Hi Aviza,

That is a very good question. Sadly I don't have a really good answer and my English is not good enough to enable me to express myself well.

It can be quite stressful making sexual decisions during dating. So I can feel for what you might be going through, not only intellectually but emotionally.

It is my quite fallible and non-expert opinion that "normal" is not a point on a line but a range of points on a bell shaped curve. "Normal" I think covers quite a bit of ground. I think your "holding off" is quite normal not only statistically but morally too.

It can be difficult to know if someone is seeking a fling or a relationship. Sometimes the person does not know himself or can change his desires as things develop. Do you agree? Sometimes a person can start off wanting one thing and then change and desire something else.

Someone once said that love is that miracle that occurs when someone feels the need to place another person's needs higher than their own. Otherwise love often falls into a pattern of "selfishness for two." Of course in the real world things are seldom ideal. It would be nice if the person you are dating had some of that "placing the needs of someone else higher than his own needs' with respect to you.

I hope the person you are dating respects you enough to not rush you into anything. I don't think you should feel badly if you don't want to rush into sex.

I realize that all this must sound very abstract and clinical and have the stink of a laboratory about it.

Hopefully you will get many responses to your post and that all together these will help you with making the decisions you are seeking to make.

Best to you!