking so it’s best to do it with someone that you know and trust and like.

Do it with someone you know and fancy

So if you are going to ‘hook up’ it’s probably best to do this with someone you know and like and actually fancy. Doing something just so you can say you’ve done it is often not the best reason to do something. Our early sexual experiences can have an effect on how we think about sex and relationships later on. Imagine yourself as a 21 year old, do you want to think of your first kiss as ‘ugh’, ‘eeewww’, ‘aargh’ or ‘mmmm’, ‘yeahhhhh’, ‘nom’.

You say that you really want to, that’s great. Do you have someone in mind? Is there anyone that you know that you want to kiss? Do you think about kissing a particular person and get excited by the idea? You don’t mention whether you’ve asked anyone or not: have you?

Ask

If there is a guy you want to snog and you haven’t told him:

BREAKING NEWS he probably can’t read minds.

Some people are good at working out whether someone wants to snog them without being directly told (by checking out someone’s body language, eye contact, coy smiles that kind of thing), but people who are good at this tend not to be 16 year old boys.

Also, sadly, many of us live in places where it’s expected that girls don’t ask boys for kisses. Girls are often brought up to think that it’s the job of boys to pursue girls for kisses and that they should wait for them to do so. I really hate this. It puts a ridiculous pressure on boys to put themselves out there and face rejection and it means that girls can only choose from the boys that ask them, rather than the boys they want to kiss.

So what I’m saying here is, if there’s someone that you want to kiss then maybe you should ask them?

Sounds hard? Yeah it is. Telling someone that you like them/fancy them/find them attractive/want to kiss them is hard because they might say no. But the excitement when someone does like you back is totally worth it.

But there are ways to make it easier, which I’ve written more about here. You can cheat by sending this for example

If it’s someone you know you could say “I had a dream that we were kissing and it was great”, or “I’d really like to kiss you.”

You should also remember that, despite what you might have heard, boys aren’t all about the kissing straight away. They usually want to do this kind of thing with someone they trust and like and fancy: this is where going on dates or hanging out fits in. So if you want to kiss someone that you don’t know very well then you might need to do this for a bit first (though if you only want to kiss them you should be up front about this so you don’t break hearts).

Try to get into the habit about thinking about yourself positively, this (and friends) can give you the confidence boost that you need to ask someone if they want to kiss you/go out with you.

Hope this helps!

© Justin Hancock, 2012

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