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"Today we&amp;amp;#8217;ve got a young reader who&amp;amp;#8217;s worried that she&amp;amp;#8217;s behind schedule when it comes to romance. Let&amp;amp;#8217;s help her talk it out.She doesn&amp;#x27;t need kisses to make her happy, and neither do you. She writes.. &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m almost 18. I&amp;amp;#8217;m happy with my life, but I was wondering, Is it normal if I haven&amp;#x27;t had a boyfriend and never been kissed? I know that someday it will come, but I was wondering, am I the only one in this situation??&amp;amp;#8221; Oh, girl...no way are you the only one in this situation! And no way should you be remotely worried about either. As you say, you&amp;amp;#8217;re happy and you know there are exciting things to come in your future, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s exactly how you should feel at nearly 18. As for &amp;amp;#8220;normal&amp;amp;#8221;? Doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t matter. I&amp;amp;#8217;m sure there are some statistics somewhere on what the average first age for these things is, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s just not something you need to compare to other people. Your first kiss should happen when the time is right, and your first boyfriend should be at the age when you meet that great guy, regardless of when it happened for your friends or anyone else. Still need reassurance that you&amp;amp;#8217;re not the only one? Look no further than the Smitten community. When Ariane asked you guys how long you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been single, plenty commenters, some older than you, said they&amp;amp;#8217;d never had a boyfriend. And check out this post from years ago when our former blogger Joanna told us about her first kiss. (She says she was old, but she totally wasn&amp;#x27;t!) There are hundreds of comments and a huge range of ages. Sure, some people were younger than you are. Plenty were older too, or were still waiting for their first kiss, just like you. For the record, I was 15 when I had my first kiss and I thought it was gross. I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t do it again for years! It got better, of course, but if I had skipped that first one and waited until I was older, I might have liked it more. I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t get my first boyfriend until I was about 21, and I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think that was particularly old. I have lots of friends who didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have boyfriends until they were older, and I even know women my age (30!) who have never had one. They&amp;amp;#8217;re all normal and have happy lives, just like you. Of course, I remember being a teenager and being impatient for these things to happen, so I understand your question. But as you said, you&amp;#x27;re happy. I would never pretend that things like kissing and love and boyfriends don&amp;#x27;t matter--hello, I write about them for a living!--but that&amp;#x27;s all just one part of life. Enjoy everything else you have going on right now, and the romance stuff will come along eventually. It sounds like you&amp;amp;#8217;ve got a good head on your shoulders and you&amp;amp;#8217;re doing just fine. Don&amp;amp;#8217;t change that please! But whenever your first kiss happens, feel free to share the story with us here at Smitten. When was your first kiss? Don&amp;amp;#8217;t you agree that our reader should feel absolutely fine about the fact that she hasn&amp;amp;#8217;t been kissed? Share your stories and give her some encouragement! More on first kisses: *Were You Nervous Before Your First Kiss? *Which Was Better: Your First Kiss or Your First Time?* *Were You a Late Bloomer? Photo: Thinkstock "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2012/07/readers-dilemma-ive-never-been>