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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Particular-Okra-9516 on 2024-10-28 00:53:07+00:00.

This happened a few days ago, but I’m still recovering from the embarrassment and feeling anxious about seeing my classmates again tomorrow. What should I do?

For a little background, I grew up in a close nit religious family in a small town. So I was raised surrounded by purity culture. In the last couple of years, I have started distancing myself from religion and coming to terms with my toxic upbringing. I’m still trying to rewire some of my beliefs, such as sex before marriage being sinful. On top of this, I have been having a really hard time dating, as a lot of times I’m met with guys either begging to take my virginity or being weirded out that I’m still a virgin at 25. Making it feel impossible to actually enter into a relationship where Id feel comfortable actually having sex. I also made the decision to go back to school around the same time that I started to leave religion and break away from my strict, overbearing religious parents. So I moved a few hours away to the city to complete my education.

So fast forward to now, almost 2 years later. I’m nearing the end of my program and will graduating in December (yay!). I have become pretty close with some of the girls from the program as we all take the same classes and pretty much see each other every day. Most of these girls are 19-21, and were raised very differently from me. They are the type to party every weekend, and have a lot of one night stands. So, they’re very sex positive and are always sharing their experiences. Normally, I just listen/sit the conversation out.

Well, some of us decided to go for dinner/drinks Thursday night (we don’t have classes on Fridays) to celebrate the end of the week and just hang out. It was me (F/25) and 3 of my classmates, let’s call them April (F/19), Georgia (F/21), and Emma (F/21). Once again, the topic of sexual experiences and body count got brought up. As usual, I got really quiet as I always try to avoid this topic, given my upbringing. But one of the other girls, Georgia (F/21) was pushing for me to share my experiences too. I kept trying hard to change the subject, but she just kept asking. I think she assumed that I had a lot of stories I could tell, given my age compared to them. So I finally admitted that I am still a virgin so I don’t have any stories or roster or anything like that. They were all super shocked, since Im almost 26 (my birthday is a month away, which they know). I think they could sense my discomfort, as April quickly started saying that it was okay and everyone moves through life at their own pace. The others agreed. But I still felt silently judged, and made up an excuse to leave shortly after that. These last couple of days, I have just been feeling so embarrassed and worried that they’re going to tell the other girls from the program, as they’re still young and like gossip a lot. I have also been a bit angry at Georgia, cause I kind of felt forced to admit it since she wouldn’t just drop the subject. I know I am definitely overthinking it, but I’m really wishing I could go back in time and say something different. For a split second, I thought about lying but I’ve always sucked at lying (thanks to being taught that lying is a sin), so I didn’t. Now I’m super anxious about going back to school tomorrow and have been thinking of dropping out of this semester and switching schools. Which I know is stupid, especially since I’m so close to graduating. So I’ve also been considering just having sex to get it over with so I won’t feel the embarrassment of being one anymore. This is just another situation that has recently made me hate my upbringing, because if I would’ve had a normal one, I probably wouldn’t even be a virgin anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to continue on talking to them, as I’m constantly going to be wondering if they’ve told anyone.

TLDR; Was raised in a religious community where sex before marriage is considered wrong. I recently left religion and moved to a bigger city to go to school. I went out to dinner with girls from school and one of my classmate pushed me into admitting that I am an almost 26 year old virgin. Now I’m regretting not lying about it. I want to drop out of school due to embarrassment, or just have sex to get it over with. Don’t know how to face them when I see them at school now.