Waiting a long time - a fairly lengthy, rambling introduction

So, I seem to have given in, finally, to the lure of the blog. I've resisted a long time - there is a theme here! To introduce myself, I'm nearly 27, generally regarded as highly talented and highly intelligent - and if I'm honest, although this will sound horribly arrogant, objectively I know that I have been blessed with intellectual gifts and creative talents beyond the average. I'm not bad-looking - natural, slightly uncontrollable golden blonde hair, green/blue eyes (I always insist green, when asked - seems a little less cliche!), tall-ish, for a girl, and somewhat overweight, though still in pretty good proportion. This latter fact is one I have been trying, without notable success, to change for the greater part of my life. I have recently come to the conclusion that this is one battle I would willingly give up fighting - I'm fit, and one of the healthiest people I know - if it were not for the negative implications my weight could have, probably will have, may already have had, on my career, and the negative effect the eternal pressure to be slim has on my self-esteem. I have been the same size, more or less, since I was 12 years old - I still have clothes from then that fit. Diets and exercise have had temporary, fairly minimal effects, but life is too short to live on carrot sticks, and frankly, I have more important and interesting things to do with my life than spend multiple hours every day at the gym in order to be a mere 5-10kg lighter than I currently am. Clearly, nature did not intend me to be slim, so I would settle, very happily, for gently rounded - a UK Size 14 (US 12) would be eminently acceptable. With the sheer size of my ribcage (huge professional advantage!) this may never be achievable, but it's a goal that somewhat obsesses myUK size 18-20 (US 16-18) heart and mind. I'd love to always be able to find clothes that fit, flatter and appeal, and I wouldn't at all mind skipping the lecture every time I go to the doctor for something completely unrelated and they consult their out-dated BMI chart without also looking at me to observe that I carry a lot of muscle, am mesomorphic/endomorphic in frame, with shoulders wider than three-quarters of the men I know, and am patently not obese, whatever the numbers say - grrrr!

Combine these factors - brain, talents, size, with the fact that I am also, in UK parlance, 'posh', and it will come as no surprise to many of you that I am also single. In fact, I have been waiting for my first date, first kiss, first sexual encounter, for a very, very long time. I was a precociously sexually-aware child (probably courtesy of my reading materials - Tess of the d'Urbervilles at 7 and Les Miserables at 8, not to mention the copy of Lace I found in a jumble sale box of books from my prep school aged 10 might have had something to do with it!), and have always been an absolutely hopeless romantic - a fact which would probably surprise any but my closest friends. The world in general tends to view me as pragmatic - about many things, I am. Romance, love, passion - not subjects about which I am the least bit pragmatic. I had my first serious crush, with highly embarrassing results, aged 6. In retrospect, my wildly overactive imagination could have got the much-older, but still very young, boy in question into serious trouble had I been a child of the nineties or noughties, rather than the early eighties, with a mother who knew her little girl pretty well and was not prone to overreacting to six-year old tales of kisses. Frequent, violent crushes continued throughout my childhood and adolescence and well into my early twenties, without my ever really having done anything about any of them, but having acquired huge numbers of male friends - some of whom, I suspect I exhibited stalkerish tendencies about at first. I have an astonishing ability to turn any man I find attractive into my friend, at which point, any hope of them ever finding me attractive in return generally seems to fade beyond recall. My mother was probably very pleased with this throughout my teens - I was a very easy teenager in the worrying-social-behavious stakes. Mama's mantra regarding boys was always "Be friends first - boys are meant to be friends". It seems I learnt the lesson well.

My profession probably hasn't helped - long apprenticeships (yes, still waiting on a professional level too - about six years to go), high ambitions, a lot of individual study time, unsurmountable egos and a very high percentage of gay men doth not a good boyfriend-meeting arena make. Conversely, with short, intense work periods, frequently-changing colleagues, lots of travel and pseudo-passion on all sides, a short-term affair at the very least, should, one would think, have been possible. I don't think it's ever even been on offer to me, though I know of mutliple liasons between my colleagues.
Various friends have told me that I am intimidating to men (that really helps the self-esteem!), that I should act less intelligently, or that I should just go out, get drunk and sleep with anyone who'll have me in order to "get it over with". Some of these people I consider to be close friends, though clearly they don't know me too well. I don't see the point in dumbing-down - it's not an act I'd be able to keep up for long, and I really don't understand what is intimidating about a woman enjoying a discussion and contributing her opinion or knowledge. In fact, that's something I find very attractive in a man, so why not the other way around? Besides, isn't the point that he likes you for yourself? Or am I being ludicrously naive and romantic? As for the other suggestion, well, we've already established that I'm a hopeless romantic, I rarely drink enough to be more than pleasantly relaxed, and having waited this long, my first kiss and my first experience of sex had damn well better be worth it! Somehow, I don't see that happening with some random pick-up. Not to mention that I suspect I will have trouble enough removing my clothes for someone I like and trust, let alone a complete stranger. The fear of rejection - explicit or otherwise - is strong in this one.
Maybe the problem is that the chemistry has just never been there. Yes, I have found many boys and men attractive - typically the ones I can almost guarantee will never find me sexually appealing. My 'type' if you can call it that, is charismatic, intelligent, talented in their field, usually tall and at least moderately good-looking, and therefore generally have more or less their pick of a very willing female population(It always puzzles me how many highly intelligent men pick girlfriends of intelligence so markedly less than their own - the conversation, or lack of, must be stultifying). As far as I am aware, none of the men I have found attractive over the last twenty years has ever returned my interest. If they have, they've done a very good job of hiding it and chemistry of a sexual nature presumably requires reciprocity.

Wow, I can see why they say this is addictive! It's like a therapy session between me and my laptop. All the thoughts that generally get bottled up day to day can come spilling out uncensored, with the wonderful boon of anonymity thrown into the mix! If anyone reads this, great - I started writing because I read another blog that reassured me that I was not the only late-twenties virgin around (it starts to get embarrassing after about 22/23, unless it's a deliberate choice. Lack of opportunity somehow implies freak-status, at least in my own head) - if I can offer that reassurance to anyone else, I'm pleased. If no-one reads it, that's equally fine - it's just me and Dr. Vaio!