Performance Anxiety

What is bothering me?

After three years of being in a relationship, I am once again embracing singlehood and all the perks that come with it. I am not one to dwell too long in moving on from a relationship. To be frank, I tried hooking up, like most single people do.

So it started quite unlike how most hookups go. This is someone I've known for quite some time. He just happened to be single as well so I didn't see any problem with that. So we hit it. Now the sex, I will not detail. That's something private. But this much I will tell: I lost it in the middle of the act.

That is something that has never happened to me. I told him that. And of course it is outright embarrassing. I was there, feeling like a naked newt, staring at the face of my huge failure as a stud. I also felt disbelief. Like I said, that has never happened to me. I am 27, young in most respects, some would say I'm even at my peak. So the first question that crossed my mind was: WHY?

Performance anxiety. I never knew I had it. I never knew I will have it. I thought this will happen in middle-aged men, not for younger ones. But apparently it chooses no age. So I read up on it. I stumbled on an article from AskMen. There was a passage there that struck me:

"We have socialized ourselves to think of sex as an act, a performance, with an expected role we are supposed to conform to. Maybe our anxiety around sex comes from the expectations imposed on masculinity in our culture, from watching porn, from our depictions of how men act in the media, from fears or insecurities that fuel this need to perform. It could be because of our desire for partner or peer validation that we think we need to excel in something that every man is supposed to be a stud at doing.

How many times have you thought about your sexual performance? How long you lasted, how good or bad you were in bed, what your partner thought of the sex, a past sexual experience that didn’t go as planned? For many guys, these questions fill our minds and often stay with us. We begin to add pressure and weight on our shoulders that we carry into the bedroom. Why are we worrying about outcomes vs. enjoying the ride?"

I wasn't one to blame my sexual partner for anything like this. I own up to it. And like what I told him, "The onus always falls on the top. It's a sort of an unwritten rule." So maybe that's what was wrong. I was pressuring myself to perform well. I got too anxious and worried. There is a sort of reputation that has to be sort of upheld. Or maybe that message that I am competing with others for this. I don't know. Maybe I needed to get rid of those things in my head and just, as mentioned, enjoy the ride.

I may need to reflect. In probably an attempt to console, he said I am not someone who would seek the services of a shrink. I am probably better than them (I'm quoting him here). I guess admitting having this unusual problem (at least for me) is a good first step. It is nothing to be ashamed of, I guess, although it could be very, very embarrassing. It takes someone of some mettle to go through that.

That being said, I may need to ask myself indeed, what is bothering me?


Answers to follow.